Frenzy (The Frenzy Series Book 1) (14 page)

“Let’s make our way back, but keep an ear out.”

I was too pissed to hear anything.

Saul and I failed. We didn’t kill anything. Luckily, the others were luckier. It wasn’t much, but it was more than we had before. The Freemans snared two hares and the Browns were able to kill a coyote.

Saul spoke first. “Did you have any encounters last night?”

“With the Infected?” Tim asked. “We didn’t.” Mary shook her head.

Victor and James looked at one another. “What?” I asked.

Victor stretched his neck left then right. “We thought we heard something, but never saw anything.”

“The screaming?”

He furrowed his brow. “No, more like shuffling.”

Everson stepped up, bright and peppy. “Almost breakfast, kids. I’m starving.” He smiled and his fangs shone brightly. “We had a little incident, didn’t we?” He threw one arm around Saul’s shoulders and one around mine. I shoved him off of me and Saul stepped away calmly.

The others asked what happened and Everson began to recount the entire gory event, omitting the fact that the ‘monster’ he slayed was a friend, a neighbor. I didn’t wait for anyone, but walked quickly to the crossing, which was... missing.

“Where’s the tree?” I muttered to myself. Looking up and down the river, I was positive this was the spot where we’d left it.

“Well, damn,” Saul said. “Now what do we do?”

Everson chuckled from behind. “We find another way.”

I smiled sweetly at him. The sun was almost up. “Guess breakfast will be late.”

The smile fell from his face and I claimed sweet victory.

He sighed and waved for us to follow him. “I know another way. It’s just along a more scenic route.”

When we finally found the tree line, it had finally begun to clear. The sky was brightening and Father was waiting across the riverbank. I crossed first. “What is it?” His expression was tight and dark bags hung beneath his eyes.

“They found Meg last night.”

The sound of the Infected woman’s neck snapping filled my ears. “Where?”

“Downstream. Roman had a few night-walkers help search for her. We’re going to lay her to rest in the cemetery. I thought you’d want to know right away. Roman said you all can go straight to the pavilion.”

I thanked him and rushed away, unable to stop the tears from flowing. Saul ran after me, catching me between two houses, just across from the square where the vamps were already waiting for us. “Stop,” he said, grabbing my arms and turning me to face him. “Shhh.” He pulled me to his chest and wrapped his arms around me. Saul didn’t offer any other words. He must have known they were pointless. He held me against him, absorbing my grief and pain. When the others caught up with us, glancing at me with a mixture of pity and disappointment, we walked out of the yards and across the street, his arm wrapped around my shoulder.

Saul walked me to the concrete bench where I numbly sat down, my entire body spent from the exhaustion and sadness. I didn’t look at Roman before he fed. I barely felt anything at all as he pulled me back to him and sank his fangs into my flesh.

I stood and began to walk away before he could seal the wounds he made. “Wait, Porschia. You have to let me heal the bite.”

When his hand found my forearm, I tugged it away. “I don’t need anything from you!” The blood. Meg was surrounded by blood. “Did you do it? Did
you
bite her?”

“The girl who was found in the river last night?”

“I found her yesterday evening further upstream. She had bite marks on her neck, Roman! Did you do it?” I looked behind him at the night-walkers now rising to their feet, hissing at me for speaking to their leader with such disrespect. It was so much more than that. They had no idea.

“None of us killed her. It would violate—”

“The treaty?” I scoffed. “Like any of you give a shit about the treaty, or about any of us. We’re only good for one thing, right?”

Roman pushed his dark hair from his eyes and stared at me. “We don’t kill humans, Porschia.”

“Something did. Something with sharp fangs.” And with that, I left him standing behind me.

Saul caught up with me and we walked in silence to Mrs. Dillinger’s house, my temporary home. I hoped she was okay with the arrangement. Ford had no doubt explained the situation. “I’ll meet you at the cemetery,” he said, before turning and walking toward his house.

On the porch, I shrugged off my heavy, wet coat and wrung it out into the soil below. Floorboards creaked from within the house and Mrs. Dillinger opened the door for me. “You’ll catch your death.”

“It seems contagious,” I deadpanned.

“I know you were friends with Meg.”

“I was.”

“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” she offered.

“Thanks. I’m sorry, too, for snapping at you.”

Mrs. Dillinger waved me inside. “Bring your coat. We’ll hang it by the fire to dry.”

I found my belongings on a bed upstairs, in the room Mrs. Dillinger had told me was empty and available. When I told her this arrangement was only temporary, she rolled her eyes. “Stay as long as you’d like, child. Don’t rush your life.” When life was so fragile, and survival so difficult, rushing seemed like the thing to do. It only made sense.

Peeling my clothes off, I found a dress to pull on. It wasn’t warm but it was dry, and that feeling alone was like heaven. Drying my hair, I quickly braided it and pinned it in place at my nape. Slipping my feet into my old, too-tight boots, I realized that they were a reflection of me. My emotions were spiraling out of control, like my body was too small to hold them in and I might explode at any moment.

Tears pricked my eyes. Between Mother’s bitterness, the burning of my sister’s memories, moving in with Mrs. Dillinger, Saul’s sweetness, and finding Meg yesterday, not to mention being food for the night-walkers for the week, I was falling apart at the seams.

I took the poison ring off and sat it on the small wooden chest of drawers, the rounded metal teetering back and forth.

Mrs. Dillinger walked with a cane. She couldn’t walk far, so she was one of the few exempt from farewells, funerals, and weddings. She met me at the bottom of the steps. “I wish I could go with you, Porschia,” she said.

I swallowed thickly and nodded.

“I’ll have some warm food waiting for you when you get home.”

Home
.

The tears flowed.

Clouds lingered in the morning sky, highlighted golden by the sun. The cemetery was near the river on the night-walker side of town. They kept watch over it. Precautions were always taken with the newly buried. Another part of the treaty.

People from all over the village milled around on the outskirts of the cemetery. Most would keep their distance, allowing those closest to Meg to say goodbye to her. Father was standing on the riverbank, staring into the dark water below. Mother didn’t bother to show up. Ford found me.

“Hey,” he said, hugging me tightly. “So sorry.”

I answered with a sniffle. The Sanfords were standing beside a freshly-made mound of earth, watching the smiths pound the long legs of the cage onto the grave. The cage was literally that; bars of metal spaced a few inches apart, long enough to cover the mound and hold a newly changed night-walker. Meg had been bitten, and no one was taking chances. The use of the cage was almost unheard of in recent years, mostly because of the treaty.

With every inch that the metal sank into the earth, every pound of hammerhead against that cool steel, I jerked. It was as if the sound of the treaty breaking could be heard. If Meg had somehow consumed even a drop of the blood of the vamp who attacked her, if she bit him or her, she wouldn’t stay beneath any amount of soil heaped on top of her.

That cage was control. It gave the night-walkers a way to stop the devastation of a new vamp in frenzy. I’d never seen a newly changed night-walker, and had barely seen the ones who’ve occupied our Colony for so long until now. Entering the rotation brought more questions about the vampires than it answered.

Why couldn’t they control their own hunger? We were forced to tamp it down, to ignore the pangs and the growling of our stomachs.

Ford tucked his hands into his pockets. “I want you to watch your back. The treaty...”

“I know.”

“They could hurt you.”

I laughed. “I don’t know that they could.”

He tucked me beneath his arm until Saul approached and shook Ford’s hand as an equal.

“Hey man, thanks for watching out for her,” Ford’s voice broke. Mercedes’ fall was too new. Being here at Meg’s grave with the smell of fresh earth lingering in the air, just solidified how delicately the treaty hung in the balance, if it hadn’t already been rejected entirely by the Elders.

“No problem,” Saul said.

I gave him a thankful glance and left the two men behind to pay my condolences to Meg’s family. Mrs. Sanford, who had given Meg her red hair, was wringing her hands. Tears filled her brown eyes when she saw me. “Oh, Porschia. She loved you so much,” she said, folding me into a tight hug. I gripped her just as tightly.

“I loved her back.”

“We know,” she sniffed. “We know. I just... I just don’t understand. The treaty has been in place for so long.”

My blood boiled. It was Tage. It had to have been. He was new to the coven and he lacked respect for Roman, for the Colony, for life. But Meg had just been doing her laundry at the river. In the daylight.