The Farm (19 page)

With her head still resting on my knees, I could feel Mel tensing. One of her hands gripped my leg so tightly it was like her muscles had seized up. Suddenly I felt panicky and claustrophobic.

McKenna represented everything I hated about life on the Farm. She’d gotten pregnant
on purpose
. She was trading the life of her unborn baby for a few more months of her own life. The idea was so revolting I couldn’t even think about it. The Breeders were the very worst of what was left of humanity. And Joe had betrayed us for one.

My whole body started trembling. Part of my brain knew it was shock setting in. Knew that my anger was only a thin veneer covering my fear. I’d taken a gamble with Mel’s life and if Carter hadn’t been here to save us, we would have lost.

If Joe had turned us in to anyone other than Sebastian, Mel and I would be in the Dean’s custody now. Or we’d already be dead. Because of Joe.

“I’m not going to pretend this is okay or forgivable.” I glanced at McKenna. I expected her to be yelling back at me, but instead she just looked whipped. And pathetic. Maybe I should have pitied her, but I was still too angry about what Joe had done. “The one person on the Farm I thought I could trust betrayed me to protect a Breeder.”

“Lily, that’s enough.”

But it wasn’t enough, because now we were all stuck in a car together. How was I supposed to trust them for the rest of the drive? If we found ourselves in danger again—and I wasn’t fooling myself, we would—how could I believe that Joe wouldn’t throw us to the Ticks just so he could keep McKenna safe? How could I possibly protect Mel under those circumstances?

I felt the panic rising in my throat, something wild and uncontrolled. “I’m not going with them. Mel and I will find another way to Canada.”

Trying to calm myself, I looked out the window at the passing fields. A farmhouse sat on the field to the north. A sprawling ranch style with a three-door garage. The kind of place that would have a couple of extra trucks somewhere. This SUV wasn’t the only way to get to where I wanted to go. “McKenna, pull over the car.”

“Don’t pull over the car, McKenna,” Carter said.

“Pull over.”

“Don’t listen to her, McKenna. Don’t do it.”

“Pull over the car!” I ordered.

The fact that there might be Ticks around barely occurred to me. All I knew was that I had to get out of that car. I had to move. And there was a chance that the ranch house in the distance would have a truck I could steal.

“Stop the car!” I demanded.

The car skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. I pried Mel’s hand off my leg, thrust open the door, and tumbled out onto the road. Carter hopped out after me.

He reached for my arm, but I shook it off.

“What exactly is your plan here?” he demanded. “You want to walk to Canada?”

I wrapped my arms over my chest, suddenly cold in addition to shaken and emotionally bruised. Mel had clambered out of the SUV after me, but she stood by the door, her head cocked to the side as she watched me unravel.

Unkempt fields bordered the road on either side. The sun hung low in the sky, casting everything in an eerie pink light. Everything looked too pretty, too soft, for the world as it was now. An icy wind blew down the road, cutting through the many layers of my clothes.

“No, I’m not going to walk to Canada,” I snapped. “I’m going to that house. It’ll have a car Mel and I can steal.”

“Oh, really?” Carter’s tone rose to match the belligerence in my voice. “You’re really going to drag Mel across that field to look for a car? What if there’s not even one there?”

“It’s a farm. It’ll have cars. Or trucks. Something.”

“What if they don’t work? What if they don’t have gas?”

“I—”

As desperate as I’d been to get out of the car, I knew he was right. The car felt toxic, Joe’s betrayal a poison in the very air. Now that I was outside, my new plan seemed ridiculous. So I just stood there, shivering.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “Get back in the car. This isn’t helping anything.”

“It’s helping me,” I said.

“Hey, I just risked my life to get you out of that Farm. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you just wander off on your own.”

“And you’re crazy if you think I’m getting back in that car.”

Carter blew out a breath of frustration. “Lily, be reasonable.”

“No, you be reasonable.” Instead of sounding angry, suddenly I just sounded sad. “You don’t understand. Joe was our friend. He was the one person I knew I could trust. I didn’t trust anyone on the Farm. But I trusted him. And he sold us out. For what? A piece of ass.”

“You don’t know that’s all she is to him.”

I groaned. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“So understanding.”

“How should I be?” he asked. “Should I pout like a child, too? Would that help?”

I glared at him. “How can you expect me to ride with them? If I get back in that car with them, I’m putting Mel’s life and mine in their hands. I’m trusting them not to feed us to the Ticks the next time it means protecting themselves. How can I do that?”

My throat closed over the words as I said them, because it was what I would do. I didn’t like to admit it—hell, I didn’t even want to think about it—but it was what I would do. If we were in a life-or-death situation and saving Mel meant tossing Joe or McKenna to the Ticks, I’d do it. Probably without thinking twice.

What kind of monster had I become?

Carter reached for me again. He wrapped his hands around my arms and this time I didn’t pull away. Some of the anger leached out of his eyes, but his voice held that same ferocity. “Think about it this way. If you get back into that car, you’re also trusting me to keep you safe. To keep Mel safe. And I promise you that I’m not going to let Joe betray you again.”

The look in his eyes all but sucked the air out of my chest. His words didn’t sound like empty reassurances. They sounded like a pledge. I thought about all the things he’d done in the past twenty-four hours to protect me. Not just from Collabs and Ticks, but from himself as well. I’d wrestled with him twice now. First in the science lab and then again when he’d taken me out of the admin building. Both times, I’d fought with everything in me. Other than knocking me against the wall to keep me from strangling him, he hadn’t hurt me at all. Okay, with the exception of shooting me with the tranq rifle. Other than that, he’d been so gentle with me. Way more so than I had coming. He could probably snap me like a twig, but he hadn’t.

He was stronger, tougher, and faster than me, but he hadn’t used it against me. I found the thought deeply unsettling, but I wasn’t sure if it was his overt strength that bothered me or his inherent gentleness.

Instead of considering the question, I said, “Just think how you’d feel if it was your sister he’d put in danger.”

“I’d want to kill him.” Carter’s voice was low and harsh. “But I’d try to remember that Joe’s not the enemy. We humans—those of us that are left who are human—we have to try to stick together. We can’t be at each other’s throats over crap like this. That’s what the Ticks are for.”

He said that like he was trying to make a joke, but his voice was still too tight. Like he really did want to kill Joe over this betrayal.

Which confused me for a second, until I remembered Sebastian. And how Sebastian had stayed behind.
To fix the fence.
Which may or may not have been a euphemism for throwing himself on the sword while we escaped. Clearly Carter believed that Sebastian could survive being attacked by Ticks. Whatever Sebastian was—no matter how strong and fast—he was still just one guy. Against God only knew how many Ticks. There was no way he could have survived. But even if Sebastian hadn’t been attacked by Ticks, even if he was still alive, he was still back at the Farm and he wasn’t with us. And Joe was inadvertently responsible for that, too, because Joe was the one who had tackled Mel and got her started screaming. So maybe Carter really did want to kill Joe.

“I . . .” Suddenly everything I should say seemed like an embarrassing excuse. Or woefully insufficient. So I just said, “I’m so sorry.”

Carter looked at me then, surprise clear on his face. “About what?”

“Sebastian. I’m sorry he got left behind. I’m so sorry.”

Then Carter let out a bark of laughter, the kind that didn’t sound amused at all. “Sebastian isn’t my friend. I thought I made that clear. And I’m not worried about him. He knows how to take care of himself.” He met my gaze then, for the first time since we’d left the Farm. He frowned, like he was worried. “You, on the other hand . .
 
.”

“Right. I can see why you’d be worried about me.” I gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’ll try to behave.”

“You may not want to get back into that car with McKenna and Joe, but it’s the only option we’ve got. That’s the only car we have and we can’t leave them here. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

The note of pleading in his voice shocked me. Like he was really worried I was going to demand we leave McKenna and Joe on the side of the road. Like he was almost afraid he’d actually do it if I did ask.

I blew out a long, slow breath, which misted in the cold morning air. “I won’t ask you to. But I’m not going to trust them, either.”

“Fair enough.”

When Carter and I climbed back in the SUV, Joe and McKenna had traded places, so that now Joe was driving. Mel sat in the passenger seat behind him, buckled in and facing forward, perfectly still, which was the way she liked to ride in a car. I half expected Carter to offer to drive. I would have felt way more comfortable with him in the driver’s seat.

But Carter climbed back to the third row, stretching out his legs as he had before. He couldn’t have been comfortable, but he looked too tired to care.

Once I’d climbed into the seat behind McKenna, closed the door, and snapped the buckle, Joe asked, “Where to now?”

“Keep heading west,” Carter said without opening his eyes. “Next town over, there’s a bridge across the Red River. There’s a Baptist church on Main, just south of there. Pull into the parking lot. Sebastian will meet us there.”

Part of me wanted to ask how long we were going to wait for him, because I couldn’t imagine that Sebastian was actually going to make it. Even if he was still alive, how could he have followed us? But before I could think of a way to frame the question, Carter was already asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lily

I hadn’t exactly been paying attention as we drove away from the Farm. I’d been too occupied by other things to look around at the tiny college town where the Farm was located. Now, with Carter asleep in the back, Joe driving, McKenna fidgeting in front of me, and Mel sitting stonelike beside me, I had nothing to look at except the scenery. I simply didn’t have the energy to try to make sense of Joe’s betrayal.

So instead, once I’d wiped the blood out of Mel’s hair, I stared blankly out the window, my eyes searching for any indication that life outside the Farm had continued. I saw no other cars on the road. No signs of life from the farmhouses we passed. The cotton fields were as overgrown as the manicured lawns of the quad had been. The cotton was still in its even rows, the bolls left to rot on the stalks. It had been planted last spring, in the very end of the Before, and no one had tended or harvested the fields. But I’d never been through this part of north Texas before and it was possible to pretend the sense of desolation was normal. With that lie firmly in my mind, I drifted off.

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke, Joe had pulled the SUV to a stop and was cutting the engine. Blinking, I straightened in my seat. Mel’s eyes were closed, but I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or not. Even asleep she never seemed fully relaxed. Carter must have woken earlier than I, because he’d crept between my seat and Mel’s and was leaning over the center console, talking to Joe in a hushed tone.

“. . . no,” he was saying, “but this isn’t what I expected, either.”

Joe mumbled a response. The only word I caught was “plan.”

Carter’s tone was irritated when he said, “We never said this was a foolproof plan. Sebastian promised to get you out. He did. Be glad it wasn’t me, or I might have left your ass outside the fence and let you fend for yourself.”

His response made me feel better—it was nice to pretend I had someone on my side. Part of me wanted to hear where their conversation was going, but McKenna must have realized I was awake, because she glanced over her shoulder at me before saying, “Are you sure that church thing really works?”

Carter looked back at me for a second before he shifted his weight and moved toward the bench seat.

It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d been freaking out at the side of the road and something about the way he looked at me now made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to losing it in front of other people. All alone in my room, sure. In front of family, maybe. In front of Carter, not so much. Why did my emotions always seem so close to the surface around him?

Pushing aside my awkwardness, I asked, “Where are we?”

“The parking lot of the Vidalou First Baptist Church.”

“Where the hell is Vidalou?”

“Small town on the Texas-Oklahoma border. We’re about a mile from the river.”

After all the months of living on the Farm and being constantly told that we were safer there than anywhere else in the world, it seemed wrong to be just sitting in the car in the middle of the day, where anyone or anything could just . . . pounce. Even though I knew the Ticks weren’t active during the day, I still felt strangely unprotected.

Funny, when I was on the Farm, I’d never really believed all that propaganda, but now that I was out, I realized more of it had sunk in than I’d thought.

“Are we safe here?” I asked. “Because it’s a church?”

“Exactly. Vampires can’t come on holy ground,” Carter said.

The building in front of us didn’t look anything like holy ground. In fact, it looked like it had been a car dealership back in the fifties and then sat empty for three decades before being repurposed by the Holy Rollers. However, an enormous sign had been mounted above the plate-glass windows. The sign was shaped like a steeple. It didn’t look like a house of worship, but it certainly referenced an old-fashion clapboard church. The words “Vidalou First Baptist Church” had been painted on the windows.

“Vampires? So does it apply to Ticks, too?” I asked. “Or are we safe only if the cast of
Twilight
decides to attack?”

Carter sounded exasperated. “Just trust me, okay? I have more experience with them than any of you do. Vampires, Ticks, whatever. They don’t come on holy ground.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Thank you!” McKenna snapped. “That’s what I’ve been telling him.”

If I listened for it, I might have heard the fear behind her sneer, but I didn’t let myself. I didn’t want to sympathize with her. I couldn’t. I had to hold my distrust close to my chest because letting either McKenna or Joe in was a mistake I couldn’t make.

“I’m not agreeing with you.” I turned to Carter. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Ticks aren’t really vampires. They’re genetically engineered mutants. Everything about them can be traced back to specific changes to their epigenetics. There is no gene for avoiding holy ground.”

“I don’t really understand it, either, but Sebastian has a theory. It’s not that the Ticks are physically unable to cross onto holy ground, it’s that some part of their brain remembers what it meant to be human. Religion is one of the things that separates humans from animals. They’re horrified by things that remind them of what they used to be. Therefore they fear holy ground.”

“Even if the holy ground used to be a Ford dealership?”

In the front seat, McKenna snorted and I instantly regretted my sarcasm. Negative bonding with her was not part of my plan.

Surprisingly, it was Joe who answered in that quiet stoner voice of his. “It’s not the shape of the building that makes something holy ground. It’s the faith of the people who worship there. That big cartoon steeple sure looks like a church to me.”

“Yeah, I don’t think these people’s faith in God did them a lot of good when Ticks swarmed through their town,” I grumbled, still not sold on this whole sacred-ground thing.

“Hey, even God can only do so much,” Joe said. “People are responsible for this. Human choice got us here.”

I hadn’t pegged Joe as a spiritual kinda guy and the sincere faith in his voice made me uncomfortable. So I turned to Carter and asked, “Does Sebastian avoid holy ground, too? Is it horrific to him?”

“It’s why newer vampires don’t go on holy ground,” Carter answered. “It’s hard to say with Sebastian. He’s been a vampire for almost two thousand years. I doubt he remembers what it was like to be a human. And there weren’t churches here then anyway.”

Two thousand years. Wow. That was unsettling. It made me even more aware of his otherness. Surely the holy-ground thing wouldn’t actually apply to him, then. “Forget the theory. I think maybe it would be better if—”

But then I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. Sebastian was probably dead. Staying here waiting was putting us all at risk.

“If what?”

I placed my hand on Carter’s arm. “I know you think Sebastian is capable of anything. But—” Again I shied away from saying the most likely explanation aloud. Even though he was a vampire, he was just one vampire. Against . . . how many Ticks had there been? A lot. I went for the best-case scenario. “If he did manage to close the fence, then, mostly likely, he’s still in the Farm. He’s probably not getting out anytime soon. Certainly not soon enough to meet us here. He’s not coming.”

Carter didn’t argue with me. He just let me talk, like he could sit there all day and my arguments wouldn’t sway him.

“She’s right—” McKenna started to say.

“Don’t try to help.” I cut her off. “You’re only going to make things worse.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that was why I didn’t want to think about what might have happened to Sebastian. I couldn’t shake the very real fear that everything I’d done had made things worse. My brilliant plan to save Mel and myself had put everyone else at risk.

“So what’s the plan?” Joe asked, glancing nervously out the windows. “How long are we going to wait here?”

“Sebastian won’t be long. While we’re waiting, I’m going to see what I can find.”

“You’re going to get out?” I looked out my window and then Mel’s. The town outside our car looked deserted, but there was an eerie stillness to the morning air. “You can’t just wander around town. There could be Ticks out there.”

“I won’t be gone long. There are cars parked out on the street. I’m going to go see if any of them have gas. By the time I’m back, Sebastian should be here.” He nodded toward the door. I kept my legs stretched out, refusing to let him pass. “Move over and let me out.”

“No,” I said simply. “This doesn’t feel right. You shouldn’t go.”

“We need to get gas wherever we can,” he argued. “I’ll be fine. I’ll find some supplies, I’ll find Sebastian. I’ll be right back.”

I didn’t want Sebastian to be dead, but even more than that, I didn’t want Carter to climb out of the car to go looking for him. What if Carter never came back?

My outstretched legs didn’t stop Carter. I guess I hadn’t really thought they would. He turned to Mel.

“Let me out, okay?” he said.

Mel looked right at him. She rarely met even my gaze, so it surprised me. But instead of letting him pass, she asked, “Itsy-bitsy spider?”

Carter frowned for a second but put the pieces together faster than I did. “Yeah. I’ll find Sebastian and bring him back.”

That must have been answer enough for her, because she opened the door and tucked her legs onto her seat so he could easily pass.

He hopped out of the SUV and went around to open the back and pull out something. When he came back around, he was carrying a pair of gas cans.

He tapped Joe’s window and Joe swung the door open.

“Whatever you do,” Carter said to Joe, “don’t let Lily and Mel out of your sight. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, leave without me. Head for Utah.”

“Utah?” I asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s a state. Just north of Arizona.” Carter winked at me. “I thought you were supposed to be smart. It also happens to be where the base camp is. The group sends out enough patrols that if you go to Utah, someone will find you. If they can’t convince you to stay, then at least someone there can get you where you’re going.”

With that, he swung the door shut and sauntered off across the parking lot.

“You know,” I mumbled into the silence that followed, “that whole if-I’m-not-back-in-fifteen-minutes thing gets really old. Besides, Utah is really big.”

Which, I supposed, was just a sign of how confident he was that he’d be back in fifteen minutes.

Beside me, Mel gave a snort. If anyone else had made that noise, I would have thought it was laughter, but even in the Before her sense of humor had been strained. You had to really talk her through a joke before she understood it was supposed to be funny.

But McKenna must have interpreted it as a laugh, too, because she joined in. “I know, right? Even I know where Utah is.”

It took all my willpower not to flick her on the back of the head. What little willpower was left I used resisting the urge to get out of the car and follow Carter. If Sebastian was out there, how did Carter think he was going to find him on his own?

Inside the car, silence was thick in the air. Mel gazed out the window, looking at who knew what—maybe nothing. Her hands twisted in her lap nervously and after a minute, I got her Slinky out of her pink backpack and handed it to her. After that, the steady
sllluuunk, sllluuunk, sllluunk
filled the car.

“Does she have to do that?” McKenna complained.

“Yes. She does,” I answered. For once, Mel’s Slinky soothed me as well as her and I began to relax.

The wait seemed interminable. I checked the clock on my phone three times, only to find that just a few minutes had passed. How long would it take to siphon gas from a car into a gas can? At first, I prayed time would pass more quickly. Then, as five minutes turned into ten, I prayed it would slow down. Carter still wasn’t back. At fourteen minutes, I stopped closing my phone and just stared at it as it ticked down the seconds.

Joe started fidgeting. “We should—”

“Shut up.” I cut him off. “We’re not leaving.”

“It’s almost time.”

“I don’t care. We’re not leaving.” I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door.

“You can’t go out there,” Joe protested.

“I’m just looking for him.” I stood on the running board and looked over the top of the SUV first in one direction and then in the other.

I saw and heard nothing. Until a chilling howl split the air.

Inside the car, Joe cursed. McKenna yelped. Mel clenched her hands, her Slinky suddenly silent.

Heart pounding in my chest, I scanned the street in every direction. Nothing. No Ticks, but no Carter, either.

“Damn it,” I muttered. “Where are you?”

Then another howl rent the air.

“Get back in the car.” Joe started the engine. “We gotta go.”

“We’re not leaving Carter,” I protested.

“He said to leave in fifteen minutes. It’s been fifteen minutes. And there are Ticks out there.”

I hopped to the ground and stuck my head in the car. There was no way I was going to climb in because then Joe would just drive off. “Exactly. There are Ticks out there. And he’s alone, looking for supplies. For us.”

In her seat, Mel was getting twitchy, first looking out her window and then twisting to look out the back. Suddenly she grabbed something from the back floorboard and held it up. Carter’s backpack.

“He told us to go,” Joe argued. “It’s what he would want us to do.”

“He doesn’t even have his backpack! He has nothing to defend himself!”

“He probably found Sebastian.”

“You know that’s a long shot. Sebastian is probably dead!” I yelled. “We can’t leave Carter!”

Inside the car, Mel had slipped her Slinky onto her wrist like a bracelet. She was clutching her backpack and Carter’s.

The Tick howled again, closer now. And then another howl joined the first. Shit. They were coming this way. I searched the street again, but still saw no sign of Carter.

Damn it, where was he? Didn’t he hear them? Why wasn’t he hauling ass to get back here?

“Lily, we have to go.” Joe shifted the SUV into drive. “Get in the car. It’s time.”