Lissa Kasey - Dominion 3 - Conviction (9 page)

T
HE
morning came faster than it felt possible. Jamie shook me awake, saying the sun was rising and we had to get moving. I still felt groggy and emotionally tired from the day before. When I got home I was going to spend hours at whatever indoor pool I could find, soaking up the energy and heat.

“You should eat,” Jamie said.
I got up to relieve myself, glad it was an indoor toilet. When I exited the bathroom there was a fresh bucket of

water and a plate full of bread and meat. I washed up and sank into my breakfast, somewhat annoyed. Were we going to talk about last night?

Either way, the ranger station was my destination. If I had to steal the sled and leave him here, I would. I yanked out my map and studied it again. The station wouldn’t be more than an hour on the sled. Getting back to the lodge from there depended on whether there was gas in storage or not.

Jamie stared at me for a minute, expression blank. “You think you could take me down?”
He had size, but I could take him. One good hit to a joint and he’d be down for the count. Though I’d rather not attack him if I didn’t have to, because then I’d feel obligated to help him get back. And I couldn’t imagine he’d be light enough for me to fireman carry. “Yeah.”
“Fine. We’ll go to the station. Maybe they’ll have another sled we can borrow to get Sei and Gabe out of that lodge.” He shivered while pulling on all his clothes.

“You feel it too?” The storm had become a living, breathing menace now. Some sort of growing parasite that fed off the rage it poured into the blizzard.

Sure he didn’t. I stuffed everything away and climbed into my snowsuit. “Are we going to talk about last night?”
“What about it?”
I sighed. Had I really expected anything else? Everyone treated me like the throw away lover, obviously even my best friend’s big brother. Was it wrong to want more? “Never mind.”
We made our way outside to the buried snowmobile. It took a little work to get it up out of the hole we’d dug, but once it was up and running, I felt like we had a chance again.
The wind picked up while I revved the engine.
I insisted on driving. Jamie finally relented, slung all of our supplies on his back, and slid up behind me. With the snowsuits between us I couldn’t feel much of him until he wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Jamie shouted through the helmets.
Easing the sled out slowly made my heart beat a little less crazily. With the snow as high as it was we could hit a treetop or something and be thrown. Not even the helmets could save us if we went through a tree, though I was happy to find them still locked away in our cabin.
The wind and snow began whipping around us, but after about two miles I had enough of a feel for the machine and the terrain that I pressed it a little faster. Sometimes when the wind blew snow into me, I’d catch the image of people moving in the dark. Like some odd second sight, it shadowed at the edges of my vision, every once in a while moving. I tried to keep from jerking the sled every time I saw it. And since Jamie wasn’t demanding to drive yet, I figured I must be doing okay.
We wove through miles of trees, and the snowpack lessened, like the storm hadn’t reached this far. When the station finally came into sight, a huge sigh of relief echoed through my whole body. Hope could do that. We’d get help and go home. I wouldn’t suggest another winter vacation anytime soon.
The parking lot was empty of snow and vehicles. The building looked like an older wood cabin, with heavy-duty windows and a couple of generators. Was anyone here? Why would the rangers abandon the station in a storm?
Jamie was nudging me, motioning me to park around the side. I eased to a stop and looked back at him. “What?”
“No smoke in the chimney. No hot air waves coming up. We should park the sled out of sight and come back on foot. Hopefully no one will steal the sled.”
I nodded, running the sled a little further away before stashing it in between some snowy mounds of baby pine trees. We both approached the station cautiously. Jamie shoved me behind him. I shook my head, grabbed an axe from the woodpile, and made my way to the door while he was peering in a window.
Keeping the weapon low, I knocked on the door. No one answered. I shoved open the door, happy to find it unlocked, but nearly puked when the smell hit me. The cabin must have been warm at one time, since Ron hadn’t smelled like that.
“Shit,” Jamie muttered when he shone the flashlight inside.
“The rangers?” I asked.
“Probably. Isn’t pretty. You should stay out here.”
“Whatever.” I shoved my way inside, scarf pulled up over my nose to filter out some of the stink. The scattered bits of bone and flesh looked like something out of a graphic video game. If I thought of it that way, I wouldn’t lose my breakfast. The floor was dark brown with dried blood, and the amount of pieces strewn about seemed to mean there had been more than one person here.
I grabbed the light from Jamie and checked the room for the radio. It was there, turned off. Damn. This was the closest station in a two-hundred-mile radius. There was another over the border in Canada, but they were almost seventy miles north of the lodge.
“Look for a working phone. Something we can use to call for help,” Jamie told me as he began riffling through drawers.
“What do you think did this? Animals?”
“With the door closed like that? Nah. I’d say vampire. Probably bent on destruction instead of feeding since there’s so much blood.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, we need to get back to the lodge before dark.” “We may not have enough gas for that.”
“Then we’ll walk.”
My heart hammered in my chest, and I carefully moved around the dead until I found the plug for the radio. I flipped it on and it roared to life, though the chatter wasn’t coming from the lodge. It was coming from another ranger station.
“Beaver Creek please respond. Over.”
“Beaver Creek, I think. Over,” I said. Was this station Beaver Creek? I yanked a map out from the drawer next to the radio and studied the dots that marked all the stations. Yep, we were at Beaver Creek.
“We’ve been trying to reach you for days, Beaver Creek. Over.”
“We’re travelers from the Pinecrest Lodge. The rangers are….” I didn’t know how to describe them.
“Pinecrest, do you have a medical emergency? Over.”
Jamie took the radio from me. “Two fatalities. Possible rogue vampire at Beaver Creek. Twelve travelers trapped up at Pinecrest. Will run out of food and water soon. One dead. Sleds and vehicles incapacitated. Over.”
“Can you make it to Rabbit Five, Pinecrest? Over.”
Jamie and I searched for Rabbit Five. It was the station over the border in Canada. “Maybe. But we only have one sled. Over.”
“When the storm lets up we can send a chopper. Over.”
“What if it doesn’t let up?” I asked Jamie. ’Cause the storm was so not normal.
“Rabbit Five, do you have sleds? Over.”
“Yes. Over.”
“They won’t take those out in the storm. And we can’t send random people out on sleds in the middle of a blizzard,” I pointed out to Jamie, then kicked a gum wrapper with my shoe, irritated by our lack of options. If the storm didn’t stop we’d all be dead, and it didn’t seem to be stopping.
“Rabbit Five, we will try to get some of the travelers to you. We’re headed back to the lodge now. Over.”
“Understood. Be careful. Over.”
Jamie put the radio aside. He almost looked indecisive as to whether to take it or not, but it was just too big to carry. I found the kitchen area and took what food I could that didn’t look spoiled. Jamie examined the bodies while I tried to pretend they weren’t there.
“They’ve been dead a few days. Try to find keys. There should be a storage shed here with extra sleds, maybe some gas.”
“We’ll never make it to Rabbit Five. That’s too far.” Though it was our best shot at getting help.
“We will go back to the lodge.” His tone left no room for a challenge.
I sighed, not wanting to start an argument again. One blow job did not marital bliss make. A set of keys were shoved under a cup left on the counter. Water still beaded around it, like the glass had spilled but someone had turned it over to hide the keys. I touched the water tentatively, not really expecting anything, but felt a warm rush of fear fill me. I’d been seeing a lot of unusual things lately.
Someone glanced my way as though seeing me through the reflection in the water. He was young, dark hair, Asian eyes, and a sad expression. I felt his exhaustion. He didn’t have much time left before this whole misadventure killed him. The storm would die when he did. He couldn’t force himself to let the cold misery of winter take him.
I trembled at the feel of his despair and the shocking clarity of the vision.
Who was he? I tried to send the thought through the water, but it just rippled and distorted his image. Finally it refocused and showed me the shed behind the station and the Ski-Doo inside. Heavy cans of gas lined the walls. Finally, I caught the image of Seiran, sick and retching while Gabe held him.
My head spun as the images faded. I didn’t even notice Jamie behind me until he wrapped his arms around me in an awkward hug. “Okay?”
I felt warm in his embrace for a minute, let that reground me. He’d tried to ignore the storm for a while already; how would he treat this vision? Better not to speak of it now. Maybe Sei could figure it out when we got back to the lodge. “Something’s happened to Sei. We have to get back. There’s another sled and some gas in the shed.” I held out the keys. “We have to get back.”
He nodded and stared at me for a minute before saying, “Let’s check out the shed, then we’ll head for the lodge.” We walked out to the dark wood mini-garage behind the station, closing the station door to keep the animals out.
The only remaining sled worked fine, though it was a little old. We filled it with gas, and Jamie brought the other around, refilled that one, and we made our way back in silence. He didn’t ask what I’d seen or how I knew something was wrong with Sei. But he was moving like there was a demon on his tail.
We passed the cabins as the sun began to set and kept on moving. I ignored my rumbling stomach and forced the old machine to keep following Jamie until he veered away from the straight path to the lodge. He slid up to a stop in a cove of treetops jutting from the snow. I parked mine beside his.
“We walk from here,” he told me.
I got off, left the helmet under the seat, and followed him through the snow toward the lodge. His caution made sense. Someone had wrecked half a dozen sleds to keep us trapped. They wouldn’t hesitate to destroy these two if they found them.
The late night sky disappeared beneath the heavy blow of snow and wind. Odd how the storm got worse at night and calmed during the day. I was too tired to mention it to Jamie as we trudged our way to the door, which had been fixed but was unlocked. There were no lights in the lodge. Had the power gone out?
No one seemed to linger in the main lounge, though the fire still raged a welcoming warmth. Jamie and I made our way upstairs to Gabe and Sei’s room, moving quietly.
Jamie knocked lightly on the door. It took a few minutes for it to open. I felt vulnerable in the dark hallway. Like someone could come any minute and see us. Though why it mattered, I didn’t know.
Gabe opened the door and silently ushered us in.
Seiran sat curled up in the middle of the bed, wrapped in a pile of blankets, looking pale and shaky.
I stripped out of all my snow things, leaving them in a heap on the floor, and shoved myself under those blankets too, feeling my own shiver start. Damn. Was this what he felt? The never-ending cycle of power that kept pulsing through the storm? No wonder he had a severe anxiety disorder.
Sei smiled at me and practically crawled in my lap for warmth. The kerosene lantern gave us light at least.
“When did the power go out?” Jamie asked while he took off his gear.
“Late last night.” Gabe glanced back at Sei. “Shortly after Seiran was poisoned.”
“What?” Jamie demanded. His eyes went to me and then to Gabriel before falling on his little brother.
“I got it out of his system. But we can’t trust anything that’s in the kitchen.”
“I’m so hungry,” Sei whispered to me. “Threw up all the bad. Now I’ve got a grumbling tummy.”
Jamie threw the bag of supplies on the bed and pulled out a half a loaf of bread and some jerky. “Eat. It’s safe. I promise.”
We shared the supplies, rationing things from what we’d stolen from the ranger’s station. Jamie filled Gabe in on our trip and the dead rangers. “You should take one of the sleds and head to the station in Canada,” I told them.
“This whole thing feels like an elaborate trap.” Gabe paced the room. Seiran rested his head on my shoulder and just watched his lover like it was lulling him to sleep.
“Why would you say that?” I asked. “The trip was my idea.” Though Gabe had chosen the location, lodge, and means of travel. Were they still blaming me?
“I got an e-mail about this lodge just before we started making plans. I liked the distance from the rest of the world. I thought it would be good for Sei to get away from everything. Never thought it’d be the death of us all.” Gabe ran his hands through his hair, making the curls fly in crazy directions.
“We’ll be okay.” Seiran smiled like nothing in the world could bother him.
“Did you get a little nookie before we got here?” I whispered to him.
He gave me a dimpled smile and a slight blush. “Gabe tried to distract me from my rumbling tummy.”
“Let’s check the garage for more gas,” Jamie said to Gabe.
Gabe looked back at us. “Don’t leave the room, and don’t answer the door.”
“Got it,” I mumbled, happy now that I was warm and full.
“I’m good.” Seiran grinned at them.
The two he-men left, and I basked in the quiet time away from the storm with the guy I considered my best friend.

O
UR
march to the garage was a quiet one. Gabe said nothing, but I could feel his eyes boring into me. Could he tell that I was a pervert? That I’d had sex with a man almost fourteen years my junior? But that moment in the cabin, there had been no other option. I had to touch him and watch the pleasure cross his face.

I’d tromped through the snow as fast as I could, praying the whole way that Kelly would make it, that he’d be alive. The smoke from the chimney had been the first indicator. If I hadn’t been afraid of the tears freezing on my face, I would have cried. And then when he told me in earnest how he had to save our family, that he would rather be hurt than have any of us go through the pain again, I could hardly breathe. Not touching him would have killed me.