Darkness Falls (7 page)

I shake my head at him and return my attention to the bag. It’s not moving, but my knife remains out, just in case. “Is anyone in there?” I ask.

“Kayla?” a small voice squeaks. “Kayla, is that you?”

I nearly drop my knife. “Maci?”

“Kayla!” She panics, thrusting at the bag from inside. “Get me out of here! Please! I can’t breathe.”

I unzip the bag and Maci springs upright, coughing for air. I pat her back until she’s breathing normal. “What’s going on?” She asks with bulging eyes as she takes in our surroundings.

“I don’t know.” I crouch down so I’m eyelevel with her. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She considers this with a pensive expression. “An Angel.”

Furrowing my eyebrows, I feel her forehead, checking for fever. But her skin’s cold. “Maci, what’s an Angel?”

She stumbles to her feet and dusts the sand off her black pants. “The person that saved me from the fire.”

I worry she might be sick, even if she doesn’t look like it. In fact, she looks better than she has since she collapsed during Lessons. Her color has returned, sweat no longer soaking her red hair, and her green eyes seem lively.

Bernard rolls down the hill and hits the bottom with an
oomph
. “Maci?” He says, getting to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

I turn to him with my knife pointed out. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

He shrugs and kicks his boot at the ground. “Nothing really.” Little drops of perspiration bead his skin. He’s lying.

“You sure about that?” I ask, inching my knife at him.

He glares and swats my knife away from him. “What, you think I’m lying?”

“Did you see the Angel too?” Maci’s brown eyes light up excitedly. “The one dressed in white.”

“You mean a Higher?” Bernard asks, rubbing his neck tensely.

“No, I mean the Angel.” Maci smoothes her hair down and starts twirling in the sand, like she’s dancing.

“What the hell’s an Angel?” Bernard asks, brushing sand out of his hair.

“You know,” Maci says, still spinning as she gazes up at the sky. “The man who helps Taggart save us from the fire.”

Bernard burns her with a death stare. “I don’t remember any freakin’ Angel. But I do want to know where the heck we are.” He motions around us. “I mean, look at this place. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“We’ve never seen much of anything besides the city,” I say. “In fact, I don’t think either of you have even been out of The Colony, have you?”

Maci shakes her head, but Bernard targets his death stare at me. “I’ve been out, so don’t go thinking you’re something special when you’re not.”

I resist the urge to knock him out and opt to ignore him. “I wonder how far the city is from here.”

“Who the hell knows,” Bernard snaps. “You can’t see a thing with all the stupid rocks around.”

“It’s not the rock’s fault.”  Maci says. “And we need to find the city, so we can go back.”

“Back where?” I stare up at highest point of one of the taller rocks. If I can get up there, maybe I can get a better view of where we are and where the city could be.

“Back to The Colony.” Maci takes my hand. “Back home.”

I cringe. I might not know how we got out here, or what we’re doing here, but I know we probably can’t go back there.

“Does anyone remember
anything
at all? Besides an Angel?” I ask. “Maci, do you remember what happened to you after you left the hospital?”

She nods zealously. “They took me to the room of fire.”

The Infirmary.
“Who took you there?”

“The man in the white coat.” She pauses, sweeping her hair out of her eyes. “Your dad.”

Monarch.
“But Maci, I don’t understand. Why would Mon… I mean, my dad take you there?”

“Because I was dead,” she replies, tracing circles in the sand with her boots.

“I think Maci hit her head or something,” Bernard says.

“I didn’t hit my head,” Maci protests, putting her hands on her hips. “I know what I saw.”

“Yeah, an Angel.” Bernard’s sneers. “Whatever the heck that is.”

“Kayla, tell Bernard I’m right,” Maci says. “Tell him the Angel saved us.”

I blink at the girl who said she was dead and I recollect my last few visits to the hospital. I couldn’t hear Maci’s pulse. Worse, I suddenly become painfully aware of something.

Either my ability to detect heartbeats is defective. Or all three of us stand here walking, talking, and breathing without a heartbeat.

I once had to run for over three hours during a surprise attack while out on a raid. I was with two other Bellators and decided to use myself as a decoy, so they could get away. There where so many vampires, it took me forever to find a way back to The Colony. But that day I discovered something remarkable. I’m fast. And I mean fast. I also have a never-ending endurance.

I decide the best thing to do is figure out a plan. It’s getting late and if there are vampires prowling around, they'll be out as soon as dark possesses the sky. I tell Maci and Bernard to wait where they are, while I run up to the top of the highest rock and scope things out. I make it to the top in no time, but my breath catches at what I see. Miles and miles of red rock stacking the golden desert land. There’s no sign of life, water, or food. No buildings. No people. To add to the bad situation, hundreds of caves carve into the sides of the red rocks, which means there are hundreds of places for vampires to hide. The clouds are starting to shift, deepening in color. Darkness is rapidly approaching.

“You can handle this, Kayla,” I mutter to myself. “You just need to come up with a plan.”

“Kayla!” Bernard hollers. “Get down here. Maci won’t shut up about this stupid Angel thing!”

Who do they think I am? Their mother? From up here, they look like tiny dots in a land of dust, arguing with each other, making way too much noise. I could just take off, leave them here to fend for themselves. It’d be easier to find a place to hide and much faster if I were alone. But I’m not that kind of person; I realize that right away. So I climb back down the rocks.

“Okay.” I dust the dirt off my hands and knees. “Here are the rules that we’re going to need to follow if we want to have a chance at surviving. Rule number one—”

“We already know the rules.” Bernard rolls his eyes. “Always carry a weapon. Never go out after dark. Never get bit, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“Those rules don’t apply to us anymore—well, except for the getting bit part. That always applies.” I wave my hand at the sky. “Night’s coming and we have no place to hide.” I pause. “No, we’re going to have to make up our own rules if we want to survive out here. Okay everyone check your pockets and see if you have anything on you.” They start patting the pockets of their pants, while I check my leather jacket.

“I got nothin.” Bernard kicks a rock and it slingshots across the air and skids to the ground. “This is such crap. What’d they do? Search all my pockets before they threw me out? They even took my freakin’ necklace.”

His necklace. Inside my pocket, my fingers graze the cold metallic place. Right beside it is Monarch’s pocket watch. I can’t believe they’re both still there. I take them out.

Bernard steals his necklace away. “You took this from me?”

“No, I found it in the hospital, after I saw Gabrielle dragging you down the hall,” I say. “Which, by the way, what happened with that?”

He gives me a dirty look, ignoring my last question. “Yeah, right. Sure you did.” He nods at Monarch’s pocket watch. “And who’d you steal that from.”

I close my hand around the pocket watch. “I don’t remember you being this rude.”

“And I don’t remember you being a thief,” he snaps.

“It’s from her dad,” Maci interrupts, walking between us, her hair a halo of red blowing in the wind. “He gave it to her before he died.”

I wrap my hand around the pocket watch, the warm metal pressing against the palm of my hand, memories of Monarch swirling my head.  “Maci, how do you know he gave it to me? Were you awake or something?”

She shakes her head and smiles sweetly. “I just know.”

“Okay.” I’m not sure what to do about all this. The kid is talking about Angels and death and knowing everything like someone would talk about what they ate for dinner.

Bernard hooks the necklace around his neck and gives a quick squint at the metal plate, before tucking it under his black t-shirt. But I catch a glimpse of the numbers on it. This time I know they’re numbers because some match what’s on the face of the pocket watch.

“So that says your name on it?” I question, nodding at the spot on his shirt where the necklace hides.

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Yes, Kayla,” he says snidely. “I already told you this once.”

Talking to him is pointless so I move on to the last thing in my pocket. My knife. I inch it out, the silver handle the perfect fit for my hand, the jagged blade sharp enough for plunging into a vampire’s chest. If I ever get that far.

“Does anyone have anything else, weapons, anything at all?” I ask, tracing my finger tip along the blade.

“Nope,” Bernard answers, not bothering to check.

I consider patting him down just to make sure. “What about you Maci…?” I trail off at what the small girl clutches in her hands. “Where did you get those?”

She hands me three syringes and three vials, each filled with a black liquid. “The Angel gave them to me.”

Lines sketch the label, forming words I can’t read. “Did they tell you what to do with them?”

“Yeah, he said we were supposed to inject them,” she says, zipping up her jacket. “As soon as we got out here—that it would save us.”

Inject an unknown medicine into my body? “Wait. Someone told you we were going to wake up here—out in the desert?” I ask. “Did they tell you why?”

She nods. “But I can’t tell you yet—not until you’re ready.”

“Did they say—”

A shriek rips the air, like a siren of death. We all freeze.

The vampires have awakened.

“No… no no no.” Bernard’s on the verge of a meltdown, tugging at his hair as he rocks back and forth. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.”

“Calm down.” I stuff the watch and vials into my pocket. “It’s just like when we’re out on a raid. We just gotta stay on our toes and stay out of their sight.”

“No it’s not, Kayla!” He screams. “This is totally different. We’re not in the city and it’s dark—no one goes on raids when it’s dark.”

Except me.
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss. “You’re going to lead them right to us.”

“Kayla.” Maci tugs on my sleeve. “We’re not safe here. We need to move.”

“I know, I’m working on it.”

Darkness hasn’t quite touched the land yet so we have a little time. But not much.

Another shriek ripples the air.

“Kayla,” Maci says, jerking my arms. “We need to go.
Now
. If we stay here, we die.”