The Farm (20 page)

“No.” But my protest was weaker now, because I knew he was right. We needed to leave. It was what he’d told us to do. It was what we had to do to save ourselves. It was what I had to do to protect Mel. But I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t force myself to climb into the car, knowing the second I did, Joe would drive off, leaving Carter behind. Leaving Carter to die.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Mel

I know the Ticks are coming before anyone else. Their jangled cacophony shatters everyone else’s music. I know Carter is near, too, but not close enough. Sebastian is with him—his quiet all noise, none of it right, none of it music, but louder than any I’ve ever heard.

This happened before, too, at the river. His emotions like the concussion blast of a bomb.

Time moves slowly in the car with Joe like a beaver wanting to go, go, go. Lily’s the easy one now. Stay, stay, stay. For once she listens to my music. Everyone fighting and I’m the odd girl out. Always the odd girl. Time is tick-tocking and I’ve nothing to do.

The Ticks have no music, only noise, and they can’t stand the sounds the rest of us make.

I feel them getting closer. Feel their anguish. Their hunger. It’s not just thirst that brings them here, when they should be sleeping. There’s something else, too. Like a mosquito buzzing in their collective ear. Or a nursery rhyme chanting in their collective brain.

I feel our panic rising and even I can’t slow the rhythm of the song.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lily

“Get in the car,” Joe said again.

I could feel the tears streaming down my face. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t leave Carter.

The howl of the Ticks—more than two now—grew steadily louder, heading at us from the west. As they got closer, we could hear their higher-pitched yips and yelps. Wherever Carter was, he’d be completely defenseless. They would swarm over him and devour him.

I put one foot back in the car and dipped my head in to say, “I swear to God if you drive off now I’ll—”

But I never finished the thought. I broke off when I heard the roar of an engine. Tires squealed as a vehicle pulled around the corner. It was a long van, the kind schools used on field trips, that seated maybe twelve to fifteen people. The name of some unfamiliar school district was painted on the side. I noticed all this because my eyes were glued to it as it came barreling down the street. Sebastian was behind the wheel, but I couldn’t tell if Carter was in there with him.

The van slid to a stop at a slant perpendicular to our SUV. The side door of the van flew open and Carter was inside. Relief flooded me.

Thank God.

“Come on, get in!” he ordered.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed my bag and Mel’s hand and pulled them both out of the SUV. Carter hopped out of the van to make room for us to clamber in. Sebastian dashed around the front of the van, then threw open the back of the SUV and grabbed the bags that had been stashed in back. I got Mel settled onto the second row of the bench seats and snapped a buckle across her lap, then looked out of the van to see if Carter needed help. Sebastian was tossing bags to Carter, who was throwing them in the back of the van.

Somewhere—too close—the Ticks howled. And then I heard an ominous crunching sound, like something had run into a car out on the street.

Only then did I realize Joe and McKenna hadn’t made it into the van yet. He was helping her out of the SUV.

“Hurry up,” I yelled.

They were maybe two feet away from the van when I heard another loud crunch and the whole SUV shook. The Tick sprang on the top of the SUV and in one feral leap soared over the back of the SUV, the open door, and Sebastian to land in a crouch behind McKenna and Joe.

“Spear!” Sebastian yelled.

I reached out a hand and grabbed Joe, who was closest to me, and hauled him into the van. He pulled McKenna with him, but she moved more slowly. The Tick scraped a nasty clawed hand across her back. She screamed in anguish. Joe spun and launched himself at the Tick.

Carter charged around from behind the van, two long wooden sticks in his hands. He tossed one to Sebastian and then closed in on the Tick with the other. He slammed the spear through the Tick’s back. The Tick arched its back, yowling in pain, its gangly arms stretched over its head as it spun, trying to reach the stake piercing its heart. Its flailing arms smacked Joe and he fell, bashing his head on the floorboard on the way down.

McKenna was screaming, but whether in pain or panic I couldn’t tell. Carter dragged Joe into the van. Another Tick launched himself over the SUV and Sebastian thrust the other spear up through its heart and tossed it aside as if it was nothing.

A third Tick came screaming around the SUV and Carter scrambled to slide the van door closed. An instant later the beast slammed into the closed door.

Something clattered on the roof of the van and then Sebastian slid effortlessly through the window into the driver’s seat. He looked like he wasn’t even breathing hard.

“All in?” he asked, his voice calm.

Carter looked first at me, then at Mel before answering. “All in.”

As Sebastian drove off, another Tick hit the back of the van. Their indignant howls echoed through the air as they chased us. But they didn’t stay on our tail long. They loped behind us for a few long strides and then fell back.

“Who’s hurt?” Carter asked. “Lily? Mel?”

Struggling to pull air into my panicked lungs, I looked at Mel. “We’re fine.”

I could hardly believe it. We were okay. We’d all made it into the van. And Carter had made it back. He was okay. He wasn’t dead somewhere, his heart already ripped out of his chest and drained of blood.

Relief rolled through me and I had to tamp back my tears. And the urge to throw myself into his arms. God, I’d been so afraid.

It took me several deep breaths to get my emotions back under control enough that I could even think to check on anyone else. Carter and McKenna were both looking at Joe, who sat dazed on the floor of the van, his back leaning against the front passenger seat, his legs tucked up against his chest. He held his hand against the back of his head and his eyes looked glazed.

Carter had one knee propped on the first bench seat and other leg down on the floor in the narrow space between the seat and the door. He’d whipped out that penlight of his again. I vaguely remembered him shining it in my eyes when I’d first woken up in the admin building.

“You’re tracking fine and I don’t see any blood,” he said. “Your head is going to hurt like hell, but unless you puke or pass out, I think you’ll be okay.”

McKenna was on the first bench seat, one hand on Joe’s arm, the other holding his hand. It was the first time I’d seen her actually touch him. The first time I’d noticed any genuine signs of affection from her.

I forced myself to look away, because it seemed strangely intimate. Like something too personal to witness.

Instead I looked up into the front of the van where Sebastian drove. Although he’d looked perfectly peaceful just moments after fighting the Ticks, now his expression was taut and strained. His hands were clenched on the steering wheel. He glanced up into the rearview mirror and met my gaze.

I recoiled against the seat, barely containing my gasp. His pupils had contracted. Instead of the round pupils of a human, his had shifted into slits, but they weren’t the oval slits of a cat or a snake. Instead the edges were scalloped, like the petals of Venus flytrap. For the first time, he didn’t look like a human. He looked like a monster.

I jerked my eyes from his, wanting to look anywhere but into his unsettling gaze.

That was when I saw McKenna’s back. The fabric of her sweatshirt had long rips torn through it and blood was beginning to seep through.

I gasped. “McKenna! Your back!”

Joe looked up. Carter whipped his head toward me.

“McKenna, you’re bleeding.”

As soon as I said the words, I looked back at Sebastian. Carter did, too. And then Joe and McKenna. Even Mel was watching him, perhaps even more carefully than I had. We all sat there, just staring at the vampire as the implication rippled through the van.

Sebastian kept driving, not even slowing down. He kept his gaze pinned on the road, though I could still see his bizarre pupils in the rearview mirror.

“It’s fine,” he said quietly after a minute.

“Are you sure?” Carter asked.

“I have to be, don’t I? We have only one car. Unless you’re suggesting I ride on top of the van.”

“We could pull over,” I suggested, remembering how careful Carter had been about the cut on my palm, a cut that was tiny by comparison. “You could wait outside while we bandage her.”

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice terse. “Believe me when I assure you that I am the least of our worries right now.”

“But—”

“Tell me, child, has your hunger ever been so out of control that you’ve devoured everything in your path with no thought of the consequences? I think not. I am no different. I will control myself.”

I blew out a breath, half thinking of telling him that he’d obviously never seen me alone with a bowl of cookie dough on a Saturday night. But if his brittle tone was any indication, this was not the time to crack a joke.

Instead I glanced at Carter, who returned my gaze steadily, seeming to read the question there. Slowly he nodded, as if to tell me that he was okay with this turn of events.

“McKenna, we’ll go to the back of the van. Get you cleaned up there.” As Joe helped her move, Carter turned to Mel, who still had his backpack held on her lap. “Mel, can you find my first aid kit?”

I nearly told him that I would do it, but Mel cheerfully unzipped the bag and started looking. I scooted to the edge of the bench, ready to follow Carter back and help with McKenna’s wound, but before I could stand, he crouched down beside my bench.

“Why the hell didn’t you drive away?” His voice was dense with anger.

“What?” I asked, recoiling in surprise.

“I told you to leave.”

“But—”

“Fifteen minutes, I said. You were supposed to leave after fifteen minutes.”

“Joe—”

“Don’t try to pin this on Joe. He was driving, but you were the one standing outside the friggin’ car. If he stayed it’s because you told him to.”

His anger stirred my own. After the terrifying last few minutes, adrenaline still pumped through my veins. “I wasn’t going to pin this on Joe. I made the decision to wait.”

“It was past time to leave, Ticks were bearing down on you, and you made the decision to wait?”

“Yes!” I bumped up my chin. “I was waiting for you, you dumb ass!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have!”

We kept our voices low, but we were nose to nose now and the car had gone silent around us.

“You would never have left without me,” I hissed. “And there was no way in hell I was going to leave without you.”

Suddenly Carter sat back. As if my words had hit him in the chest. “Jesus, Lily!” He scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Don’t think you’re the only one who gets to save people. Carter, I—”

“Stop,” he said, cutting me off before I could say any more. He met my gaze, but there was no longer anger in his eyes. Or fear. Just tired resolve. “You can’t think like that. It is not your job to save anyone but yourself.”

“But—”

“I don’t care what you feel. Or what you think you feel. You have to keep yourself safe. That is the only important thing. Do you understand me?”

“No, I don’t understand.” I wanted to cry again, but even more than that, I wanted to curl inside myself. I couldn’t look at him now, but my gaze was on his hands and I saw him clench them into fists. Like he wanted to reach for me but wouldn’t let himself.

At least that was what I wanted to believe.

“Carter, I—”

“No, God damn it! You have to promise you’ll never risk your life for mine again.” I didn’t answer and a moment later, he stood. “If you can’t promise me that, I’m getting out of the van now.”

My head jerked up. “What?”

“Sebastian, pull over the van.”

“What the hell?” But Sebastian was already starting to slow the van. “No! Stop! I promise.” The van was still coasting and Carter already had the door open. I launched myself at his back. “I promise! I’ll never risk my life for you again!”

Carter looked back over his shoulder and he seemed to be considering whether or not to climb out. Somewhere in the distance, a Tick howled.

“I won’t! I swear! Just get back in the van!”

He studied my face and I didn’t even care that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

Finally Carter closed the door. Sebastian watched from the rearview mirror and didn’t start driving again until Carter had met his gaze and nodded.

I wanted him safe so desperately I knew I’d never be able to keep my promise.

**

I didn’t offer to help with McKenna. Mel handed Carter the first aid kit, while I slumped on the seat, nursing my bruised emotions. What was his problem? Did he have some kind of martyr syndrome? He got to run all over the country rescuing people, but no one was allowed to return the favor? No one got to help him? Or maybe it was just me he was trying to drive away. He hadn’t yelled at Joe. No, he blamed me.

He must have realized I was starting to . . . what? Fall for him? It seemed crazy when he’d only been back in my life less than twenty-four hours. But his presence hit my emotions fast and hard, just as it had when we’d first met. Clearly he didn’t feel the same way. Well, if he wanted me to back the hell away from him emotionally, I could do that. It wasn’t like I’d ever see him again once we got to Canada anyway. But he couldn’t stop me from trying to protect the people I cared about. He could yell all he wanted, but if Mel was in danger, I was going to do everything I could to help.

I glanced over at her now. I knew she was physically okay, but I wasn’t sure how she felt about the Ticks attacking. I expected her to be staring blankly out the window the way she usually did in the car, but instead she was watching me. Her head was tilted to the side, a slight frown on her face. She slid the Slinky off her wrist and held it out to me.

I let out a huff of surprised laughter. Yeah. I needed soothing right now. I took the Slinky from her and gave it a few
sllluuunks
before handing it back. She seemed satisfied. Oddly, I felt calmer after that. Still hurt. Still bruised. But quieter.

I wiggled down a bit so my head rested against the back of the bench, for the first time in months feeling . . . I don’t know. Like she was in this with me. Not just someone I had to take care of. Like she was my sister and not just an appendage I was lugging around.

Behind me, I heard Joe ask, “So a wooden stake through the heart really works?”

“As it turns out, any stake through the heart works,” Sebastian answered from the driver’s seat. “It doesn’t kill them instantly. Just immobilizes them until it’s removed. Once they’ve been staked, they can bleed to death or starve to death. Or you can cut off their head.”

“Oh. That’s pleasant,” I said.

I thought I heard McKenna make a gagging sound. Or maybe she was wincing from the pain of having Carter treat her injury.

Sebastian ignored us and continued talking. “Wood has the advantage of being plentiful, light, and easy to carve.”

“What else works?” I asked.

Carter looked up from where he’d been swabbing McKenna’s back with antiseptic wipes and glared at me. “You don’t need to know what works, because from now on you’re staying clear of the fights, damn it.”

“Everyone needs to know what works,” I countered. “Once you drop us off in Canada, you won’t be there anymore to boss us around, and excuse me if I’d like to know how to kill these things.”