The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (50 page)

Since he had contracted the greyskin disease, he had the lusts of a greyskin. To sustain himself, to curb his apo curb hpetite, to keep himself from rotting away, he had to eat human flesh — people held in the small prison on the other side of the city. He never ate the Starborns. He feared what their powers might do to him. He never ate them until…Whit. Whit hadn’t been sent away. Jeremiah had eaten him. It took him a week.

So many images passed through Evelyn’s mind of Jeremiah melting, burning, and scorching with his bare hands as though to practice.

His intentions with her were not pure either. She had made him angry by bringing Mark. By being in a relationship with him. He was going to take Mark to the prison. He would be burned to death, then eaten. Evelyn. He was going to have his way with her. He would do this every night until she was no longer attractive to him. Then he would eat her too. 

When Jeremiah finally let go of Evelyn’s hand, she was wide-eyed and her mouth had fallen open. She didn’t know what to think about everything she had just seen. All of it was so real and vivid. The thoughts had come out of nowhere. 

Jeremiah looked at her with concern. “What is wrong?”

She looked at Mark, then back at Jeremiah. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

And she was right. What food she had eaten came up and landed on her plate in front of her. She grabbed hold of her glass and was about to take a drink when the thought came to her. They had to run. She sat up straight and brought the glass to her lips to take a sip. Instead of drinking, however, she gripped the glass and smashed it into Jeremiah’s forehead. 

Jeremiah let out a curse as he reached for his head. Blood trickled out between his fingers as he continued to yell curses at her. 

Mark sat at the table, stunned at what he had just witnessed.

“Mark, we have to get out of here!” Evelyn yelled.

“Why did you just do that?” he asked, standing. 

“Because he wants to eat us,” Evelyn said. “He ate Whit!”

“What?”

“Shut up and run!”

Jeremiah screamed again as the two of them tore out of the room, but he was soon on their heels. “Get back here!” he yelled out. The sight of a sprinting man with blood pouring down his face was enough to make her move faster. But what she noticed more than that was his glowing hands. This had to be some sort of nightmare. 

Evelyn and Mark dashed for the door to the streets. To their left in the giant opening of the Center were several guards coming to block their path. Mark was slightly faster than Evelyn so he reached out and grabbed her hand to pull her forward. 

It was like the moment Jeremiah had kissed her hand. She saw everything in Mark’s life. It was as if time stopped and she was a bystander in a life flying past her. His parents had been killed when he was a child. He had never been in love with a girl before. He was going to ask Evelyn to marry him next month when spring came. He loved her more than any person he had ever loved before. 

She let go of his hand, not wanting to see any more. She loved him too. She didn’t want to read his thoughts. She wanted to discover them for herself. 

“Run for the door,” he yelled out. “I’ll stall the guards.”

“No!” she screamed.

“Just do it, I can find my own way out!” he yelled as he angled his run in order to hit the guards directly. 

Evelyn kept her path straight until she hit the door and ran out into the streets. Mark was a smart guy. He would be able to get out somehow. Wouldn’t he? Evelyn knew where she needed to go. She had to leave Screven. With a monster like that in power, she would be deadwould be before the end of the night. 

She ran toward the city gate. It would still be open as the new citizens filed in, and hopefully, there would be a vehicle there with the keys still in it. She sprinted as fast as she could. Eventually, she could hear the guards chasing after her. She hoped beyond all hope that Mark was okay. Perhaps he had made it out somehow. Soon, the gate came in view and to her relief, a car was sitting next to a group of guards who were inspecting the newcomers.

Taking in as much breath as she possibly could, she ran as fast as her legs would carry her. The guards near the gate had no idea why she was running at them so quickly and none of them thought to stop her until she jumped into the car and started it. 

“Get out of the car!” one of the guards yelled, pointing his gun at her.

She ducked below the wheel as she slammed her foot on the pedal and sped through the group of them. A few shots went off, shattering the passenger window. With the gate partially open, she was able to maneuver the vehicle through and out. She honked the horn over and over, warning people to get out of her way. 

She sat up straighter when she saw she was finally out of rifle range. Surely the Screven guards would be coming after her soon. The gates began to open, but this only allowed for the crowd to rush into the city like a swarm of ants pushing their way to the entrance of their home. This bought Evelyn some time, but regardless of the fact, she wouldn’t be going very far. The vehicle was low on gas. She would have to abandon it within the next hour or so. 

And that’s exactly what she did. The vehicle puttered its last bit of exhaust and finally died on a road surrounded by forest on both sides. She wouldn’t be safe here. She wouldn’t be safe anywhere with the prospect of greyskins.

When she got out of the Screven vehicle she grabbed the rifle that had been set in the passenger’s seat. It wouldn’t take Jeremiah and the Screven guards long to catch up with her if they took chase.

Knowing she wouldn’t make it far during the nighttime hours, she found a tree that was easy for her to climb. It gave her a perfect view of the road, but unless the Screven guards knew exactly where to look, they wouldn’t find her. If they waited around for her until morning, however, it would be a different story. 

Her mind couldn’t leave what she had seen in Jeremiah’s brain. All the death, all the innocent lives that had been taken because of him. Billions around the globe had died. The world had never seen such a monster. Because of Jeremiah, Evelyn never got to know her mother. He had changed the fate of everyone on Earth. Then he stood to gain a profit from it by building Screven. It looked like a place of hope, but was just his selfish means to finding a Starborn healer. 

Through her ten-second touch, she had even been able to see what he had researched. These Starborns were from a line of people that weren’t even human!
Am I one of these people
? 

Jeremiah had come across several Starborns throughout his years of searching. He had always been too afraid to take their powers from them. He had always thought that their special abilities would consume him and he wouldn’t be able to handle it. It had been a long time since he had seen another until Whit came along. Evelyn had seen that he couldn’t stop himself. He had to try. He had to know if more power could be transferred to himself. But even with Whit, it had felt like too much for him. He had almost gone beyond his limit. He dared not do it again, almost as if to leave room for taking the abilities of a healer in case one ever came along. 

And poor Mark. If Jeremiah captured him it would be all her fault. She w fault. ished she could know what was happening. She wished she could see where he was, if he were alive or dead. 

She sat in the tree for about thirty minutes before the Screven car showed up. When the driver saw the abandoned vehicle in the road, he slowed to a stop. Four guards got out of the vehicle with their guns drawn and their flashlights on. A darker, more covered figure got out of the car, holding on to a motionless victim. It was Jeremiah and Mark. 

A guard pointed out that the tracks from the abandoned vehicle went in my direction. He then asked Jeremiah if he wanted them to pursue Evelyn. Jeremiah waved them off and pulled Mark up in front of him.

“Evelyn!” he shouted out. “Come back. If you do, your little boyfriend will live.”

Evelyn knew this wasn’t true. She saw into Jeremiah’s heart. There was nothing there but death and hatred.

She stared down the scope of her rifle. She knew she could take out the guards and Jeremiah. She just didn’t know if she could take them out without hitting Mark as well. She focused the scope on Jeremiah and Mark and that’s when she saw it. Mark was completely blackened. Jeremiah’s burning hands had charred him. The power he had stolen from Whit had been used to kill Evelyn’s only love. 

Her lips began to quiver and tears formed in her eyes. Jeremiah was pretending that Mark was still alive. He thought Evelyn couldn’t tell. But he had no idea that she had a rifle in her hands pointing straight at him. She took a deep breath and focused her shot on his chest. With a squeeze of the trigger, Jeremiah was on the ground. Two guards scrambled to his side so Evelyn aimed for the others who were still standing. With two shots, they were down. Now that the other two guards were focused on helping Jeremiah, they made themselves an easy target. Just a couple of squeezes on the trigger and they were dead. 

It took Evelyn at least ten minutes to muster the courage to go down to the bodies. She didn’t want to see what was left of Mark. 

Jeremiah had fallen about ten feet away from Mark’s body when Evelyn had shot him, so the body remained alone and away from the other corpses. One of the guards started moving when she came near an
d she let off another squeeze to end his miserable existence without so much as a thought. 

Her eyes were blurred from the tears when she dropped to her knees and put her arms around Mark’s scorched body. Sobs left her lips as though she lived in a world where letting her guard down wasn’t dangerous. How could Jeremiah have done such a thing to her? How could he be so evil? 

A slight movement caught the corner of her eye, and when she turned her head, Jeremiah was sitting upright. Blood flowed from his shoulder. 

“Didn’t think about you having a gun,” Jeremiah said with a smile. 

Evelyn stood and pulled the rifle up with her right hand. With her left, she held the gun out in support as she took aim at Jeremiah’s head. She hoped this would be the last trigger she ever had to pull. 

Click.

The hammer snapped but the gun was empty. Almost instantly, Jeremiah jumped for one of the guard’s side arms and Evelyn bolted for the forest behind her. Jeremiah let off eight shots from the pistol before one of the bullets finally landed in Evelyn’s back. 

She didn’t scream out, she didn’t cry in pain. She simply fell to the forest floor. Her body convulsed as the blood seeped through her clothes. She knew she had to get up if there was going to be any chance to survive. 

With every ounce of her strength, despite the pain that told her she couldn’t make it muct make ih farther, she ran into the woods. Jeremiah didn’t follow her. There wasn’t much of a reason to. He had fallen for Evelyn over the course of a year, but that didn’t mean anything. Evelyn had seen that he had fallen for many women for many years. Most of them ended up dead. Evelyn just got away. It wasn’t as if she had any power to try and bring Jeremiah down. 

He had no reason to fear her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

My eyes open, but shut again quickly when the morning light hits them. I wake knowing I will never look at Evelyn the same way again. I also have more of a reason to hate Jeremiah for everything he is. He is nothing but a monster; he’s a greyskin with the ability to think rationally and diabolically. The idea brings a bad taste to my mouth.

I sit up and don’t see Jake or Grandma, but quickly remember that they hadn’t shared my bed last night. It feels like late morning so they are probably already outside working. When I finally get the motivation to set my feet on the floor, I walk to the window on the other side of the room and look out. The sky is heavy with dark, grey clouds. There will be rain today, no doubt. 

Running my fingers through my hair, I stumble toward the sink in the kitchen and splash some water on my face. These dreams that Evelyn sent through my brain have given me extraordinary insight to what we’re doing here, but they’ve also left me without good rest. I almost feel like I haven’t slept, yet I suspect if I try to go back to sleep there will be more dreams. I want them. I want to know more. I just need a dreamless sleep sometime too. 

I take my time getting on my clothes and braiding my long hair. When I’m ready, I stand and take the cylinder off my side table. Before slipping it into my pocket, I look at the device closely. It’s mostly metal and a cap protects the soft top from dust and contaminants. It’s not much longer than a man’s index finger, but it is such a valuable item. Honestly, I don’t know why I carry it with me. There is just something about it that resonated with me the first time I had been checked in the Vault.
Green you’re clean, red you’re dead.
How many
red you’re dead’s
have there been? How many people have been faced with their mortality by the flicker of a tiny, red light?

If I’m ever bitten or scratched, I want to know. I have to know. I don’t want any of this waiting around, being unsure. If it’s green, I can toss the vial away and live my life. If it’s red, I can find the nearest guard and have him shoot me between the eyes. I hate the anticipation of not knowing — though there is still that short moment of eagerness while the cylinder is checking the blood for the virus. Even those few tiny seconds can feel like an eternity. I’ve been there waiting for it. I know what the anticipation feels like, even though I knew I had not been bitten or scratched. 

I think of the man at Salem who had waited. I remember watching as the light turned red and he was ushered away from the rest of us. I saw it happen all over the colony that day. I remember Bret who had been shot right in front of me because his cylinder light had blinked red. I remember the day my parents had found out. Though they may not have had a cylinder to tell them their fate, they still had the awful realization that their time had come. It was time to die. 

I slip the cylinder in my pocket and make my way to the front door. The wind picks up as soon as I walk out of the house and I’m instantly thankful that I braided my hair. Though I love the feeling of it whipping in the wind, it does me no good when I’m actually trying to get somewhere. Then I remember that I don’t even know where I’m going. I suppose the main thing I want to do is talk to Evelyn.