Friction (The Frenzy Series Book 4) (9 page)

Perhaps there was a reason that I was called Tage. Like the fact that Tage rhymed with RAGE, because that was what coursed through every inch of my body—white, hot, tear-his-face-off rage.

“Can I feed you?”
What an asshole. Surely Porschia knew his game by now. Right?

His blood on her lips. I had to remove it. Immediately. I wanted to drain him until his eyelashes fluttered and then stilled; until his heart sped in fear and stopped altogether. I wanted to end Saul Daniels. The next time we went hunting together, I wouldn’t waste the opportunity.

“This way,” I barked and sped into the night. Porschia kept up easily.

“I need to give you a nickname,” she said, smiling as we ran together.

“Why is that?”

“You call me kitten. I need something to call you.”

“Stallion works.”

She smiled widely and shook her head. “Don’t worry about Saul, Tage.”

“I’m not.” I was.

“Liar.”

We slowed as the sun began to rise, pausing beside a small creek. We’d covered a lot of land already and I wasn’t sure if we were even going in the right direction.

“How do we know we haven’t passed it, or that we’re even going the right way?”

Tage smiled, hands on his hips. “We don’t. That’s part of the fun, though. Right?”

“Right,” I agreed, stepping over larger stones until I was across. The water trickled musically over them. There were no animal tracks in the mud.

“Let’s walk up that hill,” Tage said, pointing to a taller one ahead. “We’ll have a good vantage point from the crest.”

“Okay.” My breath clouded in front of my face as we walked up until the hilltop became flat and we could see the valley beyond. In the distance was a cross work of houses encircled by a tall, wooden wall. We found it. The Glen was just that – a valley of flat land surrounded by rolling hills, and it was beautiful. A small pond sat just beyond the western wall of the town. Fog hovered above the cool water.

At our feet, the grass was thickening into dark green clumps. It swayed in the wind as we left the forest behind and entered the rectangular patches of earth that had obviously been farmed last season. Why hadn’t they turned the soil yet?

Tage sniffed the air. He turned to me. “It’s cold. There’s no fire from any of the houses.”

No smoke trails rose in the brightening morning sky, yet it was cold outside. It made no sense. How were they able to stay warm or cook?

Tage grabbed my hand. “We aren’t staying. We tell them about the cure and then make our way back to Mountainside.”

I nodded. “I know.”

He watched my expression for a moment and then began walking down the hill. A vee of honking geese flew overhead opposite us, and a shiver crawled up my spine. It was almost as if something was warning us away from this place, no matter how peaceful it seemed on the outside.

I heard the hum of bugs, dancing grass, and the sound of mice and moles burrowing beneath the ground. Birds chirped overhead as they flittered here and there, bobbing up and down in the light westerly wind.

When the land flattened, we could see the wall much better. It was made of large tree trunks, sharpened into points along the top edge. They were almost as tall as the flood wall in Blackwater and had dried and cracked, bleaching in the sun for what looked like a very long time. Why didn’t the Elders ever tell us about the existence of these other places?

It was stupid to think about now that I’d seen Mountainside, but growing up, I thought Blackwater was it; that we were the only survivors of the apocalyptic plagues that extinguished an entire nation, maybe the entire world. It never occurred to me that there were others out there, struggling just as we were and surviving under similar circumstances.

Tage stopped abruptly, his hand tightening on mine. I looked to him. “What is it?”

“We should leave. Now.”

I followed his crystal blue eyes until I saw what concerned him. The enormous gate to the wall we’d been walking beside was wide open. “Maybe they always leave it open?” I said, not believing it myself.

“Why go to the trouble of building one at all if you don’t plan to use it?”

“I was trying to see the bright side,” I added softly.

Tage shook his head. “I don’t think there is a bright side here, kitten.”

“We came all this way. If someone is still here, maybe we can help them get to Mountainside.” If I’d been left alone and someone came who could help, I would hope they would at least offer.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

So did I.

Squeezing his hand, I tugged him forward with me as we passed through the open door. A crow cawed from its perch on one of the pointed logs above us as we entered into The Glen.

Everything was destroyed. The homes had been ransacked. Furniture and plates and clothing littered what was left of the concrete streets. Windows were broken out and the doors were left wide open. A small whimper came from around the side of a painted-blue home and a small black nose peeked forward.

“Come here. I won’t hurt you,” I crooned, crouching down and holding out my hand. The dog whimpered again and backed away, letting out a bark that echoed against the two homes he was between.

“He thinks you’re hungry.”

No matter what I did, I would always be a monster to those who weren’t. It didn’t matter how I behaved, how kind I was or who I tried to help. People and animals alike would always see me as a predator. I swallowed thickly.

“Let’s see if anyone’s here so we can leave,” Tage urged.

“Fine. You go left, I’ll go right.”

“Nope. We don’t separate,” he said adamantly.

Big baby. “It’ll be faster if we do, Tage. Then we can leave and go back to Mountainside.” I looked around at all the brokenness. Dishes and chairs, curtains blowing from busted windows on the second floor. A cat ran quickly across the lawn. “Besides,” I added, “no one’s here.”

Reluctantly, he let go of my hand. “Meet me back here in ten minutes. If I have to come and find you, you won’t like it.” Then he shrugged and grinned. “Well, you might like it.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Who am I kidding? You’ll love it. But ten minutes,” he warned.

I smiled and walked toward the right half of the city and he moved away from me toward the left. Running through the yards, I made my way to the back of the city. I’d work my way forward, fast. Ten minutes wasn’t much time to comb through thirty homes. Stepping into the foyer of an enormous three-story white home, I called out, “Is anyone here?”

There was no answer. Glass crunched beneath my boots. In the living room, furniture had been scooted toward the windows and hearth. The center of the room was empty except for a tennis shoe that lay on its side.

Sniffing the air, I couldn’t find anyone here. The kitchen was in similar shape, chairs and table overturned and pressed up against the back door. “They were trying to keep something out.”

A slow clap sounded from behind me. I turned quickly, heart hammering, and expecting to slap Tage across the chest for scaring me. But I didn’t find Tage. “They were trying to keep
me
out of here, I expect.”

The woman was ethereal. Her skin was pale brown and her eyes were the color of wheat. Her short, rust-colored hair hung in ringlets around her ears. Everything in me screamed for me to run, but all I could think about was Tage. He would feel my distress and come straight there.

“We haven’t been here in months,” the woman offered. “But a little birdy said you’d be coming this way soon and we had to see the hybrid for ourselves.” Her eyes raked up and down my body. “You don’t look special. You certainly don’t look as strong as he said you were.”

The scent of another night-walker came from behind me. “She looks harmless,” he said. “They’re waiting. What about the other?”

The woman smiled, baring her fangs. “Drain him.”

“NO! Tage, run! I’ll meet you at the front gate!” I screamed as loud as I could, walking in a circle as the two vampires closed in, arms outstretched.

The woman smiled. “I thought you’d be more cooperative, or at the very least curious to see The Manor. It’s so much nicer than Mountainside. I used to live there, you know,” she whispered.

My eyes widened and my teeth ground together. She’d fed her own people to the wolves. There was a special place in hell for people like her, and I would be honored to send her straight there, given the chance.

From behind, the vampire clamped a metal belt around my stomach with spikes in the center. He warned me, “Try anything and I’ll have it slice you in two. This will be a little uncomfortable, but nothing the all-mighty hybrid can’t handle, right?” He smiled, nudging me ahead of them. We walked down the streets, the teeth of the device digging into my core, tearing flesh with each step. Tage panted from the gate, angry as hell and ready to fight.

“Run, Tage. Please,” I said to him, motioning to my stomach. His eyes fastened on the metal wrapped around me. “They’ll drain you and cut me in half.” The male vamp tsked from behind, wrapping his palm across my mouth and with his other hand, slapping the belt at my back.

“Aaaah!” I let out around his fingers. “Manor!” I bit my captor’s hand as hard as I could and looked down at the warmth spilling from my waist, blood oozing down from each tooth into my dress; macabre stripes of crimson dripping down the fabric.

The vampire fumed, his green eyes darkening. Soon his cheeks began to redden to match his hair, puffing in and out with rage. “You’ll pay for that,” he said menacingly.

Tage was in a war with himself. I watched his jaw tick, his hands clench into fists and then relax again. Urging him again, I pleaded, “Go!”

He gave a stare of warning to the assholes to the left and right of me and then looked to me. “I’ll be back for you!”

Tears pricked my eyes. “I know. Go!”

He sped away and the male vamp behind me took off after him. They were under the cover of the forest before I could blink. The female vampire laughed. “Gregor is one of our fastest runners.”

“Runners?”

“Yes,” she said, urging me out of the gate and toward the left.

“If Gregor hurts Tage, I will eat him, and I don’t mean drain him. I’ll eat every single inch of him,” I panted in anger.

The woman shrugged. “Do you feel like a jog?”

“With this thing on? Not really.”

“Too bad. Stay behind me. You don’t want the dogs to catch you.”

I was going to ask what dogs she was talking about, but then she sped away. I had no choice but to run after her. Each step while walking was difficult, but moving much faster, it seemed that the teeth of the belt couldn’t do their job. It wasn’t nearly as painful.

We ran over hill and valley, past several miles until we came to a clearing. On a knoll ahead of us was an enormous house, several stories high with spires on the corners. It looked more like a castle than a house, and then I heard the growling. The night-walker smiled. “The hounds won’t like you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re part rotter, and we taught them to tear those apart on sight.”

Lovely. Two dogs whose backs were taller than my waist came from both the left and right, baring their teeth. The black fur on their backs was raised and foam collected at the corners of their mouths. They growled, easing forward. “Better follow me, hybrid.” She blurred away and I wasted no time following her.

I could hear the animals’ hearts beating faster and faster, the sound of their paws propelling them toward us on the grass. They were incredibly fast, but luckily, we were faster.

The vamp grabbed my arm and stopped me as we stepped onto a wooden bridge. The dogs stopped at the end of the trail, refusing to walk onto the wooden planks beneath our feet. They snapped and growled and barked angrily. The scent of stagnant water and old, rancid blood filled my nose. Rotten wood. Contaminated, dirty water. I covered my nose with my hand and looked for the source. It took me only a second to realize we were standing over it. Swarms of gnats curled into the air all around, buzzing around my ears and threatening to fly into the corners of our eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

Beneath the bridge and surrounding the castle-house was a moat. The water was still, but what made me gasp was what was in the water. The bodies of dead humans bobbed lazily at the surface. Some floated face down, while others had their eyes fixated on the sky. Flies sipped from the surface of the water, bracing their legs against the coating of film atop it. A vulture sat on the far bank pecking at a corpse, fanning its wings to get a better grip of the person’s flesh; tearing at the man’s face.