Frenzy (The Frenzy Series Book 1) (15 page)

I hugged Mr. Sanford and told him how sorry I was. He had given Meg her eye color, and looking into his was like looking into hers. It was too much. Staring at my feet, I waited beside Meg’s father until he walked over to his wife, holding her as she sobbed.

Jonah, her betrothed, stood and numbly watched the men finish hammering the cage into the ground. His long blond hair hung into his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jonah,” my voice broke.

He hugged me quickly. “Me too. I should’ve gone with her. Most days I met her there to spend time with her, but I had work to get done. I should’ve gone.”

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”

“No it’s not. It’s theirs.” He nodded toward Roman and the night-walkers standing across the cemetery. In daylight. Apparently the night-walkers were not affected by the sun after all. For the first time in years my hunger abated, replaced by the thirst for revenge, for Tage’s head on a spike. Only, Tage was missing. He wasn’t with the others.

After the funeral, Saul said he would come to Mrs. Dillinger’s to get me for dinner before we had to report. He wanted to rest and then head to the carpentry shop to work on a project. We picked up our rations and then he walked me home. “Listen,” he said. “I’ll show you how to use the crossbow this evening, if you’d like.”

“I would.”

His eyes pierced into mine. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Okay.”

Standing toe to toe, he tilted my chin up and placed a soft kiss on the skin just beside my lips. I watched him walk away, the empty void he filled gaping open again.

After stopping by Town Hall for our rations, I brought them in to Mrs. Dillinger. They would go a long way for only the two of us. As promised, she had two scrambled eggs and buttered bread waiting for me, steaming hot and delicious-smelling. It felt bad to enjoy food on such an awful day, but I had to keep my strength up. No one was impressed with the spoils of last night’s hunt.

“You’re tired. Go rest now,” Mrs. Dillinger ordered, shooing me away from my dirty plate.

“I can wash this first,” I argued.

She narrowed her eyes. “I said go rest.”

I exhaled deeply, too tired to argue anymore. “Thank you. Saul is coming to get me before sundown for dinner. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling over her shoulder as she took my plate to the sink. Someone had brought in a bucket of water. I knew it wasn’t her and I hadn’t been here, which made me wonder if Ford did it. Maybe he was atoning for the chicken theft. Maybe he was just a good fella. He always had been. You could always tell how a person really was by the way they treated children, their Elders, and animals. Ford was kind to all three.

She replied with a simple, “Mhmm,” as I turned my back and climbed up the stairs.

Saul came by earlier than I expected. Luckily I was awake, dressed in my dried clothes and prepared with a sack full of dinner. Mrs. Dillinger answered his knock at the door and asked him to come in for a moment. She smiled at him. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she cooed. I could feel heat flood into my cheeks. I really hadn’t spoken to her about him very much, but she heard me speak his name more than any other, simply because of circumstance. We found ourselves in an emotional and dangerous situation.

I gathered our food and hugged her. “Thank you for everything.”

She nodded slightly. “Be careful tonight.”

“I will.”

Saul held the door for me and we stepped off the porch together, our steps in sync. “You ready for this?” He moved to a nearby tree where his crossbow and the extra he’d brought for me were leaning against the bark, waiting for us.

“I am.” And I was. I wanted to learn, to be as helpful as I could. This might have been my first rotation, but it wouldn’t be my last.

We walked through yards and side streets to the river. Between firing and retrieving my arrows that went tragically askew, we ate. Fresh bread, eggs, and even smoked deer jerky. We were already eating the buck we took down the other day.

“You’re not bad,” Saul said with a smile, retrieving my arrow.

“I’m not good.”

“No.” He smiled. “But you have the potential to be.”

“Great,” I deadpanned. “Because
potential
will take down a deer.”

“There are more than just deer in the woods.”

“Squirrels are too fast to catch.”

He smiled. “Leave that to the Freemans. They’re doing okay with the snares.”

“They are, but small animals only go so far.”

He stared at the blue sky like it held the answers to everything.

“So how did your secret project go?”

Saul smiled. “Good. You can see it soon.”

“I can?” It was my turn to smile. The arrow’s shaft felt smooth in my hand. It was just a piece of wood, but if fired fast and sure, it could kill. I would just have to imagine Tage’s head on any game I saw.

“Yeah. Hey, I want to ask you something.”

I lowered the crossbow and turned toward him. “My mom wants you to have dinner with us tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” My eyes popped open. “Why?”

“She wants to meet you. She knows how I feel about you.” His storm cloud, blue-gray eyes bored into me.

“How do you feel about me?”

He smiled and it was like the sun had no reason to shine anymore. He could light the world with a smile like that. “I’m…fond of you.”

“You’re fond of me?”

“Yes.”

I giggled. “I’m fond of you too, Saul.”

“Good.” He erased my laughter with the strength of his hand on my back and the pressure of his lips on mine.

The night-walkers were on edge. Tension filled the pavilion, squeezing out the stench of putrid water and rotting leaves. Roman stood with his kind, waiting for us all to gather. Mary, Tim, Victor, James, Saul, and I stood across from them. “There’s been a change in plans for tonight,” Roman announced.

Victor answered him. “What sort of change?”

“With the events that have unfolded, the Colony Elders are reconsidering the treaty. We’re trying to persuade them to allow the treaty to remain in place, so we’ll be helping in the hunt and sending a small party into the city to retrieve some goods that the Colony needs. Call it a show of good faith.”

Victor snorted in derision. Tim whispered to him, “I don’t like this.”

“Me either,” James said.

Tim and Mary exchanged a glance at the same time Saul’s hand squeezed mine.

“All of you are helping tonight?” Saul questioned.

Roman’s dark eyes found mine. “Yes.”

Tage would be in the woods, or in the city, with us. That was not good. I could feel every muscle in my body tense, and then as if my thoughts brought my nightmare to life, Roman announced, “Mary and Porschia will be going into the city. Tage will guard them.”

“No way in hell,” Saul growled.

“They’ll be safest there,” Roman barked. “You care about her safety, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but you know he’s a danger to her!” Saul and Roman crossed the square, standing toe-to-toe. Roman bared his fangs but Saul never flinched, never backed down. “Tage has had it out for Porschia from day one. He’s the biggest threat you have. Hell, he’s probably the one who killed Meg!”

The vamps behind Roman began to growl, low and deadly.

“It was no vampire who killed that girl.” Roman turned to me. “You found her in the river, with blood in the water all around her. No?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“If one of us had killed her, we would have drained her. Completely.”

The feeding was quick and ferocious. The night-walkers numbed us but took more blood than usual. They needed energy to help with the hunt. Every time Roman gulped from me, I felt a tiny piece of my soul slip away. I hated him. I hated the feelings he evoked. I hated that I loved it when he drank from me. It had to be some sort of spell. I was too
fond
of Saul to have feelings about anyone else.

When Roman’s warm tongue swiped my neck to seal the wounds he made, he whispered, so low I almost didn’t hear him. “I’ll be watching tonight. Don’t worry.”

My breath left in a rush. He was baiting Tage.

Saul rushed over to me after Dara was finished with him. “You take your crossbow. I don’t like this. If he does anything, you shoot for his skull or his heart.”

“I’d probably aim a little lower,” I grumbled, hugging him tightly to me.

His deep chuckle rumbled through his chest beneath my ear. “I don’t like this.”

“What choice do we have?”

“There’s always a choice, Porsch.”

I swallowed. “I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

“The city is...it’s still dangerous. It’s just a different forest.”

Nodding, I squeezed him one more time, hoping we both made it out of this situation alive, and that the night-walkers were genuine in their hopes to maintain the treaty. The entire situation was like an unraveled thread that was so taut it was straining apart.

Roman was telling some of the vampires I didn’t know, the ones who fed on Victor and Tim, to go fast and far, to look for livestock that might still be milling around further than we could travel on foot for a night. He told them to bring back any and all animals they came across and stressed how important and tenuous the situation was. They nodded. Both of them were male and looked like little more than teenagers. One had white-blonde, spiked hair and the other had hair that was longer than mine and dark as midnight. They took off running and I felt the wind in their wake, my hair thrashing around in the dusky evening that descended around us.