Tribe (Tribe 1) (3 page)

I
hurried
down the hallway and into the main hall. Scanning the room, I spied Jenna talking with the same boy—though they’d meandered over to a darker corner—leaning toward each other in a tête-à-tête. I scurried over, trying to breathe through my nose, keeping my eyes downward.

The scent of their blood was intoxicating.

“Jenna, I need to go.”

She looked up at me, surprised. “The dinner part hasn’t even started yet.”

“It’s…uh…an emergency. Seriously. I need to go.”

Irritation flashed over her face. “You know how important this is to my parents—”

“Yes! And I came, and I paid, and so did you, and we helped set up, and you can be back in time for the clean up, but I
really
need to
go!”

Jenna smiled apologetically at the boy, then shot up out of her seat and took me by the shoulder, dragging me several feet away. “What is your problem—?” she began. But once we were standing under the lights, she saw my face. “Whoa! What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”

I nodded, feeling the sweat beading up on my brow. “I’m not kidding, Jenna, you need to get me home.”

“Maybe we should go to the bathroom, you look like you’re ready to throw up.”

“No, I just…it’s…uh…my blood sugar.”

“You’re
diabetic?”
Jenna’s mouth dropped open. “You never said anything to me about that!”

“I know. Now let’s go.” I grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Wait, they’re serving up the food now. You can eat, and stabilize your blood sugar…”

“No!” I snapped, a little too loud. Nearby, two old ladies gave us the stink-eye. “I mean…my blood sugar is too high, not too low. And I don’t have any insulin here.”

“Maybe someone else here has some—it’s forty minutes back to your house, Ember. That’s a long time to wait, if you’re that sick.”

“It’s not like that. I can’t just use someone else’s insulin and needles. I have one of those pens that doles out metered doses. I don’t even remember the amount. It’s been a while since I needed it this bad.”

“Then we should get you to Sacred Heart. Or Deaconess. They’re only a couple of miles from here—”

“It’s not
that
bad. Look, Jenna, trust me—” I grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to ignore the heady aroma of the blood coursing through her carotid, “I’ve been dealing with this a long time. You know my health is the
one
thing that my mom is batty about. You bring me to an emergency room and cost us a bunch of money in insurance co-pays just because I didn’t have insulin with me, and next thing you know, my mom is as strict with me about
everything
as yours is with you.”

“Eeesh! Okay. Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I am.” I let go of her as I felt my hands trembling. “Let’s go.”

After a few words with her new guy pal, Jenna grabbed her purse and led me out to the car. I fought to maintain control as I passed by the people sitting down to eat. I didn’t see Alex as we left—I kept my eyes down, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. When we got to the car, it was sweet relief to collapse in the back seat.

“You don’t want to sit in the front so you can recline the seat?”

“Just drive,” I snapped, turning my face away to inhale the smell of the leather seats. But it didn’t drown out the smell of her blood.

I’d overestimated how much the kitchen worker’s blood had helped. It wasn’t enough. But it was too late to go back. I just had to hold on.

“Okay, already. Geez, you’re kind of a bitch when you need insulin.”

I will not kill my best friend…I will not kill my best friend…

T
he dinging
of the warning bell rang loudly as the railroad barriers slowly descended.

No! I’ll never make it.
“Go around, Jenna! Go around!”

“That’s illegal! What if there’s a cop nearby?” She twisted around, looking to see if there were any cruisers parked in the black shadows.

“There are no buildings out here, where would they hide? Go! That freight train could be fifty or a hundred cars long!” I knew from experience that a long freight train could take ten minutes to pass by. My hand itched to grab her throat, to feel its throbbing pulse beneath my fingers…

“If you’re
that
bad—” she glanced over her shoulder.

“We’re closer to home than any hospital now,
just GO!”

The bright lights of the train bore down on us as Jenna hesitated, then gunned the engine. It was a wide, four-lane road, empty of any cars, and the double set of train tracks meant that the barriers were a good thirty feet apart—plenty of room to dodge easily around them. The train blared its horn as it barreled toward us. The engine brakes squealed as the driver of the train realized there was a car on the tracks. The train was close enough that I could feel the sudden terror of the driver as he realized there was no time to stop.

Jenna cleared the first barrier, pealing diagonally across the tracks to get back into the proper lane and avoid the second barrier on the opposite side. Light filled the car from the train’s lamps. For one horrific moment, the insatiable hunger was forgotten and I felt fragile and small…

And very mortal.

The train screeched just a few feet behind our bumper, and its horn continued to blare for several seconds after, making the irate driver’s feelings all too clear to anyone who couldn’t sense his emotions.

The car screeched to a stop at the corner of Pleasant View and Highway 53. Jenna’s breathing was shaky, and her heart pounded in her chest. She glared back at me, but something in my eyes made her turn and face forward. She didn’t look back for the rest of the trip.

I panted, gritting my teeth as pain wracked my body. Halfway up the winding mountain road that led to my home, I arched backward in pain, lifting up off the seat, trying desperately to hold back the torturous groans that wanted to break free. I’d never felt such pain in my life. Over and over again, I was on the verge of leaping over the seat, thinking about the warm, salty spray of Jenna’s blood in my mouth…

“We’re here.”

“Huh?” I looked toward the side window, above my feet, and recognized the tops of familiar trees. We were parked in front of my house.

“I’ll come around and help you out,” Jenna said as she undid her seatbelt.

“No!” I gasped. “Just get my mom.”

“I don’t mind—”

“Jenna, get my mom. Now.
Run!”

I
was
about to lash out and reach for Jenna when she opened the driver door and hurried out—not knowing how close she’d been to becoming a victim of my lust.

I shifted in the seat, pushing myself up just enough to see her scurrying up the front steps of our cabin. My mother opened the door before Jenna got there—she’d sensed something was wrong.

“Ember’s blood sugar is low,” I heard Jenna say.

“What? What do you—?” I could feel her mind spinning, then it clicked into place, and I saw her head—in shadow, backlit by the light inside the house—turn toward the car.
“What have you done?”
came her whisper, quiet enough that only I could hear it. “Jenna, how…how is she?”

I could feel the worry, the fear, mounting within my mother, and I was in no shape to block it out. It only added to my frenzy. I screamed out in agony, unable to control it anymore. “Mommm!” I cried. I almost didn’t want her to respond. Her blood called out to me, tantalizing me, even from so far away.

“John! River! I need you,” she called. “Jenna, sit right over there on the porch swing, and do not move. Do you hear?”

“I—I’m sorry, Mrs. Perry. I didn’t even know she was diabetic. I should have brought her to the hospital—”

“No! You did exactly the right thing. You just wait here. I’m sure Ember doesn’t want you to see her this way.”

Mom ran toward the car, pulling open the door at my feet. Dad and my brother, River, were right behind her—it took only seconds for them to realize what was happening.

“Bloodlust?” River whispered, paling in shock as he peered over my mother’s shoulder as she climbed in. “Ember, no!”

“Get out,” I moaned. “It’s too late. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“No, no it’s not, honey.” My mom pushed my legs aside, and leaned forward, taking my face in her hands.

I growled, the feral sound erupting from deep inside, where pain ravaged me.

“Look at me, Ember.”

I avoided her gaze, focusing instead on the pulse in her neck.

“Ember Sage Perry,
look at me!”

My eyes snapped up, focusing on hers.

“That’s it. Listen to me.” Her voice was soft. Melodic. The way she sounded when she was mesmerizing an unwitting blood donor. “We’re going to help you out of the car. You’re going to be able to walk, and you’re going to look down at the ground. You’ll breathe through your mouth, and you’ll remain in complete control the entire time. You can do it. I trust you.”

A mewling sound escaped my lips, but my eyes never left hers.

“You
can
do it. Do you hear me?”

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I nodded.

Mom moved to the side, helping me sit up farther, and Dad gathered me in his arms and helped me out of the car.

“River, handle Jenna,” Mom whispered.

My brother nodded and went ahead of us to stay near Jenna and keep her from approaching.

“Here we go, Ember,” Mom said brightly, for Jenna’s benefit. “We’ll get you inside, get your insulin, and you’ll be as good as new.”

“I didn’t even know she was diabetic,” I heard Jenna whisper to River.

“She doesn’t like to talk about it. She just wants to feel normal, and not be treated like an invalid.”

“I should have brought her to the hospital. I’ve never heard of a diabetic acting this way.”

“Nah, this has happened before.” River feigned nonchalance as my parents supported me on either side and helped me to the steps. “Once she gets insulin in her, she’ll be fine. Mom would go ballistic if Ember went to the emergency room just because she forgot her insulin. The co-pays for a non-emergent ER visit are crazy.”

“That’s what Ember said. Otherwise, I’d have made her go.”

I stumbled up the steps, guided by my parents. Once they had me inside, they brought me over to the couch and helped me lay down. Another spasm of pain rocked me, and I gasped.

Dad watched over me while mom disappeared. I knew she was going for the stash in the locked mini-fridge in her bedroom closet.

“River, why don’t you walk Jenna to her car?” Dad called.

“Sure thing,” he responded. I heard him reassuring Jenna the entire way. She wanted to stay and make sure I was alright, but it was out of the question. If my parents couldn’t get things under control, Jenna needed to be as far away as possible.

Mom returned with a plastic bin full of blood bags just as River shut the door. I heard the snick of the lock behind him.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Mom railed.

“Shanti, now isn’t the time,” Dad interrupted.

“Fine. But we
will
talk about this, Ember.” She pulled a small pair of scissors from the bin and snipped the transfusion port off the bag.

I lunged for it, sucking greedily, blood trickling down my chin.

“Don’t waste it!” she urged. “I don’t know if we have enough.”

I swallowed as fast as I could, the bag shrinking up and flattening until it shriveled in my hands. When I’d gotten every drop I could from it, I tossed it aside, licking my lips. “More,” I gasped.

She handed me another.

And another.

I tried not to think of how many people I would have murdered to slake my insatiable thirst. I knew that when a Healer went berserk, they might drink only a few gulps from one person before gleefully attacking another, leaving dozens in their wake. I glanced up between blood bags to see my family exchanging concerned looks, and I knew they were imagining the same terrible scenario, and how things easily could have gone sideways.

The blood was cold, with a gross, slimy feel as it slid down my throat. Fresh blood was so much more delicious, but we were forbidden to feed on a live person unless our parents were with us and circumstances dictated such an extreme measure. Mom would be pissed when she found out about the kitchen manager.

Part of me would have given anything at that moment—
anything
, even my family—to taste the warm coppery flavor of fresh blood. But the good part—the tiny, reasonable part of me that remained—just held on, waiting for the bagged blood to ease the lust.

The hunger receded slowly as I consumed bag after bag. The heady rush of the blood made me feel giddy. I finished all but one of the blood bags in Mom’s emergency stash, and she shook her head as she gathered the trash and mumbled about having to pollute the environment by burning so much plastic, especially all at once.

River got a damp cloth and cleaned up the spatters of blood, while Dad knelt beside me.

“How are you feeling, kiddo?”

I leaned back on the couch, closing my eyes. I knew I was in for it, but the sweet delight of new blood leaching throughout my system overpowered any fear or guilt I should be feeling. Instead, I couldn’t stop the Cheshire-cat-grin that spread across my face. “Mmmm, much better, Dad.”

I could feel my brother watching me. “What happened, Ember?” he asked.

“River, don’t,” Dad warned. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Why don’t you head up to bed?”

“Bed? It’s only nine o’clock!”

“This doesn’t concern you. Now go on.”

“Doesn’t concern me? She almost
ate
her best friend! You said yourself, when we pull a stunt like that, it jeopardizes the whole family.”

“River. Now.” Dad’s sharp tone must have made River think twice about further debate. Mom and Dad didn’t get angry often, so when they did, it was a bit of a shock to our systems.

I heard River’s footsteps as he went up to his room. I was glad he was gone—I didn’t need another person staring at me like I was a criminal. I was just glad my sister Meadow was living at college now, in Coeur d’Alene, because she would have given me more of an earful than Mom and Dad.

Dad left me, to go talk to Mom in the kitchen. I could have listened in on their whispered voices, but I was too groggy and full to care.

I rolled over and curled up on the couch. The high was beginning to fade now. It didn’t last very long when the blood wasn’t fresh. It wasn’t a drug type of high, like you’d get on “speed”. Just a dreamy, peaceful buzz, but with heightened alertness. If the blood came from a live donor, you’d also take on some of their emotions for a while. That didn’t usually happen with cold blood—over time, as it sat in storage, the emotions would dissipate. It left sort of an empty feeling when you consumed it—as if you can tell some element of the blood is missing. Like it or not, we all enjoyed feeding from a live host, rather than a blood bag, for that reason. Which only made us feel guiltier, when it was necessary.

“Is the guilt starting to kill your buzz?”

I cocked my head and opened one eye to see River standing over me, arms folded across his chest.
Ugh. Stupid Healer empathy.
If I didn’t put up some kind of shield, it was almost like advertising my thoughts.

I nestled deeper into the couch. “Go away, River.”

“I’m part of this family, too,” he whispered, crouching down beside me. “I have a life here. Why do you always have to go around doing stupid stuff that could get us all locked up in some government lab somewhere?”

“What do you mean, ‘always’?” I mumbled with a sigh. “I’ve only done it once before. If I waited for permission, I’d never heal anyone.”

“We’re not
supposed
to heal anyone completely,” he hissed. “You know that.”

“What’s the point of having abilities if you can’t ever use them? If I can’t heal, then healing isn’t a gift. It’s a curse.”

“Don’t let Mom hear you say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.” I crossed my arms and flopped back on the sofa. “And look what happens when we
do
cure someone—we put other people at risk. It’s not fair.”

“Well if you did it the
right
way, you wouldn’t have gone into bloodlust.”

“That’s a cop out, and you know it. Mom would never let me do it the ‘right’ way. She doesn’t want me to cure anyone at all.”

“She’s protecting the family.”

“Yeah, but what kind of people does that make us?” I sat up, looking River in the eye. “If we hide in the shadows, when we have the ability to save lives, doesn’t that make us cowards?”

River shifted his gaze away, picking at the seam of his jeans. “It just means we want to survive. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” I sighed. “I just…I hate this. I feel so powerless. If I don’t heal people, then I feel like a selfish coward. But if I do? I’m putting the lives of everyone else around me in jeopardy. I end up feeling like a monster.”

“You’re not a monster. None of us are. It’s not our fault that we crave blood after a major healing, any more that it’s our fault that we crave a burger when our stomachs are empty. We just choose the more humane path, and feed off blood bags after healing, just like we choose to be vegetarian rather than chow down on a burger.”

“Which is fine, except Mom never wants to let us do it at all—proper way, or not. She does it herself at the hospital, but you and I aren’t allowed to heal anything more than the flu. So yeah, maybe I screwed up. But I just feel like…I don’t know…like sometimes I
need
to heal.”

River stared at me in horror. “You aren’t saying you
like
feeding on people, are you?”

“No!” I snapped, annoyed with his assumption. Yet I knew that wasn’t a completely honest answer. “I mean, I don’t want to hurt people, but if I go into bloodlust, I’m not exactly thinking straight. It’s like I shift into this primal survival mode. So…yeah, as much as I hate to admit it,
in the moment
, when I’m in bloodlust, I enjoy feeding. But outside of that,
no
, absolutely not. I don’t go around wanting to feed on people. I want to help them.”

River sighed. “If this is what growing up means, I’d almost rather stay a kid. I mean, I want to drive a car, get out of the house more, and all that. But the urge to risk everything in order to heal? That I can live without.”

“Believe me, sometimes I wish I was still a kid. I remember when healing a friend’s cold, or my own skinned knee, was thrill enough for me. It seems to me that if my body is going through these changes, and it’s making me
want
to heal this much, then shouldn’t I listen to it? Shouldn’t I start transitioning into healing more serious illnesses?”

“You know what they say about that.”

“Yeah, blah blah blah, it’s like sex, just because you hit puberty and have the drive to do it, doesn’t mean you’re supposed to go out and have sex like crazy.”

“If you ask me, I think that’s just what parents say, so you don’t do what they did as teenagers.”

“Eew, River!” I whispered. “Can you please avoid putting images of our parents having sex in my mind? Gross!”

“Oh great, now
I’m
thinking about it. Thanks a lot.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. He glanced up toward the kitchen. “I think they’re winding down. I’d better go. Hope you’ve thought of a way to talk yourself out of this one.”

“I wish,” I whispered to his retreating back as he hopped up and crept upstairs.