Vial Things (A Resurrectionist Novel Book 1) (11 page)

The tips are crimson.

“God, that was close,” Ploy murmurs. “I think he’s dead. Allie, I think I killed him.” He bends down on one knee and checks the man for a pulse. “Oh God, this is so bad.” He’s running the fabric of his shirt over the gun. Getting rid of prints. His face is pale, terrified. He sets the gun down like it’s a diseased thing. “He was going to hurt you. I couldn’t...I....”

I want to tell him it’s okay, but the blood on my fingers proves it’s not.
Shock
, I think numbly.
It must not hurt because I’m in shock.
I catch half a breath before fire rolls through my chest. Okay, not shock after all. On instinct, I press a palm against the wound. I have to stop the bleeding. I have to stay calm and remember not to panic. It hurts so bad.

“Ploy?”

He swings around to look up at me. His face goes ashen when he sees my bloodied fingers. “Where?” he demands. “Where’d it hit you?”

I can’t get my balance. Ploy’s gripping me tight to his side. The hand he mashes against my ribs burns. I’m having trouble keeping my arm slung around his neck. He stumbles under my sudden weight and I realize I’ve fallen. “He’s coming. Jamison,” I cough, staggering to my feet. I wheeze in a deep gasp, but don’t feel like I’m getting any air.
Collapsed lung
, I think absently. “We’ve got to go.”

Stupid
, I think. I should have let Ploy play the hero. I blink and must lose a few seconds because I’m staring down at dirty wooden floorboards, further below me than they should be. My arms hang, limp. They brush Ploy’s back as he carries me over his shoulder. I have to stay conscious. If I don’t, and I die, Ploy will leave me. He won’t know he can help me.

“Talk to me, Allie!”

I manage a moan.

“Hang on.” Frantic, stilted words. He’s afraid.

I’m scared too, terrified to blink again, in case my eyes won’t open. Tiles bounce and blur. The kitchen. Ploy flips me off him. I land hard on the floor, the bullet wound searing. The pain wakes me. “My messenger bag,” I say through gritted teeth as he adjusts me against the wall.

He brushes my hair back and I catch the first glimpse of his raw panic. “What do I do? Tell me what to do!”

I raise a leaden arm and grip the neck of his shirt. “You listen to me and you stay calm.” I dart my eyes down, grateful to find my messenger bag wrapped around me. Using the hold I have on him as leverage, I lean myself forward, off the wall. “Get my bag.”

He yanks it off me and starts to unzip it before I ask.

“Syringe.” My lungs rattle as I suck in air to form the words. “In the kit.” I cough hard. Wet, metallic tang fills my mouth, spills over my lips. I don’t have the strength to wipe it away. The bullet punctured a lung for sure. May have hit an artery. Heart. I don’t have much time.

While he’s digging through the bag, I drop my head to my shoulder, glance down at the wound. It’s too high up on my chest. I’ve got no chance. My blood will heal me, bring me back, but it’ll be too slow. I need foreign blood, something to jumpstart the process.

I need
him
.

He’d lost so much of his own blood when he was stabbed. My cells copied his until his volume was high enough for survival. He’s got a weird mix of the both of us running through his veins. It might be different enough to help me.

Ploy’s opened the box and unwrapped the plastic. He looks up at me expectantly.

“I’m dying,” I start but he cuts me off.

“No.” His fingers grip my cheeks. “You stay with me, Allie. What do I put in the syringe? Your blood?”

“Rubber tie. Your upper arm.” A person can lose about half their blood volume before remaining conscious becomes impossible. How close am I? The puddle under me is spreading. Internally, things have got to be even worse. I feel like I’m drowning. There’s no time. If I pass out before I can give him instructions, he won’t know what to do. “Fill the syringe.”

“Allie…”

I give my head a slight shake. He has to listen. He has to hear me and follow the directions exactly. “
Your
blood. Here,” I say, cringing as I lift my arm to point. “Between the fourth and fifth rib. Into my heart.”

“But I’m not—”

“You can do this, Ploy.” The closest I can get to reaching for him is uncurling my fingers. Still, his hand finds mine, our fingers slick. “Don’t leave me behind.”

He’s shaking his head when my eyes close.

“Don’t leave me,” I say. Death feels like floating. Then nothing.

S
he’s breathing. Even over the sound of my own ragged breaths, I can hear the gurgling rattle that started a few minutes ago. Her head bobbles and I curl my arm tighter. My legs burn. My arms don’t; they’ve been numb for the past ten minutes, every muscle pulled. Allie’s deadweight. Her arm flops lifelessly to the side, but I know it’s not lifeless. Not anymore.

She lied to me. About everything.

The betrayal eats at me as I stumble through the woods. I’d asked her if I could bring people back, too, if I could even heal them and she’d given me a definitive no.
What else is she lying about?
I wonder. I hadn’t thought about it much when I’d scooped her up and taken off from the cabin. At the cabin, I’d had other questions.

Suddenly, she makes a weak gagging noise and I slow.

“Allie?”

She winces at her name but doesn’t answer. My foot catches on a root. I stumble, almost drop her. I have to stop. Lowering her to the ground, I aim for a soft spot on the forest floor. After this, I’ll be happy if I never see woods again.

“Allie? Blink. Say something.” I run my fingers down her cheek. “Please.”

A second later, her eyelids crack apart. “Ouch,” she whispers and a half laugh of relief slips from me before I can stop it. The left side of my face aches dully. “How long?” she asks.

“You’ve been...” Dead doesn’t seem like the right word, though that’s what happened. She’d died there in the kitchen. I’d laid her down on the dirty linoleum and I’d seen her chest rise and fall and stop. I’d watched her eyes roll back in her head and I’d done what she’d said with my blood and the syringe. “You were gone about fifteen minutes. I waited five but I knew if we were trapped there…” I glance around. “I carried you here. We’re in the woods. Again.” My lightest graze against the bullet hole on her ribs brings a pitiful whine from her. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m trying to be gentle. It started bleeding again.”

She gives a weak nod. “Can’t bleed without a heartbeat. Stitching it will help. Do you think you can do that?”

A short, near hysterical laugh bursts from me. “I just shoved a needle into your heart. I’m pretty sure I can jab one through some skin.”

“You brought my bag, right?”

I nod, slipping my pack off my shoulders. Sweat darkens my shirt where the straps dug in, droops across the neckline. “I had to put it in mine.”

“How did you carry me and your pack?”

“I have no idea.” Adrenaline maybe. Knowing Jamison was on his way. Knowing maybe he was right and this whole thing with Allie was a waste of time. Apparently she only gives up her secrets when it’s her life on the line. It’d taken me months to learn this much about what she, and now I guess I, can do. He would have gotten the same amount in an afternoon. I smash down the vicious thoughts.
She
did
trust me
, I remind myself.

Not until she had a bullet through her lung
, a smaller voice argues.

Jamison, however, hadn’t trusted me at all. Who was the guy at the cabin? Could
he
have killed Allie’s aunt? If he did, does Jamison know why, what happened? He must. He was in the house, lit the fire. The confusion, more than anything, had made me scoop Allie into my arms and make a run for it.

Once I’ve got the needle and thread, I pause, not quite sure what to do. “Shouldn’t we like, sterilize it? Do you have alcohol pads or something?”

She drapes her hand across mine. From her pallor, the staggered breaths, she’s too weak to do any more. “You can’t mess this up.”

I shoot her an incredulous look. Her lips part. A wavering wail of hurt breaks from her. Something inside me goes tight.

I dig into the front pouch of my own pack and fish for the prescription bottle she’d given me at her aunt’s. “Painkillers?”

She takes the plastic pill bottle from me but after two attempts at loosening the cap she hands it over and collapses against the forest floor. “Stupid childproof bottles,” she rasps.

With a twist of the wrist and a little pressure, I unscrew the lid and tumble two pills into my palm. “We don’t have any water.”

She gives the slightest shake of her head. “It’s fine,” she says. “They’ll work faster this way.” I pinch the pills in my fingertips and drop them between her lips. Instead of dry swallowing, she crunches, stifling a gag into her elbow. She blinks, slow, and her eyes shift to the trees, the brush. “We’re safe here? For a while? I’m going to lose consciousness.” Already, her eyes are unfocused, her words slurring.

Distance-wise, probably. Jamison would have known we were on foot. From Allie’s aunt’s to the cabin, it would have been fairly obvious where we were going.

I’ve been blindly stumbling through the woods for almost a mile, no path, no steady direction. I don’t know if they’ll come after us. There could be others I don’t know about besides Jamison. People I don’t trust. I’m not quite sure whether to add Jamison to that list or not. I don’t know if the stranger at the cabin was after the missing Jason Jourdain or waiting for Allie and me. Either way, someone else was brought in on the secret that I thought only Jamison and I knew. Someone dangerous.

I killed him. The realization sinks in slow. I killed a man to keep her safe.

She’s staring up at me, her eyes focused again, trust in them that only makes me feel worse. “We’re safe,” I say, because I know it’s what she needs to hear to settle. She might be alive, but she’s not looking good. There’s so much blood on her shirt I can’t tell what’s old and new. A wet spot on the left side tells me it’s seeping. The needle and thread in my hand feel heavy. “How do I—”

She lifts her shirt far enough to give me access. “Quickly. We do this quickly,” she says and scoots to lie across my lap. I tense, the weight and warmth of her throwing me off. I wasn’t ready for that.
Jesus, not now
, I think. I’ve got a needle in my hand about to sew shut a gunshot wound to her chest and all I can think about is kissing her, fingers stuttering across her skin to the parts of her I haven’t touched yet. I keep my eyes on the wound, the trickle of blood. “Ready?” she asks awkwardly, one arm above her head, fingers curled against the moss.

“Um, yeah,” I say and pinch her skin together. She whimpers when the needle breaks through with a pop. “Sorry,” I murmur, tying a knot. I fish a small pair of scissors from the bag and cut the thread, start over. The needle stabs in, through, out. She pounds her fist against my calf and I freeze.

“No,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “Keep going. Fast as you can.”

My fingers fight another knot and I pick up the needle again. “You okay?” I ask. She forces a tight grin, nods furiously. “One more stitch.” I stab, tug, tie, clip. “We’re done.”

She slowly blows a breath she’d been holding. “I just need a minute,” she says. Her eyes slide closed.

“Allie,” I start. I don’t know how to say it, only that it has to be said. “Why did you lie to me? I asked if I could resurrect people, or even heal them, and you said no.”

“You didn’t resurrect me. It was...a jumpstart.” Her words are clipped with pain. She trails off, though she’s not sleeping. “Knowing me got you killed. In a month you won’t even heal anymore. The less you know the safer you’ll be,” she murmurs. The tension lines between her eyebrows deepen and then fade. “They’re after us. We need to move. Hide.”

Pain sours her expression. I don’t know what to do to make it better. My fingers thread gently through her hair. After a few passes she heaves a contented sigh. “That feels good,” she whispers.

She opens her eyes and her gaze locks onto my lips. All I have to do is rock forward, but something makes me hesitate. She isn’t focused on me.

“I don’t think I should have taken them. Pills. Should have...” The words stutter into silence. She mumbles something I miss. “Was he dead? The man, did we…?” she starts and then fades off again.

I trace a line from the crown of her forehead down to her ear then up again, waiting for the rest of a question that doesn’t come. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe,” I say.

Did we kill him?
That’s what she was going to ask. But there is no we. I was the one who shot the gun. Twice.

I watch her to be sure her chest rises and falls. She’s only sleeping. I give the pills a few more minutes to kick in and then, as gently as I can, I slide from underneath her and replace my lap with her bag of clothes. She doesn’t stir. I stand and go for my pack.

Digging to the bottom, I slip my hand inside the cooking pot and grab the pair of balled up socks. I pull them apart. A dented, scratched flip phone tumbles into the leaves. I snap it up, hide it in my pocket, sure Allie’s taken this second to rouse, but she hasn’t moved. My heart hammers. I have to call Jamison. I don’t know when the next opportunity will come.

I promised her I would keep her safe. I might have lied.

When I open the phone and power it on, there isn’t much battery life left, but it’ll do for now. I can’t decide if I’m happy there’s a signal. I hit send on the single number saved to the contacts.

“Hey,” I say when Jamison answers.

There’s a long moment of silence. “I thought you were dead.” He draws a broken breath. “When I didn’t hear from you I thought...”

“There hasn’t been any time for me to get away,” I say.

“Right. Of course. I mean, I know you can’t call anytime you feel like it but the blood...I was worried she wouldn’t come through for us. I put a lot of trust in her to save you.” He laughs and then pauses. The words he finally speaks are stunted, awkward. “Listen man, I messed up. I shouldn’t have done that to you. Cut you like that. Are you okay?”

I’m not quite sure what to say. Technically, he killed me. “Apparently, you nicked my spleen or something?” I say, spitting back what Allie told me.

“Damn,” he whispers. “You’re okay now though?”

I hesitate. Part of me wants to believe he’s not asking to know if I’ve been changed, if I’ve gained any power. Part of me wants to believe my best friend’s actually glad I’m alive. “Yeah, I’m okay now,” I say finally. I wait for him to ask what happened, if she did it, if I’m like them now. He stays quiet. “Jamison, who was that guy?” I demand. “At the cabin? He could have killed us both. He shot her.”

“So that was her blood in the kitchen?” His question doesn’t hold any worry. Her pain doesn’t matter to him. He’s certain she can heal and her blood is all he really cares about anyway. I picture him soaking the puddles of it from the tiles with whatever he can find, paper towels, a dirty sponge. Can it be bottled? Saved? Or is it only effective when it’s drawn from her veins?

I glance back at her sleeping form. Maybe I should I tell her who I really am. Get her to run. To hate me. Isn’t that what I should do if I care about her? “Yes,” I say. “It was her blood.”

Silence from Jamison. And then, “She got her revenge on him though, didn’t she?” Anger hums across the syllables. “How can you hate me for Brandon, and hook up with a girl just as vicious?”

I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes. “I don’t hate you,” I say finally.

Jamison goes on. “Do you think she considered he couldn’t heal before she killed him? He knew even if he shot her, she’d be okay. I’m guessing she felt cornered. He must have needed to subdue her. Did she attack him?” he asks me. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be rhetorical. “Where are you? Why didn’t you help him?”

Because I’m the one who pulled the trigger
, I think but don’t say. I’m the vicious one. When did I start acting like this? Less than an hour ago, I shot a man to death, and I haven’t thought about it since. “Who was he?” I ask quietly.

“Someone I trusted to help me. Us. There are others who know what Allie’s people can do. I’ve been talking to them. Trading information.”

“You didn’t say anything about bringing in outsiders.” The hurt in my voice embarrasses me.

“Well,” he says in a slow drawl. “You’ve been so hard to get a hold of lately I’ve had to make decisions on my own. I’m sorry they’re not what you would have done. I’m doing my best.” He pauses to take a breath and shakes off the sarcastic undertone. “He wouldn’t have hurt you. Or her. He was just holding you both until I got there. I hadn’t heard from you. Truth be told, I thought you were dead.”

“But I wa—” I cut myself off before I tell him the truth. I
was
dead. My brain skips to the beginning of our conversation, his relief at hearing I was alive. I want to believe him. I do. Because that relief comes from the Jamison I know, the one who got me out of my father’s house and saved me from his fists. My friend. But there’s this new side of him, an unfamiliar thing with dark, sharp edges. “You could have killed me,” I say.

“But it worked out,” he says tentatively. “She healed you, didn’t she?”

“No.” The word pops out before I can stop it. If it’s me he’s worried about, it won’t matter how I got the information about the resurrectionists. “Why is her aunt dead?” I say. “I saw you in the house. You burned the body.”

“Please tell me it was Allie who called the police and not you.” It’s not an answer.

“If she did is she next?” I ask, suddenly furious. “Are you going to kill me if I can’t work her the way you want?”