The Farm (25 page)

The startled Collab fumbled for his weapon. Carter didn’t bother to watch. There was nothing a Collab could do to hurt Sebastian. He was torn for only a moment between protecting the girls and giving backup to Sebastian. Lily would know to get Mel and McKenna back in the van. If he was extremely lucky, she’d have the sense to stay there with them. True, she hadn’t stayed out of a fight yet, but all those other times she’d been alone. Surely she’d stay with Mel. She’d promised him she wouldn’t risk her life for his. As much as his instincts urged him to protect Lily, the best chance they all had for survival was if Sebastian could take out the two closest Ticks.

Carter looked around for something—anything—Sebastian could use as a weapon. They had weapons in the van, but Carter would rather find a weapon out here if he could. If he went for the bow and arrow, knowing Lily, she’d climb out and try to fight off the Ticks herself. The fence nearby was barbed wire stretched between cedar posts. He leapt across the ditch and grabbed the first post he came to. It was cast in cement and solidly planted in the ground, but looking down the fence line, Carter could see that every other post was thinner, more spindly. A veritable arsenal of wooden stakes. He ran for the thinner post a few feet away.

Behind him, he heard the rapid gunfire of untrained panic shooting. The Collab must have unloaded an entire clip into Sebastian. Which, Carter knew, would only piss the hell out of the vampire.

A piercing howl ripped through the air just as Carter reached a thin cedar post. At first he thought it was Sebastian’s battle cry. Then another howl joined the first. The Ticks were close. The post didn’t lift straight out of the ground, but it wiggled in his hands. Backing up a step, he kicked at it, rocking it several inches to the side. He kicked again. Just as he raised his foot for another blow, Lily appeared on the other side.

“If we go back and forth, it’ll come out faster.” She didn’t wait for his answer but kicked the post toward him.

“What are you doing here? Get back in the van!” He kicked the post toward her, his anger at her mule-headedness giving his kick extra force.

“I got Mel and McKenna back in. Joe’s starting the van again. I came back to help.” She kicked the post again.

“You can help by getting your ass back in the van.” Another kick.

“Right. ’Cause you and Sebastian are playing it so safe.” Her final kicked knocked the post clean over and he stared at it, stunned for a second.

“You promised you wouldn’t—”

“Bite me.” She dropped to her knees and pulled on the post, finally freeing it from the ground. She held it out to him.

He grabbed it, closing his hand over hers. “Please. Get back in the van. I’m begging you.”

Using his hold on the post for leverage, she let him pull her to her feet. “Come back to the van yourself.”

“I will. Give me twenty seconds. I swear I’ll follow.”

She nodded, then turned and ran for the van.

He sprinted up the side of the ditch and around the rear of the van just in time to see the sedan jerk into reverse. It barely missed him before the Dean threw it into drive and skidded off. The Collab—the one that was still alive—chased after the car, yelling and shaking his useless weapon. Carter looked around for Sebastian.

Sebastian was crouched over the shape of the broken Collab on the side of the road. The starving vampire had succumbed to his hunger.

Closer now, the Ticks howled in outraged hunger of their own. Sebastian seemed to blend into the corpse; they were an obscene mixture of Sebastian’s black clothing, Collab blue, and bloodred gore. Then Sebastian reared up over the corpse and threw back his head, and his howl joined the chorus of the Ticks.

Carter skidded to a halt, maybe twenty feet from the monster Sebastian had become, his mind racing through his options. Running for the van, ditching Sebastian altogether, was the most logical choice. It was the short term, best-odds bet. But in the long run, they needed Sebastian’s spidey sense to guide them around the nests of Ticks. Besides, he just didn’t want to leave a man behind. Even if that man had lost himself.

Of course, on the other hand, getting eaten by a vampire had never been on his personal to-do list. And twenty feet away from a feeding vampire was a lot closer than he wanted to be.

Holding the fence post like a bat, he spun on his foot and threw it, like a discus, straight at Sebastian. He didn’t wait to see if it hit. He didn’t wait to see if the blow snapped Sebastian out of his bloodlust. Carter turned and ran.

As he reached the van, his feet slipped out from under him and he skidded across the blacktop. Again, that glug-glug-glug echoed in his ears. This time, it was accompanied by the pungent scent of gasoline fumes. The two spare cans of gas were now slowly leaking fuel onto the blacktop.

The first of the Ticks hit the road just as Carter reached the side of the van.

The Tick bounded straight over Sebastian in a single leap. It took a giant running stride toward Carter, but skidded to a halt several yards away. It cringed back, wrinkling its nose. For an instant, it looked almost human as the creature considered him.

He didn’t know if Ticks had gender. He’d never even thought about it before. But he could tell now that in its human life, this one must have been a woman. Now, her body was covered in patchy hair, several inches long. Shrunken, shapeless breasts flapped against her massive chest. Her hips were broader than a human woman’s, her shoulders equally broad. The proportions were all wrong on her arms, because the muscles were approximately the size of his thighs.

But it was her face that was the most grotesque. Her jaw jutted out at an unnatural angle. Her teeth, massive leonine chompers, were so big she couldn’t even close her mouth. Her nose was broad, her nostrils flared, the better to scent prey. The look in her eyes, calculating, assessing, almost human—but not—sent a chill of revulsion straight through to his soul.

Then she leaned closer, sniffed again, literally turned up her nose, and spun away from him. She galloped down the road after the Collab the Dean had left behind. The whole exchange took only a second. A second during which Carter’s heart had stopped beating and lay frozen in his chest.

He glanced down at that gas covering the ground and his clothes. They’d undoubtedly miss the extra gas later, but for now, he wanted to kiss the ground on which it had spilled. It had saved his ass.

Beside him, the van backed up, turned, then roared forward, screeching to a halt with the open side door next to him.

“Get in!” Lily yelled.

“Sebastian—” he started to protest.

They both looked out over the blacktop to where Sebastian was only now standing up. He picked up the cedar post Carter had thrown. For an instant, it looked as though Sebastian was about to chase after them. Then he spun as another Tick leapt out of the field. Sebastian swung the post, using it like a bat to knock the Tick away. The crack of impact resounded through the air like a thunderclap. With a canine yelp, the Tick crashed to the ground.

Sebastian strode over to the whimpering Tick. He nudged it indifferently with his foot until it rolled over, then he stepped on its shoulder, pinning it to the ground. Raising the post high above the Tick’s chest, he let out a ragged battle cry. Then he brought the post down, driving a three-inch hole into the beast’s chest.

Beside him, Carter heard Lily whimper in horror. Somewhere else in the van, someone wretched.

Sebastian loped away from the Tick, running to catch up to the van with unnatural speed and grace. Carter gripped the interior handle of the door, ready to slam it closed. If Sebastian was still in the grip of his bloodlust, the door wouldn’t provide much defense, but it was better than nothing.

Carter looked around the van for something with which to fight Sebastian off if he had to. One of the shotguns had been slid under the first bench seat. Maybe it would kill him; more than likely it wouldn’t. But it would definitely be the end of their bargain. Carter was reaching for it when he saw the expression on Sebastian’s face.

As he ran for the van, he flashed a grin. His eyes looked human. Carter stepped away from the door. Just as Sebastian hopped through the opening, the van drove past the other Tick. The Collab’s crushed body lay spread out on the road. Hunched over the body, the Tick held the Collab’s heart in her hands, drinking the Collab’s blood as it pumped right out of the aorta.

The Tick looked up, her blood-soaked fur glistening bright red. Carter slid the door shut. Then he sank to the floor of the van, leaning his back against the door.

Sebastian had sat on the closest bench, but he was hunched over, wiping blood from his face and hands. Carter nearly asked why Sebastian had eaten the Collab’s progesterone-laced blood, but figured the question might freak Lily out even more. She sat on the center bench, her back pressed to the wall of the van, her legs tucked up on the bench, her arms wrapped around them. Her skin had gone pasty white. He could see her chest rising and falling in rapid bursts as she struggled to pull air into her lungs. She displayed all the classic signs of shock.

Frankly, he didn’t blame her. He’d been pretty freaked out himself the first time he saw Sebastian eat.

Carter moved to the back of the van, looking for one of the duffel bags that might have a blanket or coat he could use to warm her up. He’d just unzipped one of them when Sebastian spoke.

“You need to turn around. You’re driving south.”

Lily lifted her head off her knees. “We’re chasing the Dean.”

“Why?” Sebastian asked. “However badly he wants you, I can assure you that we’ve convinced him you’re not worth the effort.”

However, even as Sebastian spoke, Carter looked around the van. Dread filled his stomach. Something was wrong. Someone was missing.

Before he could even form the thought, Lily spoke.

“He has Mel. She—” Her voice broke over the words. He could tell she was in shock because no emotion at all radiated from her. It was like she was just gone. “She left the van on her own and the Dean grabbed her in the confusion. We have to go get her back.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mel

I’m no pilot fish after all. I should stick to conducting orchestras, but even then I couldn’t make the Ladybird sing.

I thought I had him and could make him fly, fly away, but I guess his lady is stronger than his bird. Is that why his music makes no sense? He’s all dissonance and strife. Too at odds for the one he is, but still not two.

He’s not plump and useless like I thought. Who’d have guessed his arms were as strong as his will? And now I’m truly caught. He wouldn’t let me go, and Silly Lily won’t, either. She’ll pilot the others here and then he’ll win. If I could really make the music play, I’d drive them all away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Lily

How the hell did I let this happen?

After everything I’d done to protect her, everything I was doing to get her to safety, how
the hell
had I let Mel get taken by the Dean?

I didn’t realize I was asking the question aloud until Carter sat down beside me, took my hand in his, and said simply, “This isn’t your fault.”

My skin prickled with icy shards of panic and his touch nearly hurt. I didn’t jerk my hand away but only because I relished the pain. I was only vaguely aware of the rest of my physical surroundings. The road rushing past the window, Joe driving in silence, McKenna in the seat beside him looking fragile in her terror.

“She’s my responsibility,” I said, my voice shaky.

I couldn’t make myself meet Carter’s gaze, but looking at the floorboards didn’t help because that was when I realized she hadn’t even taken her pink backpack with her. She been captured by the Dean and she didn’t even have her Slinky.

“She’s my sister.” I spoke only because it was better than crying. “If it isn’t my fault, then whose fault is it?”

“It’s everyone’s fault,” Carter said simply. “In a group, we’re all responsible for everyone. She isn’t your burden alone.”

“As charming as this guiltfest is,” Sebastian interrupted, “I hope neither of you will mind if I voice my own opinion on the matter.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. The image of him—of what he really was—was too fresh in my mind.

Of course I had known he was a vampire, but in the confusion of our escape from the Farm, it was easy not to think about. His inhuman qualities had slipped in and out of my awareness. I pushed them to the back of my mind. Let myself pretend he was . . . if not human, then something very close to human. I no longer had that luxury.

He was monster.

Like them, but not.

The Ticks’ appearance was a pure, physical representation of their nature. Merely looking at them repulsed. Sebastian was the opposite. The handsome facade, the urbane speech, the outward trappings of a civilized human. Those were the things that made him grotesque.

“Has it occurred to you, Lily,” he continued—either unaware of my bone-deep revulsion or unconcerned with it—“that Mel is as much her own person as you are. Perhaps it is not anyone’s fault but her own.”

“Don’t you talk about her.” Fighting a wave of nausea, I pushed myself to my feet, only to have the motion of the van knock me back down. “I don’t even want to hear you mention her name.”

“Lily—” Carter reached for me again.

I recoiled. “Stop!”

There was another truth I couldn’t avoid. Carter had told me Sebastian didn’t eat people. He’d sworn to me that he was safe. I saw now that he was about as safe as a domesticated tiger. Which was to say, he wasn’t safe at all.

“I can’t . . .” I stammered, suddenly unable to form a thought, much less a sentence. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” Carter grabbed my hand again and this time he didn’t let me pull away. “You can handle this, because you have to. Don’t think about it. Block it out, if you have to. Ignore it. Pretend it didn’t happen. Do what you have to do to make peace with what Sebastian is, because we need his help. If we’re going to get her back, we need him.”

I wanted to protest. I wanted to scream. I wanted that monster out of the car and as far away from me as possible. Instead, I made myself look at him.

He looked much like he had before the attack of the Ticks. His clothes were more wrinkled, but the blood hardly showed. His skin was still unnaturally pale, his lips too bright a red.

Maybe Carter’s approach would have worked. Maybe I should have just blocked out my memory of the truth. But I didn’t want to forget what he was capable of. I wanted the image of him crouched over a body drinking human blood to be the first thing that came to my mind every time I thought of him. But knowing his nature and letting myself fear him were two different things.

Yet Carter was right. We needed him. Sebastian’s spidey-sense would tell us where the Ticks were. And he was obviously more than capable of killing them. He might be the only chance we had of getting Mel back.

Underneath my revulsion was a seed of something else. Fear, maybe. Not fear of him but fear of myself.

I’d said all along that I would do anything to protect Mel. Would I kill to get her back? If I planned to kill the Dean, if I thought about it logically before acting, was that any better than Sebastian killing someone in a fit of bloodlust? Was I just as much a monster as he was?

**

With every passing minute Mel and the Dean got farther and farther away. Our van was slower and older. Worse still, the sun was setting. We weren’t driving on fumes yet, but we would be if we tried to drive through the night. If we ran out of gas before dawn, we’d be dead.

The debate over our next move whirled around me with little or no input from me. I sensed the others watching me, waiting for me to protest. I didn’t have the energy or the will to voice my thoughts. Even I knew we had to stop to regroup. I wasn’t happy about it, but I wasn’t stupid, either.

I needed a plan. Something other than find a church and wait until dawn. That wasn’t acceptable. But sitting in the van, listening to the others’ hushed conversation, I just couldn’t think of what to do next. My every thought was on Mel.

Poor Mel, who couldn’t stand to be touched even by me. Who didn’t like strangers. Who didn’t even have her coat with her.

I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed past my despair. After all I’d gone through to get her the coat. And then I hadn’t even made her wear it.

It seemed like I’d made nothing but bad decisions since we’d left the Farm. I’d been wrong so often. And yet I was the person they expected to lead some rebellion? Didn’t they see how many mistakes I made?

Mel would be a better leader than I was. She certainly figured things out faster. She was braver, even though she was probably very afraid right now.

And I hated to admit it, but Sebastian was right. Mel had made her own choice. She must have gotten out of the van because she’d thought she could help. How could I criticize her? I’d gotten out to help. Why did I treat her like a child when I knew she was smarter than I was, more observant? Yes, more fragile in some ways, but stronger in others.

All those months on the Farm, I had treated her like she was a burden. I had acted like some sort of saint for taking care of her. God, that must have irritated her. Suddenly I thought about how her speech patterns changed on the Farm. I had assumed it was stress, but maybe it wasn’t. After all, she’d started talking again when Carter showed up. Carter, who’d always treated her like an equal. Maybe I really
was
the problem. Why had I always treated her like she was a burden, when we were really in this together the whole time?

Of course, I knew the answer already. I protected her because she needed me. And also because I needed to. We had both lost everything. In this crazy new world where kids were food and monsters were real and maybe I had a superpower or maybe I didn’t, she was the only thing I clung to. She brought focus to my life, but hope as well. Because every version of the future that I saw was drenched in despair, but Mel saw the world with different eyes. Just as she’d seen the spot in the fence that allowed us to escape from the Farm, she might see a path to a better future.

I don’t know how long I sat there yearning for my sister, but when I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was dark outside the windows of the van and we were slowing down. We were in another tiny town. The run-down strip malls and dilapidated houses looked much like those of the other towns we’d passed.

Looking up, I saw Carter beside me. “What’s the plan?” I asked.

“Find a church. The four of us hunker down for the night. Sebastian’s going to look for other cars that might have gas. Try to siphon enough to fill up the van. If he can pick up the scent of the Dean’s car, he’ll try to follow it.”

I nodded and didn’t comment on what he didn’t say. That Sebastian couldn’t come into the church with us. That whatever it was about holy ground that protected us from Ticks would keep out Sebastian as well. Or maybe it was him the church walls would protect us from.

Maybe the thought of him out there should have comforted me, but it didn’t. He may have more intelligence and control than the Ticks, but I’d just seen him eat a person. A Collab, yes, but still . . . I couldn’t think of it without my stomach churning.

The building we stopped in front of was a squat, ignoble structure of dingy redbrick topped with a cheap-looking white roof. Only the stained-glass windows and thin obelisk protruding from the peak distinguished it as a church rather than something else, like a VFW hall or a senior center. Even the aging Impala parked in front seemed forlorn. As holy ground went, this place seemed awash in despair.

If the strength of the building’s fortifications against evil was based on the faith of the people who had once worshipped here, then I couldn’t help wondering if we hadn’t been safer back in the parking lot in Vidalou.

Sebastian directed Joe to pull the van up onto the curb, right beside the church’s back door. Night had fallen and beyond the van, the streets were dark.

“Take what you need on the first trip,” Sebastian said. “You can’t come back to the van for anything. Move fast. Once you’re in, stay in the sanctuary as much as you can. Carter, do a perimeter sweep for open doors or windows. Don’t even think about coming out until at least an hour after dawn.”

McKenna and Joe both nodded seriously, apparently content to take orders from someone who less than an hour before had eaten a person.

Carter asked, “How many and how close?”

“A whole nest west of town. I’ll try to lure them away from you, but I can’t make any promises.”

Before any of us could ask exactly what that meant, he slid open the van door and hopped out. “Don’t forget to move fast.”

And with that, he disappeared into the night. Far off in the distance, I heard a yelp and a howl and I couldn’t help thinking they sounded hungry.

“You three stay here and get the gear together,” Carter ordered. “I’m going to get the door open.”

Joe abandoned his spot in the driver’s seat and moved past my row toward the back of the van. Carter left the door open, so the overhead dome gave him a little light to work by. I watched for a moment as Carter pulled a small case from one of his pockets and flipped it open. A moment later he pulled out a collection of tiny metal prongs. Lock picks, I assumed.

Joe had collected his backpack and McKenna’s shoulder bag. Since my own bag was a casualty of my brush with bomb making, I grabbed Mel’s. My fist clenched around the pink rubber handle on the top of the bag. It was the backpack of a little girl. It even had the little tab on the front where you could attach a matching lunch box. God, I’d hated it when my sister had carried that backpack to high school. Now it was all I had left of her.

My heart ached as I held it in my hand. Somewhere in here was Mel’s worn and ragged stuffed flying squirrel. She couldn’t sleep without it and I wouldn’t sleep until she had it back. Whatever else I did, I was going to get her back.

Once I’d hopped down out of the van, Joe called, “Hey, Lily.”

I turned back only to have him shove another two bags into my arms. I humphed in surprise.

“Carter’s bag and our food. Remember, only one trip.”

“Oh, thanks.” I grunted—the food bag had to weigh twenty pounds—but Joe had already turned around to help McKenna from the van.

By the time I made it up the steps to the church’s back door, Carter was swinging it open. “Wait here. I want to do the security sweep before the rest of you come in.”

I didn’t argue. It wasn’t what Sebastian had told us to do, but I was still iffy on this whole holy-ground-is-sanctuary thing. Carter was gone only a few minutes. He held open the door and nodded down a darkened hall.

“The sanctuary is down that way, straight ahead. Leave the bags there. Bathroom is on the left if you need it.”

I dumped the food bag and his backpack where he directed me to, but kept the pink bag clenched in my hand. Even though Carter had just said it was clear, my heart pounded as I crept down the hall.

The building was musty, with the lingering scents of air freshener, old carpet, and stale coffee. There was nothing familiar or welcoming about the church. Only the strong sense that I was the invader. That I was the one it was trying to keep out. Maybe it was because I didn’t belong here. Maybe it was because we’d never been churchgoers in my family. Or maybe it was this “gift” that Carter and Sebastian claimed I had. Maybe I was as much an aberration as Sebastian was. Or maybe I was just a little bit afraid of the dark.

Whatever the reasons, my steps were slow as I made my way down the hall. McKenna, however, made a beeline for the bathroom and dashed through the door like a woman who’d drunk a forty-eight-ounce soda during a
Lord of the Rings
movie.

Carter jogged up behind me, his Maglite cutting a swath of light through the darkness. He held his penlight out to me. “Here. This will help.”

I bit my tongue against my natural response and instead said, “Thanks.”

“I’ll be right out here as soon as you’re done.”

I wanted to tell him not to bother, but hey, his flashlight was bigger than mine and I was tired anyway.

The bathroom was dark except for my tiny penlight. McKenna must have needed to pee too badly to care, because she was already in one of the stalls.

I held the light in my teeth and peed on a toilet for the first time in twenty-four hours, nearly weeping for joy at the sight of the toilet paper roll. I made a mental note to search the closets for more toilet paper before we left. I flushed without thinking, but then was surprised that the toilet worked. It was weird to think that somewhere nearby a water treatment plant still operated, but I was thankful. We could refill our water jugs.

When I left the stall, the light was still clamped in my teeth. I was surprised to see McKenna standing near the sink, drying her hands slowly. I let my mouth gape so the penlight dropped into my hand. I’d spent most of the past couple days pretending she and Joe didn’t exist. I didn’t want to think about either of them. That was a rabbit hole of emotion I didn’t have the time or the energy to go down.