The Frenzy Series (Book 2): Frantic (12 page)

Her hair was glossy, dark, and smooth. It hung long over her shoulders like a curtain of silk. Her skin was the same, not paled at all, and her eyes…God, how I missed them. Streaks of green mixed with dark and pale gray, bursting from the center.

“Saul? You aren’t supposed to be here.” She stepped backward and hid behind the night-walker.
Does she not want me here?
I pushed that thought as far down as it would go. She was still my Porschia and deep down, I knew she wanted to see me as much as I needed to see her. That alone was a gift. She was okay. Better than okay, by the way it looked. Another thing I tried to shove down? Jealousy. Green as moss in spring time. Her hand in his. It was wrong. My hand should be the only one holding hers.

Mary, Tim, and Victor were present and very angry. “Hey,” I said with a nod. They nodded and Mary’s eyes questioned me.
Did you know
? I moved toward their group. Apparently I had no poker face. She clenched her jaw after reading my answer.

Victor ticked his head toward Porschia. “How long?”

“A few days.”

“Did they turn her?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, she used the ring. She tried to stop someone from crossing the river bank and an Infected attacked her. She had no other choice.” I didn’t tell them that it was my fault she used the ring. I screamed at her and told her to use it; to turn. To change. I did this, and yet she was the one who would pay. She would pay for that mistake for an eternity, but her wasting away as an Infected was an even worse option. I wouldn’t have survived it.

Victor huffed. “You were there?”

“Yes.”

I looked at her. She wore dark jeans that hugged her every curve, a baby blue sweater, and her dark hair was braided at the nape of her neck like she used to wear it. Her skin was luminous and she almost seemed to glow from within, almost ethereal. She seemed more alive than she ever had. Her sister wasn’t as fortunate.

Porschia’s cheeks flushed and she stared at me, her eyes darkening somehow. I blinked. Did I just imagine it?

Roman stepped forward. “Thank you for coming. I know you have a celebration to attend, so we won’t keep you.”

Tim nodded toward Porschia. “Is she feeding tonight?”

“No.”

I looked to her for confirmation and she smiled and shook her head slightly. Did she already feed from something, or someone? I needed to talk to her. Roman paired with Victor, Dara with Tim, and Tage with Mary, who looked scared and pissed all at once. No love lost between those two. But Tim and Victor were obviously not happy about being there either. What did the Elders do to persuade them to return?

I walked over to Porschia. “You okay?”

She took a step back, putting an uncomfortable amount of distance between us. If my discomfort made her feel better, so be it. “I’m fine,” she whispered, glancing at Tage, who was feeding from Mary’s neck. He kept his eyes trained on her, too.

“Why are you looking at him like that?” My face heated. I wanted to pummel him.

“He’s helping me.” She shifted her feet like she was ready to run away.

“He claimed you – is that it? That bond that makes you think only
he
can help you?”

Her mouth parted. “It’s not like that, Saul.” Her eyes sought him, and then she looked toward the night-walker dwellings.

“What’s it like then? Do you like him the way you like me?

“God, no,” she breathed. “I love you, Saul. But I can’t...I feel like I’ll lose control when you’re around. My emotions are all over the board.” The more she spoke, the higher pitched her voice became. She panted, stepping back gracefully, but moving as if her legs were too heavy to lift at all.

Tage licked Mary’s wounds and was beside Porschia in an instant. His hand was on her back, rubbing circles. Roman was quick to follow, leaving Victor on the bench. The pair of vamps flanked her. With them at either side, Porschia began to visibly calm down.

“Are you doing something to her?” I growled.

Tage looked at me. “Do you want her to feel normal, to feel like Porschia again?”

“Of course.”

“She
cannot
control herself. We have to help, or she’ll do one of two things. One, she’ll run away, because that’s what she does. Or two, she’ll lose control and hurt someone. The more her emotions are heightened, the more dangerous she is. We have to help her, Saul.”

I swallowed.
Fuck
. I knew they had to help, but also hated that she seemed to need them so much. The question was hanging in my mind. If they had the power to make her calm down, could they make her do other things as well?

Dara stared between Porschia and me, a scowl on her face. She hated Porschia. I didn’t think Dara gave Porschia a second thought when she was still human, but now, her envious expression mirrored mine. Envy was a dangerous thing. Memories of Dara eating the deer during the hunt flooded my mind. Dara was dangerous.

They all were. Roman, Dara, Porschia, and especially Tage. He was closest to Porschia, had bonded to her.

Dara sauntered over to me. “Let me know if you need more help in the forest. I loved spending time with you,” she said, raking her nails over my forearm.

A low growl came from Porschia, which made me smile for the first time since she’d turned. When I looked in her direction, her fangs were bared and her eyes were dark again, almost black. I took a step back, silencing my girl. Turning toward Dara, I offered, “Thanks anyway, but Porschia’s doing better. Maybe
she
can help me next time.” Winking at Porschia, I grinned and walked over to the huddle of humans at the edge of the square, throwing back over my shoulder, “You’re doing good, Porsch.”

She smiled and nodded slightly.

Victor’s voice sliced through the air, again separating us from them. “We need to get to the feast.”

Everything in me, my feet, eyes and hands, wanted to stay, even if only to watch her walk away and disappear into the darkness. One more glimpse. But Victor stormed off and Tim and Mary made sure that I followed.

Mary muttered, “You’re going to get yourself killed, Saul.”

The Fellowship Hall was situated behind Town Hall, and a breezeway, once covered with a metal archway, connected the two buildings. What was left of it looked skeletal, metal beams attached to shriveled rusted sheets or none at all. Some of them had been stripped away during wind storms over the years.

The din of laughter and two hundred people talking seeped out of the old building. It was hollow, just one large room. Tables lined one of the walls, stuffed with all sorts of food. Mom and Dad waved me over to where they stood.

“You okay, son?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. The others showed up. We should be good.” He wasn’t surprised by that fact.
What did he know?

“What about
her
?”

“She was there. She’s doing remarkably well.”
With help from two vamps I am growing to hate.

Mom slid an arm around my back. At five foot-two, she was on the short side. “No one knows.”

“They will. The others saw her,” I whispered.

I could feel her arm tense behind me. I felt the same way.

Walking away and leaving him at the edge of the square was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Bloody tears poured from my eyes and my chest heaved. Sobbing, I found myself wrapped up in Tage’s arms as we sat on the front steps of Roman’s house. Not surprisingly, Roman and Dara had scattered like cockroaches blinded by light.

“I can’t be with him.”

Tage shushed me gently, but kept his arm around my shoulders and waited patiently as my feelings ebbed and flowed. “No, you can’t,” he answered. “Not like you were planning to before.”

“We were going to get married, I think.”

“I know,” Tage rasped as we sat in silence and the darkness wrapped itself around us. “And it’ll never get easier. That kind of hurt is deep. Love doesn’t just stop. But no, you can’t be with him. He’s human, you aren’t. It’s that simple.”

I sniffed. “It sounds like you lost someone, too.”

His arm tensed on my shoulders. “I did.”

“Were you going to marry her?”

Tage groaned. “I don’t know. Honestly, we weren’t at that point yet when...you know. But I did care for her.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes. I didn’t know it at the time, though. But I feel the loss every day now.”

Thin, silver-lined clouds streaked across the sky, blurring the moon, and that was as good a metaphor as any for how this was going to be. Different things – people, events – might dull the pain for a moment, but it would never go away. Not entirely.

There would always be reminders of my former life, like wounds that were torn open again and again. They would never heal, but I had an eternity to bleed. “This really is a curse. I believe you now.”

“At least we weren’t there at the beginning,” Tage replied, stretching his arms above him.

“What do you mean?”

“They have bible study in the Colony. Did you not attend?”

“If my father made me, I did. But he hasn’t made us for years.”

Tage took a deep breath and began to explain. “In Exodus, regarding the plagues of Egypt. Have you heard of them?”

I stiffened, hugging my legs. “Of course I have.”

“The water ran red for a reason. That is when vampires were first created and unleashed. The first Frenzy took place in Egypt, all because Pharaoh refused to free his slaves. And they had a particular appetite for the blood of the first-born. The flies and gnats, the boils and sores? They created a plague, too. It was the source of the Infection itself. Two curses on the houses of the Egyptians were unleashed, and those curses continue today in one form or another. Night and day. Vampires and Infected.”

“Vamps have always been around, though, right? The Infected haven’t. They’re new.”

Tage shook his head. “Medicine found a way to tamp down the Infection for a long time. There were drugs that would keep it at bay, but it always lurked, dormant. However, curses always find a way. They bubble to the surface, unhappy to be tamped down for long. Throughout history, there were many times it reared its head, killing millions of people at a time.”

“The livestock that died?”

“Drained, and then they rotted, causing more disease,” he supplied.

“My God.”

“Yes.”