Ravenous (Book 1 The Ravening Series) (28 page)

   “Good, we need to figure out what we are going to do.”

   “Didn’t Bret tell you?”
   I glanced back at Bret, but he wouldn’t look at me, his gaze was focused on the far wall. His jaw was locked tight, his arms folded over his broad chest. I ached for the hurt I saw in him. Swallowing heavily I turned my attention back to Aiden.  “No,” I said softly.

   “The
rental store down the road does have scuba gear.”

   I frowned in confusion. “But you said that was a bad idea.”
   “It’s the only one we have now. The fact that we have to get to the mainland has not changed Bethany. We can’t stay on this side. They’ll find us.” My hand tightened around Cade’s, I needed his strength. I knew I should let go of him, knew that I was only hurting Bret more, but I couldn’t bring myself to release him. I was a truly awful person. Cade’s hands wrapped around my arms, he pulled me a small step closer to him, his attention still half on Bret as he listened to Aiden. “We have to do something Bethany.”

  
Though Aiden was trying to keep his face expressionless, confusion and shock blazed from the eyes rapidly flickering back and forth between the three of us. He focused on me, shook his head, opened his mouth to say something, and then clamped it shut again. He hissed something under his breath, it was so low that I couldn’t make it out, but Cade pulled me even closer to him.

  
“I know we do,” I muttered.

   “It’s getting dark now, we should be going
soon.”

   I couldn’t wait to get out of this apartment, and to
put some space between Cade and Bret. But the thought of being outside again, of being completely exposed to those creatures once more, caused a cold chill to run down my spine.

CHAPTER 16

   I turned the scuba tank over in my hands. I had no idea what the hell we were going to do with these damn things. What the hell were we thinking to even attempt this incredibly crazy idea, even if it had been
my
crazy idea? Drowning was not one of the ways I wanted to go out, but then again neither was getting my blood drained by some crazy freaking spider/tick/octopus/jellyfish like monster.

   Both options sucked, but I preferred to give my body over to nature than the aliens any day. “There might be some kind of manual or something around here,” Aiden muttered, biting on his bottom lip as he wandered behind the counter.
“A video even.”

  
“A video?” I inquired dryly.

  
“DVD maybe.”

   I rolled my eyes as I shook my head
. Only Aiden would think that he could play a DVD and know what to do, or that there even was a DVD on the basics of scuba diving. But then again, for all I knew, there actually might be one. Abby was holding up a set of flippers, studying them carefully as she flapped them in the air. We had lived on Cape Cod our entire lives, but strangely enough my siblings and I had never donned a set of flippers before.

   “We do have Molly,” I reminded him.

   Aiden shrugged absently. “Would still like to learn as much as possible beforehand.”

   I followed Aiden behind the counter, holding the flashlight for him as he rummage
d through the shelves. I didn’t think he had a shot in hell of finding a video, but I didn’t say that to him. I figured he simply needed something to distract him from what we were going to do. “Here’s something.”
   “What?” I asked in surprise.

   He pulled out a stack of papers and fluttered them in the air.
“It’s a manual.” Well that might be helpful, I thought silently. Though, I was pretty sure that reading about scuba diving wasn’t the best way to learn how to do it. It was better than nothing though, that was for sure. He sat back on his heels, flipping through the pages. “It will help.”

   He put it on top of the counter as he stood up.
Cade and Molly came around from where they had been exploring the back of the store. “There’s a room back there, but it has windows. We either leave tonight for the mainland, or we go back to the apartment,” Cade informed us briskly.

  
He’d been on edge since we’d left the apartment. The strange thing was that I didn’t think it had anything to do with what had happened with Bret, but with something else entirely. He was pale again, his mouth pinched once more. I wondered if perhaps he hadn’t slept like the rest of us. I worried about him, afraid that he was going to make himself sick with lack of sleep and nutrition.

  
I didn’t like the idea of staying here, or going back outside. Unfortunately we didn’t have a choice. “I want to read this,” Aiden replied, tapping his fingers on the pages before him. “Maybe we should go back to the apartment till tomorrow night then.”
   “Are we taking all this stuff with us?” Jenna inquired softly. I had noticed that she had become a lot more agreeable, and nicer, since she’d seen Cade and I holding hands in front of Bret. “It’s pretty heavy.”
   “I guess we can leave it,” Aiden answered but his attention was elsewhere. He was like a pit bull when he became focused on something, he locked onto it and wouldn’t let go, and right now he was focused on that manual.

  
“There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to make it back here,” I protested instantly.

   “Hmm, true,” Aiden muttered.

   I sighed as I shook my head at him. I moved away from the counter, heading to the back of the store. The windows held a glimpse of the ocean. Through the trees and homes, I could just make out the light of the moon sparkling across the gleaming surface of the water. It all looked so peaceful, so wonderfully normal and safe. For one brief moment I could almost believe that everything was as it should be. That there was no fear, hunger, or pain anymore.

   I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around myself as I tried to bottle the rush of emotions that surged up in me.
For one brief, poignant moment, I allowed myself to long for everything that we had lost, everything that we would never have again. Then, I opened my eyes, and forced myself to accept the fact that this was our new reality. Running, hiding, being hungry, scared, dirty, and tired was all we would know for the rest of our lives. But at least we were alive, we still had loved ones, and we were still moving which was more than I could say for most people.

   “Are you ok Bethy?”

   I hadn’t heard Abby approach, but she was suddenly at my side. “I’m fine.”
   “Are you sure? You seem so… ah… I don’t know, but you don’t seem like you lately.”
   She was trying to discreetly ask about Cade, but I didn’t have any answers for her. I didn’t know what it all meant, how it would all turn out. All I knew was that everything was very complicated and I wasn’t ready to talk about it. “None of us are the same lately.”

   “Bre
t…”

   “I don’t want to talk about it Abby.”

   “He loves you Bethany. He’s our friend. What are you doing?” I turned back to the window, unable to stand the wounded, pleading look in her eyes anymore. I felt bad enough without her heaping more guilt onto me. “Cade is…”

   I glanced sharply
at her. “Is what?” I grated.

   She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I don’t know
; he’s always been distant, aloof, so cold and
hard
. He’s a stranger, we barely know him. Bethany…”

   “I can’t explain it Abby, I just can’t. It’s completely unexplainable but
Cade isn’t those things, not really.”
   Abby was silent, her gaze drifted slowly toward where Jenna stood with Molly. I knew she was thinking about when Cade had threatened to leave Jenna at the dump. “That
is
who he is Bethy. It’s the way he is toward all of us.” Her dark eyes came slowly back to me. They were wide with dawning understanding, her mouth parted slightly as she gazed at me in surprise. “It’s just not who he is with
you
.”
   I shifted slightly before turning my attention back to the window. She was right, Cade was hard, he was cold, he was deadly, and he was volatile. They were all traits that he had clearly exhibited over the past few days. He just wasn’t like that with me, he never would be. I knew that intrinsically. I didn’t know how to explain that to her though, and I wasn’t sure she would understand even if I could explain it to her, especially when I didn’t. People had been weary of Cade for years; that wasn’t going to change simply because I wanted it to.

   She sighed softly and rested her hand lightly on my arm. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
   “I don’t,” I admitted honestly.

   She squeezed my arm gently before hooking her arm through mine and leaning against my side. “He is gorgeous,” she muttered.

   I chuckled softly as I hugged her to me, taking solace in her warmth. “It’s time to head back.” Cade was suddenly beside us, he didn’t acknowledge the midnight hair falling into one of his eyes as he focused on me. “Your brother is determined to read that thing cover to cover.”
   “Of course he is,” Abby said as she pulled away from me.

   She only made it one step before an echoing, crashing screech froze her in place. The sound rumbled through
out the night, shaking the building as its crescendo rose to ever higher levels. Abby threw her hands over her ears. She took a step back as it grew steadily louder, and more ear piercing with every second. I didn’t even realize that Jenna was screaming until Molly slammed her hand over Jenna’s mouth to silence her. It made little difference though; I never heard Jenna’s screams above the rising shriek pulsating through the air. It was so loud that the bones in my body, and my teeth, began to rattle.

  Abby was nearly on top of me as she fell back. Cade seized hold of my arms as a series of rambling crashes, and the brutal squeal of twisted metal, resonated through the air. It seemed to go on forever, rising and falling in streams of sound that shook the windows and caused the floor to tremble and shake. I didn’t know what the hell was causing the noise but I was beginning to fear that it was never going to stop, that it was just going to continue endlessly on until it deafened us, or drove us all mad with fear and confusion.

  
And then suddenly it stopped. The ensuing, encompassing quiet was more unnerving than the awful sound had been. We all held our breaths, our eyes wide in the dark as we strained to hear or see anything. My ears were ringing; I was shaking slightly within Cade’s grip. I kept waiting for the noise to start again, kept waiting for something to happen, but the world remained eerily quiet.

   “What… what the hell was that?” Molly gasped.

   Aiden took a step from behind the counter; his face far paler than normal. “I think it was the bridge.”
   “What!?”

   “The bridge, I think the bridge just collapsed, or was blown up, or whatever
. But I’m pretty sure that was the Bourne bridge.”

  
Horror curdled through me. Though I couldn’t see it from here, I knew that he was right. The Bourne bridge was gone. It had been a constant staple in my life. As a child I had feared driving over it, terrified that it would collapse beneath us. After my father’s death I hadn’t stayed in a car long enough to make the trip over the bridge until a couple of years ago. Both bridges were a major topic of conversation for the locals, in the summer, when the tourists flooded in and created massive congestion. Everyone planned their days around them, knew when to avoid them, or when they were going to be completely screwed and have to sit in traffic, sometimes for hours. The bridges had been nearly identical, and beautiful. They were large, sweeping testimonials to the architecture and technology of the thirties and now, at least one of them was a pile of rubble within the canal it had once gracefully spanned.

  
“Why would they destroy the bridge?” Jenna whispered.

   “Someone must have tried to get across again,” Abby replied.

   “No,” Aiden’s forehead furrowed in thought as he puzzled it out. “Someone
made
it across.”

  
A jolt of surprise rocked me. “What?” I inquired.

  
Excitement filled Aiden’s eyes. “Think about it, those things were waiting for us to try and cross that bridge, waiting for us so they could spring their trap. They wouldn’t destroy the bridge; it was the perfect opportunity for them to catch more of us. For them, those bridges were like picking off ants at a picnic, easy, simple, and they had the right bait. They wouldn’t destroy that opportunity unless something had gone wrong, unless some
one
had made it across. Unless someone
survived
.”
   Hope swelled up my throat. “You really think so?”

   “I do.”

   I glanced eagerly at Cade, but his eyes were distant and turbulent as he focused on the far wall. “Or
we
did it,” Cade said softly.