Blood Run (46 page)

Evans and Miller came running from the side of the house. Evans features were black with horrified anger. “Promise!” he yelled and tried to grasp her face in his hands, to still her wildly whipping head. Miller hugged the girl around her torso. Mr. West stepped forward with the needle.

“Hold her arm! Hold it tight; I don’t want the needle to break!”

Evans clamped Promise’s arm under his and struggled to hold her still. Her eyes rolled with crazed rage, and she would not meet his gaze. She was utterly alone in her overwhelming grief. Mr. West drove the needle into her bicep and pushed the plunger. She sagged against Evans, a scream dying in her throat. He held her, guiding her relaxing body to the ground.

He pushed her long, black hair away from her face. Bits of yellowed grass and a long-dead leaf were tangled in its dark maelstrom. “I’m so sorry, Promise. This is all my fault,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

Peter knelt and used the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood from her face. Without looking at Evans, he said, “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

Mark had gone to where Lea was still huddled over herself, crying. He dropped next to her and gathered her in his arms. She sobbed against his shoulder. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

Miller sat on the porch and ran a hand through her hair. She glanced back at a handful of people huddled in the doorway. Lu, a few of the lab people, and two civilians from Wereburg. Mr. West sat down next to her. The needle in his hand hung limp as he surveyed the scene in front of him. He sighed and then blew out a long, controlled breath.

“If it’s anyone’s fault,” he said, addressing everyone at once. “It’s Deidre’s.” He sighed again and ran a hand over his forehead, massaging. “And mine.”

“What would make her do something so stupid?” Mark asked. He was at the kitchen table, and Lea sat next to him. He rubbed small circles into her bent neck. She seemed completely obsessed with the dirty, pink scrunchie in her hands.

“I have to wash this,” she said and stood abruptly, turning to the sink. Mark watched her with concern.

“How well did you guys know each other?” Peter said.

“Me and Deidre? I didn’t really know her at all before all this–the plague and all–happened. She was a senior when I was a sophomore. Promise would have been a freshman and Lea still in eighth grade. Deidre was big-time popular. Homecoming and in the yearbook in about a hundred pictures.”

Mr. West came into the kitchen, his face drawn. He looked five years older than he had when they’d arrived here this morning. He glanced around the kitchen. “I haven’t been out here in Willow’s End in a long time,” he said. “I wish I’d made the trip sooner.”

“How’s Promise?” Peter asked. Despite Mr. West’s declaration that what had happened was his own and Deidre’s fault, Peter still felt a weight of responsibility. As did Lea; you could tell by the slump of her shoulders.

“She’s sleeping. She’ll sleep for another hour or so, and I think she’ll be fine when she wakes up. Calmer,” Mr. West said. “I’ve asked Evans to take her back to Wereburg, though. I don’t want her waking up out here.” His eyes went to the yawning black cavern of the laundry room next to the family room.

Deidre had somehow managed to muscle the first door back up and out of the slit that it had been dropped into, thus, setting Chance free. She must have come out late in the day, Mr. West had surmised, just after everyone had left. She had hidden in the small bedroom above the laundry room. When the sun had set, she’d opened the trap door. Deducing from the blankets that were bundled neatly in the corner along with some boards and tools, she’d most likely been planning to lock herself in and spend the night.

Mr. West hadn’t mentioned the other possibility, that Deidre had opened the door
before
the sun had set…and he hoped desperately that it wasn’t the case. Deidre was mean and misguided, but was she a psychopath? He hoped not. If she
was
, if she had tried to make that little boy suffer a horrid, burning death, then he considered himself even more to blame. He’d tolerated Deidre’s pushiness and strident managerial tendencies–he’d never imagined it would lead to something like this.

But something had gone wrong after she set Chance free. Nothing that she’d brought to block herself in with–the boards, the nails–had been touched. Why had she left the room? There were no signs of a struggle, no fresh blood spilled in the house.

After they’d got here this morning and discovered that Chance had been set free, they’d found Deidre at the side of the house, bled white.

Had Chance killed her?

“Why’d she do it, Mr. West? Why did Deidre let Chance out?” Mark asked.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know. I could speculate, but it would only be that: guesses, really. I don’t think it matters now, anyway. I think we need to–”

Heavy tread stomped quickly down the stairs in the front living room, and then Evans appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Where is she?” His glance swung from the kitchen to the bare family room. “Where did you put Promise?”

“She’s in the middle bedroom upstairs,” Mr. West said, standing. Mark and Lea stood, too. Peter stayed seated, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. “The one across from the bathroom.”

Evans was already shaking his head. “She’s not in any of the rooms upstairs. I thought she might be in that smallest room, but she wasn’t, and then I thought maybe she’d made her way down here.” He glanced angrily at Mr. West. “I thought that shot was going to keep her asleep for another hour.”

“It should have,” Mr. West said, thinking, unperturbed by Evans’ tone. “Are they still outside, or did Miller shuttle them back already?”

He was talking about everyone who’d been brought to help assess the space for a lab. Miller had gathered them all into the backyard after Deidre’s body had been found.

“Miller hasn’t left yet,” Evans said and went through the kitchen into the family room. His eyes trailed over the empty laundry room, and he felt another deep stab of guilt. It was all his fault. He should have let Promise stay last night. He should have stayed with her.

West, Mark and Lea followed him out the sliding glass door into the backyard. A handful of people milled there, talking quietly. Miller was sitting desultorily in a lawn chair, her face long and tired.

“Miller,” Evans called out. “Did you see her?” Knowing that Miller would know immediately who he meant.

Her head snapped up, her brows drawn down in concern. “Sleeping. Upstairs.”

“No.” Evans shook his head and blew out in disgust. “She’s not.”

The small crowd began to draw closer to Evans. A woman stepped forward with a worried expression. “You mean the dark-haired girl? Promise?”

He turned to her as fast as a striking snake and grabbed her arms. “Yes, did you see her?”

“Well, she…she rode off on that horse of hers…the black horse.”

Evans dropped the woman’s arms, and his eyes scanned the dense forest that ran behind all the houses on this side of the development. She must be headed into the woods to look for her brother. She was going to get herself killed. “Miller, we have to get to the woods! The Humvee will–”

“She didn’t go into the woods,” the woman offered and stepped back sharply when Evans turned to her again.

“Which way did she go?” His voice was a growl.

The woman hesitated, looking from Mr. West to Miller to Evans. She shrugged. “She was headed toward Wereburg.”

Puzzlement ran from face to face, and Miller shook her head at Evans, raising her shoulders.

Behind them, Lu said, “The cure. She’s riding to Wereburg to get the cure.”

In the scramble and confusion to get everyone back in the Humvee, Evans ranted internally at the lost time. He wished he’d driven out on his own. He’d be halfway back to Wereburg by now.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” he said, impatience leaking into his voice. They’d been even further delayed by questions of what to do with Deidre’s body. Leave it, had been his flat-voiced vote. She could keep the other corpses company.

Mark and Lea approached him hand in hand. “We thought we’d go stay at the safe house. In case Promise shows up there,” Mark said, and then he surveyed the rapidly filling Humvee. He and Lea had ridden out on the horses with Peter and Promise. It would be tough to squeeze into the Humvee with everyone else

Evans must have drawn the same conclusion. “If that’s what you want to do. It’s provisioned up? You have everything you need?”

Mark nodded.

Lea hadn’t said a single word since the kitchen. The pink scrunchie was hanging loosely from her wrist. Evans reached out, and in an uncharacteristically tender gesture, touched it lightly with his fingertips. “She’s gonna be glad you rescued this for her, Lea,” he said.

Lea looked up and nodded. Still her eyes swam with tears. “Her mom…her mom gave her this. She…she loves it so much…”

“Yes, I know,” Evans said with a small smile. He turned back to Mark. “Peter going with you?”

Mark blinked and then looked around. He dropped Lea’s hand and trotted to the side yard where Peter and Promise had tied the horses out when they’d arrived this morning.

Snow was gone now, too.

Mark turned back to Evans. “Peter’s gone.”

Evans’ lips tightened, and he swung his arm in an impatient circle at the last two people milling outside the Humvee. “Get in, or I’m leaving you to the vampires!” He ran to the driver’s side door and flung it open as the last two people scrambled in the passenger side. He hesitated and looked at Mark over the top of the Humvee. “Watch out for him!”

“Who? Peter?” Mark asked, his hands out and palms up, confused. “Why?”

“He’s not the same! Just…be careful if you see him…okay? Especially if it’s near dusk.” Evans was shouting in his impatience and fear.

Mark nodded and stepped back, and Lea folded herself against him. He brought his arm up to her shoulders, and they watched as the Humvee drove off.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lea said and glanced over her shoulder. “This feels like a bad place to me now. A death place.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

They stared at it a moment longer.

“Peter won’t hurt her,” Lea finally said.

“You don’t think?”

“No. He loves her.”

“Sometimes that doesn’t mean very much.”

She looked at him, her eyes red with tears and troubled. She was remembering what Promise had told her last night…that something in Peter had changed. Her eyes surveyed the house again, and then she tugged Mark away.

~ ~ ~

He caught up to her a mile from the high school. She wouldn’t stop when he called to her, she wouldn’t even look at him. Her hair flew back in a black veil, and her eyes were red with exhaustion…but still determined. She wouldn’t stop. Finally, he turned Snow in front of Ash, causing Ash to veer and pull up sharply, snorting.

Promise’s face was a cold mask. She stared at him, chin raised, without speaking.

“I’m here to help,” Peter said.

“I don’t need help. I don’t need a shot. I don’t need to sleep,” her voice was low and even colder than her gaze. “You can’t stop me.”

Peter smiled and then laughed. Some of the coldness slipped from her features.

He leaned across the horses and took her hand. “I don’t want to stop you, Promise. I want to help…help you find him. Give him the cure. That’s why you’re heading to Wereburg first, isn’t it? To get the cure?”

She remained wary. Exhaustion had driven three deep lines into her forehead, and the skin under her eyes was nearly black. She looked haunted.

“Promise,” Peter said, “whatever you want to do, I’ll help. I’ll do everything I can.”

Finally her eyes softened. She sighed as tears slid down her cheeks. “You’re really going to help me? You don’t think it’s a mistake?”

He squeezed her fingers. “I’ll help you. I’ll protect you. Whatever needs to be done, you and I will do it together.”

She nodded once, her eyes still cautious, then turned Ash toward Wereburg again. They had to get in and out before the others caught up. The questions of where she would stay tonight and how she would protect herself from vampires nagged the back of her mind, and she clamped down on the questions, crushing them. One thing at a time. Cure first. Then Chance. That’s as far ahead as she could think right now.

Peter rode beside her, and the cold morning was exhilarating at this pace. This was right, finally, the right thing to do. Confusion and doubts were swept from him as they rode. This is what he was meant to do, and he would not let her down this time.

They pounded up Main Street right to the front doors of the high school. Promise dismounted at the base of the wide concrete stairs and threw the reins to Peter. “Hold him. I’ll be back in two minutes.” She turned and trotted up the stairs to the door.

A handful of people lounging on the stairs watched as she ran past. “Promise!” someone called. “Where is Mr. West? Where are the Guard soldiers?”

She paused, her hand on the door. Without turning she said, “They’re right behind us.” She heard Peter snort laughter behind her, and for the first time since she’d discovered Chance’s absence this morning, she felt a small bloom of hope warm her chest. It would be good to have help. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Peter anymore, but it was good to have a companion on this trip; maybe her last, if things didn’t go well.

She trotted down the long, main hallway to the room she and Lea had shared. She went to the farthest corner of the room and felt beneath a nest of blankets. A slim vial of glass met her hand, and she grasped it, drawing it forth. One of the test tubes from the case she’d risked everything to get. She stared at it, the clear liquid inside, and doubt tried to creep in again. What if it made him worse as Dr. Edwards at the base had speculated it might do to Peter. What if she was killing him with it? She shook her head and wrapped the vial in cloth and then tucked it in her shirt, next to her heart.

This was his last chance, and she was taking it.

She made her way back to the front of the high school, trying not to look around too much. A precognitive feeling of doom made the halls seem faded, losing solidity, as though she’d already passed from this world. In a way, she felt that she had. She had come to Wereburg still innocent, but changing, becoming harder, after losing her parents. Then the loss of her beloved baby brother had further hardened her, and the year of searching–the year of being determined to kill him and release him from his misery–had worked on her mind and heart like time and pressure on coal. She had become diamond hard, sharp-edged, unfeeling. But then with Peter had come the idea of redemption and tainted blood that would run true again.