Blood Run (7 page)

But he’d been in the principal’s office with a soldier and another man, so she’d merely waved and passed by. She’d spent her morning grooming Ash on the football field, cleaning the cut on his leg more thoroughly. And soaking up the sunshine.

At Lea’s words, though, she recalled the man she’d seen in with Mr. West. He looked a little older than her, probably in his twenties. It was hard to tell, sometimes. People had a tendency to look older than their years.

He had a thin build, but he was tall and looked strong…it was something in the set of his shoulders. His face was very grave, almost angry, and now she recalled feeling a small shiver as his gray eyes seemed to mark her passage. His blond hair was cut very short. He had a scar starting below one ear and dwindling away below the collar of his shirt. The scar was pinkish red and looked fresh, if not new. Looking back now, she recalled that that scar had brought Ash’s scar to her mind.

She sat down near Lea to pull her boots off, disconcerted by the amount of information she had retained about the newcomer. She hadn’t realized the impression he’d made on her.

“What do they say about him?” she asked, keeping her voice even and neutral.

“Someone said he’s been bit.”

“What?” Promise couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice, and the scar on his neck glowed in her memory. “That’s not…that doesn’t make any sense.”

Lea nodded. “I
know
. I know, right? If you get bit, you change…it’s like a rule or something! Unless you die, I mean.” Lea paused, embarrassed, and searched Promise’s face for signs of pain regarding her little brother but found none, so she went on. “I heard that he has a few signs of being a vamp…like, he has trouble with direct sun, and he’s really strong. But he isn’t a bloodsucker. Do you think that’s possible, Promise?”

The vampire that had chased her yesterday flashed into her mind, and she nodded slowly, considering. “I guess so. It might explain some things. But it sounds creepy. What if he…I don’t know…takes a turn for the worse or something? Will he come after us?”

“Will
who
come after us?” Mark asked, walking into the room. He’d gathered all the boys Allen had admitted were involved in tagging-out and had a talk with them this morning. His concern was for the boys, but beyond that, it was for everyone. It was a very dangerous game.

Lea stood abruptly and then sat back down, her hands clasped beneath her chin. “Mark!” she said, and her voice was a squeak. “You…you scared me!”

Promise suspected that it wasn’t fright that made Lea jump up, but she didn’t let on. She spoke to cover the awkward moment.

“Guy the Guard brought in,” she said and stood. “Everyone is saying he was bit.” Mark frowned, and she continued: “But he’s recovered. He’s not a vampire. Not a full vampire, anyway.”

“You’re joking,” he said and looked from Promise to Lea.

Lea shook her head, and Promise said, “Nope. No joke. Maybe we should try to track down Mr. West. See what’s going on.”

“There’s something else, too,” Lea said, and Mark and Promise both looked at her.

“What is it?” Promise asked.

“He has a horse, a white one,” Lea said.

Promise looked surprised…and interested.

Mark scowled, and Lea smiled into her hand.

~ ~ ~

“I’ve been looking for you three,” Mr. West said as they walked into the bright cafeteria. The tables held a scattering of people, some reading, some eating or drinking coffee. It smelled like breakfast, and Promise’s stomach rumbled. “Did Maggie tell you? I sent her to find you.”

Mr. West was in a button down, chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled casually to the elbows and a down vest. He also wore his ubiquitous corduroys. He was sitting in the furthest, darkest corner of the cafeteria, and the man sitting next to him was the same one Promise had seen early this morning. The man from the principal’s office. He watched her steadily as they approached.

“No, but Maggie’s a flighty kid,” Mark said in answer to Mr. West’s question. He was looking from Mr. West to the newcomer. “She probably got caught up chasing the chickens around. She loves those chickens.”

Mr. West laughed and nodded and then indicated the stranger. “This is Peter Gallagher. Mark, Lea, Promise…I was telling you about Promise earlier, Peter,” he said and gestured for the three to sit. “Promise, Peter has a horse, too. An odd coincidence, you’re thinking? Yes and no. If there was one horse, then there was bound to be another, right? And it seems it has found us.” Mr. West smiled.

Mark had shaken Peter’s hand, and then Lea had done the same, but when Peter took Promise’s hand in his, he held it for a long time…until she drew it away, blushing. She turned to Mr. West to catch the end of what he was saying. “I’m sorry, I…who has found us?”

Mr. West seemed to take note of the color in her face but did not remark on it. “The horse, I was saying, has found her way to us. Snow.”

Feeling Peter’s eyes on her, Promise felt herself sinking further into confusion. “Snow?”

“My horse. Her name is Snow.” Peter’s voice was deep and quiet. Promise turned to him. He smiled. It was the first time she’d seen him smile. “We…I mean…I…called her that because she’s white. I guess that’s kind of lame.”

Promise wondered about the hesitation in his speech, but then his smile widened for a second before fading away entirely. It was almost as though he could not sustain happiness. Or was afraid to.

She smiled back. “Mine’s called Ash. Because he’s black, so I guess I’m lame, too.”

He nodded, and his smile came back. They stared at each other until Mr. West cleared his throat.

“So. Anyway,” he said. “How did you three make out last night? Any problems? I heard about the boys playing tag out.”

Mark looked impatient. “Yes, I talked to them about that this morning,” he said and then turned the discussion back to Peter. “Listen, about this…about Peter…we heard that he’d been bit. Is that true?” Mark was looking at Mr. West, almost deliberately ignoring Peter.

“According to Peter and the National Guardsman that brought him, yes, he was bit. And he survived it. They’re running tests on his blood at a military base hospital in New Jersey. In the meantime, they’ve been moving a lot of people around, and they got wind that we had a horse here, too. So they thought they’d bring Peter to stay with us. Plus, we have a very high survivor rate, higher than most of the other outposts.” He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It turns out that there have been a few people in Peter’s position, people with a partial immunity–the rumors were true. It’s going to help the people at the lab in New Jersey develop a vaccine.”

Mark glowered at Mr. West’s hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Well, we also heard he has some vampire traits. Is that true? And what if he, I don’t know, takes a turn for the worse? That might happen.” Mark stared a challenge at Peter.

“I have some, yes,” Peter said. “I’m stronger than I was before. I don’t like direct sunlight all that much. But I don’t think I’m going to turn into a full-fledged vampire. I was…the sickest…right after I’d been bit. I’ve gotten better, more in control, ever since.”

“But you don’t know. You can’t know,” Mark said. He sat back and crossed his arms. “I don’t feel all that comfortable with it. If he’s a half-vampire, then–”

“It might explain what happened to me the day before yesterday, Mark,” Promise cut in quietly. “If there are degrees of it. It might explain a lot.”

Mr. West sat forward, concerned. “What happened?”

She felt all their eyes on her, but she felt Peter’s most of all. It was as though his gaze contained heat or a force that worked on her nerve endings. “I went to look for the cabin. In the woods north of Willow’s End. I rode Ash in around noon, and I was checking trails, marking as we went along. I thought if I could just find the cabin, mark the way to it, then we could come back and destroy it…” she trailed off, uncomfortable as her story had begun to drift south of the truth. But there were things about what she was doing that no one here needed to know. “Anyway, I couldn’t find the cabin, and by that afternoon, we were headed out, but we were going through the part where the kudzu is the worst, the thickest, and I heard one behind us, and he just…he came out of nowhere. Ash took off before I could even tell him to. I almost fell. And we were…it ended up being lucky for us because the vampire got caught, tangled up in the kudzu, and we got a good head start. We were at the very edge of the woods, almost out, and it followed us the whole way. Right at the end, at the edge of the clearing, the sun came out, and the vampire started to burn. Its hand started to burn. And that stopped it. But it kept watching from the trees, just a little further back. It was waiting. It knew enough to do that, to wait like that.” She sighed, and her breath trembled out. “And I didn’t understand how it could be out. Even in the woods, even cloudy and surrounded by kudzu, it was still daylight…it shouldn’t have been able to go out. It scared me.” She looked at Peter, guarded and watchful. “Does the sun burn you, too?”

He looked at her for so long that she grew uncomfortable under his gaze, but she didn’t look away, merely tilted her chin up in determination. She needed to know something about him, and she needed to know it now because she already sensed the potential of her feelings. She was drawn strongly to something in his eyes, some deeper sense of loss and pain.

He stood and held out his hand to her. Promise looked at the other three, feeling slightly embarrassed, and then took Peter’s hand. He led her to one of the big cafeteria windows, where the mid-morning sun shone the brightest. He stood facing her, the side of his face painted in strong light, and she observed his skin, his eyes. He was fair, almost pale, and his eyes grew translucent. They were light gray. He smiled, and it was a sad smile, full of a past she didn’t know but understood to some degree, regardless.

“If I stay in the sun too long, I’ll start to feel uncomfortable; eventually my skin will start to blister, but that’s only after hours of strong sunlight. There are…other things…the strength and–” he dropped his head briefly, then looked up again. “–but I think they’ll develop a cure, a
complete
cure for it.” Promise wondered about the part he’d skipped over, but something about him made her trust him. He smiled and again, it was a grave smile, weary but not beaten. “It’s no different from any other disease. I’m still human.”

“For everyone?” Promise asked, her voice faint.

He shook his head. He didn’t understand her question.

She swallowed. “Will it cure anyone who is a vampire
now
?”

“I don’t know,” he said his eyes filling with concern and recognition. “Who is it? Your dad or mom or–”

“My mom and dead are dead, but my little brother…” Promise dropped her head and ran a hand across her face. “He’s still out there. I think. I’ve been looking for him.” Unconsciously, she touched the pink scrunchie holding her hair back and then glanced to where Mr. West and her friends sat. She lowered her voice. “I wasn’t looking for the cabin, I don’t even know if there really is one out there. I was looking for my brother in the woods because we used to…we used to play there. He’s just a little kid, only nine. I always took care of him from the time he was born.” She looked at Peter, and her eyes had filled with tears that she refused to let fall. Her chin came up again. “I was going to stake him.”

He nodded his understanding, his eyes taking on a brief, intense shine of their own. Relief flowed through her, almost weakening her knees. It had been a terrible secret she’d carried, tangled up as it was with guilt, anger, and just not being sure. Of anything.

“I don’t know if it will cure everyone,” Peter said. “I have at least half an immunity from one of my parents–that’s why I’m still here. But if Chance had no immunity, if he has changed completely…then, I don’t know.” He grasped her arms, and she stiffened in surprise at his touch, the intensity of it. “I’m sorry about your family; I know how–”

She’d just started to relax in his grip when he was torn violently backward. Completely unprepared, he stumbled over a chair and fell onto his side. He looked up in shock. Mark stood between Promise and Peter, his hands bunched into fists.

“Keep your hands off her!” Mark said as Promise yelled, “Mark! What are you doing?”

He rounded on her with a look of hurt surprise.

“I was
protecting
you, Promise! It looked like he was going to bite you…I don’t know what he’s capable of!
None
of us know!”

Then Mr. West reached them. He held out a hand to Peter and pulled him up. Lea stood next to Mark, and her hands fluttered uselessly near her chest until she caught them together, subduing them. Her face was unhappy, and she glanced from Mark to Peter and back to Mark.

“I think we can surmise that he’s not going to try to kill anyone, Mark,” Mr. West said, and his tone was mild but threaded with an anger that was rarely heard. “He’s been as he is for over ten months, according to what the Guardsman said, and has shown no signs of progression in the disease.” Mr. West put two fingers against Mark’s chest in warning. His voice lowered so that only Mark would hear. “It’s one thing if you’re honest desire is protection, but I don’t think that’s the whole story here. And I’m telling you now that you better get control of yourself. You’re an asset here, Mark, and the younger kids–boys especially–look up to you. I need you to keep setting a good example; we don’t need any more Deidres around here. Do you understand?”

Mark glared, and his mouth worked, but then all at once his hands unfisted as he blew out a gusty breath. His shoulders sank, and his face cleared of anger. “I’m sorry; you’re right,” he said. He looked from Mr. West to Peter. “Listen, man, I didn’t mean…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I just thought–” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought, but I was wrong to push you.”

“No harm done,” Peter said neutrally.

Mark turned to Promise, reaching for her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just that–”

Promise stepped back in confusion and looked from Mark to Peter, a bright spark of anxiety snapping awake in her mind. She’d seen a flash in Peter’s eyes when Mark pushed him–a dangerous orange warning–that had faded quickly back to mild gray. No one had seen it but her.