The Lair (8 page)

“Are you here to kill my daddy?” she asked.

It took me a heartbeat to realize she was talking to me. The haze of my rage was clearing along with my ears.

But Lily had been shot. I could still see her crumpled body lying on the stairs. Blood still stained her lips, which meant internal bleeding. Which usually meant death, even in the Before, in a world with ER surgeons and ambulances.

If I told this girl yes, would she shoot me?

But even I wasn’t enough of an asshole to force a little girl to execute me.

“No,” I said.

I glanced down at the other man, who was only now starting to sit up. With his legs stretched out in front of him, he rubbed his hand over his stubble-covered jaw. He glanced down at the blood on his hand.

The oldest of the boys wiped his palm on the leg of his jeans and said, “Now Danielle, you hand that shotgun over to me before someone gets hurt.”

But the girl just narrowed her eyes. When she spoke her voice was strong, but small. “I’m not putting the gun down until you go get Dawn so she can tend to Lily.”

Wait. Tend to Lily? Was she still alive? I kept my gaze pinned on her chest until I saw it rise and fall. I surged forward toward the stairs, but the guys holding me tightened their grips and I couldn’t break free.

“Danielle, you are going to be in a mountain of trouble,” her father muttered at her. He started to walk toward her, but she shifted the gun.

“Not you, Daddy, him. I’m sorry, but I know if I let any of you out of my sight, you’ll just go grab more guns and we’ll be back in trouble again.” She shifted her gaze to me. “Walk over here and set your gun down halfway between us. Then go out back to the bunker and find my sister, Dawn. And—”

“Danielle, you can’t tell him—”

“Daddy, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let her bleed out because you’re being stubborn and mean. Besides, she said they can help us. What if they can? What if you just shot the only lady who can help us?”

I had no idea what fairy tales Lily had told this girl. But it didn’t take a genius to know that we couldn’t help her. If she was going to send me to get help for Lily, I damn sure wasn’t going to tell her she was wrong.

Slowly, begrudgingly, Danielle’s father nodded. Somehow, when he looked at his daughter, his gaze full of equal parts exasperation and love, he looked less like a psychopath and more like a man who would do anything to protect his family. I couldn’t hate him for that. But if Lily died, I would damn sure kill him for it.

CHAPTER NINE

Mel

My nursery rhymes rhyme less than they used to.

I can feel myself changing. The Mel I was is nearly lost to memory. The Mel I am now is becoming lost
in
memories. They are all I have left of myself. I have too much time to heal, even as my body changes. I sleep endlessly, except for when I’m feeding, though Sebastian still doesn’t let me feed or hunt. He keeps me locked away, safe as a newborn kitten. He feeds me the blood of Ticks he hunts alone. I am as dependent on him as I ever was on Lily.

Lily, Lily. My sister, myself. The thousand stings of sisterhood don’t sting any less. Her betrayal is a flash of alcohol skimming across the surface of my vampire newness. I cannot think of her without resenting the choice she made for me when I was too weak to make it for myself. So instead I linger on other memories.

We had a cat named Trickster when I was little. A real prince of Siam. Trickster’s favorite trick was catching bunnies in the yard. He gifted us each spring. Their blood on our welcome mat chilled my blood colder than April.

I’d screamed for hours after that first Thumper.

Lily puked. Mom shoveled. Dad babbled. He babbled a lot. Even my screams didn’t block the echo of Thumper’s dying thumpity, thumpity. Tiny hearts beat fast, and I can’t forget the glazed-eyed horror on Thumper’s face. Or the praise Trickster thought he’d earned.

Even the fiercest killer kills for love as well as food. Not just the love of food, but the love of sharing.

How now could I drink like that?

Dr. Seuss’s Brown Cow never prepared me for that How.

Other hows haunt me as well. How do we forgive the people we love? How can I forgive Lily for her betrayal? I gave her a gift greater than any of Trickster’s Thumpers. I gave her the gift of my life and she turned that gift on me. She turned me just as much as Sebastian did. I learned to forgive Trickster. Can I learn to forgive Lily now that I’m a trickster myself?

I still loved Trickster after Thumper number one. And learned to close my screams each spring and to let Lily leave the house first in the morning. There were other Thumpers, I know, but the Trickster’s lullaby purr and steady heartbeat lulled my senses and let me forget.

It’s easy to forgive a predator. As long as we’re not the prey.

CHAPTER TEN

Lily

Lily woke up slowly, lingering in that odd, half sleep where she didn’t know where she was. Her mind befuddled by fuzz and too-real dreams, which she drifted in and out of.

Then, suddenly, she was awake. Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit up, but pain lashed through her, seeming to hit from everywhere at once. She groaned without meaning to.

Her head ached, but even worse was the agony throbbing through her shoulder. Every heartbeat seemed to pump more pain throughout her body.

Where was she?

And why the hell did she feel like someone had beaten the crap out of her?

Wherever she was, it was nearly pitch-black. She tried to rise again, blowing out a slow breath to manage the pain, but before she could sit up, a hand touched her right shoulder, pressing her back.

“Lie back,” a female voice murmured.

“Who,” Lily croaked, her throat so parched, even just that one word barely made it out.

“I’m Dawn Armadale. This is our house.”

“Wh . . .” She tried again to ask where she was.

“Water? Would you like some water?”

Before Lily could answer, the woman disappeared only to return a moment later with a plastic cup that had a straw sticking out.

“Can you turn your head?” she asked.

Lily nodded and the action sent a new burst of pain radiating through her shoulder. Rather than try to talk, she focused on turning her head enough for Dawn to slip the straw between her lips. It was cool, but had the funny aftertaste of the chlorine they’d used to sterilize it. She’d gotten used to the taste now, but she still wrinkled her nose against the smell of bleach.

Her head pounded, like her brain was suddenly too big for her skull. Despite that, her eyes were starting to adjust to the dark as she looked around. The room was roughly semicircular, with the walls sloping up toward the ceiling. There were two sets of bunk beds crowding the space, and when she looked straight up, she realized she must be lying on the bottom bunk of another set. The woman beside her was sitting on a stool. She wore a simple T-shirt and jeans with her hair pulled up into a ponytail on the back of her head. Without more light, it was impossible to guess her age, but there was something familiar about her face. Something about the set of her wide eyes.

“Where . . .” Again she couldn’t get out another word and Dawn raised the bottle to her lips.

“We brought you down to the bunker. We haven’t seen Ticks around here for a couple of months, but after you got shot, we all thought it was best to get out of the open. No point in luring them here, right?” She reached down and pulled out a flashlight. “I cleaned your arm and stitched you up while you were still out. Now that you’re awake, I need to check your pupils and ask a few questions, okay? If it seems like you don’t have a concussion, then I can give you a shot for the pain.”

That was all the warning she gave Lily before flicking the flashlight on. Lily automatically cringed away from the light, but Dawn held open her eyelids, then moved the light from one eye to the other and back again.

The light made her head throb even more, but it gave her something to think about besides her damn shoulder. As she breathed slowly and didn’t move, she could disconnect from the pain. Manage it. Sort of.

“Do you remember what happened?” Dawn asked. “Do you have any confusion?”

Lily frowned. She didn’t remember exactly what happened. Which was odd. Bits of the food raid came back to her, but nothing solid. The question marks in her mind made her twitchy. She swallowed and found that she could talk now that her tongue had rehydrated. “I don’t know where the hell I am or what’s going on. That confused enough for you?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Your pupils are responding. I think you’ll have a nasty bump on your head, but no concussion.”

With that, Dawn stood. She set the light on the edge of the bed, but didn’t turn it off. She moved around the tiny room as she started talking. “You’re in our bunker. My father shot you. Since you were looting our stuff, you can’t blame him.”

Suddenly the events of the morning came rushing back to her. Holy crap.

She tried to sit up again, this time ignoring the burst of pain in her arm. The sudden movement made her head spin and her gut churn, but she shoved aside the sensation and swung her feet over the side of the bed. She wasn’t wearing her own clothes. At least not her jacket anyway. She had on a green hoodie, which was zipped up only partially so her wounded arm hung out. She kept her left arm tucked close to her side and her head ducked because of the upper bunk. “What happened after I went down?” She clutched at Dawn’s arm. “What happened to the others? Is Jacks okay? What about Stu?” For an instant, she thought her heart might actually have stopped beating. “Carter? Is he all right?”

Dawn gave her a reassuring smile. “Slow down. And calm down. Panic isn’t going to help you heal.”

She forced herself to speak slowly. Not because she gave a damn about whether or not her gunshot wound healed, but to appease Dawn. “Are they okay?”

Was he okay?

Carter wasn’t in here being treated, which either meant he didn’t need medical attention or was past the point of needing it.

“I don’t know everyone’s names, but the two guys you were with are both embarrassed that a man in his fifties was able to take them out without a sound. They’ll get over it. As for the guy who came to rescue you . . .”

“Carter.”

She shook her head, smiling ruefully. “After you fell on the stairs, he kind of lost it. It took three of my brothers to pull him off my father. And he didn’t calm down until I showed up to check you over and promised him you were okay.”

“Oh.” Lily breathed out a sigh of relief, but her heart was still racing. She didn’t think a straight-up hit of oxygen would calm her down.

“And he’s okay now?” she asked again.

“Yeah.” Dawn nodded and she set the flashlight down on a small chest beside the beds. She pointed the light up toward the ceiling so it cast enough of a glow for Lily to see more of the room. “Things calmed down once I showed up. The two guys you showed up with headed back up the mountain as soon as they came to. But your guy—Carter?—was going to wait for you to get stitched up. My brother Darren offered to drive you back up the mountain but Carter said he’d wait. That’s Darren for you. He’s been itching to get out of town for months now. To see what else is out there, but Dad won’t let him.”

“I know this probably shouldn’t matter, but what happened to my clothes?”

Dawn cringed. “I had to cut your shirt off of you. Saved the jacket, though. You should be able to patch the . . . um . . .” She gestured toward the spot on her own bicep where Lily had been shot.

Lily nodded. Well, at least there was that. She really liked that jacket.

“Your backpack is by the door. I hope you don’t mind, but I kept my stuff that you were stealing.”

Dawn’s voice was sarcastic, but not hard-edged.

Yeah, she should probably be glad Dawn wasn’t being more of a bitch about the whole stealing thing, but really all Lily could do was shake her head at the irony. After all this, she hadn’t even been able to bring home the one thing she’d come for. She’d come here hoping to solve one small problem and instead she’d created a huge one.

“Sorry,” she said to Dawn. “About everything.”

Dawn shrugged. “Hey, no hard feelings. Just don’t be surprised if my dad isn’t as forgiving.”

While Dawn continued to fiddle with the medical supplies, Lily’s mind flooded with questions. Before she could stop herself, they poured out. “So your whole family made it? How many are there of you?”

“We’ve been lucky.” Dawn moved as she talked. She had a storage box, sort of like a tackle box that a fisherman might use. Instead of lures and hooks, Dawn’s was full of medical supplies. Like a first-aid kit on steroids. She opened one compartment after another, looking for things and pulling out what she found. “I was back from school when the first outbreak hit. Darren, too. Of course, Dad’s been preparing for this kind of thing for years. As soon as the virus hit Utah, we moved into the shelter. You met Danielle, who should know better than to play in the house by herself. Then there’s Darren, Derek, and Dex. Donald, my eldest brother, was on mission in Colombia when it hit.” She shrugged, and Lily didn’t press her for more information. “But there are a couple more of us now. Micah and Noah moved in early on. They’re twins who played soccer with Dex and lived up in Logan. Logan got hit pretty hard.”

“Yeah, I know.” Logan was just north of here. It was closer to Base Camp so they’d done a lot of food raids there. In fact, they’d about picked the town clean. Almost all the supplies they had had come from Logan and they hadn’t seen any sign that people had survived at all.

“Are there more families here in town?”

Dawn slanted Lily an odd look as she ripped open an alcohol pad and swiped at a spot on Lily’s arm. “Yeah. Of course. It helps that we’re up in the mountains. Ticks don’t seem to like it up here.”

“How many people live here?”

“Oh, close to two thousand.”

“Wow,” Lily murmured, hardly knowing what to say. Then she winced when Dawn jabbed a needle into her arm. “What the—”