The Vault (A Farm Novel) (22 page)

“What the hell do you think happened here?” Ely asked half under his breath.

“I think whoever was in charge panicked when the outbreak happened. I think the warden just fled and left the inmates locked up. The virus spread within the prison and the prisoners had no way to escape or defend themselves.”

“Jesus,” Ely muttered. “You’d think that was illegal.”

“Yeah. I’m sure wherever that guy is, he’s standing trial right now.”

“Is the plan still a go?”

I studied the fences and the walls, considering ways in. The prison was right in the middle of town, just a few blocks away from what had clearly once been a college. This was one of the things I loved about Texans: their total disregard for logic in zoning. The two institutions were separated by a single row of buildings and what had once been a lovely oak-lined park. I guess I should just have been glad that this college hadn’t been turned into a Farm. It had probably been too close to the shit storm in Houston.

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t exactly have a lot of options here. This is still our best bet.”

I crossed the street back to the park and searched the ground until I found a branch, which I then tossed at the fence. There was no spark. No sizzle. I walked closer. No hum of electricity. Even with the razor wire, Ely and I could probably climb it, but how would we—

“I’ve got wire cutters in my bag if that helps.”

“Yeah, dumb-ass, that helps.”

Twenty minutes later, we had a hole cut in the fence big enough for us to carry Marcus and Lily through. More importantly, they were still out of it, breathing fitfully but deeply. Their pulses slow and even.

“Do you think there’s anything still alive in here?” Ely asked as we went in.

This was the question I’d been asking myself ever since we drove up. “It’s been nine months since things went bad here. That’s long enough even for a Tick to starve.”

“Or to just be really, really hungry.”

“Nah,” I said with more confidence than I actually felt. I nodded toward some of the corpses. “Those bodies are human. And they still have their hearts in them. If there’d been Ticks starving in here, they wouldn’t have been picky about what they ate.”

I squelched the nausea climbing up my esophagus and tried to block out the sights in the prison yard.

As we crossed the yard, Ely asked, “Has it occurred to you that there might be Ticks out there somewhere, and that come dark, they could use that hole we just cut into the fence to come get us?”

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“So what’s to keep them from doing it?”

“Hope.” I eyed the guard station. “And probably some assault rifles.”

“You really think they left that stuff behind when the guards abandoned this place?”

“This is a maximum-security prison smack in the middle of a town. I’m guessing they had a lot of ammunition.”

“Which the inmates probably already found and used.” Ely glared at me. “And if you tell me that you hope they didn’t, I just might hit you.”

I thought back to the night we’d rescued Mel from the Dean who’d kidnapped her. He had strewn the church with dead bodies to ward off the Ticks. “I think Ticks are going to steer clear of the prison. Too many rotting corpses. Besides, if we don’t get them”—I pointed to Lily and Marcus—“into solitary confinement soon, the Ticks outside the prison are going to be the least of our worries.”

MEL

At first, I can only stare at him. What’s he done?

Why?

Why would he . . .

Then, as I watch, helpless, he crumples to the ground.

I gasp and my hand flies to my mouth. I drop the shard of wood I’m holding and dash across the room. Sebastian writhes in agony on the floor. I pull his head onto my lap.

“Sebastian?” I gasp. “Say something!”

For a second he just lies there, sucking in deep breaths like he’s trying to get a handle on the pain. Then he reaches up and brushes my hair out of my eyes. He tries to tuck it back behind my ear, but it is too short and a lock of it falls forward again, which makes him smile, almost. “We were out of control, Melly. It was either this or kill you.” His hand drops back to his side and agony twists his features for an instant. “I couldn’t risk that.”

Tears choke me. “I don’t understand.”

“When I was wounded. When I was dying, we weren’t at each other’s throat.” Still looking pained, he raises his hand to my neck and lightly traces the spot where his fingers had bitten into my flesh. “Don’t you see? It’s the vampire rage. We can’t be near one another. I told you that.”

And so this was his solution? To stake himself again?

“But earlier. I didn’t want to kill you then.”

“Exactly. Because I was already dying.”

“No.” I shake my head so hard my hair flies in front of my face, which is just as well because I don’t want him to see the tears that are suddenly filling my eyes. “I don’t accept that.”

“I told you. It’s not something you can control.” His hand drifts down to rest right above my heart. “You didn’t really think we were special, did you?”

“I . . .”

I want to argue with him. Not in anger this time—that was all gone—but in fear and in panic.

Everything in me rebels at his words. I won’t believe it, even though it makes sense somehow. When he was dying, when he was too weak to be a threat, it hadn’t mattered that we were both supreme predators. Once the stake had been removed and he’d fed, his strength had returned, and with it, both of our baser natures.

So this is it? I will lose him forever. I will be alone. Forever. I am not sure which idea disturbs me more, and that is terrifying.

Even though he’d explained the rage when he’d first turned me, I hadn’t felt it firsthand until a few days ago. I hadn’t believed how strong it would be.

“So what? You’re just going to die? I don’t accept that!”

I finally have the answer to that question about what kind of man he is. A bad man pretending to be good would never have stabbed himself to save another.

No, Sebastian is a good man. Tortured, but good. And I may never get to know him any better than this, even though I fear I already love him.

He smiles. “Nothing so dramatic, Kit. We leave the stake in. You bandage me up again. And we keep going.”

“How long? How long can you live like this?”

“Long enough to get to Genexome and open the vault for you. Then you take what you need and leave. It’s all good.”

“No,” I say. “None of this is good.”

His lips twist in a smile that’s a little amused and a lot pained. “You were right, Melly. I should have distributed the cure sooner. I should have made sure it was in the right hands before I went after Roberto.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference, with Roberto in control.”

I don’t know what to say to this. I no longer know what to believe. This didn’t seem like the time to argue with him when he’d just stabbed himself to save my life.

I trace my fingers down the perfect, beautiful lines of his face, relishing the faint stubble under my fingertips. My thumb brushes across his lower lip and he sucks in a breath. I don’t think it’s from pain.

“It’s no good, you know, mooning over me like this. It will never end well.”

Impulsively, I bend down and press my mouth to his. It isn’t anger or hope that fuels me this time, but fear. Because with Sebastian I’ve felt things I’d never felt before and I don’t want to lose that. I can’t lose it.

I pour my desperation into that kiss and I feel it in him, too.

I lift my head just slightly. “No. I don’t believe that,” I say. “I’ve seen a lot of nature programming. And, yes, a lot of apex predators are extremely territorial, but they still . . .” Embarrassment floods me and I feel my cheeks turning red. Who knew vampires could blush? I swallow and push through. “They still mate. Maybe not often, but they do. And they don’t kill each other doing it. We can—”

He cuts off my rush of words by pressing his fingertips to my lips. They are cold again and the thought chills my heart. “Nice try, Melly, but you can’t argue your way out of this.”

“But—”

“If we were creatures of nature, that would probably work. But vampires don’t reproduce through sex.” He chuckles, but it must hurt, because he winces on the end. “Which isn’t to say it’s not a worthy diversion, but it’s not how we procreate. We don’t need another vampire to make more vampires. We need humans.”

“But—”

He brings his hands up to my face, and cups my jaw. “Listen to me. This isn’t going to work. There’s no scenario where we get to be together. Do you understand me?”

I try to shake my head, but he doesn’t let me move and so all I can do is close my eyes and refuse to look at him.

“I need you to understand this.” His voice sounds broken, desperate. I open my eyes and search for that same emotion in his face, and to my shock I see it there. “We can’t be together. We try it again and either I’ll kill you or we’ll kill each other. Either way, no one wins. So whatever sentimental fantasy you’re cooking up in that girlish heart of yours, you have to put it away. You have to think about yourself now. You can’t have me. Not now or ever.”

CARTER

Lily woke up just before dusk and I couldn’t help wondering if she’d been out so long because of all the darts or because Ticks were naturally nocturnal. That was probably just a way of making myself feel better. Ely and I had secured two solitary cells at opposite ends of the block from each other. We’d found chairs to strap Lily and Marcus to, Hannibal Lecter–style. We’d secured them and waited.

I couldn’t make myself watch, but I could hear her. At first, it was just groaning, because she still had the duct tape on her mouth. At some point, she must have worked it off, because she started making anguished yelps. Those howls of pain and distress that sounded like nothing a human would make. Yet somehow, terrifyingly, she still sounded like Lily. I could hear her voice in the crazed keening. This was horrifying, blood-chilling proof that I would know her anywhere. In any form.

She wasn’t herself, and yet somehow she was. Somehow, my Lily was still in there. I could only pray that I’d be able to get her out.

And that’s what I did. I pulled a chair out of the guards’ station. I set it down right outside her cell and I listened to her desperate cries, the lonely yips and howls of a pack animal all alone. Confused and afraid. After maybe an hour, she broke free of the chair. I heard creaking. And then the pound of wood on concrete, then wood shattering. At some point, she started pacing. I heard the shuffling awkward gait as she moved from one end of the cell to the other. Her long legs and powerful muscles weren’t meant for this confined space. Her pace picked up as her howls got louder and more desperate. She was scared. And alone. And the sounds of her fear tore at my heart.

Screw this.

Was it time yet?

How could I be sure?

I started pacing, myself. Down the length of the corridor and back.

I couldn’t dose her too soon. I had to be sure the tranquilizer was out of her system. And I had no way of knowing when that would be.

I had promised myself I wasn’t going to watch her. That I was going to stay nearby but out of sight. But maybe I could calm her down. Maybe seeing me, hearing the sound of my voice, would help?

I crept over to the door.

“Lily, it’s okay,” I said softly as I slid open the metal hatch covering the Plexiglas window.

She whirled around, her nose tilted up, like she wasn’t responding to the sound of my voice so much as to my scent. Her posture straightened, and for an instant, she looked almost human again, despite the tangled mass of hair around her face. Then she drew in one long breath. Through her nose. Like a connoisseur sniffing a fine wine.

And she launched herself at me.

She hit the Plexiglas so fast and so hard that the sound of her collision reverberated in my ears. The impact split open her forehead. She stumbled back, her brow knotted with confusion and maybe pain. Blood trickled from the cut down into her eyes. Then she breathed in again. And launched herself at me a second time, teeth bared and snarling. She bounced back more quickly this time. Frenzied and starved, she threw herself at me again and again.

I backed away slowly, heart pounding, fear pulsing through my veins. This was Lily. The girl I loved more than my own life. And to her, I was just food.

MEL

Nothing ends a conversation like having the guy stab himself in the heart. In terms of embarrassing ways to have a guy reject you, this has got to be some kind of record, right?

I should have known better than to open myself up to him. To trust him. To . . . love him. Oh God, I love him.

No. I will not be that stupid. I abjectly refuse to be stupid enough to fall for a guy who would kiss me and try to kill me in the same breath. And I refuse to romanticize the fact that he stabbed himself to keep from killing me. Because I’m tired of him pushing me away. I’m tired of being treated like a child. Tired of him telling me what I can and cannot do.

I can’t be with him. I don’t want to be with him. He’s infuriating and domineering and . . .

Oh, who am I kidding? I do want to be with him. So much it hurts. But he’s made it perfectly clear that he’s not even going to try to make it work between us.

We don’t talk for a while after that. I’m too pissed, too hurt, and Sebastian is in too much pain. Which he totally deserves. He’s lucky I don’t ruin more priceless art to stab him again.

Instead I find a dagger in one of the drawers and go to work ripping the fine linens into shreds so that I can rebandage his wound. Then I feed Chuy again, because I don’t wholly trust myself to be too close to Sebastian. Or maybe I just want him to be in pain like I am.

I think he feels the same way, because when I approach him and reach for the bandage, he waves me off.

“No. Let me do it.”

“I can do it,” I say.

He strains to push himself up so he’s leaning against the sofa, his legs stretched out in front of him. “No thanks, Florence.”

“I’m not letting you bandage yourself. And you’re too weak to stop me anyway, so get over it.”

I kneel beside him on the floor. His hair is hanging in his face again and I want to push it back, to really look at him, now that we’re not trying to kill each other. But I don’t, because I know he’ll just give me another lecture. Instead, I use the dagger to slice off my original bandage. It’s tricky work, pulling off the old bandage, some of which is deeply embedded alongside the stake. I know the pain must be horrible. I hear it in the forced steadiness of his breath, which is far too rhythmic to be natural.

To distract myself I ask, “Who’s Florence?”

He laughs then, a low, pained sound that’s as desperate as it is amused. “Florence Nightingale.”

“And I’m supposed to know her because . . .”

“A famous nurse from the Crimean War. All the men fell in love with her. What are they teaching you in school these days that you don’t even know who Florence Nightingale is?”

Annoyed by his reference to my schooling, I’m tempted to tighten his bandages a little more. Instead I say, “Apparently not that. I don’t even know where the Crimean War was.” Once I’ve got most of the bandage off, I try to examine the wound. This shard of wooden frame seems so much worse than the stake from earlier. This is jagged and dusty.

“You are so young,” he says, almost accusingly.

He’s right, of course. I don’t feel young. I have never felt young, but right now—swooning over the hot guy I can never have—I am acting very young. Well, I’m done with that. No more swooning for me.

“And you are so stupid,” I mutter under my breath. “This looks horrible. You couldn’t find a rusty nail to stab yourself with?”

“As a matter of fact, I had some barbed wire I thought of using but it just wasn’t handy.”

“No, instead you decide to impale yourself on a jagged piece of lumber.”

“This? It’s barely a splinter.”

I snort. I don’t want to be amused by him. I’m furious. And insulted. And Sebastian is dying by inches. Nothing about this is funny.

But his attempts at humor only endear him to me.

I start wrapping him in the bandage, hoping that maybe I can stanch the flow of blood enough that he won’t get that much weaker. But he’s weak already. I know this. I can feel it in my own blood.

Once I’ve got the bandage on, I push myself to my feet and go look for more blood to feed Sebastian. A minute later, I toss another bag at him.

He sets it onto the sofa a few inches from his head. “No thanks. I just ate.”

“Drink it,” I order. “If I can keep you drinking, maybe you’ll be strong enough to make it all the way back to Genexome.”

“No thanks,” he says again more slowly. “You know vampires. Can’t hold our liquor.”

Of course, we’re at cross-purposes here. I’m trying to save his life, he’s deliberately throwing it away.

I cross back to his side and stab the dagger into the bag. “Drink it or I will pour it down your throat myself.”

His eyes follow the dribble of blood leaking from the puncture in the bag. “It will only—”

“It will only keep you alive. Now drink it, because I’m not dragging your sorry corpse halfway across the state.”

I don’t wait to see if he follows my directions. Instead, I walk to the door and move to open it.

“You don’t want to do that,” he says.

“Well, someone has to check to see if the Ticks are still out there. So it’s either this or we die in here.”

“Roberto would have security cameras and a live feed to one of the channels on the TV.”

Still facing the door, I cringe. I should have thought of that. I’m the child of the digital age and I’m tired of being one step behind a two-thousand-year-old vampire.

But I try not to let Sebastian see my frustration. The last thing I need is more of the
you’re-so-young
conversation.

Instead I cross to the media center. Even here I’m at a loss. Mom was never big on TV in the Before. She was always convinced I needed more human interaction, not less. So we’d had just the two TVs in the house and little beyond basic cable. Forget DVRs and gaming systems and live security feeds. All of which Roberto does have.

I grab a remote that’s the same brand as the TV and start pushing buttons. Not much happens.

“Better bring that here, Kit. You seem to be technologically impaired.”

I grab an armful of remotes and dump them on the ground next to Sebastian, who quickly picks up the correct two. A moment later, the TV flickers to life and he’s navigating the menu system.

“Seriously?” I ask. “It’s that easy for you?”

“I have a similar system myself.”

“Oh, so all vampires shop at the same electronics store? Because you never mentioned that in my training.”

He almost smiles. “It’s more that all vampires like the very best. Of everything.”

“Oh, and you have—what is this? Three different gaming systems? You have all that also?”

“Of course.”

I roll my eyes at the vulgar display of testosterone that is the media center. “You have immortality and outrageous wealth at your disposal and you choose to spend your time playing video games?”

He shrugs, clicks more buttons on different remotes. “What would you have me do?”

“I don’t know. Something that betters mankind. Create great art. Write music. Research global climate change. Cure cancer. Play dominoes, for God’s sake. Just do
something
.”

“Well, as you recall, I took a stab at that whole curing-cancer thing. Didn’t turn out too well.”

I swivel to look at him. “Was Genexome really working on that? I thought that was just a ruse to get the Tick virus out there.”

He shrugs. “Potayto. Potahto.” Then he points at the screen. “And here’s the security feed.”

Part of me wants to ask more questions, but I don’t. Getting out of El Corazon, that’s what’s important. Searching for ways that Sebastian might just be misunderstood is simply pathetic.

The screen divides into six little screens, each showing the feed from a different camera. One is clearly a wide-angle lens showing the view overlooking the town from the front of the house. Two more are of the exterior. The remaining three are within the house itself. All but two show Ticks stumbling around.

I stand up and walk closer to the screen, trying to place where the three interior cameras are. “I think that’s the hall from the living room into the kitchen.” I point to the edge of the screen. “The door down to the basement should be just offscreen here. I think I remember there being a hallway to the garage in this direction. So that means—”

But before I can finish the thought, Sebastian asks the one question I never saw coming. “Are you in love with Carter?”