The Vault (A Farm Novel) (20 page)

“Where are you?”

“Outside of some Farm near College Station. A couple of hours from Houston.”

“Okay, then. I’m on my way.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ely said.

Of course not. When was it ever simple?

“They’ve already turned.”

My heart clenched. And I squeezed my eyes shut. I flashed back to that moment when the female Tick had jumped onto the hood of the car. That really could have been Lily. She could be that monstrous right now. That driven by blood lust. That hungry and afraid.

This was the thing she’d feared the most. Turning into a Tick.

If any part of her human brain still functioned and still remembered her life and who she really was, did she wonder why I’d let this happen to her? Did she curse me and hate me? Because I hated myself.

I’d let this happen. This was my fault.

“We’ll get them back.” Because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I added, “Did you find the crash site?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if anyone else from the helicopter survived?”

“There weren’t any other Ticks around. They must have cleared out before I got there.”

“What about the doctor and her dad?”

Ely was silent for a minute. “There were remains, at the site of the crash and farther on. You don’t want to know anything beyond that.”

“I’m not—”

“No,” Ely said harshly. “Look, we don’t know how it went down. You don’t need the details and I’m going to try damn hard to forget that it’s my baby brother that might have done that.”

I didn’t press him. He was right. I didn’t want any more carnage in my mind. And I didn’t need the reminder that my Lily might be capable of it.

“Did you get the cure?” Ely asked.

“Yes.”

“And it works?”

I nearly lied. If I’d been talking to almost anyone else, I would have. But Ely’s brother was out there, too. He deserved to know the truth.

“I don’t know yet.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means? I don’t have absolute proof that anyone has successfully been given the cure and turned back from a Tick into a human.”

“Then how do we know it works?”

“We don’t.”

“Okay, why do we
think
it works?”

“Because Sabrina showed me footage they’d recorded of them dosing someone.”

“You know they can fake those things, right?”

“I don’t think this was fake. She seemed like she was on the up-and-up.”

“We’re putting our faith in a psychotic vampire?” Ely’s voice sounded strangled.

Jesus. This was what it came down to.

“You gotta put your faith in something, right?”

MEL

When I wake, I don’t know how long I’ve been out. I am still curled up beside Chuy, but I am no longer on the floor. At some point, Sebastian must have carried me into Roberto’s room, laid me out on the bed, and covered me with a blanket. The idea of Sebastian gently caring for me is so antithetical to his nature I could almost more easily believe that Chuy suddenly started walking upright and carried me in.

I lie there in the bed, my hand propped on Chuy’s gently rising and falling chest. There is something so peaceful about sleeping next to another living creature. How did I never know that before?

Eventually, I push myself to sit up. Chuy keeps sleeping on the bed as I tiptoe from the room. Sebastian is on the sofa, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes closed. He looks asleep, but somehow I know he’s not.

Despite gorging myself earlier, I’m still hungry. Maybe this is part of being a vampire. Maybe I will never feel full again. The extra bags of blood I’d brought out from storage are no longer on the coffee table. Sebastian must have moved them to the minifridge, because that’s where I find them. After I pull them out, I notice Sebastian has come to stand behind me. As always, he’s fast and silent. I am used to him sneaking up on me, but I’m not used to the fluttering I feel in my stomach. His kiss is still fresh in my memory.

Maybe it will always be. I want him to kiss me again, but when I look up at him, his gaze is unreadably dark and I know that won’t happen. Not with his words ringing in my ears—
I should be old enough to know better.

“Mel—” he starts to say.

But I can’t listen to him tell me how young I am. How silly or how gullible. I know these things. So instead, I thrust a bag of blood toward him.

“We should both feed again.” I try to focus my attention on the other bag still in my hands. “There’s plenty of blood, and once we’re not starving to death, we’ll feel better. Our judgment will be more sound.”

“Ah, yes,” he snarks, seeming suddenly like his old self. “Sound judgment. The Price girls’ most distinguishing characteristic.”

“Look, you may not be very invested in this particular venture, but I still care about getting out of here and bringing you to Genexome so you can unlock your vault or whatever it is you want to call it, and give me the cure.” I say this to remind myself as much as to remind him. Somehow, between my thirst and my need, I’ve forgotten why I’m here.

“That’s what you think? That I’m not invested in this?”

“Don’t pretend you give a damn about what happens to anyone other than yourself.” I pause to give him a chance to correct me. He doesn’t. “You care about your own goals and that’s it.”

For an instant, he looks like I’d slapped him. Then his face settles into a mask of cool indifference. “That’s what you believe.”

“Yes! If you cared about anyone, then why haven’t you released the cure before now?” The questions that had been simmering inside of me for so long just boil over. “Why have you let the world collapse around you? You’ve let countless people die. If you could have stopped it, why didn’t you?”

“Because I’m an evil, selfish bastard. That’s the only answer, isn’t it?”

I search his face, looking, desperately, for some sign that I’m wrong. For some admission on his part that there is more to the story. Some scrap of information that will make this all make sense.

“I don’t understand,” I admit.

“There is nothing
to
understand.”

“So you really do have the cure? You’ve had it the whole time, and you just let the world burn?” These are the questions I should have been asking all along, ever since he admitted he had the cure at Genexome, ever since he admitted that he
was
Genexome. But everything has moved too fast until now. My world has been turned upside down over and over again. And I no longer know which way is up. “Why?”

He studies me for a moment and then chuckles. “That’s the question you’re asking? Why I betrayed the world, not why I betrayed you? You’re not even remotely curious why I sent you here, to your death?”

I blink in surprise. “No. I understand that.”

“You understand that?” he asks archly.

His tone annoys me—he somehow implies that I’m a child and can’t possibly comprehend his motives. I bump up my chin. “Yes. I do. You are not the least bit invested in me as a person. Me and my life and the lives of everyone I care about are completely expendable to you. We are all just pawns in this war you’ve waged against Roberto. I get that. I understand that I was expendable, but I don’t understand how the entire world was expendable.”

Our fight must have woken Chuy up, because the dog creeps across the floor to stand by my side.

Sebastian stares at me for a long moment. He’s studying my face, almost like I’ve been speaking another language, one that he’s trying frantically to translate into his own. Finally, he shakes his head.

“Well then. I suppose you’re right. If that’s the case, then I am truly a despicable bastard.”

I realize suddenly that I’m holding my breath. That I’m waiting for him to deny it. I’m hoping he will. That he’ll offer up some explanation. Some story that will help me make sense of how this man—this man who has apparently destroyed the entire world—could be the same man who has cared for me and mentored me for the past nine weeks of my life. How the man who sent me to die at Roberto’s hands could be the same man who kissed me so tenderly.

I have no answers and he’s not giving anything away.

I whirl away from him, frustrated. “Why did you even bother saving me?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He’s back to his usual sarcasm. “Then again, Carter was standing there, ordering me to do it and lots of things seem wise when an
abductura
is pushing you around.”

“Not then.” I turn back to glare at him. Maybe I should be rejoicing that he appears to take my questions seriously at least for a few minutes, but instead I’m just furious at him all over again. “This morning. When you came out onto the porch with the crossbow.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them devour you? That wouldn’t have been a very intelligent game plan, now would it?”

“I was doing fine.” My protest sounds more scared than angry, which I guess it is.

“You’re exhausted and hungry. You were barely holding your own.”

“I don’t need you to rescue me. You’ve done that already and it hasn’t ever turned out good for me.”

“Very well. Next time I’ll just let you die. Protecting you is a full-time job and it’s one that’s gotten rather dull, what with the endless moral inquisition.”

“You don’t have to protect me. Because, quite honestly, you haven’t been doing that good a job. Seeing as how you sent me unprepared into the lair of the most dangerous vampire in history, trying to protect me now seems a bit disingenuous.”

“I wasn’t trying to protect you. I was saving my own ass. This morning you were the only thing standing between me and a slow painful death by starvation.”

“Right. How had I forgotten, even for a minute, that none of this is about me?”

Anger burns through my veins, so sharp and heated I think that my blood must surely be near boiling.

All this time, I’ve been holding one of the bags of blood and now I toss it at him. “Here. Now I’m not the only thing between you and starvation.”

He grabs the bag in midair and eyes it, smirking. Then he looks up at me, a lascivious gleam in his eyes as he drops his gaze pointedly to my chest. “Sure you don’t want to warm this up for me?”

Suddenly, I’m furious. Not just because he’s the mastermind behind the destruction of the world, or even because he’s betrayed me, but because he’s not the man who kissed me so tenderly. That man doesn’t even exist. That tenderness was a figment of my imagination. The product of my optimistic, swooningly romantic foolishness.

The real Sebastian is a sadistic bastard.

As if sensing my mood, Chuy bristles beside me. He lets out a low, rumbling growl. That’s all the encouragement I need.

I slap Sebastian as hard as I can. Which it turns out is pretty hard. His whole head snaps to the side. I’m shocked by my own violence, but not worried. I know I can take him. Except instead of hitting me back, he jerks me to him and kisses me.

But this kiss is nothing like the previous one. This is rough and dark and the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. If the other kiss had been heaven, then this is pure hell. It makes my blood pound and it terrifies me all at once, because I don’t want just to kiss him. I want to possess him. And something darker, too. I want to hurt him. Like he’s hurt me. I want to wound him. I want his life. His blood. His very soul.

Somehow, I know instinctively that he feels the same way. His tongue in my mouth seems to be pulling me, the essence of who I am, from my body. He is pulling the air from my lungs.

I am drowning in him.

And I can’t breathe.

Literally.

His hands have slipped from my jaw to my throat. His thumbs press into my windpipe, cutting off my air supply, even while he is kissing me still.

My hands slip up to cradle his face. I want to go on kissing him forever. Almost as much as I want to kill him.

I thrust my arms out, breaking his hold on my throat, and suck in a desperate gasp of air. He stumbles back, but I follow, spinning on the ball of my foot to kick him in the chest. He backflips away from me, landing on his feet, hands out in front of him.

For a long moment, we both just stand there. Staring at each other, sucking in deep, rage-filled, fear-fueled breaths. Chuy is growling at Sebastian again, poised to pounce.

It is the vampire berserker rage. I understand that now. But how had it come on so quickly? I thought it had passed. That it was gone. I’d been an idiot.

Apparently being surrounded by a horde of monsters wasn’t intense enough, now I’m trapped in a locked safe house with a man who wants to murder me.

There is no way this is going to end well.

And then Sebastian tears his eyes away from me to scan the room. I see his gaze land on it. A painting by the door. It’s something impressionistic and iconic that I feel like I should recognize. I don’t get why he’s looking at it, but then he lunges for it, ripping it off the wall. He smashes it against the floor and the wooden frame shatters, throwing out shards and splinters. We both lunge for different pieces. Unsure what to do, Chuy yelps, throwing himself between Sebastian and me.

The one closest to me is bigger. I go into a slide, my arm outstretched. My hand is just closing on the wood when Sebastian grabs one of the other, smaller pieces.

He wields it out in front of himself like a dagger. I scramble to my feet, putting as much space between us as I can, brandishing my own clumsy splinter.

And then he does the unthinkable.

He thrusts the stake into his own heart.

CARTER

“Are you sure they’re there?” I asked Ely.

“Yes.”

There
was the remains of a frat house, a dozen or so blocks from campus.

Ely had been scouting the house for the past day and a half. I had no idea how he’d spent thirty-six hours this close to a nest of Ticks and survived, but somehow he had. He was like a frickin’ ninja when it came to this crap.

He’d found a house across and just down the street with a third-story window that looked out on the Ticks’ nest. I’d nearly puked going in, because he’d littered the first floor with garbage. Not just trash, but the really foul stuff, animal feces and molding vegetables, decomposing medical waste. And—when he’d given me the directions over the sat phone—he told me to wrap myself in plastic bags before walking through the house. It was all about covering the scent, he claimed.

I figured there was a chance he was just messing with me, but I did it anyway. And now we sat up in that third-floor bedroom watching the Ticks’ house through binoculars.

It was nearly two in the morning, and though we could see the movement outside the other house, it was nearly impossible to distinguish one Tick from another.

“You’ve seen them both?” I asked.

“What do you want me to do, swear on a stack of Bibles? They’re there. I’ve seen them. I’ve watched them for the past couple of days while you’ve been off getting spa treatments.”

“It was a shower. Not a spa treatment.”

“Whatever.”

Yeah. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned the shower, not when he’d been wallowing in trash for the past few days. It wasn’t like I’d been bragging. I’d just told him what had gone down in Albuquerque.

Somehow, in addition to finding Lily and Marcus, and getting this house set up across from the nest, he’d also snuck into the nearby Farm and stolen half a dozen tranq rifles.

“I wish we had night-vision goggles,” I muttered. Ely was the best there was at surviving on his own—clearly—and he was smart. But how sure was he that Lily really was in there? Did I want to see her? Was I ready for that?

I’d seen a lot of Ticks. I’d seen their eyes glazed over with mindless hunger. I’d breathed in their rotting breath. Seen their teeth, too big for even their massive jaws.

Would I still be able to love Lily, after I’d seen her like that? Would she ever be the girl I’d loved again?

The thought of her as a Tick made my innards squelch. The thought that I might not be able to move past it only made things worse. I
had
to fix this.

“If you have some magic fairy who’s granting wishes and you fucking waste one on night goggles, I’m stabbing you,” Ely said from behind me.

I closed my eyes for a second and nearly laughed.

“Okay. Let’s talk about what we do have.”

Ely reached over and took the binoculars from me and then stared out through the window himself. “What we do have is at least five Ticks in the house. Maybe more.”

“So three other than Lily and Marcus.”

“Yeah. And one of them is this huge guy. I think he’s the alpha.”

“The alpha?” I asked.

“Yeah. With pack animals, there’s always one that’s dominant. The alpha.” I raised my eyebrows and Ely shrugged. “What? I watched a lot of nature shows.”

“Okay. Do we know where they’re nesting?” I asked.

“As far as I can tell, they all sleep in the front living room. The one with the curtains.”

“But there are curtains, so you don’t know for sure.”

“Actually, my buddy Superman came over and checked things out with his X-ray vision. No, I don’t know for sure. But I’ve surveyed the perimeter of the house and that’s the only room with curtains still up, so yeah, I think that’s it.”

“And there’s not a basement or a cellar or anything? Some place it would be completely dark during the day?”

“No, you dipshit. This is Texas. No one has basements in Texas. Didn’t you grow up here, too? Why don’t you know that?”

Actually, I’d spent a lot of my childhood and adolescence in boarding schools back East, where everyone had a basement.

Instead I asked, “Are all the tranq rifles you stole fully loaded?”

“You think I’m dumb enough to steal empty rifles?”

“Stop being pissy. Lily and Marcus’s safety is my priority here.”

I didn’t trust him. I would never trust him again. But there was no way I could do this alone.

I blew out a breath. “Okay, so that makes eighteen darts total. That’s six darts for each of the Ticks. Which may or may not be enough to take them out.”

Ely stood up then. “Don’t forget, we still have to tranq Marcus and Lily, too.”

“Don’t forget, we can’t tranq them. Sabrina said the Tick they tested the serum on had been tranqed and he reacted poorly. He died.”

“So we’re trusting the word of a vampire now?”

“We trusted Sebastian. You trusted Roberto.”

“Which is what got us here in the first place.”

“Look, we have exactly one shot at this. If we tranq them and then give them the cure, they will die.”

“Maybe, but—”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe,” he said again, talking over me. “But if we don’t tranq them, then we die. Even if we take out all the other Ticks—which we don’t know for sure we can do even with the eighteen tranq darts—but if it’s just them, you’re talking about putting ourselves in a room with two Ticks. That’s the point I think you’re missing. They are Ticks. They are not the people we love.” Ely thrust a hand out toward the house across the street. “That is not Lily in that house. That is not my brother across the street. That is a monster and he will kill me if he gets a chance. I’m not going to give it to him.”

“What are you saying? That we don’t treat them? ’Cause that’s not really a solution, either. Even if we could do more testing on the cure, we can’t just leave them like this. They’re not safe. The Ticks may have seemed impossible to kill ten months ago, but people are wising up. They’re getting creative about ways to kill Ticks.”

And I’d been one of the people who spread the word about how to kill them. I had killed countless Ticks myself. I had stabbed them in the heart, blown holes in their chests big enough to toss a pumpkin through. I’d chopped off their heads.

Yeah, every time I’d killed a Tick, it had been my life or theirs, but now that there might be a cure, I couldn’t help . . .

No. I couldn’t think that way. This situation was too messed up as it was. I wasn’t going to haunt myself with that crap.

“We can’t leave them as Ticks,” I insisted.

“Well we can’t just go in there, shoot them up with the cure, and expect them to sit around playing Go Fish with us, either. We have to find a way to subdue them while we wait for this to take effect. Do you even know how long it will take?”

“No.” The video Sabrina had shown me had been sped up.

He was right. We couldn’t just dose them and hope that the inhumanly strong monsters didn’t mind when we jabbed them in the arm. Besides, this wasn’t the ketamine that Dawn had used on Marek. This had to actually go into a vein.

“Okay. Then we need a plan. We go in when they’re sleeping, we tranq everyone, and then we remove Lily and Marcus to some other location. Somewhere we can keep them safe while we wait it out. Somewhere they can’t kill us.”

After a second of consideration, Ely nodded. “Where’s that?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “You got a map?”

Ten minutes later, we were poring over an old paper map of Texas that Ely had spread on the ground in front of us. He tossed a gum wrapper in the middle of the eastern part of the state to mark our location.

After a few minutes of searching, I put my finger down on a spot north of Houston. “Here. We bring them here.” The spot on the map read “Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville Unit.” “To the state prison in Huntsville.”