Friction (The Frenzy Series Book 4) (4 page)

At the crossing, he caught back up and looked at me with awe. “I can’t even win when I cheat.”

“Cheaters never prosper,” I teased, but the sound of splashing and my sister’s frantic voice caught my attention.

Mercedes eased the mare into the water. “Hold on, Roman. Tightly.”

He sat up straighter behind her and tightened his grip, though he was paler in the sunlight and his dark hair flapped about in the breeze. Tage started toward the river. “He’s faltering. He’s going to slip into the water.”

“Don’t!” I whispered forcefully. “You’ll spook the horse and then he’ll definitely lose his grip.”

Muscles tense, we watched as the mare navigated across the rocks on the riverbed, finally making it through the deepest part, soaking the legs of her riders. I watched as the bag of food Father and Ford sent for the journey came loose and sank into the churning water. Mercedes didn’t know it yet, but we were now at Mountainside’s mercy in more ways than one. With a nicker, Lady trudged forward, pulling them from the dark water where we stood back to give her a wide berth. “Good girl,” I whispered. The horse’s eyes snapped to me.

“Good girl, Lady,” Mercedes cooed, stroking her mane.

Roman slid down and Tage ran to catch him. Looking back at me, Tage held him upright. “We have to hurry.”

Roman’s head lolled against Tage’s chest.

“I’ll carry him,” I said. Running was easy for me, and Roman didn’t weigh too much.

Tage began to protest in that manly way of his. “I’ve got him.”

“I’m stronger.”

“You’re a girl.”

I took Roman from him. “Girls are stronger,” I said sweetly. This girl was going to show the guys exactly how strong a woman could be. Sweeping his legs off the ground, I held him against my chest tightly. “Roman?”

He blinked up at me with tired eyes and I asked, “Which way to Mountainside from the crossing?”

“To Mountainside from the crossing?” he mumbled and then answered, “Due east.”

“Thank you. Hang on, Roman. I’ll find help.” Somehow, someone would help us, right? They had to be nice in Mountainside. It was the safest place to start, Roman had said adamantly, repeatedly.

“Porschia?” he asked. His dark eyes were like glass.

I smiled down at him, trying to hide my fear. “Yeah?”

“Compel them to let you in or they won’t,” he rasped, his lips sticking together like paste had been applied to them.

“I don’t know how to use compulsion.”

“You look in their eyes and tell them what you need. Don’t look away. Be confident.”

“You didn’t look at me when you compelled me.”

He tried to smirk. “That’s because I was awesome at it.”

And always so humble. “I’ll try.”

“Do it, or they won’t open the gate.” With those words, he finally lost his battle with consciousness and I envied him. I had to figure out how to compel someone, and I had thirty miles to learn. I’d also have to compel them to help him, heal him if they could. The humans would fear the illness and might not help willingly.

I took a deep breath, repeating to myself that I could do this. Turning to Tage and Mercedes, I said confidently, “We’ll see you soon.”

Tage nodded once. Carrying Roman was as easy as I thought. I raced through the forest, past stone and fallen tree trunks, over limbs and burrows. Roman needed help. He would die if he didn’t get it. And Mountainside would give it to us—one way or another.

East would have been easier to navigate if we’d left Blackwater early, but I ran fast and hoped I’d find a giant stone wall at some point. In my mind, I pictured a waist-high wall of cobblestones cemented together. What I found when we did almost literally smack into the wall was an enormous structure; two stories tall and made of thick, rectangular slices of stone, mortared together to make it impenetrable and guarded closely. Within seconds, two guards with sharp, flint-tipped spears approached. “What business have you here?”

I stared at the closest one. “My friend needs help. We’re asking for refuge until he is well.”

One of the men, the tallest of the pair, grabbed his spear and cursed, “Night-walker.”

Damn my fangs. Even if they were itty bitty.

I looked at the man. “I will hunt for you and provide meat, but you
will
let us in and you
will
ask someone to provide us shelter and medicine to help him.” I looked intently into his eyes, and then I said the exact same words as I held onto the eyes of his shorter friend. Their jaws went slack.

“Let them enter!” the shorter one yelled up to the wall behind us. A gate began to raise just a few hundred feet away, and then we were led beneath the cross-hatched iron and into Mountainside.

The settlement was literally one enormous mountain. I looked up toward its summit and saw the sides sparsely dotted with pine trees and a few maples. The others had been cut down, probably for firewood and building materials. No doubt they were going into the forest for those needs now, and the rock for the wall had to have been quarried from somewhere nearby.

The men led us up a stepped path past several round doorways and paused at one half way up the hillside. Citizens stopped to watch our assent but otherwise didn’t bother us. Their whispers were filled with concern, but who could blame them? It must have been a strange sight; a woman carrying a sick man into their stronghold, their safe haven. It was frightening.

The shorter man unlocked the door and waved us inside, where he pointed to a small straw mattress. “I’ll fetch Garreth, our healer.”

“Thank you. Please hurry.”

The two left the door open and I listened as their boots crunched on the small shale pathway that led back down the hill. Easing Roman onto the mattress, his head lolled back. Eyes snapping open, his hands reached out for my neck, angry breaths puffing his cheeks in and out rapidly. “Who are you?”

He tried to bare his fangs, but had forgotten that they were gone.

I knocked his hands away easily and he stared at them as though they’d betrayed him before launching toward me again. Batting him away a second time, he focused on my face.

“Roman, it’s Porschia.”

His face relaxed as his eyes glazed over. “I watched you grow.”

“Because you felt guilt, Roman?”

“No, because your strength was enviable. Because the experiment could have killed you, but you survived. It didn’t affect you at all, did it? You’re just strong. It’s just you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not strong. Physically yes, but most of the time, I feel like I’m about to snap and I don’t know if I can keep controlling this feeling much longer. You’re barely lucid, so I’m glad I can talk to you about it.”

“You’re going to eat me, aren’t you?” he said, crystal clear tear drops flooding his eyes and spilling onto his cheeks. Poor Roman. He looked like a petrified child.

“Not yet. I’m going to let Garreth help you first. I don’t like my meat overly warm.” I smiled and patted his leg. The others in our little rag-tag party would arrive soon, and I needed to compel the guards to let them in and bring them to me. Then Tage and I would need to make good on our promise to provide meat for them.

Roman laid down quietly and stared at the ceiling until his eyes grew too heavy. That was about the same time that a new set of footsteps, this one more determined than the last two, approached the dwelling. Garreth was a behemoth. I’d expected a woman, but got a giant man who barely fit through the door. “Before you try it, I can’t be compelled. I’m here because I choose to be.”

“In all honesty, today is the first time I’ve compelled anyone and I hated it. I wish I didn’t need to do it at all, so I appreciate your willingness to help.” Compulsion might have worked on the two guards, but I didn’t have a full dose of anything vampire and wasn’t sure that
three
vamps could have compelled a person this big if size were a factor in such a thing.

He removed a leather pouch from around his neck and held Roman’s head up. “He looks like someone who passed by here a time or two—a night-walker.”

“He’s human. Check his teeth.” There were things that didn’t add up. I wasn’t offering more information just yet. Garreth used his meaty fingers to lift Roman’s upper lip, huffing when he saw only a row of straight, square teeth.

“Where are the Infected?” I smelled no rot – nothing – on the way here. Nothing surrounded Mountainside for miles.

“Some roam the forest, but most are huddled in a small city about sixty miles to the east. The wall keeps those who do find their way here, out of our settlement. It’s a simple but effective layer of protection.”

So why won’t they hunt?

“I know what you’re thinking, and there are greater dangers in these parts than rotters.” He held his leather pouch of water to Roman’s lips and let his mouth fill with a little bit of water. Roman gasped like a fish, sputtering water over his chest, clothing, and all over Garreth. The giant ignored him and dug his meaty fist into yet another leather satchel, pulling out two metal containers. He twisted the lid off one and then the other. Roman’s body went taut as he began convulsing, his face turning scarlet. From a belt on his waist, Garreth grabbed a wooden spoon and then Roman’s jaw. He wedged the spoon between Roman’s upper and lower teeth, holding tight to him. I reached out to calm Roman, but his eyes were unfocused. “What can I do to help?”

“He’s having a seizure. We wait for it to pass,” the giant gritted out, holding Roman’s head as still as he could. When the spell subsided, Garreth and I sank back onto bent legs. My chest loosened again and I made mental notes of what the healer did to my friend, in case I needed to know how to do it again.

Once Roman’s muscles finally relaxed, Garreth applied greasy, white salve from one container onto the skin of Roman’s inner cheek. The other substance, thicker and dark like tar, Garreth rubbed on Roman’s forehead, chest, and the soles of his feet. “Why do you care about him?” he asked. “Since when does a night-walker care about a human? Is there a familial tie?”

“We aren’t related. It’s because part of me is still human, whether any of you believe it or not.” And part of me was pure animal, waiting to be unleashed. I swallowed. “My friends will be here soon. They’re a mix of night-walkers and humans.”

“Traveling together? That’s the first I’ve heard of such cooperation between the two. I’ll yell to the guards to let them in, if you’d like.”

“Why are you helping me? You obviously don’t trust me.”

“Not completely, no,” he said honestly. “But part of me can see the humanity in you and wants to believe in it.”

I swallowed as he stood up in the small space. “Thank you.”

“Don’t give me a reason to lose faith in you, night-walker.”

Could I do that? Could I remain in control of myself long enough not to disappoint someone else? “I won’t.”

“I’ll be back in a minute. Keep the spoon handy just in case.”

My body was ice, frigid and stiff. Had I been Infected like Pierce? Where was my brother? I couldn’t lift my eyelids and my back and legs were being poked by something hard; spikes or sticks. Straw, maybe? It made the pain worse. This had to be it, what Pierce felt like.

I was going to rot along with him.

Voices swirled around me. Some familiar, some not. Identifying the speakers I did recognize was impossible because of the fog. Then, they disappeared into the black void with me. We were gone.

Floating away…