Reads free sampler

Transcription

Reads free sampler

BERKLEY
TEEN PARANORMAL
READS FREE SAMPLER
9783002005594_YoungAdultSa_FM.indd 1
5/18/12 8:59 AM
Published by Berkley and NAL, divisions of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Excerpt from Almost Everything
© Lyda Morehouse, 2012
Excerpt from Dreaming Awake
© Gwen Hayes, 2012
Excerpt from Black Dawn
© Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2012
Excerpt from Blood Fever
© Veronica Wolff, 2012
Excerpt from The Farm
© Emily McKay, 2012
First Printing, 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright 2012
All rights reserved
[Berkley, NAL] REGISTERED TRADEMARKS—MARCAS REGISTRADAS
Printed in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of
both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or
third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was
reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this “stripped book.”
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without
the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your
support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
5/18/12 8:59 AM
BERKLEY
ALMOST EVERYTHING
by Tate Hallaway 1
DREAMING AWAKE
by Gwen Hayes19
BLACK DAWN
by Rachel Caine39
BLOOD FEVER
by Veronica Wolff71
THE FARM
by Emily McKay95
5/18/12 8:59 AM
5/18/12 8:59 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING
A Vampire
Princess Novel
Tate Hallaway
Ever since her father banished the half-witch, half-
vampire Ana Parker and vampire knight Elias from
the court of the Northern vampires, Ana has been
trying to live a normal life. But when the Prince of
the Southern Region vampires informs Ana that
they’re on the brink of war and she accidentally
offers up Elias as a peace offering, the princess
knows that she’s going to need some help to get
out of this situation.
With Ana’s boy drama meter hitting an all-time high,
summer in St. Paul is heating up for all the
wrong reasons . . .
AVAILABLE NOW FROM
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
9783002005594_YoungAdultSa_TX.indd 1
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter One
Y
ou’d think one of the perks of being half vampire would be a
resistance to weather. No such luck.
Or, considering that I, Anastasija Ramses Parker, am the vampire princess of St. Paul, you’d think a title like that would come
with some supercute servant boys waving fans over my body and
feeding me ice-cold bonbons.
Again, this doesn’t seem to be happening.
Instead, I’m melting because my college professor mother
doesn’t believe in air-conditioning.
Minnesota summers are surprisingly hot and humid. I kind of
forget how awful it can be until the first ninety-degree day with
eighty-percent humidity hits St. Paul.
The oppressive stickiness in our house sent me out to the porch
swing. At least there, with the brutal July sun finally sinking into
brilliant orange and lavender streaks, there was a slight breeze.
It was too warm to even read. I pressed the sweating glass of
lemonade into the hollow between my breasts and pushed a strand
of hair from my eyes. Other girls complained about how the
weather made their hair frizzy and unmanageable, but for me the
problem was sticky flatness. This morning I’d tried to pull my p
ast-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
4
Tate Hallaway
the-shoulders deep black hair into one of those fancy French
braids, but by this point in the day, bits kept slipping out and clinging to my neck and face.
A few gawker pedestrians strolled down the broad streets of my
Cathedral Hill neighborhood, trying to act casual as they surreptitiously peered through the lighted windows into the Victorian-era
mansions that lined our block. I guess our house, at least, suited
my supernatural rank. With its ivy-covered brick and castlelike
tower, it looked like the sort of place you might expect a vampire
to live.
I just hoped no one I knew came by, since I was sprawled
limply in my shortest shorts and last year’s Hello Kitty tank top that
had half the sequins missing.
A bicyclist whizzed by, the tires clicking, and I wondered what
kind of health-crazed nut could work up the enthusiasm to exercise on a day like this. I would have given him the finger out of
spite, but I couldn’t muster the ambition to lift my hand. Even the
flowers in the garden drooped. Tall stalks of lupine bent low, depressed by the humidity. Cicadas buzzed angrily in the trees as I
pushed the swing with the tip of my toe to use as little energy as
possible.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the cicadas that were pissed off. I
frowned darkly at the sunset.
Mom was inside, setting a table for “tea” in the sitting room. I
could hear the good china clattering through the open window,
and the noise set my teeth on edge. In about an hour, maybe less
now that the sun was setting, Elias would rouse himself from a
dead sleep, and the farce—I mean the festivities—would begin.
When I offered to let my ex‑betrothed vampire boyfriend crash
in the basement, I kind of expected it would be short-term. I really
thought my mom would object, first of all. Mom is the Queen of
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING5
Witches, and, even though I’m half vampire, witches and vampires
don’t get along. In fact, they usually hate each other.
A lot.
I shifted the glass to let the cool droplets of condensation run
onto my skin. It was pale, like that of my vampire father’s people.
Even in the middle of summer, my legs stayed milky white. I didn’t
even get freckles. I was envious of the girls I saw at Lake Josephine
with their golden bronze skin and Norwegian natural blond hair.
The only benefit I derived from inheriting my dad’s complexion
seemed to be that I also rarely had to deal with acne.
Even before I realized my dad was a vampire, I knew I didn’t
look much like my mom. She was all hips and mousy blond curls,
and she wore glasses. Despite my bookish bent, I’d never needed
vision correction.
Dishes clanked through the open window, and I heard the
sound of a mixer grinding. I shook my head. I would never have
imagined it would be like this. Not only was Mom putting up with
Elias; she was cooking for him.
For the past two months, I’d had to endure this increasingly
bizarre evening ritual. Mom never used to cook for me. I mean,
sure, she might open a can of this and mix in a can of that. On
special occasions, like my birthday, she might pull out all the stops
and make the one from-scratch meal she did well and burn me a
cake, but lately it’d been like Rachael Ray around here, with food
processors and clarifying butter. For instance, tonight she made
some kind of freezer cheesecake that took her an hour and a half
to prepare. And the result might actually be edible.
And did I mention that Elias is a vampire? He doesn’t even
need to eat. All this effort for a guy who doesn’t even eat! How
weird is that?
Wait—it gets stranger.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
6
Tate Hallaway
After Elias gets up every night, we all sit around and . . . chat—
in the nice room, with the good dishes and the straight-back chairs.
It’s awful.
I guess I hadn’t anticipated how much my mother needed the
company of someone who could remember Kennedy’s assassination and other ridiculously old, antiquated stuff.
I mean, at first, I was really happy that Mom seemed willing to
sit down with a vampire at all. As I said, there’s been a war going
on between vampires and witches since the beginning of time. But
then Mom and Elias started getting all nostalgic and friendly.
Pretty soon, I found myself pushing cranberry sauce around my
plate while listening to enthusiastic debates about the women’s
movement and economic busts and bubbles and other completely
incomprehensible things that happened before I was born.
Worse, when I tried to change the subject to something vaguely
twenty-first century, I got shushed. Shushed!
My mother and my kind‑of boyfriend shushed me as if I were
some kind of annoying toddler.
WTF!?
Running my palm over my forehead, I wiped again at the sweat
and that damn uncooperative hair. A car drove by, snippets of Prairie Home Companion blaring through its open windows. I heard
something about powder-milk biscuits as it turned the corner.
Goddess, could this day get more irritating?
Especially given that two minutes ago, while letting me taste
test the cheesecake, Mom admitted something I already suspected:
she had a crush on Elias.
Okay, what she actually said was, “I’m working on a way to keep
Elias around permanently. It’s good having him here.” But for my
mom, the I‑never-got-over-the-seventies, bra-burning feminist, that
was pretty much a declaration of true love.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING7
I so did not want to go back inside the sweltering house and
pretend to enjoy cheesecake, knowing that my mom was trying to
conceal googly eyes for my sort‑of boyfriend. Not that Elias has
been particularly boyfriendy lately.
Now that we aren’t officially betrothed and he lives in the basement, we don’t court. We used to have this wonderful weekly ritual
where he’d come over and sit in the pine tree outside my window
and we’d talk. Sometimes he’d bring flowers. Other times we
might go up onto the roof and stare at the stars in companionable
silence. He wrote me poetry.
Then my dad called off the betrothal and exiled both of us for
daring to stand up to him. You know those TV shows with all the
crazy kings of England? That’s kind of my dad. Of course, it goes
both ways. I did nearly put his eye out with a w
hite-hot magical
talisman later, but he was trying to kill m
e—again.
My family totally puts the dis in dysfunctional.
I miss Elias’s attention. Now I’m lucky if he gives me a wave
before he settles in to American History 101 with Mom. I think
maybe he’s all broody because of the exile. But he should be over
it by now. It’s been months.
Jealous much?
Yeah, totally. I guess you always want the one you can’t have,
right? Because it’s not that I’m hurting for boy attention. I have two
other guys texting me on a regular basis, trying to get me to commit to a date.
First is my other ex, Nikolai Kirov. He’s got those classically
smoldering looks you get when you’re half Russian, half Romany,
and all rock star. Seriously, Nik’s band, Ingress, has been getting
tons of local radio play. Yet I went down that road before, and let
me tell you, it’s not easy being the dorky, h
igh-school-age girlfriend
of the lead singer in a popular college band. Talk about feeling
5/18/12 9:00 AM
8
Tate Hallaway
shushed; only it’s more like being shut out completely when the
gaggle of groupies descends.
The ice in my glass clunked as it melted. The little air that
stirred brought the sharp scent of lighter fuel burning on someone’s barbecue grill. I sighed. If I was being honest, a lot of the
problems I’d had with Nikolai’s fame were my fault; I never felt
cool enough to hang around with him. I felt most comfortable
with people who made obscure references to Star Wars movies or
Lord of the Rings novels, and people who got excited at the idea of
new Doctor Who episodes and extra work in p
recalculus—in other
words, nerds.
Nik was also the junior vampire slayer of the region, which gets
messy given my title—you know, vampire princess.
Yeah, me, a princess—lying here in my ragged, sweat-soaked
clothes. You can see it, right? Glamour, thy name is Anastasija
Parker.
Anyway, trust me as far as me and N
ik—it’s too complicated by
far. Romeo and Juliet had it easier.
Speaking of theater, the other guy vying for my attention is
Matthew Thompson, former hockey star turned lead actor. See,
ever since we did the spring play together, Thompson has been
trying to get me to date him. He’s nice enough, I guess, though we
come from different cliques at school. He’s a popular jock—the
homecoming king
type—
and I’m . . .
well, I’m a theater
geek with two differently colored eyes and a reputation as a spooky
witch, and I’m an honor student.
Different worlds.
Especially since Thompson is a mundane. If I told him I
couldn’t bring him over to the house because a vampire lives in
the basement and Mom practices True Magic, he’d think I was
kidding. That made social situations kind of dicey. Oh, yeah, and
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING9
when I was discovering I was the vampire princess, I kind of licked
blood off his face after a floor hockey accident in g ym—in front of
everyone.
Awkward.
You wouldn’t think Thompson would be all that interested in
me, given that particular moment in our history, but, thanks to the
forget‑me spell Bea had cast, he remembered it as a kiss. He
thought I’d been so sorry to see him hurt that I’d risked crossing
our social cliques to peck him gently on the cheek.
I still knew the truth, though.
So, as far as I was concerned, my options were limited. And the
least complicated one would rather talk ancient history with
my mom.
It sucks to be me.
“Elias! Good to see you. Come sit.” I heard Mom’s singsong
greeting through the window. Then she shouted to me, “Anastasija
Ramses Parker, stop sulking! Time for tea!”
The full-name treatment, eh? Just for that, I’d sit here for a few
extra minutes.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and stared down the
street. Three people were out walking, heading in my direction. I
probably wouldn’t have given them any notice except that one of
them was wearing a cloak.
Did I mention it was ninety degrees in the shade?
I sat up and watched the approaching trio with new interest.
Was there a vampiric jaunt to their step? Who else would be so
impervious to the weather? Because, even though I wasn’t, full
vamps were.
Draining the watery lemonade in a gulp, I set the empty glass
underneath the porch swing. With the sun setting behind them,
they presented only a shadowy silhouette. The cloak-wearing fig-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
10
Tate Hallaway
ure was shorter, and I thought there was something protective and
Praetorian G
uard–like about the way the other two flanked him.
Yes, they definitely trailed one precise step behind, their heads
swiveling every so often to scan the area for threats.
The streetlamps lining the boulevard flickered on.
They were less than half a block away now, and I could make
out more details. Dark, unruly curls framed the shockingly pale
face of the leader. Despite the whiteness of his skin, his features
suggested to me that he might be Latino. The guard on the left was
black, though his flesh had that strangely drained hue of a vampire.
A gold earring flashed in one ear, and he had thick, puffy hair and
muttonchop sideburns that reminded me of Samuel L. Jackson in
Pulp Fiction, that Quentin Tarantino movie. His partner was the
palest of all three of them. His long straight hair was tied back
neatly at the nape of his neck, but otherwise he bore no resemblance to John Travolta’s character in the same movie. In the artificial light, his auburn hair glowed almost bloodred, and his sharp,
cruel expression reminded me of a gentleman pirate . . . or something much worse. I found myself the most wary of him. I stood up.
“Ana, I’m about to cut the cake!” my mom shouted through the
open window. I jumped. I’d been completely absorbed watching
the strangers, who were now standing at the gate looking directly
at me. “Are you coming in?”
“In a minute,” I answered distractedly. I heard my mother
clucking her tongue and making excuses for “moody teenagers” to
Elias.
I moved to the edge of the porch steps and peered nervously
around a column at the men at the end of our sidewalk. The
leader had his hands on the gate, but he didn’t push it open. I
could see now that he looked to be close to my age or younger.
There was the hint of stubble on his chin, but his cheeks still re-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING11
tained a lot of baby fat—in a cute way. In fact, when he smiled at
me, he looked downright charming. “Anastasija Ramses Parker?”
Wow, I’d heard my full name twice in ten minutes.
But why did I get the feeling that hearing it now meant I was in
a whole lot of trouble?
“Yes, that’s me,” I agreed cautiously. “Who are you?”
It was the m
ean-looking guard who answered. Even his silken,
Cajun-accented voice gave me the creeping chills. “I present His
Royal Highness, Luis David Montezuma, prince of the Southern
Region.”
A vampire prince? Oh crap.
“Ana?” The screen door squeaked, and Elias stepped out onto
the porch. “Your mother wants . . .” He stopped the moment he
saw Prince Luis and his entourage at the end of the walk. I felt a
breeze and, in a blink, Elias stood protectively in front of me.
His movement made the redhead snicker.
The prince shot his guard a dark look. To me, he put on that
smile I’d found so charming a moment ago. However, now it
seemed more like a politician’s—a bit oily and forced. “We have
traveled some distance, Princess.”
I got the hint, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to invite Luis and his
goons in. Besides, why was he here with me and not in the underground cave courts of my father? I tried to catch Elias’s eye so I
could ask him what to do, but he was busy staring menacingly at
his counterparts.
“For Goddess’ sake, what is going on out there?” my mother
shouted. “Come in and have tea!”
I knew that the stalemate had been broken with Elias’s soft
curse and the chuckle of the goons, who reached around the gate
to let themselves in.
“Don’t mind if we do,” said Luis with a grin.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter Two
A
nd I thought tea was awkward before.
Mom fumed over having accidentally invited three new
vampires into her house. She’d tried to kick them out right away,
but Elias had pulled her aside and whispered something about
royalty and duty. It hadn’t calmed her much. She flounced off to
the kitchen to get a few more plates and cups for tea. I could hear
her angry mutterings about upping the wards as we directed the
prince and his entourage into the sitting room.
Luis swept the cloak off his shoulders and tucked it under his
arm. The shirt he wore was a rich indigo color and clearly pure
silk. His pants, more correctly classified as slacks, had been tailored to a perfect fit. Everything from his i vory-studded cufflinks to
his polished black shoes smelled of old money.
Meanwhile, I was acutely aware of the tiny holes in the
threadbare, too-tight fabric of my tank top that, no doubt, showed
off my contrasting-color sports bra. The tiny hairs I hadn’t shaved
off my armpits this morning prickled in the heat. I bet Princess
Kate never had days like this. She’d at least have some kind of
awesome hat.
Thank the Goddess for Elias. He swept in, took coats, and
5/18/12 9:00 AM
14
Tate Hallaway
made everyone take places around the table. He pulled out my
chair for me, which was nice, but it made me feel especially
grubby. If I’d known visiting dignitaries would be dropping by, I’d
at least have put on a better shirt. Or pants! At least no one would
see my naked legs under the table.
We now sat in the stuffy, dusty room staring silently at one another.
I should probably have said something dignified and welcoming here, but all I could think of was that most of my “gilty pleasure” bronze nail polish was half-chipped and missing. So I took
the opportunity to look around at anything other than Prince Luis
and his looming goons.
The room, at least, suited the prince. It was expansive, with oak
flooring and pressed tin on the high ceiling. Unlike the rest of the
house, this room was sparsely decorated and neat. It was like that
because we almost never used it. Mom and I had inherited our
house from my grandparents, and it was much too large for the two
of us. Before the tea ritual with Elias started, we kept this room
shuttered. It still had lace doilies and pale blue painted dishes on
the plate rails that were vestiges of my grandparents’ lives. Odder
still, there were no books anywhere in the room, not even a half-
finished paperback tucked into the windowsill or resting open,
spine-bent on a coffee table. That was damn near unnatural for a
house with two word nerds like Mom and me. I always felt like a
guest in this part of my own house.
Having made their tour, my eyes returned to Luis, who was
smiling patiently at me. Expensive cologne hung in the air, and I
had to hold back the urge to sniff my underarms. I couldn’t even
exchange glances with Elias since he refused to leave my side,
even to sit. He stood behind my chair like a sentry. Though my
back was to him, I could picture the formidable image Elias pre-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING15
sented. Even in his simple black T‑shirt and jeans, he was lean,
hard, and infinitely d
angerous—even among his own kind. If he
was angry or spoiling for a fight, his eyes would turn yellow and
catlike, and his fangs would drop. Otherwise, he’d measure them
with i ce-cold, utterly ruthless gray eyes. His black hair was cropped
short, his face clean shaven, and everything about him was perfectly crisp and precise.
The Samuel L. Jackson clone and r ed-haired guy likewise stood
at attention behind Luis. Their eyes watched for any movement
from Elias. The tension was thick.
Mom, meanwhile, paced around like a caged animal, ostensibly setting cups and forks in front of the new guests’ places.
I desperately wanted to know what Luis expected from me, but
we seemed to be following some kind of protocol I didn’t know.
Perhaps we would start talking when Mom finished fussing. Not
knowing what else to do, I folded my hands in my lap and tried to
think princesslike thoughts.
That was hard since I was sweating in a very unladylike fashion.
My hair had stuck to my face again, despite the fan’s humming
from its perch on the windowsill. Occasionally, I’d feel a bit of
night air on my forehead, but it disappeared too quickly to offer
much relief.
“Who are you, again?” Mom asked bluntly, plunking an extra
plate down in front of the vampire prince and glaring at the two
goons standing in her way. Mom, like me, wore as little as possible
because of the heat. She had on a white spaghetti-strap top and
cutoff jeans. “And why are you in my house?”
“You invited them in,” Elias said quietly, though unnecessarily.
Mom cast him a dark, angry look. “Well, I didn’t know they
were out there, did I?”
Luis raised his hand with a gentle smile. “It’s quite all right.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
16
Tate Hallaway
The Queen Mother has every right to be properly introduced. My
name is Luis Montezuma, and I am the prince of the Southern
Region. I’ve come seeking restitution for a grave loss.” At this, Luis
turned to stare pointedly at me, as if I should have some clue as to
what he meant.
Only I didn’t.
Plus, I found myself struck dumb by the sudden revelation, in
the low glow of the electric lamplight, that Luis had one green eye
and one brown.
He had two differently colored eyes.
Just like me.
Did that mean we were the same in other ways? I’d never met
another half vampire. Were his differently colored eyes accidental
or an indication that he was a dhampyr too?
Luis cocked his eyebrow at my confusion. “Did you not release
Khan from her betrothal, Your Highness?”
Oh, um, who? Had I? I shook away my questions about Luis’s
eye color and tried to remember. A vague memory surfaced of a
vampire sneaking into my school last year and asking me to cancel
her betrothness or whatever, and Elias and my dad telling me
there’d be serious fallout for what seemed like such a c ommon-
sense decision. Come to think of it, her name was Khan. “Uh,
yeah,” I admitted hurriedly; I had a bigger question on my mind.
“Hey, like, are you a dhampyr?”
Everyone on Luis’s side of the table looked shocked, as if
maybe I’d used some kind of racist slur. Luis’s cheeks colored.
Since I couldn’t catch Elias’s eye, I shot a look at Mom. She
shrugged. “Dhampyr” was the only word we knew for what I was:
half vampire/half witch.
“About Khan . . . ,” Luis prompted quietly. It was clear I was
supposed to drop the subject.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
ALMOST EVERYTHING17
So I did. I guessed being a dhampyr wasn’t something to be
proud of in the Southern Region, if, in fact, that was what he was.
I could feel myself blushing now too, but I managed to stammer
out something I remembered about Khan. “She was in love with
some other guy. What else was I supposed to say?”
Luis gave me a highly skeptical look. “What does love have to
do with confarreatio?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Everyone on that side of the table looked completely stunned.
Even the two otherwise immobile guards actually exchanged a
look. I tried to look at Elias, but his gaze and expression remained
unchanged.
“What do you think betrothal ends in?” Luis asked.
“Marriage?” Didn’t that seem like the obvious answer?
“Oh, I see why you released Khan. You’re one of the modernists.”
My mom snorted and started cutting the cheesecake. “We’re
full of those up here. After our confarreatio, I made Ramses marry
me in front of a judge.” She handed me the biggest slice with a
wink.
Luis shook his head, frowning deeply at my mother for a moment. Then he shook his head as if dismissing her from his
thoughts. To me, he said, “Your foolishly romantic action has
caused a great deal of strife for my captain here.” He indicated the
mean-looking vampire—Captain Creepy, apparently. I suddenly
understood Khan’s hesitation at the idea of hooking up with this
guy. “The dissolution of the contract leaves the fate of our empires
unresolved. Without the bond, peace cannot be guaranteed, you
understand.”
“Not really,” I admitted.
Luis blinked at me. I don’t think he was used to someone ad-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
18
Tate Hallaway
mitting this much stupidity in one meeting, but, seriously, I still
had no real idea what he was talking about.
“Let me put it simply,” he said. “There needs to be a marriage
treaty, a confarreatio. You must provide a replacement suitor or
there will be war.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE
Gwen Hayes
Haden Black changed Theia Alderson’s life when he
appeared in her dreams. And to save Haden, Theia
sacrificed everything. But the dangerous bargain she
made could have lasting repercussions. Now Theia is
susceptible to the same deadly hungers that Haden
has long struggled with—and their return to
Serendipity Falls could test their control. And
someone from Haden’s past is determined to
destroy Theia from the inside out, starting with
those closest to her . . .
“Twilight fans will be tripping over themselves to
read Hayes’s new series.”
—RT Book Reviews
AVAILABLE NOW FROM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Homecoming
D
anger doesn’t always greet with bared fangs. Sometimes it
seduces with a willowy caress, a sigh of pleasure, and then
turns carnivorous with whipcrack intensity.
Falling in love is the same.
Love had seduced my heart and soul, changed me forever, and
then, in one promise made under duress, jeopardized my very
humanity. And yet I couldn’t regret it.
These were my thoughts as I cartwheeled back through the
supernatural veil that separated two worlds—the one I was supposed to live in and the one from which I was escaping. The place
called Under.
Existing on the other side of dreams, Under wasn’t a place a
person could journey to and from freely. On this night, my course
had been set by a demon-summoning spell.
And it summoned me. Because now I had the blood of a demon running in my veins.
Brilliant streaks of light flashed around me. I was neither here
nor there. I was everything and nothing at the same time. Like a
comet, I brushed past the whole world, painting it with light.
The crash of my body onto a hard wooden floor jolted the part
5/18/12 9:00 AM
22
Gwen Hayes
of me that still swam in the alterverse. Then came a sharp tug on
the metaphysical line that tethered my spirit to my flesh and
bones. I slammed into myself and drew in a harsh breath of oxygen.
And just like that I was home.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter One
One week later
S
ometimes it seemed that nothing had changed since the night
I saw the burning man fall from the sky.
I stared out of my window into the cold, dark night. Behind
me, my pink and ivory bedroom was reflected in the glass. A picture of a world that felt like a cage and a haven all at once. I tried
to remember that everything was different now, that I was different
now, but it felt like I’d stepped into a time warp. One that brought
me once again to peer into the night and long for some unnamed
freedom from being Theia Alderson—the perfect daughter, the
perfect teen girl, the perfect ingénue from every gothic romance
ever written. A doll in a box.
But I wasn’t that girl anymore. Even if I was the only one who
recognized it.
I didn’t dare dwell on those thoughts for too long. There were
shadows in my own heart and soul that I didn’t want to get to look
at too closely. Best to keep them at bay since a small part of me was
curious about the new darkness inside me. Too curious.
I pushed away from the window and roamed my bedroom,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
24
Gwen Hayes
brushing my fingers against the furnishings of my old life as if they
were touchstones for keeping me earthbound. Tomorrow would be
my first day back at school since my “return.” All of Serendipity
Falls thought I had run away, including my father. I could hardly
have told him I’d been held prisoner in Under, the realm where
nightmares were born. He’d have had me sedated and carted off to
the nearest mental ward if I’d explained that demons exist and that
not only was I dating one, but his mother had turned me into some
kind of a monster as well.
So my father didn’t look deeper and accepted the fact that I had
run away because of his overbearing rules and because I couldn’t
handle learning the truth about my mother.
He never recovered from losing her; neither of us had, really.
My father was wrong about my running away, of course. When
he was finally truthful with me about the circumstances of my
mother’s death, a little of the ice around his heart began to thaw
and I felt hope that we might be able to build a better relationship.
He’d seemed to be realizing that he had tried so hard to keep me
safe that the life of structure he had built around me often made
me feel like a princess trapped in her castle turret.
But then I was taken to Under, and now our relationship was
strained in a completely different way.
I closed my eyes and replayed the memory of returning home
a few days ago. I hadn’t known what to expect. The counterfeit
cheerfulness of the hulking Victorian house where I lived had
never seemed so false as when I stood on the street in front of it
working up the courage to go inside. It had never been a home to
me, not the kind you remember with sentimentality. The way it
rose too proudly from the well-manicured lawn and loomed over
everything it saw reminded me too much of the way I’d felt about
my father most of my life.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE25
I’d knocked cautiously on my own front door. My breath had
come in shallow puffs meant to imitate breathing but falling short.
The door opened in slow motion, as if it was cracking an entryway
into my fears.
“Oh, thank Jesus!” Muriel, our housekeeper, had cried as she
pulled me into the house and into her arms. She’d been baking
and smelled like apples and brown sugar. “Mr. Alderson, she’s
home! Theia is home!”
Muriel patted me here and there, inspecting me for damage.
She’d kept her red hair short and still wore appalling mom jeans
and an embroidered sweatshirt. I loved every unfashionable stitch.
She’d cooed and murmured comments about my being too
skinny and too pale, but her eyes were filled with happy tears. I was
glad she answered the door first, and not my father. She was a respite for me. She always had been.
I’d felt it in my bones when my father saw me. The chill in the
room became arctic.
He’d aged ten years in the time I’d been gone. Deep lines
framed his eyes and mouth and his hair seemed thinner and
lighter. If I’d lost weight in Under, he’d lost more here. His normally impeccable clothes hung loosely on his frame, the fabric
gathered in pleats where it should have been flat.
His stern face was all the more frightening paired with his
sunken eyes.
I took a step towards him but stopped when he flinched.
My lower lip trembled and tears formed and stung, but didn’t
fall. “Daddy?” I’d whispered. I’d rarely called him that, even as a
young girl. “Daddy, I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He didn’t hug me that day or since. In fact, we’d barely spoken.
He didn’t ask where I’d been, if I was all right. He didn’t welcome
me with open arms. “We’ll talk tomorrow” was all he said.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
26
Gwen Hayes
Only tomorrow hadn’t come yet, despite the passing of many
days. The nonreaction cut deeper into my heart than harsh words
would have. His coldness covered my heart like freezer burn. I
would have preferred a stern lecture or an angry tirade; instead,
he’d sealed himself off from me once again.
He hadn’t even talked to me himself about going back to
school. His assistant called me after she made the necessary arrangements to reenroll me in my classes.
School. I shook my head in disgust. My friends had convinced
me that trying to get back into the routine of normal life was the
best thing I could do, but I was not looking forward to returning to
high school.
Serendipity Falls is a small California town very different from
my childhood home in England. Fitting in had been a problem
even before I’d been cursed with demon blood. My British accent,
overly strict father, and extreme introverted tendencies put a bull’s-
eye on my back when Father moved us stateside and I enrolled at
the small, cliquish school. Luckily, I made two friends that year who
cared very little about fitting in and still cared very much about me.
Donny and Amelia were my family. And now I had Haden too.
I smiled to myself even as the fire-hot blush stroked my cheeks
as it always did when I thought of Haden. He wasn’t the sort of boy
a girl could easily bring home to meet the parents—even if she had
normal parents and not an imposing, authoritarian father like
mine. Haden, despite being half-human, had been raised in Under. He was unpredictable and wickedly handsome. He had the
manners of a hero from a Jane Austen novel, but was equally at
home in the high school cafeteria.
As if he knew I was thinking of him, my phone buzzed and lit
up with his name on the caller ID.
“What are you wearing?” he asked as soon as I answered.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE27
I smiled into the phone and looked down at my nightgown. “A
clown suit with big red shoes.”
Haden chuckled low, his voice tickling something deep inside
me. “Liar. You hate clowns. Are you ready for your first day of
school?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I slid into my sheets and turned off the
light, my restlessness abated by the sound of Haden’s voice.
“I just called to tell you good night. Get some sleep, Theia.
Tomorrow is a big day.”
“I would sleep much better if you were here.” As soon as the
words spilled out of my mouth, I wanted to die of embarrassment.
Haden and I were close, but we hadn’t gotten that close yet. “I
mean . . . it’s just that when you’re near I’m not as agitated. Not
that I want to sleep with you.” I needed to stop t alking—I was making it worse.
“You don’t?” He was teasing now. “Now you’ve hurt my male
pride.”
“You know what I mean. Stop trying to fluster me.” We weren’t
really ready for that yet—but I did think about what it would be
like. I just didn’t want him to know I thought about it.
“My greatest joy comes from flustering you. Your cheeks
pinken so sweetly. I bet they’re warm right this very minute.”
I brought my fingertips to my face. Scorching. “Not at all.”
“Good night, Theia. Sweet dreams.”
“Good night, Haden.”
I never thought I’d fall asleep. As I approached the edge of it,
despite knowing better, I let it welcome me back.
It had been a long time since I’d awoken while dreaming.
One moment, I’d been lying in bed drifting into slumber; the
5/18/12 9:00 AM
28
Gwen Hayes
next, I was standing outside. Stars danced across the navy blue sky
and the moon provided an ambient light. A blanket of red and
black rose petals carpeted the ground beneath my bare feet, soft
and delicate. Not far from where I stood, a small gazebo glowing
with white lights that twinkled like stars on a string drew my gaze.
It was breathtaking. In the center a small table was set for two.
I looked down at my white cotton nightgown, chagrined to
once again find myself in Under barely dressed. I should have
been used to it. I also should have been afraid, but I wasn’t.
A red petal floated past me and then another. Slowly, they began falling from the sky like unhurried snow. The black ones were
interspersed lightly throughout, but when I put my hand out to
catch one, it was heart shaped.
I twirled in a slow circle, catching petals and wondering where
they fell from with no clouds in the sky. They were fragrant whispers of delight, and I couldn’t help but kick at the pile under my
feet as if I were a child playing in autumn leaves or in a puddle
from the summer rain.
I immersed myself in the ambience, letting the cool petals
brush my skin as they settled around me. The atmosphere felt as
decadent and lush as it did innocent and childlike. It seemed to fit
my current state of mind—a crossroads between girl and woman,
between human and demon.
I continued to play in the flowers as they settled at my feet. I
came across a thicket of silvery bushes that were dipped in glitter.
I couldn’t resist touching the jeweled leaves. The branches were
sturdy transparent tubes filled with a viscous red liquid and
barbed with razor thorns. They parted on their own and revealed
a center of three beating hearts. I shivered as the hearts squeezed
and pumped their blood through the stalks. I stepped back in
time to avoid a barbed vine reaching out to lash me. It was good
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE29
to remember that even the beauty of Under was laced with deadly
terror.
I went back to playing with the rose petals, though a little more
cautiously, until I felt a cool sensation on the back of my neck and
turned. Where there had been nothing, there was Haden.
Theia was beautiful.
The petals settled around her like she was the center of a snow
globe and time seemed to slow. A few stray petals caught in her curls
like unmelted snowflakes, and she reminded Haden of a forest
nymph. Her cheeks were rosy and the way she caught the light dazzled him.
He watched her frolic, charmed by her playfulness and how comfortable she felt here, despite everything she’d been through. He’d
hoped she would enjoy the interlude he’d planned. He wanted to
give her some relief from the intensity of the last few months. He’d
brought so much drama with him, he wondered why she hadn’t severed ties with him the moment she found out what he was. It was
time he gave her some joy to temper all the sorrow.
She sensed him, the romantic bond they shared so powerful that
it was hard to comprehend. A stronger person would let her go now,
but he’d already tried that. Easing away from Theia was a challenge
Haden was not built for. No, it was going to have to be enough that
they grab what little happiness they could. He would savor these
moments and put them away to relive in the future, because the future was one thing they would never have.
Just like the night we first met, when he stole into my dreams and
introduced me to Under, Haden cut the picture of a dashing
5/18/12 9:00 AM
30
Gwen Hayes
rogue. He’d worn his dark suit with tails again, knowing I’d be in
a nightdress. I scooped up a handful of petals and flung them at
him, laughing as they stuck in his hair and in his cravat and
starched collar.
He wore his Victorian ensemble so elegantly, and yet the
clothes didn’t conceal his real nature. As formal as his wardrobe
and manners were, the effect was tempered by his black-painted
fingernails and the very modern chain belt. Haden was always a
mix of decorously proper and deliberately uncivilized.
“Where are we? I don’t remember this place. Is it safe from
Mara?” I asked as he shook the flowers off him. Mara, the demon
queen, hadn’t let me go willingly.
“You’re as safe as you ever can be if you’re mixed up with me.” He
bowed deeply, a man from another time, but he seemed a little sad.
As if to underscore his words, a pair of birds began a woeful call
unlike any birdsong I’d ever heard. The sound seemed to chisel at
my bones with its intensity. Their pitiful lament crescendoed from
a moody song to a hysterical, deafening screech, but by the time
I’d lifted my hand to my ears, all was silent again.
Haden looked down at his feet. “There are places in Under
even my mother can’t go, but that doesn’t mean they are safe.”
“I feel safe with you. And you can make it rain roses,” I said, blowing a heart-shaped petal off my hand like a kiss to cheer him up.
He smiled and closed the distance between us, reaching for my
hand and pressing it against his lips. “I am full of tricks.” He
brushed a stray petal from my hair. “You deserved a little break
from real life. I know you’re worried about tomorrow.”
“I’m dreading it. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, Haden. We still
don’t know how Mara’s curse will affect me.”
“I wish I could have stopped you from taking a blood oath with
her. You shouldn’t have risked yourself like that for me.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE31
I touched his lips with my fingertips. “Your soul was at stake,
Haden. I would do it again.”
“Never say that, Theia. Don’t ever put yourself in danger for
me again.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I invited you here to put you at
ease and I’m not doing a very good job of it. You look beautiful.”
Haden offered me his arm, and I tucked mine into his as we
walked to the gazebo.
“I feel very underdressed,” I admitted as he sat me at the small
table.
“I happen to enjoy your nightgowns more than words can say.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, nothing is quite as tempting as a long
cotton nightgown.”
Haden’s expression turned warm, so warm I wondered if my
skin was melting like butter under his gaze. “Theia, you have no
idea how sexy it is or you would wear a suit of armor to bed.”
A tremor of pleasure made me shiver slightly, but I held the eye
contact and the tremor deepened into something so strong it
ached. Haden looked away first, for a change, and a gentle pink
dotted his cheeks.
He lifted the silver dome in front of me to reveal an elegant
chocolate mousse garnished with chocolate shavings, raspberries,
and a mint leaf. The dish was a work of art.
“One of the things I love the most about you is the way you react
to chocolate.” Haden gestured to the spoon. “Wait until you taste it.”
He was right. As soon as the frothy chocolate touched my
tongue, I sighed. “This is what heaven tastes like.”
Haden leaned across the table and stole a kiss, licking the corner of my mouth. “Yes,” he agreed. “Heaven.”
He sat back, and my heart squeezed. He’d awoken someone
new inside me, and something delicious and edging on wicked
blurred the lines of who I used to be and who I wanted to become.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
32
Gwen Hayes
The rich darkness in his eyes caught the glow from the candlelight and threatened to drown me in the surge of wonder that this
perfect boy loved me. Me.
But he wasn’t a boy. Haden Black was a dark mystery, a demon
with a human soul. He embodied all that shouldn’t be in a glorious presentation of everything that was ideal. His chiseled features
would have been too harsh on a mere mortal, but gave him a
unique appearance—as if he was sprung from a well of dreams. I
suppose he was.
And he knew very well the effect he had on me.
Haden didn’t feign ignorance about his sex appeal—he enjoyed the attention, courted the reaction. That’s not to say he was
egotistical. He’d be the first to admit his failings. His smoldering
appeal was just part of what made him Haden. Desire was a natural state of being in his world—using it, feeling it, receiving it was
all the same to him.
As if he knew what I was thinking, a slow grin eased across his
face. So much of our courtship had been spent by me trying to
cipher whether Haden had really wanted me or not. He had
pushed me away every time he had drawn me close, and the seesaw of tumultuous emotions had been exhausting.
I didn’t have to wonder now.
When Haden looked at me, I no longer felt perplexed by his
feelings. His heart beat strong and true, and there was nothing
ambiguous about the desire I read in his eyes. He wove a spell over
me, enticing me from the safe world I’d been sheltered in and into
a place where I didn’t know my way but trusted that I would find
it with him.
Heat kindled the air between us. Nerves dashed throughout my
body, making me aware with prickles and tingles that I was not just
nervous—but also excited.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE33
Haden said, “Your cheeks are pink.”
I didn’t answer, but my skin felt too hot and tight and my lips
were parched. I licked them and Haden inhaled sharply.
Answering my questioning look, he said, “Sorry. I’m a little too
focused on your mouth right now. Perhaps we should change the
subject.”
“I’m not sure we were talking about anything.” Was he blushing?
It was nice to know that he was just as overwhelmed by his feelings.
It made me feel like my lack of experience wasn’t as monumentally
important—that we were both charting new waters.
“Well, we should talk about something, then. Something normal couples talk about,” he said.
Unfortunately, that would be easier said than done. “I have no
idea what normal couples say to each other. I’ve never even been
on a date before.”
A wistful expression softened his features. “Me either. Someday, we should try for a really normal one. Maybe go to a movie or
bowling.”
“Bowling?” I laughed, imagining Haden in rented bowling
shoes. “Okay.”
Haden cleared his throat. “I have no idea what is wrong with
the male population of Serendipity Falls, but I can’t tell you how
much it means to me that I will be your first.”
I glanced up sharply, but realized he meant first date, not
first . . . lover. Still, the words hung between us as if suspended in
a cloud. He realized what he’d said and his eyes widened. Suddenly his dessert plate became very interesting and he concentrated on his mousse.
The part of me that wasn’t embarrassed loved that he bounced
between dark, dangerous demon and slightly awkward boy. It
made up for my mostly awkward girl moments.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
34
Gwen Hayes
I pushed the spoon through the mousse, trying to think of small
talk that would defuse the tension. I couldn’t think of anything to
say that would qualify as inane chatter when there were so many
things that needed to be discussed. Things we’d avoided since my
return.
I didn’t know what I was and I didn’t know what I was capable
of anymore. Under had changed me in more ways than one and
he was the only one who could understand. I looked up to find
him watching me intently.
“What is it?” he asked. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing’ because
you are a horrible liar.”
I bit my lip. “I have questions.”
Haden leaned back casually, but there was something so ethereal about the way he moved sometimes that it didn’t seem as casual as he probably thought it was. “You know I’ll answer whatever
I can, Theia.”
I had to know. “The summoning spell our friends performed . . .
the one that brought us both back from Under last week . . . it was
a demon summoning, right?”
Haden nodded, knowing where I was headed with my questions but letting me form them.
“So, I’m a demon then . . . since it obviously worked on both
of us?”
“You have demon attributes because you made a pact with
Mara using blood. You’re not a demon, though. Not technically.”
I closed my eyes and relived the memory of almost stealing
Haden’s essence while I was “not technically” a demon in Under.
“She taught me things.” I couldn’t look at him. “Mara showed me
how she steals souls from people in their sleep. She taught me how
to be a mare demon—like her.”
“Did you—?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE35
I shook my head. “I almost did, that one night . . .” The hunger
I had felt that night would haunt me forever. It was like being
possessed—like I was watching something else take over my body
and mind while I stood in a corner unable to stop it.
“I remember,” he said simply. Quietly. Of course he remembered the night I almost took his human soul. “But you stopped,
Theia. You overcame it.”
But would I be able to stop the next time?
The unnatural desire had racked my body physically, but what
it did to my mind was much, much worse. The primal urge to feed
overcame everything and became who I was for those few hours.
My entire sense of self boiled down to my needs and urges. The
person I knew myself to be was an annoying gnat to demon blood
trying to take over. I was weak and useless. I was a silent scream.
A mare demon usually preys on human victims in their sleep.
I didn’t know all the correct demon taxonomy, but as a species,
humans tend to lump the mare together with sex demons like incubi and succubi. The myths say the demons visit the sleeping
humans and feed them nightmares—
sometimes erotic ones—
while absorbing the essence, the soul, of their prey. What the
myths don’t talk about is that mare demons can feed on souls that
are awake as well—and the demons use their demon-given charms,
called the Lure, to entice their prey into wanting to hand over their
essence gladly, just to be near the mare demon. The demons absorb the human spirit through touching and kissing . . . and other,
more intimate ways.
“Have you ever fed on a person’s soul?” I asked, but wasn’t sure
I wanted the answer.
“I don’t need to feed to survive, because I’m half-human. I’ve
never drained a soul completely—but I have to admit that I’ve
swiped a bit of essence now and then. Does that bother you?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
36
Gwen Hayes
Well, it didn’t make me think of puppies and rainbows. “You’re
a demon, Haden. There are things that I have to expect will make
me uncomfortable.”
“It doesn’t hurt them if you just take a bit. I know that isn’t an
excuse, and I haven’t done it in a while. It’s not always easy to resist.” He didn’t look away from me, almost as if he was daring me
to turn away from him. As if I had any right to judge.
“I understand that it’s difficult.” I didn’t want to admit how difficult it had become. “I have these cravings that come and go.
Fleeting, really,” I lied. “That night she showed me how to take
your soul . . . it was so hard to stop myself. . . .”
Haden covered my hand with his warm one and I instantly felt
calmer. “If we can find a way to rid you of her curse, I swear I will
do anything.”
“I worry that we’ve made a horrible mistake bringing me
back, Haden. I think everyone was safer when I was trapped in
Under.”
Sometimes during the last week, I even missed Under a little.
It was dangerous, and yet there was an eerie, captivating beauty to
it also.
A string quartet began playing in the distance. I couldn’t see the
musicians, but the haunting song reached into my soul, entwining
around my memories and dreams, twisting, turning, and reliving
them . . . making the melancholy sweet . . . turning the sweet arcane. My eyelids drifted shut and the sound washed over me. I
hadn’t picked up my violin since I’d returned from Under. When
I opened my eyes, I found my suitor standing in front of me, offering his hand and all of his old-world charm.
“The way you catch the light takes my breath away, Theia.”
Haden sent me a smoldering look, the kind that made me glad
I was already sitting down, because my knees would have been
5/18/12 9:00 AM
DREAMING AWAKE37
useless. He arched one brow, quite aware that he was undoing me
with just a look and quite proud of himself for it.
I placed my hand in his, sliding my palm across his until our
fingers linked, and he pulled me out of my seat. He pressed an
openmouthed kiss against the back of my hand, curling my toes
with wicked pleasure.
We began to dance in an elegant pattern of a waltz he’d taught
me before we knew that our hearts would shatter a million times
in our quest to be together. This time during the dance, Haden
touched me, something he’d been unwilling to chance when we
first met. The weight of his hand on my back was not as heavy as
the gravity of his gaze. The twinkling lights danced in the reflection of his onyx eyes. I wanted to capture this moment like a firefly
in a jar.
We moved together as if we’d been dancing partners for centuries, when in fact I’d never danced until Haden taught me. I loved
him more in that moment than I thought possible, but I felt a sadness seeping between us. We danced as if we had no worries, and
yet we knew full well what torment might come.
We twirled and dipped and the world raced around us to keep up.
He scanned the horizon. “It’s almost time.”
“So soon? It feels like I just got here.”
Haden kissed my temple. “Good morning, Theia.”
I blinked, and my bedroom was awash in the light of a brand-
new day.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN
A Morganville Vampires Novel
Rachel Caine
Ever since the draug—mysterious creatures that prey
on vampires—took over Morganville, the lives of
student Claire Danvers and her friends have been
thrown into turmoil. Using the city’s water system to
spread, the draug have rapidly multiplied and
vampire Amelie—the town founder—has been
infected by the master draug’s bite. Now, unless
Claire and her friends figure out how to cure Amelie
and defeat the draug, Morganville will become little
more than a ghost town . . .
“These books are addictive.”
—Richelle Mead,
author of the Vampire Academy series
AVAILABLE NOW FROM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Introduction
M
organville, Texas, isn’t like other towns. Oh, it’s small, dusty,
and ordinary in most ways, but the thing is, there are
these . . . vampires. They own the town. They run it. And until
now they’ve been the unquestioned ruling class.
But now this dry, landlocked town has been flooded by unnatural rains, and the rains have brought something else . . . the predators who’ve hunted the vampires almost to extinction.
The draug.
They hide in the water. They feed on vampires by preference,
humans if necessary, and even in a desert town, there’s no place
safe now that they’ve arrived. Not for the vampires or for those few
humans still standing beside them.
So hold on tight. Because Morganville’s changed.
And it’s a very dark new day.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter One
Claire
I
t would have been better if he’d screamed.
Michael Glass didn’t scream. Instead, he made a terrible
keening noise in the back of his throat, arched his back, and began
to flail violently inside his zipped-up sleeping bag. Fabric shredded
under vampire strength, and insulation bulged out of the tears as
he fought his way free, but even once it was off him he just kept . . .
flailing.
Across the room, Claire Danvers bolted straight to her feet,
tripped over her own sleeping bag, and managed to catch herself
against a wall just before she hit the floor face-first. Her heart was
slamming too fast against her ribs, and she had the sour, helpless
taste of panic in her mouth.
They’re here was the only coherent thought in her head. She
had to be ready to fight, to run, to react, but all she could think of
was how utterly scared she was just now. And how helpless.
There were things out there in the world, things that vampires
feared, and now those things were here. She was only seconds out
of a very light, fitful sleep, but she knew that the nightmares had
5/18/12 9:00 AM
44
Rachel Caine
followed her effortlessly right into the real world. The draug. They
weren’t vampires; they were something else, something that
moved through water, formed out of it, dragged vampires down to
a slow and awful death.
A week ago, she’d have laughed something like that off as a bad
joke, but then she’d seen them come for Morganville, Texas.
Come with the rains that never fell in this desert-locked, sunbaked
town where the vampires had, finally, made their last stand.
Today she woke up with the blind and panicked knowledge
that no matter how bad the world was with vampires in it, a world
that held the draug was vastly worse. They’d come to Morganville,
infiltrated stealthily, built their numbers until they were ready to
fight . . . until they could sing their infinitely awful song that somehow, impossibly, was also beautiful and irresistible. To humans as
well as to vamps.
The strongest of Morganville’s vampires had gone up against it,
and scored a few hits . . . but not without cost. Amelie, the ice-
queen ruler of the town, had been bitten; without her, it was all
going to get worse, fast.
Michael was still thrashing and making that terrible sound, and
it came to Claire gradually that instead of cowering here while her
brain caught up, she should go to him. Help him.
And then the lights brightened from dim to dazzling in the big
carpeted room, and she saw her boyfriend, Shane Collins, standing in the doorway, looking first at her, then over at Michael, who
was still desperately struggling against . . . nothing.
Against his nightmare.
Claire pulled in a deep breath, shut her eyes for a second, then
made the OK sign to Shane; he nodded back and went to their
friend’s side. Michael was tangled up in the shredded remains of
his sleeping bag, still flailing and, as far as Claire could tell, still
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN45
dead asleep. Shane crouched down and, after a brief hesitation,
reached out and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.
Michael came awake instantly—vampire speed. In one blurred
second he was sitting up, one hand wrapped around Shane’s wrist,
eyes open and blazing red, fangs down and catching the light on
razor-sharp points and edges.
Shane didn’t move, though he might have rocked back on his
heels just a little. That was better than Claire could have done;
she’d have fallen backward at the very least, and Michael would
probably have broken her wrist—not intentionally, but sorry didn’t
matter much when it came to shattered bones.
“Easy,” Shane said in a low, calm voice. “Easy, man—you’re
safe. You’re safe now. It’s over. Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”
Michael froze. The red died down to embers in his eyes, and
when he blinked it was gone, replaced by cool blue. He looked
pale, but that was normal for him now. Claire saw his throat work
as he swallowed, and then he shakily pulled in a breath and let go
of Shane’s wrist. “God,” he whispered, and shook his head. “Sorry,
man.”
“No drama,” Shane said. “Bad one, right?”
Michael didn’t respond to that immediately. He was staring off
in the middle distance. She didn’t need to wonder what his nightmare had been about. . . . It would have been about being trapped
in the Morganville Civic Pool, anchored to the bottom under that
murky, poisoned water . . . being fed upon by the draug. Drained
slowly, and alive, by creatures that found vampires as delicious as
candy. Creatures that were, right now, invading and taking everything they could. Including every juicy vampire snack, straight to
the bottom of whatever pool of filthy water they were hiding in.
There were, Claire realized, still tiny red marks all over Michael’s skin, like pinpricks . . . fading, but not quite gone. He was
5/18/12 9:00 AM
46
Rachel Caine
healing slower than usual—or he’d been hurt far more seriously
than it had seemed. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I was dreaming I was
still in the pool, and . . .” He didn’t go on, but he didn’t need to;
Claire had been there, seen it. Shane had not only seen but felt
it—he’d dived in, unbelievably, to save lives. Vampire lives, but
lives all the same. The draug had attacked him, too, and his skin
had the reddish tint of broken capillaries to prove it.
Claire had a vivid, flashback-quality vision of the pool . . . that
insanely creepy underwater garden of trapped vampires, tied
down, stunned and helpless as the draug sucked away their
strength and life. It had been one of the worst, most horrifying
things she’d ever seen, and it had also outraged her on a very deep,
primal level. Nobody deserved that. Nobody.
“It was real bad.” Shane nodded in agreement with Michael.
“And I wasn’t in there nearly as long. You hang in there, Mikey.”
He reached out again and squeezed Michael’s shoulder briefly,
then rose to a standing position. “You feel the need to scream like
a girl, let it out, dude. No judging.”
Michael groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. “Screw
you, Shane. Why do I keep you around, anyway?”
“Hey, you need somebody to keep you humble, rock star. Always have.”
Claire smiled then, because Michael was starting to sound
like his old self again. Shane could always do that, to any of
them—a flip remark, a casual insult, and it was all okay again.
Normal life.
Even when nothing at all was normal. Nothing.
Now that her panic was receding, she wondered what time it
was—the room gave no real hint of whether it was day or night.
They had evacuated to the Elders’ Council building, which—like
most vampire buildings—didn’t much favor windows. What it did
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN47
have was plenty of sleeping bags, a few rollaway beds, and lots of
empty space; the vampires, apparently, were all about disaster
planning, which didn’t surprise her at all, really. They’d had thousands of years in which to learn how to anticipate trouble and what
to have together to meet (or avoid) it.
Right now, she, Michael, and Shane were the only ones sleeping in the room, which could have held at least thirty without
feeling crowded.
There was no sign of their fourth housemate, Michael’s girlfriend, Eve. Her sleeping bag, which had been near Michael’s, was
kicked off to the side.
“Shane,” Claire said, her fear getting another kick start. “Eve’s
missing.”
“Yeah, I know. She’s up,” he said, “organizing coffee, believe it
or not. You can take the barista out of the shop, but . . .”
That was, again, a tremendous feeling of relief. Shane made a
profession of taking care of himself (and everybody else). Michael
was a vampire, with all the fun advantages that came along with
that in terms of self-defense. Claire was small, and not exactly a
bodybuilder, but she defended herself pretty well . . . at least in
being smart, careful, and having all the friends she could manage
on her side.
Eve was . . . Well, Eve liked to live on the edge, but she wasn’t
exactly Buffy reincarnated. And in some ways her hard edges made
her the most fragile of all of them. So Claire tended to worry at
times like these. A lot.
“Coffee?” Michael asked, still rubbing his head. His hair
should have looked crazy, but he was one of those people who had
a natural immunity to bed-head; his blond hair just fell exactly the
way it should, in careless surfer-style curls. Claire averted her eyes
when he threw the sleeping bag back and reached for his shirt,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
48
Rachel Caine
because although he was always good to look at, he was seriously
spoken for, and besides, Shane was standing right there.
Shane.
It came back to her in a dizzy rush, how he’d stopped her on
the way into this place, in the faint dawn light. “I want you to promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll marry me. Not now. Someday.”
And she had promised, even if it was just their private little secret. She felt that shivery, fragile, butterfly-flutter feeling in her
chest again. It was a fierce ball of light, a tangle of joy and terror
and excitement and most of all, love.
Shane looked back at her with an intense, warm focus that
made her suddenly feel like the only person in the world. She
watched him walk toward her with a diffuse glow of pleasure. Michael was hot, no denying that, but Shane just . . . melted her. It
was everything about him—
his strength, his intensity, the off-
center smile, the hunger in his eyes. There was something rare and
fragile at the center of all that armor, and she felt lucky and privileged that he allowed her to see it.
“You doing all right?” Shane asked her, and she looked up at
him. His dark gaze had turned serious, and it saw . . . too much.
She couldn’t hide how scared she was, not from him, but he was
the last one to think it was a sign of weakness. He smiled a little
and rested his forehead against hers for a second. “Yeah. You’re
doing just fine, tough girl.”
She shoved the fear back, took a deep breath, and nodded.
“Damn right.” She ran her fingers through her tangled shoulder-
length auburn hair—unlike Michael’s, hers had suffered from a
night on the hard pillows—and looked down at her T-shirt and
jeans. At least they didn’t wrinkle much . . . or if they did, it didn’t
much matter. They were clean, even if they weren’t her own. It
turned out there was a storehouse of clothing in the Elders’ Coun-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN49
cil building basement, neatly packed in boxes, labeled with sizes.
Some of it dated back to the Victorian age . . . hoop skirts and
corsets and hats stowed carefully away in scented paper and cedar
chests.
Claire wasn’t sure she really wanted to know where all that
clothing had come from, but she had her sinking suspicions. Sure,
the older clothes looked like things the vampires themselves might
have saved, but there were a lot of newer, more current styles that
didn’t seem to fit that explanation. Claire couldn’t see Amelie, for
instance, wearing a Train concert shirt, so she was trying hard not
to think about whether they’d been scavenged from . . .
other
sources. Victim-y sources.
“Did you have nightmares, too?” she asked Shane. His arm
tightened around her, just for a moment.
“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m kind of an expert at this whole bad
dreams thing, anyway,” he said. And oh God, he really was. Claire
knew only a little of how many bad things he’d seen, but even that
was enough to spark a lifetime’s worth of therapy. “Still, yesterday
was dire, and that’s not a word I bust out, generally. Maybe it’ll
look better this morning.”
“Is it morning?” Claire peered at her watch.
“That depends on your definition. It’s after noon, so I guess
technically not really. We slept for about five hours, I suppose. Or
you did. Eve bounced about an hour ago, and I got up because . . .”
He shook his head. “Hell. This place creeps me out. I can’t sleep
too well here.”
“It creeps you out more than what’s happening out there?”
“Valid point,” he said. Because the world out there—
Morganville, anyway—was no longer the semi-safe place it had
been just a few days ago. Sure, there had been vampires in charge
of the town. Sure, they’d been predatory and kind of evil—a cross
5/18/12 9:00 AM
50
Rachel Caine
between old-school royalty and the Mafia—but at least they’d lived
by rules. It hadn’t been so much about ethics and morals as about
practicality. . . . If they wanted to have a thriving blood supply,
they couldn’t just randomly kill people all the time.
Though the hunting licenses were alarming.
But now . . . now the vampires were in the food chain. They’d
always been careful about human threats, but that wasn’t the issue,
not anymore. The real vampire enemy had finally shown its incredibly disturbing face: the draug. All that Claire knew about
them was that they lived in water and they could call vampires
(and humans) with their singing, right to their deaths. For humans,
it was fairly quick . . . but not for vampires. Vampires trapped at the
bottom of that cold pool could live and live and live until the
draug had drained every bit of energy from them.
Live, and know it was happening. Eaten alive.
The draug were the one thing vampires feared, really and truly.
Humans they treated with casual contempt, but their response to
the draug had been immediate mass evacuation, except for the few
who’d chosen to stay and try to save the vampires already being
consumed.
They’d all tried—vampires and humans, working together. Even
the rebellious human townies, who hated vamps, had taken a drive-by
run at the draug. It had been a heart-stopping military operation of a
battle, the most intense experience of Claire’s life, and she still
couldn’t quite believe she’d survived it . . . or that anyone had.
Even with all that effort, they’d saved only three vampires from
the mildewed, abandoned pool—Michael, the elegant (and probably deadly) Naomi, and the very definitely deadly Oliver. Then
things had gone from terrible to awful, and they’d had to leave
everyone else.
Except Amelie. They’d saved Amelie, the Founder of Morgan-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN51
ville . . . sort of. And Claire was trying not to think about that, either.
“Hey,” Shane said, and nudged her. “Coffee, remember? Eve’ll
be all sad emo Goth face if you don’t drink some.”
Again, Shane was the practical one, and Claire had to smile
because he was completely right. No one needed sad, emo Goth
Eve today. Especially Eve. “I could kill for a cup of coffee. If
there’s, you know, cream. And sugar.”
“Yes and yes.”
“And chocolate?”
“Don’t push it.”
Michael had, by this time, gotten up and joined them. He still
looked pale—paler than usual—and there was something a little
wild in his eyes, as if he was afraid that he was still in the pool.
Drowning.
Claire took his hand. As always, it felt a little cooler than room
temperature, but not cold . . . living flesh, but running on a much
lower setting. Almost as tall as Shane, he looked down at her and
smiled the rock-star smile that made all the girls melt in their
shoes. She, however, was immune. Almost. She only melted a little, secretly. “What?” he asked her, and she shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said. “You’re not alone, Michael. We won’t let
that happen again. I promise.”
The smile disappeared, and he studied her with a strange kind
of intensity, almost as if he was seeing her for the first time. Or seeing something new in her. “I know,” he said. “Hey, remember when
I almost didn’t let you into the house that first day you came?”
She’d shown up on his doorstep desperate, bruised, scared, and
way too young to be facing Morganville. He’d been right to have
his doubts. “Yep.”
“Well, I was dead wrong,” he said. “Maybe I never said that out
5/18/12 9:00 AM
52
Rachel Caine
loud before, but I mean it, Claire. All that’s happened since . . . we
wouldn’t have made it. Not me, not Shane, not Eve. Not without
you.”
“It’s not me,” Claire said, startled. “It’s not! It’s us, that’s all.
We’re just better together. We . . . t ake care of each other.”
He nodded again, but didn’t have a chance to reply because
Shane reached in, took Claire’s hand from Michael’s, and said—
not seriously, thank God—“Stop vamping up my girl, man. She
needs coffee.”
“Don’t we all,” Michael said, and smacked Shane on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. “Vamping up your girl?
Dude. That’s low.”
“Digging for China,” Shane agreed, straight-faced. “Come on.”
Claire could follow the smell of brewing caffeine all the way to
Eve, like a trail of dropped coffee beans. It gave the sterile, funereal, windowless Elders’ Council building a weirdly homey feel,
despite the chilly marble walls and the thick, muffling carpets.
The hallway opened into a wider circular area—the hub in the
wheel—that held a huge round table in the center, which was
normally adorned by an equally large fresh floral arrangement . . .
adding to the funeral home vibe. But that had been pushed to the
side, and a giant, shiny coffee dispenser had been put in its place,
along with neat little bowls of sugar, spoons, napkins, cups, and
saucers. Even cream and milk pitchers.
It was surreal to Claire, as if she’d stepped out of a nightmare
and into a fancy hotel without any transition. And there, emerging
from another door that must have led to some sort of kitchen,
came Eve, with a tray in her hands, which she slid onto the other
side of the big table.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN53
Claire stared, because although it was Eve, it didn’t really look
like her. No Goth makeup. Her hair was down, loose around her
face and falling in soft black waves; even without her rice-powder
coverage, her skin was creamy pale, but it looked movie-star beautiful. Natural-
look Eve was stunning, even wearing borrowed
clothes . . . though she’d found a retro fifties black pouf-skirted
dress that really suited her perfectly.
She had a red scarf tied jauntily around her neck to hide the
bites and bruises that Michael—starving and crazy from being
dragged out of the pool—had inflicted on her.
She, and this setup, all looked a little too perfect. Shane and
Michael exchanged a look, and Claire knew they were communicating the same thought.
Eve gave them a bright smile and said, “Good morning, campers! Coffee?”
“Hey,” Michael said, in such a soft and tentative voice that
Claire felt her stomach clench. “You should be resting.” He
reached for her, and Eve flinched. Flinched. Like he’d tried to hit
her. His hand dropped to his side, and Claire couldn’t look at his
face. “Eve—”
She spoke in a rush, running right over the moment. “We have
hot coffee, all the good stuff—sorry I couldn’t get mocha up and
running, but this place has a serious espresso deficiency . . . oh,
and the croissants are hot out of the oven, have one.”
“You baked?” Shane’s eyebrows threatened to levitate right off
his face.
“They were in one of those pop-open rolls, moron. Even I can
bake those.” Eve’s smile wasn’t so much bright, Claire thought, as
it was totally breakable. “I don’t think anybody ever used the
kitchen in here, but at least it was stocked up. There’s even fresh
butter and milk. Wonder who thought of that?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
54
Rachel Caine
“Eve,” Michael said again, and finally she looked directly at
him. She didn’t say anything at all, only picked up a cup, filled it
with hot, dark coffee, and handed it to him. He took it as he stared
at her, then sipped—not as if he really wanted it, but as if it was
something he was doing to please her. “Eve, can we just—”
“No, we can’t,” she said. “Not right now.” And then she turned
and walked back to the kitchen, stiff-armed the door, and let it
swing shut behind her.
The three of them stood there, only the sound of the door
creaking on its hinges breaking the silence, until Shane cleared his
throat, reached for a cup, and poured. “So,” he said. “Aside from
the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that we’re not going to
talk about, does anyone around here have half a plan on how we’re
going to live through the day?”
“Don’t ask me,” Michael said. “I just got up.” The words sounded
normal, but not the tone. It was as odd as Eve’s had been, and just
as strained. He put his coffee back down on the table, hesitated,
then took a croissant and walked away, back toward the room where
they’d been. Shane started to follow, but Claire grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” she said. “Nothing we can do about this, is there? Let
him alone to think.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know. So does she. But she got hurt, and he did it, and that’s
going to take time, all right?” She held Shane’s gaze this time, and
he was the first one to look away. He’d hurt her before—more
emotionally than anything else. And he hadn’t been in his right
head-place, either. But sometimes explanations just didn’t matter
as much as time. It was a hard lesson to learn, for both of them; it
was going to be even harder for Michael and Eve.
God, sometimes growing up sucked.
“Okay, so it’s down to us, then. We still need a plan,” he said.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN55
He drank coffee, and she fixed hers up and gulped down a hot,
bitter, wonderful mouthful. Next was the croissant, still steaming
inside from the oven, and it was heaven in bread form, melting in
her mouth. “No, strike that. We need SEAL Team Six, but I’ll
settle for a half-ass plan right now.”
She swallowed. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He did exactly what any boy—no, man—his age would do: he
showed her a mouthful of mashed croissant, which was gross, then
drank more coffee and showed her again. Gone.
“That is disgusting, and I will never kiss you again.”
“Yes, you will,” he said, and proved it by pressing his lips to
hers. She wanted to squirm away, just to prove the point, but God,
she loved kissing him, loved that his mouth was so warm and sweet
and bitter with coffee . . . loved being so close to him now, teetering on the edge of the end of . . . everything. “See?”
“It wasn’t bad,” she said, and kissed him again. “But you really
need to work on your technique.”
“Liar. My technique is awesome. Want me to prove it?” Before
she could protest, his lips touched hers, and he was right about the
proof. She slipped her hands under the loose hem of his shirt,
fingers gliding lightly over the tensing muscles of his stomach, up
to the hard, flat planes of his chest. His skin was like warm velvet,
but underneath, he was iron, and it took her breath away.
Or so she thought, but when he skinned her Train T-shirt up
and fitted his strong hands around her waist, pulling her to him
even closer, she gasped against his mouth, moaned a little, and
just . . . melted.
The hot, golden moment was sliced cleanly by a cold voice
saying, “I can bear a great many things, but this is not one of them.
Not now.”
Claire jumped back from Shane, guilty as a shoplifter. It was,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
56
Rachel Caine
unmistakably, Oliver’s voice, and it was coming from behind her.
She hated round rooms. Too many ways people could come at
you, especially sneaky, cranky vampires. She turned and faced him
as he stalked toward them—
no, toward the coffee, since he
brushed them aside and filled a cup. She’d never seen him drinking it, but of course, he would; he owned the local coffee shop,
Common Grounds. Or at least he had when there was still a Morganville that was alive and kicking.
Common Grounds, like everything else in town, was closed.
Oliver had always taken pains to present himself as human . . .
maybe because he, of all the vampires, seemed the farthest from it.
He was cold, unfeeling, acerbic, and sarcastic, and that was on a
good day. It clashed with his friendly-aging-hippie vibe of tie-dyed
shirts and jeans that he wore at the coffee shop, but he’d dispensed
with all that now. He’d donned clothing that suited him, in a sinister and scary way—black pants, a black coat that must have been
about a hundred years old, and a white shirt with a ruby pin where
a tie would usually have gone. Except for a top hat, he could have
stepped out of the turn of the last century. These, Claire felt, were
his own clothes. No hand-me-downs for Oliver.
“I guess it’s pretty useless to say good morning,” Shane said.
“Especially as it’s neither morning nor good, yes,” Oliver replied, just shy of a snap. “Don’t try to banter with me, Collins. I
am far from in the mood.” Claire could make out the red mottling
on his pale skin, like Michael’s, a souvenir of his time spent in that
drowning pool. She wondered how he’d slept, if he’d slept. “As to
plans, yes, I have one, and yes, it is under way.”
“Mind if we ask—?”
“Yes, of course I mind,” Oliver said, and this time it was a snap.
There was a gleam of red in his eyes. He looked tired, Claire
thought, and there was a flicker of something almost human in
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN57
him. “If you wish to be of use, go find Theo Goldman and bring
him to me. Now.”
“Theo?” Claire was startled, because she’d heard that Theo had
gone missing, like many other vampires in Morganville . . . and
she’d assumed he’d been in the pool. A casualty, when Amelie had
resorted to throwing silver into it to kill the draug and their trapped
victims with them. “Is he here?”
“If he was here, I wouldn’t ask you to find him, would I?”
Shane was doing that thing now, his posture getting stiff with
challenge; he didn’t like it when Oliver treated her—or any of
them—like idiots. But especially her. The last thing any of them
needed today was to fight each other. They were working together—
more or less—and that was how it had to be to survive this. So Claire
put a hand on Shane’s arm to hold him back and said, in a very
reasonable tone, “Do you have any idea where to look for him?”
Oliver’s hand trembled, just slightly, but enough to make the
cup rattle lightly on the saucer. He, like Michael, still felt weak.
That should have made Claire feel reassured, because he was usually so intimidating, but instead it made her feel extra vulnerable.
“No,” he said. “I do not. But I require his presence, so you will find
him.” He let a second pass and then added, without looking at either of them, “For the sake of the Founder.”
For Amelie. And there was a very slight change in his tone
when he said it, something that almost seemed . . . softer.
“She’s worse,” Claire said. Oliver turned and walked away without responding, so she looked at Shane. “She’s getting worse,
right?”
“Probably. Who knows with him?” But Shane had the same
thought she did; she knew it. If Amelie died, they were at Oliver’s
mercy. Not a good thing at all. He was a general, and when he
fought wars, he liked them bloody—on both sides. “Maybe we
5/18/12 9:00 AM
58
Rachel Caine
should have left town when we had the chance. Just picked up and
run for it.”
“And left Michael behind? And Eve? She wouldn’t have left
him. You know that.”
He didn’t answer. She knew that Shane wasn’t someone who
ran away, but he couldn’t help thinking about it—Morganville’s
version of living a rich fantasy life. After a moment, he shrugged
and said, “Too late now anyway. Where do you think we should
start, if we’re supposed to track down Goldman?”
“No use looking at the hospital. It’s closed,” Claire said. “They
moved all the patients out in ambulances and buses. And there are
way too many places he could be. It’s not that big a town, but big
enough to hide one vampire. He sent his family away, you know.”
Theo, unlike most vamps Claire knew, actually had a family, and
cared about them; it was very like him to be sure they were clear
of the trouble, then stay behind himself.
“Can’t go close to the hospital anyway,” Shane said. “The
whole area’s a no-go zone; the singing starts when you come anywhere close.”
The singing of the draug was not just eerie; it was deeply dangerous. It got hold of you, made you forget . . . and made you vulnerable
to them. Claire nodded. “We’d better stay away from any water, too.”
“Toilets? Please say you don’t mean toilets, because this is rapidly turning into no fun at all. I mean, I like peeing on a wall as
much as the next drunken redneck, but—”
“Chemical toilets,” she said. “Amelie had them brought over
from some construction company. And please tell me you don’t
pee on walls.”
“Moi?” He put his hand over his heart and did his best
wounded-innocent look. “You must be thinking of some other
uncouth jackass. Which makes me jealous, by the way.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN59
She would have played along with that, but the idea of the tap
water made her suddenly realize that she was drinking the coffee
in the cup in her hand, and she resisted a sudden violent urge to
gag. “Uh, the coffee . . . ?”
“Made with the finest bottled water,” Eve said. She was back, and
she’d brought cookies this time. “And these are sliced off a roll, so
don’t think I’ve gone all Martha Stewart, Shane. The vamps stocked
up on bottled water some time ago. I’m guessing it’s their version of
survivalist training, if they’ve been worried about the draug for so
long. All those plastic containers may be bad for the environment, but
they’re really good for us right now. So . . . you’re looking for Theo?”
“So says Oliver,” Shane said, and stuffed a whole cookie in his
mouth.
“Trust me, I work for Mr. Scary Guy in Charge, and you do not
want to disappoint the man, even if you’re just pulling espresso
shots. Especially not now. Besides, having Theo here would be a
nice antidote to all this”—Eve gestured at the marble, carpet, dim
lighting—“gloom. Theo’s cheerful, at least.”
He was, mostly. Although Claire thought that like all vampires
she’d ever met—except Michael, and his grandfather Sam—Theo
was essentially concerned about his own survival first. Once you
accepted that was how vamps saw the world, it was a whole lot
easier to understand what they would do, and why. Morganville,
for instance. It was pragmatic, having this isolated town, which
they controlled for their own safety. They were cruel sometimes,
but they saw it as self-defense. . . . Let the humans get the upper
hand, and the vampires feared they’d be killed, sooner or later.
Claire didn’t agree with it, but she understood it.
Theo was . . . less pragmatic about that than most. Thankfully.
And Eve was right. He would have a calming effect here, if he
wasn’t floating somewhere in a pool of water being eaten alive.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
60
Rachel Caine
Claire shuddered.
“Want to come with?” Shane asked, licking melted chocolate
from his lips. Which was a little bit mesmerizing, actually. Claire
had a dizzying impulse to help him with that, but she shook it off.
Time and place, Claire, time and place . . .
“She can’t come with us,” Claire said, as Eve opened her
mouth to agree. “Come on, Eve, you lost about two pints of blood
last night. You’re not strong enough yet and you know it. You need
rest.”
Eve’s mouth closed without making a comment, but she gave
Claire a steady, cool look, as if she’d let her down by even mentioning what had happened. Although it was pretty clear that Eve, and
Michael, were thinking a lot about it.
“Right,” Shane said in the silence. “That was awkward. Eve,
you stay and . . . bake or something.”
“The hell I will,” she snapped back, way too tense. “If you don’t
want me with you, maybe I’ll just grab a couple of Amelie’s boys
and take them shopping for more weapons. We need to arm up,
and we need to do it fast. That okay with you, or should I change
into my pearls and an apron and die like a good girl?”
Shane held up his hands in surrender and took a step back.
“I—have nothing to say.” Smart boy, Claire thought. “But if you go
out, you take more than a couple of vampires with you, Eve. I
mean it. Take Michael.”
“Well, you know what they say: less is more,” Eve said. She
didn’t even comment on the Michael issue, but there was a stubborn, wounded look to her, and she didn’t meet Shane’s eyes.
“Right now, more is more, and much more is much better. You
can’t dick around with these . . . things. You know that, right?”
“Oh, I know,” Eve said. Her dark eyes were filled with shadows,
windows in a haunted house. “I was just thinking that it would be
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN61
a good idea to start making weapons stockpiles around town. If we
start a running fight, we need to be able to get to weapons when
we need them.”
That was . . . a very good idea, Claire realized, and she nodded
without speaking. Shane even looked respectfully impressed,
which was an odd look for him; he wasn’t impressed by much.
“Get silver,” he said. “If you can, knock over a jewelry store and get
all the silver chains. We can break them up into pieces. Makes a
good grenade.” Silver hurt, or killed, both vampires and draug.
Shane sounded practical about it, but then, he’d spent his high
school years being dragged around with his vampire-hating father.
He probably knew more about killing vampires than anyone else
in town . . . except the vampires themselves, of course. “It’s about
the only thing that does work on these bastards. Talk to Myrnin
about making more shotgun shells, too.”
Myrnin being Claire’s vampire boss—
if a relationship that
crazy could be called employer-employee, anyway. She was Igor to
his Frankenstein. He had an underground lab and everything,
which she’d managed to make a whole lot less creepy during her
tenure with him . . . but not less chaotic. Myrnin was walking
chaos, and a lot of the time that was fun.
Sometimes, not so much.
Eve rolled her eyes, now almost back to the old carefree girl
Claire knew. “Yeah, Collins, I wouldn’t have thought of Myrnin
ever. Of course I’ll talk to him. He’s the only one who had his crap
together before we went out the first time.”
“Hey!”
“Present company excepted, supposedly.”
“Better,” Shane said, and surprised her by suddenly enfolding
her in a fierce hug. “Stay safe, all right?”
“Safe.” Eve agreed, and then held him at arm’s length, studying
5/18/12 9:00 AM
62
Rachel Caine
him with thoughtful intensity. “Huh. You don’t hug, you know.
Unless you get hugged first.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope. Never ever.”
Shane shrugged. “Guess everybody changes once in a while.”
All of a sudden Claire was struck by how different they all were
now. Eve had grown steadier, more thoughtful. Shane had taken
his aggression in hand and was starting to understand it, channel
it. Even open up a little more than he had.
Michael . . . Michael’s changes were more unsettling, less easy
to appreciate, but he’d definitely changed. He was struggling not to
change even more—not to drift further away from his lost human
life.
As for Claire herself, she couldn’t say. She couldn’t tell, really. . . . She supposed she had more confidence, more courage,
more insight, but it was hard to imagine herself from the outside
like that. She just . . . was. More or less, she was still Claire.
Eve waved good-bye, hugged Claire hard—that was a typical
Eve gesture—and headed toward the room where they’d left their
stuff. Michael was in there. Claire hoped they could work out
their . . . Problems didn’t seem a strong enough word, and issues
sounded too mundane. There wasn’t really a word for what was
going on between her best friends, other than complicated.
Claire grabbed coffee to go, wolfed down a couple of cookies—
pre-mixed or not, they were hot, melty, and delicious—and followed
Shane down another hallway. It might be, she thought, the one
Oliver had used, but this place was confusing. If there were signs,
they were visible only to vampires. But Shane took a right down an
identical hallway, then a left, and then they were in another round
room, this one with a massive barred door at one spoke of the wheel.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN63
The door also had guards . . . lots of them. Amelie’s personal detail,
Claire thought as she recognized some of them. They didn’t look as
spotlessly turned out as she was used to seeing. The dark tailored
suits were gone, and so were the sunglasses. Instead, they wore clothing from the same archival stores that she and her friends had scavenged . . .
and she supposed that what they’d chosen at least
indicated what period in history they were most comfortable with.
The two guards at the door, for instance. The taller, thinner
one with the light hazel eyes and close-cut blond hair . . . he was
wearing a chunky black leather jacket with spikes and buckles, and
skinny jeans. Very eighties. His friend with the sharply drawn
cheekbones and narrow eyes had on the tightest polyester pants
Claire had ever seen, and a square-cut jacket to match, with a tight
buttoned shirt in a loud earth-toned pattern.
“It’s like disco inferno up in here,” Shane muttered, and she
smothered a laugh. Not that it mattered; vampires could hear that,
and if they wanted to take offense, they would. But the seventies
addict just smiled a little, showing the tips of his fangs, and the
eighties dude couldn’t be bothered with that much response.
There were more guards standing around the walls, still as statues.
Most had chosen clothing that wasn’t so . . . retro, but one was
wearing what looked like a gangster suit from the Prohibition era.
Claire half expected him to be toting a violin case with a machine
gun in it, just like in the movies.
“No one goes into the armory,” Disco Inferno said. He was apparently the spokesman for the door. “Go back, please.”
“Order from Oliver,” Claire said. “We’re to find Theo Goldman.”
“Yesterday,” Shane put in helpfully. “And we’d like to not die.
So. Armory it is.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
64
Rachel Caine
“No one goes into the armory,” the vampire repeated, sounding
bored now and staring over the top of Shane’s head, which was
quite a trick even for a tall guy. “Not without authorization.”
“Which they have,” said a voice from behind the two of them.
Claire turned quickly, which she tended to do now, when vampires talked behind her, and found that Amelie’s pretty blond
vampire “sister”—not by family but by vampire blood, although
she didn’t exactly get all of that relationship detail—Naomi was
standing three feet behind them, having arrived in eerie silence.
She smiled and bowed her head, just a little. She was still very
formal, used to the manners beaten into her hundreds of years ago,
but she at least was trying; it wasn’t a full curtsy or anything, not
that such would have been practical with the khaki cargo pants
and work shirt she was wearing. “I myself have spoken with Oliver.
I am to accompany these two and help them locate Dr. Goldman.”
That held some weight. Disco Inferno and his eighties
counterpart—Billy Idol?—did some heavy lifting on what looked
like solid steel bars, plus a complicated lock, and finally swung the
doors open for them. Naomi passed the two of them and looked
over her shoulder with that same charming, though slightly awkward smile. “I hope that you do not mind me accompanying you,”
she said. She had a bit of an accent, antique and French, and
Claire could see that it had an effect on men in general, even
Shane, who was more than a little anti-vampire in any form.
“Nah,” he said, “I’m good. Claire?”
“Fine,” she said. She liked Naomi. She liked that the ancient
vampire was trying so hard to be . . . modern. And she liked that
Naomi wasn’t, after all, attracted to Michael, as they’d all thought
at first. “Uh, Naomi, do you know how to actually . . . fight?”
“But of course,” she said, and led the way inside. They entered a
big square room, which was—and this, Claire thought, was no real
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN65
surprise—stacked floor to ceiling with racks of boxes. Vampire paranoia really did have no limits. Naomi stopped at the first one and
opened the hinged top of it. There were shotguns inside. She removed one, broke it open, and snapped it shut again with a practiced
flick of her wrist as she smiled. “All vampires can fight,” she said. “I
am less familiar with modern weapons, but blades do not work so
well on the draug, as we found to our horror long ago.”
“What else did you use, the last time you fought them?” Claire
asked. Naomi was opening another box. This one contained
swords, and she shook her head sadly and let the lid fall shut.
“Courage,” she said. “Desperation. And a good deal of luck.
Silver is the best charm we have, but it burns us as well. We’ve
found nothing else that will hurt them but fire, which is dangerous
enough for us too. . . . Ah.” She flipped back the lid on yet another
box and lifted out something that looked big, clumsy, and complicated, with tanks and a hose. Definitely a Myrnin invention, judging by the brass ornamentation on it, but beneath that it looked
sleek and industrial. “As you see.”
“What is it?” Claire asked, frowning. It looked a little like one
of those rocket jet packs that the science fiction movies loved so
much.
“That,” Shane said, taking it from Naomi’s delicate hands, “is
freaking awesome.”
“Yeah, but what is it exactly?” Claire asked.
“Flamethrower,” he said, and huffed with effort as he lifted it to
his shoulders like a giant backpack. It had quick-release buckles
that he did up around his chest and over his shoulders. “So this
will work on the draug?”
“Yes,” Naomi said. “But be very careful. The draug are not only
hiding in water, they are liquid—and when you touch liquid with
fire it becomes steam. They can survive in the steam, for a short
5/18/12 9:00 AM
66
Rachel Caine
time. If you breathe it in, they will kill you very quickly from
within. Even the touch of them on skin in any form is dangerous,
to humans or vampires.”
Shane’s enthusiasm for the flamethrower dimmed, but he
didn’t take it off. That, Claire thought, was because there was
something incredibly macho about walking around with flammable weapons that she would never quite understand. If she’d tried
it, it would have just made her totally aware of how non-flame-
retardant she was. “Right,” Shane said. “Keep it at a distance.”
“And watch where you aim it, please,” Naomi responded
coolly. “I believe I speak also for young Claire in that. Fire is no
great friend to humans in battle, either.”
Claire rejected the crossbows that she found in the next container—silver-tipped, but they wouldn’t do nearly enough damage.
They’d just punch right through the draug, which had a body
consistency somewhere between Jell-O and mud, except for the
master draug, Magnus. He was plenty strong. Strong enough to
snap necks, say—something Claire was horribly familiar with and
tried hard not to think about. At all.
“What about fire arrows?” Claire asked. “Would they work?”
“Not very well. The draug’s nature will douse small fires. Only
something on the order of what Shane is carrying will truly damage them. Even, say, bottles of gasoline and fire—”
“We call those Molotov cocktails,” Shane said helpfully. Mr.
Mayhem.
Naomi gave him a blank look and continued. “These would
not do much to slow them down. It would be as if you threw the
bottle into water; most likely the flame would simply extinguish.
Perhaps there might be some effect, but I doubt this is a time when
you would prefer to experiment. There’s going to be little time to
refine your techniques and tools in the heat of battle.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN67
“Well, I liked Myrnin’s shotgun shells,” Claire offered. “Has he
made—”
“More? Yeah. Found it,” Shane called, leaning over another
open crate. He fished out a handful of shells and held them up.
“Are you sure those aren’t just regular . . .”
Shane silently flipped one to her. On the casing was drawn, in
black marker, the alchemical symbol for silver. Definitely Myrnin,
because only he would think to write a warning that nobody but
the two of them could possibly read. “How do you know what this
means?”
Shane looked faintly injured. “I make it my business to know
everything about silver. And I saw your notes. I study up on everything when it comes to your boss, anyway.” There was a flicker of
jealousy about that, but she didn’t have time, or energy, to consider
it very much. Not even whether she liked it.
“There must be hundreds of shells in there,” Claire said wonderingly, as she leaned over the crate. Her hair, growing longer
now, brushed over her face, and she impatiently pushed it back.
It needed a wash, and that made her yearn for a shower, but cold
bottled-water rinses were all she could look forward to for a while.
“I thought he used everything he had during the battle last
night.”
“He’s worked straight through,” Naomi said. “Shut away in a
room down the hall. He summoned guards to bring these here
only an hour ago. I understand he has commandeered others to
make these cartridges as well.”
When Myrnin worked that feverishly, it meant one of two
things: he was desperately afraid, or he was in a severely manic
phase. Or both. Neither was good. When he was afraid, Myrnin
was very unpredictable. When he was manic, he was inevitably
going to crash, hard, and there was no time for that now.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
68
Rachel Caine
As if she’d read her thoughts, Naomi said, “He does need looking after, but it can wait until we find Theo.”
“Amelie’s that bad?” Shane asked.
“Yes. She is that bad, I’m afraid. If I still had a heart, it would
ache for her, my brave and foolish sister. She should never have
come after us. The law is the law. Those caught by draug are already dead. Rescuing us put all others at risk.”
Claire stopped loading shotgun shells into her messenger bag
to stare. “She saved you. And Michael. And Oliver.”
“It doesn’t matter who she saved. The point is that she allowed
herself, our queen, to be put at risk for others, and that is foolish,
and emotional. The time of Elizabeth in armor is long over.
Queens have ever ruled far from the battles.”
“News flash, lady. There are no queens anymore,” Shane said.
He loaded shells in a shotgun and snapped it shut, then searched
for a place to strap it on that didn’t interfere with the flamethrower.
“No queens, no kings, no emperors. Not in America. Only CEOs.
Same thing, but not so many crowns.”
“Vampires will always have rulers,” Naomi said. “It is the order
of things.” She said it like the sky was blue, a plain and obvious
fact. Shane shrugged and gave Claire a look; she shrugged back.
Vamp politics were so not their business. “Come. We must find the
doctor.”
Shane shook his head. “He’s the only one you have?”
“No,” Naomi said, “but he is the best, and the only one we have
who has moved somewhat beyond medieval techniques of bleeding and cupping.” She handed Claire a shotgun and gave her a
doubtful look. “You can shoot?”
Claire nodded as she loaded the cartridges. “Shane taught me.”
Not that it was easy for someone her size; a shotgun packed a hard
kick to the shoulder, and she’d always come away from practice
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLACK DAWN69
bruised and aching. Naomi was even more frail, but Claire was
willing to bet that it would be nothing for her.
Shane settled his flamethrower more comfortably on his shoulders. “Ladies? After you.”
“Rude,” Claire said.
“I was being polite!”
“Not when you have a flamethrower.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER
The Watchers
Veronica Wolff
It’s the start of the fall semester on the Isle of Night,
and the bad news is Drew has been assigned a new
roommate. The worse news? She likes her. But her
roommate issues take a back seat when one body is
found, and then another. Everything points to the
existence of a rogue vampire. Now Drew has to find
the killer—before the vampire she’s bonded to gets
framed for the crime . . .
“Dark, mysterious, and action-packed . . .
definitely a series to watch!”
—Mari Mancusi
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2012 FROM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter One
H
is mouth.
Not quite full, not quite thin. Just the right shape for an
easy smile. It hitched up at the corner when he got that look—the
one that said he was thinking of doing something reckless.
I’d move closer, and he’d part his lips. His eyes would drift to
my—
“Acari Drew.”
The stern voice brought me back to myself. Crap. I was doing
it again. Thinking about him. The vampire. My vampire. Carden
McCloud.
“Are you paying attention?” my teacher asked. Thankfully it
was just Tracer Judge and not one of the vamps. Daydreaming in
class when a vampire was your teacher was high up on the list of
Stupid and Possibly Deadly Things To Do.
Just after bonding with a vampire.
Like I’d bonded with Carden McCloud.
His mouth. A glimpse of fang, shimmering. I’d felt that fang, an
accidental slip, a hot kiss . . .
“Acari Drew?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
74
Veronica Wolff
“Yes, Tracer Judge,” I said automatically. I gave a quick shake
to my head to clear it.
Focus. I was in class. Combat Medicine. It was actually kind of
cool. I wanted to focus.
I wouldn’t call myself a teacher’s pet, but I was the smartest
thing they had going around here. My brains were what made me
stand out. But it’d been my abusive, deadbeat dad who’d hardened
me, landed me here on the Isle of Night.
Generally, every girl here had been an outcast in her former
life. There were girls who’d called juvie home. Druggies and
gang girls. Bad seeds. We were the sorts of girls who’d never be
missed.
Only the most elite eventually became Watchers, and so vampires recruited only the strongest, the most ruthless. The best
among society’s bad girls. But training was lethal, and survival demanded more. Something extra. Something special.
In the normal world, my genius IQ had made me a loser. A
social reject. But here? Here it made me an object of fascination.
Someone with possibilities. In a place that valued secrecy and cunning, smarts meant potential.
We all had talents, but all too often these were things like a
proclivity for knife play or an inability to feel pain. (My pyromaniac, maybe-dead/maybe-not former roomie-slash-nemesis, Lilac
came to mind.)
Roommate. Now there was a topic to consider.
As in, where was mine? Fall classes began last week and still no
sign of Lilac’s replacement.
Rather than seeing the empty bed in my room as a good sign,
it freaked me out. There was no way the vampires were letting me
have a double room all to myself, and it didn’t bode well that
something was holding up whoever this new roomie was.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER75
Had she already been selected? What would her gifts be? And
would she view me as much of a freak as Lilac had?
But most importantly, would I be able to hide my relationship
with Carden from her? Because this blood bond was proving to
be . . . immersive.
I couldn’t get him out of my mind. And believe me, I tried. But
I was drawn to him, his touch, his eyes. That mouth.
Kissing that mouth, I’d tasted the vampire blood I’d been drinking since my arrival on the island. The difference was, from
Carden, it hadn’t been some refrigerated dose in a shot glass. It was
hot and pulsing from the source, ringing with his life essence.
A tug of desire pulsed through my core, as though he were
summoning me.
I scrubbed my hands through my hair. Must focus. I would not
think about Carden’s blood. His blood had done something to me,
altered me in a way I didn’t understand.
Things I didn’t understand made me intensely uncomfortable.
And this was one thing I couldn’t ask anyone about. Carden’s
warning echoed loudly in my head. Nobody could know about our
bond.
“Answer my question,” Tracer Judge said with a peculiar note
in his voice. He sounded annoyed, testy. “Preferably sometime today.”
I gritted my teeth and brightened my smile. A whoops-sorry-I-
zoned-out sort of smile. “It’s a compelling question, Tracer Judge.
Perhaps you’ll rephrase it for me.”
Judge didn’t smirk, though. Normally he would’ve smirked.
Tracers were hardcore enough, ruthless enough, to do what it took
to find and retrieve girls like me to this bleak rock. Some of them
were decent, though, deep down. And Tracer Judge fell into that
category.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
76
Veronica Wolff
He often let me stay after class to do independent studies. He
taught topics in science—infiltration, forensics, combat medicine,
the cool stuff that I loved. He was okay, for a Tracer.
Except these days there was something fundamentally not okay
about him. Not since his secret love, my Proctor Amanda, had
been killed.
Though killed was a pretty tame word for what’d happened to
her. Ronan had given me details I was certain I wasn’t supposed to
know. She’d been tortured. Dismembered. Flung from a cliff.
I suspected Master Alcántara had been responsible for Amanda’s death. On our mission, I’d gotten a peek into the Spanish
vampire’s interrogation techniques. They weren’t pretty.
Amanda had been going to meet Judge so they could escape.
Together. And I was sure I wasn’t supposed to know that bit.
I have no idea what Judge would do if he found out I knew. Kill
me? Who could guess? I’ve learned not to trust anyone on this island. People—
and I use that term loosely—
played for keeps
around here.
I still didn’t understand why Ronan had confided in me. For a
Tracer who’d sneakily relied on his hypnotic, persuasive power of
touch in order to get me here in the first place, he sure could act
like a friend sometimes.
But as I was constantly reminded, friends were a bad idea.
Friends could die.
Enemies, though. I had those crawling out of my ears. There
were any number of girls, Acari as well as the older Initiates and
Guidons, who wanted to see my ass in a sling. Especially Masha
and her pal Trinity—they were Annelise Drew Enemies #1 and #2.
Just the thought sent a chill creeping along my flesh. I’d wanted
to escape. That could’ve been me . . .
tortured, mangled, discarded.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER77
When I’d taken the assignment to go off the island for a mission
with Alcántara, I’d thought it would be my chance to make a break
for it. To run as far away from Eyja næturinnar, this Isle of Night,
as I could get.
Should I have tried to escape when I’d gotten the chance?
There had been a moment, on our mission, when I could’ve fled.
Would Carden have killed me if I’d tried?
Somehow I knew he wouldn’t have. In the same way I knew I
couldn’t go far from his side if I tried.
All I’d wanted was to free myself, and yet I now found myself
more entangled than ever. What I felt for Carden, this sensation in
my body, it was beyond thirst. It was a yearning. An emptiness that
only Carden could fill. And I didn’t want that—at all.
Except, part of me really did. Want it.
Want him.
“Earth to Drew.” It was my pal, Yasuo, sitting next to me. A tall,
cute vampire Trainee, he had the bluster that came with growing
up in LA and the sensitivity that came from watching his Japanese
gangster dad murder his mother. He sing-songed under his breath,
“Drew and McCloud sitting in a tree—”
Yas could be such a guy sometimes. At the moment, his real
damage was probably that he’d overheard Emma—his girlfriend
and my best friend—mention how cute Carden was.
I stared ahead, hissing into my fist, “Shut up.” But I forgave
him instantly. All I knew was that Yasuo had my back, and in a
place like this, that was all that mattered.
Tracer Judge silenced both of us. “Is there a problem?” He’d
said it with uncharacteristic sternness.
“No,” I told Judge quietly. “There’s no problem.”
Ever since bonding with Carden, I’d been scattered. Fragmented. Unable to pay attention. Aware only of this itch I needed
5/18/12 9:00 AM
78
Veronica Wolff
to scratch. It was like experiencing the surliness of PMS, a parched
thirst, a fever chill, and a deep-down wiggly boy-wanting feeling all
at the same time.
I was off, and whenever I tuned into the feeling, asking what is
my deal?, I’d remember: Carden.
Master Carden McCloud, ancient Scottish vampire, was my
‘deal.’ I blamed him.
But I could never admit to that, so instead I lied. “It’s my fault,
Tracer Judge. I let my focus wander for a moment. I apologize.”
My formality seemed to mollify him, and the glare in his tired
eyes eased a bit. “I repeat: what is the basic difference between
Combat Medicine and Emergency Medical Technique?”
Inhaling deeply, I used my breath to sweep my mind clear of
Carden. Any once and future roommates, all conceivable friends
and enemies, Amanda and Judge, Ronan . . . I relegated the lot of
them into a tiny corner of my brain.
I sat straight in my chair, attentive Acari Drew once more.
“The primary difference is that the EMT is the first responder,
whereas, on a mission, if someone gets injured, the Watcher is the
only respon—”
The door opened, cutting me off. I was ready to scowl—I’d assembled quite the pretty little answer in my head. But then I saw
who stood in the doorway.
It was our Headmaster. Silence smothered the room, sudden
and complete.
Headmaster Claude Fournier rarely made an appearance in
the classroom. This was unprecedented. Unheard of.
He didn’t bother with niceties, he just dug right in. “A girl has
been discovered,” he said, only a hint of his French accent detectable. “Just beyond the cove. A dead girl.” His tone was flat, but his
quiet delivery told me just how furious he was. “Somebody killed
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER79
her, anonymously and without permission. Someone on this island bled her dry.”
I’d thought it was already silent—until we all held our breath.
This was shocking news. Nobody on this island acted—or killed—
without it being somehow sanctioned by the vampires in charge.
Killing without permission. Did that mean someone had actually granted permission for Amanda’s death? I shuddered.
Sure, deaths happened all the time. In a combat ring. During
hazing. At the hand of a bored vampire merely wanting to teach a
lesson. But random, anonymous slaughter? There was no such
thing.
Most of all, there were no abandoned bodies. Every corpse was
repurposed for some other grisly means. Nobody killed and left the
body to rot.
Nobody crossed the Directorate.
For Headmaster to stoop to a classroom visit meant this death
had upset them. It meant this was a mystery.
And then an even more frightening question popped into my
head: why had he come to this class? Was he visiting all the
classes? Why not just hold a general assembly?
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I didn’t want to be
in their sights, not even in their line of vision, considering my
bond with Carden.
Headmaster Fournier’s shuttered gaze scanned the room. “The
question is, who among us would want to see Guidon Trinity
dead?” He pinned that icy stare on me.
My nerves became nausea.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter Two
T
here was a burst of sound as people turned in their seats. All
eyes landed on me.
I slid down in my chair, trying to hide. Because I knew who’d
want Trinity dead. So did everyone else.
The list was easy:
1. Emma, who’d suffered much at the hands of the redheaded
Guidon.
2. By extension, Yasuo, her boyfriend. Duh.
And 3?
Number Three was the ringer.
Number Three was the only one who would’ve been capable
of seeing such a thing through.
Number Three was the only person who’d want Trinity dead,
and who also happened to come equipped with a new vampire
buddy who operated just enough outside the official Eyja næturinnar ecosystem to do something like feed on an Initiate.
Number Three was me.
Headmaster Fournier asked who wanted Guidon Trinity dead,
and the answer was: I did. I’d fantasized about the many ways in
5/18/12 9:00 AM
82
Veronica Wolff
which I’d obliterate both her and Masha pretty much every day
since day one.
Headmaster glided to the doorway. When he spoke again it
seemed his gaze was trained on everyone but me. “Keep your eyes
open, Acari, Trainees. The student who discovers and reports the
identity of the culprit will know great honor.”
The moment he left, Acari Loren turned to me. She was one of
the many girls who’d dance a jig if I were to come to a gruesome
ending. “You knew Trinity, didn’t you Drew? Didn’t you hate Trinity?” Her tone was saccharin sweet.
When I’d left on my mission, I’d been public enemy number
one in everyone’s sights. But that I returned with a new—and let’s
be honest—super-stud vampire? I was now under a microscope.
If anyone discovered that Carden and I shared a bond and
turned us in, it would garner them major brownie points. My sure
and subsequent death would just be icing on the cake.
Yas whispered under his breath, “Bitch.” His bemused, marveling tone was like armor for me.
I consciously slowed my heartbeat enough to speak. “I seem to
recall Trinity kicking your ass a time or two, Acari Loren. Easy
enough with such a wide target.” The girl was built like a rock.
Yasuo chuckled. “Snap.”
I hated stooping to such ridiculously adolescent taunts, but
sometimes you needed to speak the native tongue. I’d seen Loren
in the locker room, noticed how she always stole a quick glance
to make sure nobody was looking before she changed. I don’t
know why she was self-conscious—she could probably bench
press the lot of us with a solid strength that I envied—but who
was I to understand? Girls and their stupid hang-ups were beyond me.
“But it was you and your little friend who Trinity hated the
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER83
most,” an Acari said from the back of the room. “How lucky for you
that she’s out of the picture.”
Nobody tried to hide their open stares, aimed at me.
Another girl chimed in, “How convenient she shows up dead,
just after you showed up with your new vampire pal.”
Pal. So people had noticed me spending time with Carden.
What else had they seen? Could they sense my obsession with
him? Had they caught me casting longing stares whenever he was
nearby?
I had to stop. This had to stop.
I had to figure out what this bond was so I could break it. In the
meantime, I had to deal with the disrespect. I couldn’t let my fellow classmates sniff my vulnerability.
I steeled myself. Looking over my shoulder, I said, “I didn’t
realize you were in a position to accuse any of the vampires. Impressive. You should definitely bring your concerns to Master McCloud’s attention.”
That shut people up. For now.
But it wasn’t good enough. I’d thought my focus was shot
before—I couldn’t pay attention the whole rest of class. Because
who did kill Trinity?
Girls died all the time, but not like that. There was ceremony
around it. God forbid the vampires miss an excuse for a tournament, or a feast.
Guidon Trinity had been a bully bent on tormenting and sabotaging me. She and Masha had both been overly curious about
anything to do with me.
Crap.
Masha.
I groaned to myself. Masha wouldn’t appreciate losing her
friend to mysterious circumstances. She’d had it in for me before,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
84
Veronica Wolff
but now she’d be laser focused, waiting for the chance to wrap that
bullwhip of hers around my neck.
She’d be watching me even more closely than she and Trinity
had before. Watching. Waiting. Wanting to catch me in the act.
Catch me breaking the rules. To catch me in a compromising
situation—like sharing a secret blood bond with a renegade vampire.
The other girls were right—Carden would’ve had every reason
to want to remove Trinity from the picture. If she’d discovered our
bond? The Directorate wouldn’t look too kindly on Carden secretly hitting on a first-year Acari. They killed for much less around
here.
I had much to think about as I walked back to the dorm.
Thankfully Yas had to run off to some Trainee thing—more and
more such mysterious events seemed to be claiming his attention
this semester. But I was glad for the alone time.
It didn’t last long.
I felt Carden before I saw him. A vibrating power at my back. I
felt those eyes consuming my body, boring into me. I imagined I
even smelled him. Rich, heady, like earth and man.
I wanted to turn and fling myself into him. To know a second
kiss.
But instead I balled my hands into fists and sped up my pace. I
don’t know why. It was stupid. There was no running from McCloud.
I didn’t understand our bond. For all I knew, he could read my
every thought. He probably knew where I was going better than I
did.
I felt his presence even more strongly now. My skin turned hot,
awareness pounding through me. I had silly impulses—to wonder
what I looked like from behind, to slow my stride and sway my hips
to match the low pulse in my belly. I fought my urges.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER85
He laughed, a low rumble behind me. “You can run, my pretty
wee Acari . . .”
I was being ridiculous. This was a chemical bond, pure and
simple—like a drug addiction. I refused to act like a silly, lovesick
girl.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “I know, I can run but I
can’t”—I stopped short to deliver the line. It’d been so sassy and
careless in my head. But Carden was right behind me, and his
body walked right up against mine, a hard, hot wall pressed at my
back. “Hide?” I finished weakly. Lamely.
“Aye, and best you accept it, young one.” He traced a single
finger along my shoulder blade.
I took a defiant step forward. “Just because you’ve got a few
hundred years on me.” Determined not to cower, I planted my
hands on my hips and turned to face him. “It’s not like you were
so ancient when you became a vampire. You can’t have been
much older than—what?—nineteen? Twenty, max?”
He looked amused. “As you say, little Acari.”
“I am not little.”
He was grinning now, and my words hung in the air, preposterous. Because next to Carden, I was little. I was tiny and delicate
and frail.
It cast my mind back to when we first met. He hadn’t seemed
so large, dying of thirst in a dark, dank cell, imprisoned by a bunch
of evil vampire monks.
He’d been dying, and all I’d known was that I couldn’t fail on
my mission. I had to help him survive. And so I’d fed him. My
blood had pumped into his body, engorging muscles and flesh
until he regenerated into this strapping hunk of a man before me.
Just the memory gave me a shiver.
I had to stop thinking of him as a man. He was a vampire.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
86
Veronica Wolff
“So?” I demanded.
He raised his brows, looking aggravatingly amused. “So, what?”
I scowled. “Don’t patronize me. So . . . how old were you?”
“You had the right of it the first time,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you just answer the damned question
like a normal person?”
He rubbed his thumb along my lower lip, stealing the breath
from my lungs. “Careful, my wee dove. There are relics on this
island who’d kill upon hearing such language.”
“Dove?”
“Oh, aye.” His laugh was easy, but the dark glint in his eyes
made me shiver down deep. “And how I’d love to watch you fly.”
He licked his lips.
My body buzzed, the yearning for him pure anguish. My blood
demanded more of his. My lips burned to kiss him once more. I
had to fight to control my breath. “What have you done to me?”
He ignored the question, answering a different one instead. “I
was indeed nineteen when I was turned,” he said calmly.
I thought my head might explode—the guy was impossible.
“What are you doing even talking to me? You’re Vampire, I’m
Acari. We’re not supposed to . . . how do you say it? . . . fraternize.”
I shook my head. Since when could I not remember a simple
word?
I glared. “What did you do to me? What’s happening to me? I
can’t think straight.” I lowered my voice to a hiss. “And who killed
Guidon Trinity?”
“Questions, questions.” He pinched my chin, studying me.
“What I did to you,” he mused. “It’s what you did to me.” His pinch
grew firmer. “You fed me, girl. And now we’re stuck with each
other.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER87
But then he let go, easy Carden once more. “You made the
bed. And now we must sleep in it.” He winked.
I flushed from head to toe. “Fine. Whatever. What about Trinity? You didn’t kill her, did you?”
He parted his lips, revealing the barest glimmer of fang. “Yours
is the only nectar I’ve a taste for.”
Vertigo spun my brain as I began to fall into those eyes. They
were golden brown, like honey.
I gritted my teeth. I would not lose myself. I was Annelise
Drew, and I was stronger than that.
“Does that line generally work for you?” I turned from him,
and it took everything I had. “Look, I’ve gotta go.”
With a gentle hand on my shoulder he stopped me. “Little
one.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Ah, but if you’d asked . . .”
Maddening. Why didn’t he act less like a cocky guy and
more . . . vampiric?
“Fine,” I said. “Please don’t call me that.”
“As you wish, my wee dove.” He pressed on before I could get
out more than an outraged squeak. “But before you go, for the record, I do not savage young women.” He gave my shoulder a final
squeeze. “At least, not without their consent.”
I stormed off, the sound of his rumbling laugh at my back.
All I wanted was peace and quiet, and I couldn’t get back to the
dorm quickly enough. As much as Lilac’s empty bed creeped me
out, at the moment, I was thrilled at the prospect of a single room.
Carden’s scent lingered in my head. I exhaled sharply but
couldn’t rid myself of his memory. He was branded into me.
I jogged up the stairs, anxious to get back before I ran into
5/18/12 9:00 AM
88
Veronica Wolff
anybody. I didn’t even want to see Emma. If I saw her, I’d have to
pretend nothing was going on for me. I didn’t think I could do it.
I passed her room without event. The hallway was oddly silent.
Of course. It was lunch time. The thirst for Carden was so consuming, I hadn’t even realized I was missing a meal.
His eyes were in my head, staring. One minute playful, the next
minute smoldering. I knocked my head against the doorframe,
resting it there as I slid the key in the lock. I actually shuddered
with relief as I turned it.
Almost there. I’d crumple onto my bed, roll into a ball, and wait
for the throbbing in my belly to stop.
I opened the door, and for one surreal moment, I thought I’d
entered the wrong room. But no, it was Lilac’s bed, with its gray
mattress ticking and neat stack of white and gray linens.
Only now a slim figure sat at the edge. I registered a sheet of
shining black hair. Slim shoulders.
The figure turned.
My new roommate.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter Three
D
ammit to hell.
She was here. My roommate. I’d known this day was coming. Was actually kind of relieved it had. But still, I made it a
general rule not to trust girls on principle.
As she turned, I sized her up. Asian. Pretty. Young looking.
Younger than me. I tried to guess what flavor of badass she might be.
I muttered, “How young do they take them now?” Even though
she was new, part of me braced for her to pull a weapon on me.
But nothing happened.
Her cheeks were blotchy. Crap. “Are you crying?”
She gave me a curt shake of her head. Perfectly cut layers
swished into her eyes, and she swept them away again.
“Oh, okay. Because it looked like you were crying.”
She cleared her throat and said firmly, “I wasn’t crying.”
“Fine. Got it. Not crying. I’m Drew.” I waited, but she just
looked at me blankly. “Well? What’s your name?”
“Mei-Ling.” I watched her slim throat convulse. There’d been
some definite crying. “Mei-Ling Ho.”
“Pretty name.” I slung my bag onto my desk. Making idle chatter was the last thing I felt like doing.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
90
Veronica Wolff
Carden preoccupied my whole mind and body—I didn’t have
time to deal with anyone else, much less some kid.
I realized it was past time for her to speak. I probed, “Mei-Ling.
That a Chinese name?”
She nodded.
I was getting impatient. “What’s it mean?”
“Beautiful and delicate.” She turned her back on me.
Great. “My advice, best change your name. What’s Chinese for
ruthless and savage?”
She ignored the question. Was she in shock? I thought she’d been
crying when I came in, but she seemed utterly emotionless now. I
watched her long fingers repeatedly smooth the sheets, the nervous
gesture the only thing telling me she was in there somewhere.
I could not deal with this right now. I had to sort out my bond
with Carden.
Carden. My breath caught, just remembering the feel of him.
I fisted my hands and shook them out again. I needed to get a
hold of myself. There was no way I could function in this place
with all the obsessing I was doing. I had to figure this bond out
before someone figured me out. Which meant I couldn’t trust
anybody in the meantime. Especially not a new roommate, who
could be in my face—and maybe even in my stuff—24/7.
I looked at her, trying to figure out how to go about laying down
the ground rules, and took a step closer. Was she even sixteen?
“How old are you?”
“I just turned fifteen.”
“Damn.” No wonder she was proving hard to read. She must’ve
come from a seriously messed up place to land here so young. “So
you were in, what, ninth grade?”
“I just started at the performing arts school,” she said in answer.
“My parents relocated to Long Island so I could go.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER91
“Fancy.” How I would’ve loved parents who supported me.
What a different world I’d live in now. “Does that mean you’re
some sort of prodigy?”
To my surprise, she nodded. I wanted to snark that I was smart,
too. On this island, special meant nothing. Special got you a
shooter of blood and a knife in the back.
“I’m a violinist,” she said, “but I can play a lot of things.”
Was that why the vampires had placed her with me? Put the
musical genius in with the genius-genius? Because my room wasn’t
the only one with a sudden vacancy. “Well, now you’re an Acari.
Fights to the death seem to be the only performative art we’ve got
going around here.”
She gave me a flat look. “When do we receive our syllabus?”
“Our syllabus?” I choked back a little laugh.
“Yes.” She looked at me like I was a moron. “Otherwise, how
will I know where I need to go?”
Oh God, the poor thing was being serious. She had no clue
what she’d agreed to, and it dismayed me. “Don’t worry, they’ll let
you know. The vamps go for drama. They’ll probably slide some
ancient piece of parchment under the door at some ungodly hour,
and if you can parse the old-school calligraphy, that’ll be your syllabus.”
I watched her rifle through her stack of books, even though I
was sure she’d done plenty of rifling before I came in. What
weapon had she been assigned? Because surely there was a weapon
hidden in one of her dresser drawers.
Would Mei-Ling be a threat to me? Maybe smother me in my
sleep? Most importantly, would she find out about me and Carden
and narc on me?
I had no clue, and knew I needed to get one fast. I rested my
foot on my desk chair to unlace my boots and kick them off. “So
5/18/12 9:00 AM
92
Veronica Wolff
why’d you wanna up and leave your fancy new school for a place
like this?”
“I didn’t want to leave,” she said.
“Wait.” Surely I misheard. The vampires recruited us onto the
island. Maybe they sometimes used little hypnotic tricks to persuade us, or seduced us with fancy private jets and hot Tracers, but
they didn’t resort to outright kidnapping. “Back it up. What do you
mean, you didn’t want to leave? You’re here, aren’t you?”
Her jaw tightened. “He made me. He killed my boyfriend and
said if I didn’t go with him he’d kill my parents and my sister,
too.”
I could say that I sat on the chair, but it was more like my knees
gave out. I dropped and thankfully the seat was there to halt the
progression of my butt onto the floor. “You didn’t come of your
own will?”
“I tried to fight back, but he was too large.” Her expression
changed, and she looked at me like I’d just told her I drowned kittens as a hobby. “Why? Did you?”
“Yeah.” Her tone had put me on the defensive. “The guy was
pretty persuasive, though.” I thought back to that day—Ronan,
sexy Ronan, in a Florida parking lot. He’d used his hypnotic touch
to help convince me. But honestly, the guy was so good looking
and my world had been such crap, it hadn’t taken much.
I bristled at the memory. Suddenly, I felt eager to explain this
to Mei-Ling and her judgmental eyes. “I had no place else to go. I
had nothing but thirty bucks in my checking account and an abusive dad waiting for me at home.”
She gave me a look that said she didn’t fully understand me,
and worse, that she found me pathetic. My defenses locked even
more firmly into place.
It made me think with cold reason. “Hold on.” She was brought
5/18/12 9:00 AM
BLOOD FEVER93
in against her will—which Tracer would do such a thing? “You
said he made you come. He who?”
She shrugged. “He . . . he had an accent.”
“Scottish?” I held my breath.
“Not like that,” she said.
Not Ronan, then. I felt more relieved than was good for me.
“You mean English was his second language? Could it have been
a German accent?”
She shrugged again.
The one-sided interrogation was tiring me. “Blond?”
Finally she nodded, and I said, “Sounds like Otto.” I could
picture him doing it, too. He was the badass Tracer who’d been
strong enough to bring my pal Yasuo in.
Mei studied me, and it made me uncomfortable. She looked
like she was evaluating me, and evaluations made me feel vulnerable.
I struck out in defense and said, “If you were taken against your
will, that means your parents are probably looking for you.” I regretted the words the moment they were out.
An expression of acute misery flickered in her eyes then was
gone again. “You’re right.”
I’d noted the tiniest waver in her voice. “Damn,” I whispered,
aghast. Why had they kidnapped this girl? This nice, normal,
fifteen-year old girl?
And, even better: Why on earth had they put her in a room
with me?
I felt bad for mentioning her parents and found myself volunteering, “You’re lucky. My dad wouldn’t have cared. And my mom
is dead.”
It took her a moment to roll with my topic change. “I—I’m
sorry.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
94
Veronica Wolff
“Thanks,” I muttered, the response feeling rote. I should’ve felt
relieved—I could definitely write off my concerns about what Mei
would do if she were to find out about me and Carden. This girl
didn’t know up from down. “But it’s not me you should worry
about.”
Mei-Ling wasn’t a runaway. She wasn’t a gang girl or a meth
addict. She was a fifteen year-old musical prodigy from Long Island.
She wouldn’t survive a day.
I knew it meant that Carden and I would probably be safe from
her prying eyes. But instead of feeling relief, it needled me. This
poor kid.
Bastards. The vampires abducted her against her will, which
meant they wanted her here for a reason. A really big reason, if
they were willing to risk kidnapping. What were they going to do
to her?
I went over and sat next to her on the bed. “Look, I’ll help you
out. But you need to be strong.”
She stiffened. “I am strong.”
“No, I mean really strong.” Amanda had told me much the
same when I’d arrived. The girls on this island, if they scented fear,
like wolves killing the weakest member of the pack, they’d turn on
you. And worse. “Because if you’re not, they’ll kill you.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM
Emily McKay
Vampire monsters called Ticks are devouring
humans in a swarm across America. The surviving
young people have been rounded up and
quarantined on farms—supposedly for their
protection. Lily soon learns that a darker force is in
control. Staging a daring escape with her autistic
twin, Mel, Lily finds help from a familiar face—and
learns a shocking secret about herself that could
help save the human race.
“Two thumbs up for Emily McKay’s captivating
young adult saga. Equal parts Resident Evil and
Hunger Games—and just as thrilling—The Farm is
a gripping dystopian tale that pits humans against
humans in the race for survival in her remarkable
and haunting world. McKay has spun a web of
vampires, love, sacrifice, and survival readers
won’t want to escape. I can’t wait to sink my
teeth into the next installment!”
—Chloe Neill, New York Times bestselling
author of Biting Cold
AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2012
FROM BERKLEY
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter One
Lily
S
ome days, you just want to let the bad guys win. My mom, the
pro bono lawyer, used to say that to me sometimes, back in the
Before. That’s how you know you’re doing the right thing—it’s so
hard you want to give up.
I really hoped she was right, because today was one of those
days. Of course, my mom lived in a world where the monsters
were greed, ambition, and questionable ethics. That all ended
when the Ticks swarmed across the southwest, eating every human
in their path. My sister Mel and I live in a whole different world
and the monsters here are less . . . metaphorical. And even if I
sometimes wanted to give up, I knew I wouldn’t, because my twin,
Mel, depended on me.
Praying for the patience to deal with her, I said, “We’ve been
over this. You can’t come with me today.” I reached for her hand,
but she snatched it away. Okay, not a day for touching.
She stood so close to me, I couldn’t even shut the door to the
storage closet where we’d lived for the past five months. “Stay
here.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
98
Emily McKay
She didn’t move. Since we’d arrived on the Farm, Mel had followed me everywhere. We hadn’t been apart even for a few minutes. But for what I had to do today, she had to stay behind in our
room. She and I lived in an eight by twelve storage closet, tucked
in the corner of one of the lab rooms in the science building. Every
time I tried to leave, Mel was right on my heels. Lily’s little lamb,
Mom had always called her.
I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. There was never
a signal, but I kept it charged because it was the only way to know
what time it was without listening for the chimes. Three fifty two.
I had five, six minutes tops to get out of here and down to Stoner
Joe’s if I wanted to talk to him alone.
Extending a single finger like a hook, I waved it past Mel’s face.
“Look at me, Mel.”
Mel kept her gaze locked on the shelf beside the door where
our backpacks sat, crammed full of the food and clothes we’d need
if we did escape from the Farm. The pink pack sat on top of the
massively thick black-covered, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and
Physics. Everything we needed was ready to go at a moment’s notice, everything except the stuff we didn’t have yet. Things I might
be able to live without, but that Mel couldn’t. And if I didn’t leave
the room now to go trade for them, my weeks of planning wouldn’t
count for jack.
I tried again, waving my hooked finger in front of her eyes like
the occupational therapist had taught me do so many years ago.
“Look at me, Mel.”
Mel twitched, shifting her gaze from the backpacks to a box of
lab supplies wedged onto the shelf of microscopes.
I knew it bugged her, having all this crap in our room, but it
was important. If a Collab happened to come by for an inspection,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM99
I wanted our room messy enough that he’d give up in disgust
rather than search all our belongings.
Again I waved my hand. “Look at me, Mel.”
Mom would have told me to be patient. But Mom wasn’t here
and I was out of time. I tried, but every time I tried and failed to
get her attention, my tension ratcheted up a notch.
When she still didn’t look at me, I reached out and gave her
fingers a quick rap. “Damn it, Mel. This is important. Red Rover.”
Mel’s gaze snapped to mine.
Guess I should have lead with that. The phrase Red Rover, Red
Rover was our code for the plan to escape the Farm and cross the
Red River. That was one of the benefits of having a sister who
spoke almost entirely in nursery rhymes. We could discuss our escape plans anywhere and no one would know what Red Rover
meant.
“When I leave, I want you to wedge the chair under the knob.
That way you’ll be safe.” I swallowed, praying I wasn’t about to
make a promise I couldn’t keep. “I won’t be gone long.”
Mel just stood there mumbling her senseless distress.
“When I come back, I’ll tap out Mary Had a Little Lamb on
the door. Don’t open the door until then.”
Mel’s gaze had shifted again. Maybe I should have kept trying,
but if she didn’t know the plan now, we were probably screwed
anyway. Even though I didn’t really expect an answer, I asked one
last time, “Do you understand?”
Mel bobbed her head, but I knew it wasn’t really an agreement.
“Red rover, red rover, let Lil Lee come over.”
“Yes,” I muttered. “That’s the plan.”
I patted the pocket of my hoodie to make sure the slim box of
pills was tucked inside. Then I let myself out the door. This time,
5/18/12 9:00 AM
100
Emily McKay
Mel didn’t follow. A second later, I heard the sound of the chair
being scraped across the floor and wedged under the knob.
Okay, step one: leave Mel safely hidden while I go out to trade.
Check.
Step two: walk across campus, keep my head down, blend. As
long as I didn’t give any of the Collabs a reason to stop me, no one
would know what I had in my pocket. Not that many Collabs
needed the excuse to harass a Green. The Collabs were all guys
who’d been high school bullies back in the Before. The guys
who’d been big, brutish and willing to betray their own species by
collaborating with the Ticks. On the bright side, Collabs weren’t
known for their keen intelligence and observational skills, so hopefully, none of them would notice when I didn’t walk into the dining hall with the rest of the Greens, but instead went into Stoner
Joe’s to trade.
The room Mel and I lived in was on the seventh floor and walking down six flights of stairs gave me plenty of time to think about
what I was about to do.
This time of day, all the Greens should be on their way to third
meal. I should be able to talk to him alone. And if he wasn’t alone,
well, then I’d just hang out until everyone else left. I wouldn’t
think about Mel all alone in our room. I wouldn’t think about the
clock ticking away the remaining minutes of mealtime. If Mel and
I had to miss third meal, it wasn’t that big a deal. Technically,
Greens could miss one meal a week.
And I certainly wouldn’t think about the contents of my pocket.
About those pills that would get me sent to the Dean’s office. That
was a trip you didn’t come back from. Some people just disappeared up there, but most were dragged out at dusk and tied to
stakes just beyond the electric fences that surrounded the Farm.
The screams seemed to echo for days afterward.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM101
They liked to remind us that those fences were there to keep
the Ticks out as much as to keep us in.
As I left the building, the bitter February wind bit through the
fleece of my jacket. I glanced around for any Collabs who might
be nearby. Their bright blue uniforms made them easy to spot.
They would have looked so cheerful if it hadn’t been for the tranq
guns slung over their shoulders. A couple of them loitered over by
the Admin building.
Back in the Before, the Farm had been a prestigious private
liberal arts college. For more than a hundred years, the college had
sat nestled against the banks of the Red River, just south of the
Texas/Oklahoma border, home to pampered students. The Admin
building dominated the east side of the campus. Whatever its purpose had been back in the Before, now . . . now, it just creeped me
out. There weren’t supposed to be any Ticks on the Farm, but
sometimes horrible noises came from the Admin building and the
shadows at the windows twisted and moved with inhuman speed.
At the opposite end of campus was the dining hall, with its sleek
modern architecture and massive, floor to ceiling windows. Between the two buildings stretched the open green space of the
quad a smattering of dorms and academic buildings in between.
Our science building was one of them.
Four times a day, all the Greens shuffled out from their various
hiding places and ambled over to the dining hall where we were
scanned, prodded and fed. Yeah, we were treated like cows, except
cows lived in the blissful oblivion of not knowing their future.
They took weekly “donations” at the mobile blood bank. Calling
it that was their way of making it seem voluntary. It wasn’t. On the
Farm, we weren’t raising food; we were the food.
When I was kid, my dad used to love showing me these cheesy
sci-fi movies—my cultural education, he called it. His favorite was
5/18/12 9:00 AM
102
Emily McKay
Soylent Green, this one where everyone finds out the perfect food
is made out of people. For weeks after, we ran around yelling,
“Soylent Green is people!” I thought it was so funny. It wasn’t
funny anymore.
Still, donating wasn’t so bad, once you got used to feeling weak
all the time. It kept us contentedly placid. It allowed us to pretend
there wasn’t something much worse that would happen if we dared
to step out of line.
I tried not to think of that as I made my way across campus. If
you wanted to go anywhere on campus without attracting attention
just before or just after meals was the time to do it.
As always Breeders lounged around the edges of the quad,
smugly serene and dressed in mini skirts and skimpy tops, despite
the weather. They didn’t have to worry about eighteenth birthdays.
Of course the ones who were pregnant had other things to worry
about. Sometimes it was just easier not to think about the things
looming over us.
The Greens all kept their heads down, shuffling across the
quad like placid cows and I moved quickly to join them. There was
safety in numbers—or the illusion of it—and a little extra warmth,
too.
Normally I kept my head down and stayed as close to the center
of the pack as possible. Any excuse to avoid looking between the
buildings that lined the quad. The last thing you wanted to do
while walking to meal was to glance up and accidentally catch
sight of one of the body of some Green tethered out just beyond
the fences. The worst, of course, was the few hours they were still
alive between when they were brought out and sunset. If the Dean
was in a benevolent mood, he kept them tranqed. If not, they were
awake and alert. Waiting for sunset. It was excruciating listening to
their attempts to escape from the chains that kept them tied to the
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM103
street lamps. Even worse was the sight of their mangled bodies the
next day.
On days like that, even Mel wanted to walk in the crowd.
But today, I made myself look out beyond the fence. Between
the buildings, maybe fifty, seventy feet away, I could the street
lamps where they tethered the Greens. It had been a nearly a week
since anyone had broken the rules. The crumpled remains of decomposing bodies were almost hard to pick out in the watery afternoon sunlight. What had once been four people were now little
more than dark spots on the sidewalk. But I remembered walking
past them. One had been a girl. The guys tethered near her had
been trying to cut their hands free, she’d just stood there, jangling
her chain in quiet disinterest. Like Mel would have done. That
had been the day I’d gone from merely thinking about escaping to
packing for it.
The memory of that girl made me wonder: what would happen
to Mel if I didn’t come back?
Would Mel eventually work up the courage to leave the closet
and face life on the Farm without me to protect her, or would she
stay in the eight by twelve room until she starved? No, she wouldn’t
starve. She’d die of thirst first, wouldn’t she? How long could she
live up there without water? Three days, right? Maybe four.
And dying of thirst wasn’t such a bad death. Not when you
thought about it. Not compared to what might happen if we didn’t
escape. What would happen if we were caught.
For a half-second—maybe less—I considered it. Entertained
that wisp of a fantasy. Life without the brutal responsibility of caring for Mel: my twin, my sister. My burden, my other half.
In that moment, my pace slowed. The crowd flowed past me
like the water of the nearby Red River, rushing around a rock. The
stream of people jostled against me before someone bumped into
5/18/12 9:00 AM
104
Emily McKay
me hard enough that I broke free of my imagination and stumbled
forward a step or two before tumbling down on one knee.
The packet of pills fell out of my pocket as I landed. The pain
ricocheting up my leg was nothing compared to my panic as the
blue plastic box tumbled to the ground. It landed beside my hand,
but before I could grab it, a flip-flop clad foot kicked it beyond my
reach. I saw it disappear into the scuffle of feet. The most valuable
thing we owned: gone.
I scrambled, rabbit-like after the blue box, launching myself
forward to catch it before someone else kicked it beyond my reach.
When I saw it a few feet way, I threw myself toward it, but a hand
reached down and snatched it off the ground mere seconds before
I could grab it.
My heart leapt into my throat, panic making me breathless,
even as I felt someone helping me to my feet.
“These must be yours.”
I didn’t even glance at the guy holding the pills out to me. I
wrenched them from his hand, quickly flipping the box over to
make sure it was unharmed, even though it had only been out of
my hand for minute. “Thanks,” I muttered, hoping he would just
walk away.
“Must be pretty important to you,” he said, even as I saw him
turning to walk away out of the corner of my eye. “You should keep
track of your stuff.”
I shoved my hand deep into my pocket, still clenching the pills.
Relief made me light headed. Or maybe the Collab who had taken
my weekly donation had just taken too much off the top. They did
that sometimes, if your blood was particularly “clean” that day. My
head spun when I jerked it up to look for the guy who’d handed
the pills back to me. He was impossible to miss, the grey of his
hoodie standing out in a sea of scarlet sweatshirts. Among the thou-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM105
sands of Greens making their way to third meal, only a few weren’t
wearing the colors of the college that the Farm had once been.
Mindlessly my eyes followed his progress toward the dining hall.
Why had he handed the pills back to me? Had he not recognized them? Maybe a guy wouldn’t have. Thank God.
I clenched my hand around the rigid plastic tightly enough for
the edges to bite into palm skin. But I had it. Thank God, I still
had the box. When I looked again, the guy in the grey sweatshirt
was gone, disappeared into the crowd of the Greens.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter Two
Lily
S
toner Joe’s had once been a college convenience store tucked
into the basement of the dining hall. I’d known Joe since we
were both kids and I could trust him. He was a good guy, even if
Greens, Collabs and Breeders all shopped in his store. It was like
accorded neutral territory. The Collabs could have shut the place
down, but for whatever reason, they let us have it. Left us this one
small seed of independence. Maybe they knew we’d be happy with
it. Maybe it was just too much trouble to squash every bit of spirit.
The wind picked up as I headed down the steps into the shelter
of the alcove and let myself into the store, which was unusually
dark for this time of day. Before I had a chance to wonder where
he was, I felt something cold and sharp press against the side of my
neck.
“Holy crap!” I gasped.
The hand holding the blade to my throat slackened and then
fell away from my skin all together. “Lily?”
“Yeah!” I said, accusation in my voice. “What the hell, Joe?” I
didn’t want to piss him off, but . . . “Seriously. What the hell?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
108
Emily McKay
“Sorry. I’ve been, like, way tense lately.”
My eyes had begun to adjust to the dim lighting and I could see
his sheepish smile. “Obviously.”
“What’s with the new security measures?”
I eyed the knife in his hand. It had a long stainless steel handle
and a flat face that ended in a sharp, angled blade. If I had to guess,
I’d say Joe had repurposed a spatula from the kitchen that shared
his building.
“Dark times, Lil. Dark times.” Joe nodded gravely and as he
spoke, his voice fell back into its normal cadence, like there was a
silent Dude at the end of every sentence. He extended his hand
and clasp mine briefly before giving me a little fist bump. “What
can I get you today?”
I didn’t ask what he meant by dark times. I didn’t like the idea
that things might be even worse than I knew. Just one more reason
Mel and I had to get out of the Farm.
“I’m here to trade,” I said.
“Whatcha need, whatcha got?” he asked, crossing to the counter that bisected the room. He set the shiv down and propped his
hands on the scuffed glass top. I couldn’t tear my gaze from the
weapon. It seemed so out of character. He must have noticed, because he surreptitiously nudged it to the edge of the counter, slipping it between two card board displays that had once held packs
of gum but now contained old music CD’s.
I pushed the shiv from my mind and mustered my courage.
This was it. Moment of truth and all that. Just as I had carefully
planned, Joe and I were alone. But I choked. My laundry list of
must haves for the trip north suddenly seemed so . . . risky.
“I um . . .” I let my words trail off as I shoved my hand in my
pocket, relaxing infinitesimally as my fingers brushed plastic. The
pills were still there. Still risky, still highly illegal, but still mine.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM109
“What’s up, Lil?”
“I’ll look around,” I muttered, not quite meeting Joe’s gaze.
“See what I can find.”
I didn’t linger by the shelves of grooming supplies. Mel and I
managed to stay basically clean. It was mostly breeders who bothered to trade for crap like that. Joe would have thought it strange
if I’d looked there.
Listlessly I ran my forefinger down a stack of meticulously folded
sweatshirts. Most were red and gold with the stylized kangaroo on
the front, but a few sported the gray and blue of the Dallas Cowboys.
I poked through them a bit, as if one of them would magically transform into the bulky winter coat I so desperately needed.
The food and snack shelf was looking a little bare. They feed us
four mandatory meals a day. You might expect that given how
overfed we were, no one would bother to trade for food. But Joe
had told me once that the opposite was true. He did most of his
business in food. That and the pharmaceuticals that had given him
his start back in high school, back long before we were moved to
the Farm for our “protection.”
The food Joe sold wasn’t so much about quantity. It was about
selection. Freedom of choice. And, of course, nostalgia.
My fingers hovered a few inches above a can wrapped in dull
silver paper.
Joe shuffled beside me, such the attentive shop keep, since the
store was empty except for me. “Is today the day you’re finally going to buy those peas?”
I jerked my hand back to my pocket and looked up. “No.”
“Come on,” he coaxed. “You look at them every time you come
in. Man, you must love peas.”
I’d never known that I loved them, until I couldn’t have them
anymore.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
110
Emily McKay
“You should buy them,” he said softly. “I’ll give you a good deal,
since you’re my friend. It’ll be like a—” he hesitated. “—a present.”
He’d probably been about to say a birthday present. Or maybe
that catch in his voice had been something else. Maybe he didn’t
know how close Mel and I were to our eighteenth. To our doomsday.
I stuck my hand into my jeans pocket and fingered the tiny
pebbles I always kept there. I blurted out, “I need a coat.”
“I just got in a couple of new hoodies the other day.” Joe
rounded the shelf to a haphazard stack of clothes.
I stopped him before he could pull any out. “No, I need a coat.
Like the biggest, thickest coat you can get.” He just stared blankly
at me, like he couldn’t understand why I’d be so desperate to trade
for something like that. Here in Texas, even North Texas, there
were only a few days a year it got cold enough to need a big heavy
coat. “It’s for Mel,” I explained.
“Oh, right.” He nodded sagely. “She has that thing about the
cold.”
That thing was an unwillingness—or perhaps, an inability—to
tell others when she was cold. Me, I bitch endlessly when I’m cold.
I break out my scarf when it’s sixty-five degrees. Mel, on the other
hand, once stood out in the snow until she was hypothermic.
I still remember sitting by the door in our bedroom, my ear
pressed to the crack in the door as I listened to our parents argue
about it, because Dad had been in charge and he hadn’t noticed
how cold she was. She’s not a normal child, our mother had said.
When are you going to accept that?
Two weeks later, Dad had left and we were on our own, just the
three of us. And now it was just Mel and me.
There were so many things I had to leave to chance. Mel get-
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM111
ting cold wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t normal. Dad may never
have accepted that, but I had. If I could only have one thing, it was
a coat.
“I saw Tad Jackson with a pretty big coat the other day,” Joe
said. “Looked like the kind if thing one of the maintenance workers would have used. He had gloves too.”
“Perfect.” I hadn’t dared hope for gloves. We had neoprene
gloves from the lab and I’d been hoping they’d be warm enough.
“Any chance you can get a second pair of gloves?”
“It might take a couple a days, but I’ll see what I can do. It
won’t be cheap though.”
“It’s not all I need.” I sucked in a breath. I rushed through the
next bit. “I need sleeping bags. Two it you can find them.” Joe’s
eyebrows shot up, but I kept talking. Hell, go big or go home,
right? “And a lighter.”
I think I expected him to argue then. I’d known all along that
he would probably figure out what was up—after all, Joe wasn’t
an idiot—and I’d already decided playing dumb was the best defense. I’d expected him to warn me off, to remind me what had
happened to all the kids who had tried and failed, but instead, he
just studied me.
“It’s because of your eighteenth birthday is coming up, isn’t it?”
“I . . .” my voice quavered and I cleared my throat. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t have to do this.” His tone was serious. “You could
get pregnant. That would protect you.”
“Yeah. For nine months. After that, who knows what happens.
And have you thought about those babies? What happens to
them?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” Joe’s skin suddenly looked a sickly
green in the dim light of the store.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
112
Emily McKay
“Exactly. No one knows.” The scorn in my voice barely concealed the fear beneath it. Yeah, I acted all self-righteous about the
Collabs and Breeders—the kids who betrayed the rest of us to save
their own lives—but who knows, if it had been just me, I might
have ditched the last shreds of my indignation and bred like a freakin’ bunny. But that wouldn’t protect Mel. “Besides, Mel
couldn’t . . . She doesn’t like it when I touch her. She couldn’t be
a Breeder.”
Joe’s gaze was suddenly glued to a empty spot on the counter.
“Yeah, I guess not,” he said in a limp voice. He looked like he
couldn’t decide if he wanted to throw up or burst into tears.
He’d always been such a genuinely nice guy—sensitive too,
and I could tell the thought of what happened to Breeders really
bugged him.
“Hey, don’t worry about Mel and me.” My need to reassure
him surprised me. “I’ve got it figured out.”
His gaze shot to mine. Hopeful, almost. “You do?”
“Yeah, I—” I stopped just short of telling him that Mel had
figured out how to get off the Farm. “We’re going to be okay.”
He studied my face. “Yeah, you and Mel were always so smart.
If anyone could get off the Farm it would be you.” He nodded
slowly, like he’d reached some sort of decision. ”You don’t have
enough credits for all that stuff. You know that, right?”
I started pulling things from my bag to trade. “Two bottles of
shampoo, both of them mostly full. A bottle of conditioner.”
He looked unimpressed.
I moved on to the things I’d been hoarding for months. “Two
tooth brushes and a tube of toothpaste. New in their packages.”
He considered and I could see in his frown that he wanted it to
be enough, even though we both knew it wasn’t. He blew out a
breath. “Those will cover the coat and gloves.”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM113
“What about the sleeping bags? And the lighter?” I asked, because maybe it would be safer, for all of us, if I didn’t have to show
him that last thing I had to trade.
Joe just shook his head. “If it was stuff I just had in the store,
maybe. But I’ll have to go looking for this stuff. Ask around. Attract
attention. That’s a lot of risk.”
“But you could do it?”
“Yeah. Sure. Anything for a price, right? I know a guy in Baker
Hall whose ‘roommate’ ”—Joe made air quotes to indicate that by
“roommate” he really meant the college student who had lived in
the dorm room back in the Before—“had been into camping and
stuff like that. I could get all kinds of things from him.”
“So you could get it?” I pressed. “If I had the right thing to
trade? If I had something really valuable?”
“Sure, man. I can get anything.”
I reached into my pocket then and pulled out the plastic box of
pills. I had three prized possessions. The first was a pair of gardening shears I’d found in an unlocked maintenance closet seven
weeks ago. The second was a single capsule of valium. In the Before, I used to carry a couple with me all the time, just in case Mel
freaked out completely. I had one pill left. The third was the contents of this box.
Hand trembling, I set the pills on the counter. My fingers
seemed to clench of their own accord and I had to force myself to
release the box and nudge it across the counter toward Joe. When
he just stared blankly at it, I reached over and flicked it open. The
box fanned open to reveal three separate compartments, each containing a foil packet of twenty-one tiny pink pills and seven white
ones.
Joe frowned as he stared at it. “Dude.” He drew the word out
and then looked up at me. “Is that what I think it is?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
114
Emily McKay
“Yes.”
“I thought they were all gone.”
“These were overlooked.”
When the Collabs had first been recruited out of the ranks of
Greens, their first task had been to destroy all forms of birth control.
“Whoa.” His gaze darted to mine, suddenly far more serious
than he normally was. “Does anyone else know you have these?”
I thought of the guy out on the quad who hadn’t just seen
them, but had held them in his hand. I imagined I could still feel
the heat of his hand on the plastic. “No,” I lied.
“Don’t let anyone else see them.” He reached out a hand, a sort
of reverence on his face. But instead of touching the pills, like I
expected, he shoved them across the counter toward me. “Put
them away. If someone came in now . . .”
As if I needed to be told that.
I shoved the pills deep into my pocket. Even though I felt better, having them so close, I still felt jumpy, too aware of them now
and I found myself looking over my shoulder at the door to Joe’s
even though I would have heard it open. “But they’ll be enough?
For the things I need?”
Joe sort of shook his head. “Man, I don’t know.” He ran a hand
through his long, stringy hair.
“But they’re valuable, right?”
“Sure. But I’m not sure they’re worth the trouble. This kind of
thing . . . Man, it’s—”
Then he broke off abruptly, as if he’d either just thought of
something or maybe decided not to tell me something.
“It’s what?”
“Nothing.”
“What?” I pressed. “You were about to say something. It’s what?”
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM115
He leaned forward across the counter, dropping his voice. “It’s
the kind of thing people would trade.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling stupid. “That’s why I’m here, right?”
“Sure. Yeah.” He answered quickly, though I could tell that
wasn’t what he’d meant. “Right.”
That was classic CYA if I’d ever seen it. “No,” I said, puzzling
it through. “You didn’t mean trade with you. So trade with who?
The Collabs?” I kept me eyes glued to his face, but the flicker of
acknowledgment didn’t come quickly enough. “With the Dean’s
Office?” I asked, not believing for a second that might actually be
who he meant. But there it was in his eyes. That subconscious you-
nailed-it look.
“Shit,” I muttered. “They do that?” I had heard rumors, very
vague rumors, of that sort of thing.
Joe said nothing, his expression tight and unnaturally still like
he’d given away far too much already.
I didn’t think I was going to get any more from him, but I asked
anyway. “But no one in the Dean’s Office would need these.” I
tapped the top of the box. “These have no value to them. Why
would they . . .” That’s when it hit me. “They wouldn’t want the
pills. They’d want info about who had them. They’d reward someone willing to betray other Greens.” Disgust settled low on my
belly. “Who would do that?” Before Joe could even open his
mouth, I snapped. “Okay, I know. That sounded stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Joe said “Just naïve. You and Mel, you’ve been
like, completely isolated. You don’t know how bad it is. And something like this? This could buy someone a trip off the Farm.”
“Seriously?” And for that flicker of a second, I considered how
much easier it would be to purchase Mel’s freedom with my own
life rather than to fight for it. Boy that was the ultimate cop out,
wasn’t it? Trade my own life for Mel’s and I’d get to go to my death
5/18/12 9:00 AM
116
Emily McKay
knowing I’d made the big sacrifice. I’d be completely absolved of
the responsibility of taking care of her. It was a nice fantasy, even
if it wasn’t a solution. “Will you get me the stuff I need?” I asked,
because I couldn’t think any more about the politics on the Farm
or the many ways people could betray one another.
“Yeah. Sure. I can get it,” he said, only a trace of stoner-dude
left in his voice.
Joe’s sudden new gravity only ratcheted up my tension. I patted
the box in my pocket. The pills rested right on top of that sick feeling of dread that knotted in my belly.
“How much for the shiv?” I asked abruptly.
Joe looked from the lump in my pocket back up to my eyes.
Then he gave a sad little half smile as he pulled it from behind the
CD’s and slid it across the counter. “I’ll throw it in for free. Try to
lay low for a couple of days, okay?”
“Mel and I always do.” I wrapped my hand around the handle
of the shiv and the cool metal against my palm made me tremble.
He nodded. “Come back in two days. I’ll have your stuff then.”
He looked at my pocket again. As I walked toward the door, he
added, “And be careful. You and Mel are more memorable than
you think. A lot of people know where to find you.”
Once I was outside of Stoner Joe’s, I climbed a few steps until
I was able to peek over the wall of the alcove. I could hear the
Greens around the corner. They wouldn’t notice me, huddled in
the shadows.
I pulled the pills from my pocket, slipped my hand under my
sweatshirt and wedged the packet into my bra. Then I slipped the
handle on the shiv through one of my belt loops. I turned the sharp
edge away so it didn’t rub against my stomach before tugging the
waistband of my sweatshirt low on my hips to hide the weapon.
I was trembling before I even made it up the stairs and out of the
5/18/12 9:00 AM
THE FARM117
alcove. The wind had died down and for the first time weeks, the
sun peeked through the clouds, but its warmth didn’t seep through
the fleece of my hoodie. Or past the frigid blanket of fear that had
surrounded me.
The quad was mostly empty now, with only a few Greens scuttling between buildings. I felt as vulnerable as they looked, the
hairs on the back of my neck prickling with that being-watched
feeling.
I glanced over my shoulder back at Joe’s, wondering if he’d followed me out. He hadn’t, but I was being watched. A guy in a gray
sweatshirt stood at the top stairs of the dining hall. With the sun at
his back as he looked out across the quad, I couldn’t distinguish
any of his features. Then he stilled, his gaze aimed toward me and
I was sure he was the guy who’d picked up the pills that morning.
I shivered in the sun, and picked up my pace, praying that Mel
and I weren’t in serious trouble. Most Greens stuck to the dormitories. It wasn’t a rule or anything, just common sense. Greens
were like those penguins you saw on nature shows, huddled on the
packed ice, waiting for the ones on the edges to get knocked into
the water and picked off by the elephant seals. Greens did everything together. Only a few had squatted other places. If Joe was
right and these pills in my pocket were enough to buy someone’s
freedom, then our little closet in the Science building wasn’t safe
anymore. The guy in the grey sweatshirt could easily find us.
Thank God our bags were packed and by the door. Mel and I
could evacuate as soon as I got back to the room. I didn’t know yet
where we would go. All I knew was I wanted to still be alive in two
days so that I could keep that appointment with Joe.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Chapter Three
Mel
M
ost days Lily is the steady drumbeat. The rhythm of my
heart. The repeating melody of the music in my head. But
not today.
Today she is a cacophony of dissonant notes. Bruno Mars singing Flight of the Bumblebees. Just wrong. A jumbled mess. Can’t
listen.
She’s out of rhythm. Trying to rush. Tempo’s all wrong. There’s
no music in her today, only words. Talk, talk, talk, talk.
That’s Lily. Never has a thought she doesn’t say aloud. Makes
her feel the smart one. The normal one.
As if I count less because I don’t jabber. Because I listen to the
music instead of talking over it.
I know I’m a burden. How twitchy it makes her, being the
rhythm. Being the steady one. Twitchy and nervous. A rat-a-t at-t at.
But we’re not ready. If we go now, we’ll be caught. Caught like
Trickster’s bunnies. I know we’re not ready. Can’t make Lily hear
it. All she hears is the clock. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. She
doesn’t listen. All she does is talk.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
120
Emily McKay
Talk, talk. Talk, talk. Tick tock, tick tock. Talk, talk. Talk, talk.
I try to listen for the both of us, but I can’t hear over all her
noise. Freedom sounds like Paganini, but the pianist is sitting on
his hands. The orchestra too tinny and too loud by itself. Lily never
understands that all the instruments have to play together to make
music. Otherwise it’s just noise, noise, noise.
By myself, I tap my head against the wall. Alone should be a
blessing, but I’m haunted by the plan. My plan, Lily’s plan, the
plan. It’s not about what’s missing, it’s what’s out of rhythm.
I try to make the pianist play, try to hear why our plan won’t
work, but the white noise of the room is in my ears, blocking out
the music. All these things Lily has cluttered our room with.
Everything has it’s own pitch if you listen for it. Most people
don’t. Lily doesn’t listen for the rustling of a box of neoprene gloves
or the steady hum of the eighteen microscopes. The high-pitched
glassy squeal of the beakers and petri dishes. All of this stuff makes
too much noise. I can’t hear the music. If I could, I’d know what’s
missing.
So I sort the things. Everything comes off the shelves. The big
black book screamed beside the pink backpack. It slides into silence when I move it beside the twenty-four roll box of paper
towels. The pink backpack, so jittery, quiets once I empty it and
place beside the quilt. I do this, making sense of the chaos. If I can
just isolate the melody—hear our escape plan—I’ll know what’s
wrong.
If I can’t make the piano play, the rhapsody won’t work. Lily
might blame herself, but it’ll be both of us who die.
Time is not on our side. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
5/18/12 9:00 AM
WANT MORE?
READ THE COMPLETE
SERIES BY
TATE HALLAWAY
THE VAMPIRE PRINCESS NOVELS
Almost to Die For
Almost Final Curtain
Almost Everything
GWEN HAYES
Falling Under
Dreaming Awake
VERONICA WOLFF
THE WATCHERS NOVELS
Isle of Night
Vampire's Kiss
Blood Fever
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
5/18/12 9:00 AM
WANT MORE?
READ THE COMPLETE
SERIES BY
RACHEL CAINE
THE MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES
Glass Houses
Dead Girls' Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death
Ghost Town
Bite Club
Last Breath
Black Dawn
Bitter Blood (Coming November 2012)
Also available:
The Morganville Vampires, Vol 1-4
Available wherever books are sold or at
penguin.com
5/18/12 9:00 AM
INTRODUCING
Penguin’s brand new graphic novel imprint
Don’t miss any of the new and exciting releases
COMING SOON
PATRICIA BRIGGS
CHARLAINE HARRIS
and more!
Learn more at penguin.com/inklit
5/18/12 9:00 AM
Discover the very best mix of
romance, mystery, science fiction,
and fantasy eBooks!
Visit penguin.com/intermix
for a complete list of available titles
and find a great new book.
5/18/12 9:00 AM

Reads free sampler

Transcription

Similar documents

Get info about What Is The Song Roulette By System Of A Down About

Inside Weddings Winter 2010 - International Event Company

Unparalleled built into every home.

South Shore Stars

read a sample chapter

TestAS

fall activities - We Support Our Local Schools

Treatment Card_RZ.indd

End-matchEr - Stiles Machinery

Lifetouch Yearbooks®. We`ll make it easy, you`ll make it great.