Chapter Eleven

She locked me in the cell next to Meg’s. The floor was hard and cold. My whole body ached with hunger and blood loss. The wound in my neck, though carefully dressed, burned and itched. Strange noises came from Meg’s cell. I closed my ears, not wanting to think what the haemophile was doing to her with me unable to stop it.

Time became an unreal thing. The only thing to mark day dawning was Evgeniya’s sudden absence. The only indicator of the hours that followed was increasing pain. I gave up kicking at the door when it became clear that I was doing more damage to my foot than the wood.

I knew night must have fallen again when I heard the bolt of Meg’s cell being drawn. I yelled obscenities and threats through the concrete, but all was ominously quiet until the clunk of my own bolt being opened echoed in the cramped cell.

“She’s nearly there,” Evgeniya said, almost maternally, pulling her sleeve down over an already-healing wound in her wrist. “If she survives this stage, she will be fully transformed. Then it’ll be your turn.”

I tried to push her back, but she was too strong. She pulled the dressing from my neck and bit me again. The drawing sensation as she drank pulled at my fingertips and toes, threading pain through my flesh like hot wire. I shoved at her uselessly, my strength ebbing. By the time she was done, all I could do was lie on the floor and blink blearily at the ceiling.

She left again. I tried to talk to Meg, to tell her it was all going to be okay, that someone would find us and, somehow, they’d fix whatever Evgeniya had done to us. But my voice croaked, cracked and died in my throat. Meg didn’t respond.

My stomach was a hard knot of hunger and my veins burned hollowly. My muscles felt like they had been individually stretched to their limit then pulled farther. The only things that were real were dizziness and confusion, pain and despair.

I was jerked out of a semi-conscious stupor by someone rattling at my cell door. I frowned, trying to focus. Evgeniya never had any trouble with the heavy bolt. Besides, by the eerie silence from the cell next door, I was sure it was still daytime.

There was a screech and a clunk, then the cell door opened. Light spilled in, making me blink and curse. Someone swore, then there were warm hands on me, sitting me up, and a familiar human smell of tobacco and mint shampoo.

“David?” I croaked.

“Jesus Christ, Alec,” he said, voice shaking as he pulled my arm over his shoulder and helped me to my feet. “What the fuck happened?”

I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry. I staggered, trying to take my weight, and David, slighter than me, stumbled with me. Eventually he wrestled me out of the cell and lowered me into one of the chairs, then held a bottle of water to my lips. I drank greedily.

The water revived me a little and I could finally focus on the tight expression on David’s face.

“I couldn’t get you on the bloody phone. All day yesterday and this morning, I tried—”

“What time is it?” I rasped.

“What?”

I drank more water. “What time is it?”

David looked at his watch. “Nearly nine…”

I blinked. “Sunset?”

“Almost…”

“Meg,” I croaked, trying to stand.

“What?” David looked around feverishly. “Where’s Meg? She’s here too?”

I nodded, gesturing at the other cell. David darted to the door and began heaving on the bolt. His shirt shifted and I noted the gun shoved into his waistband with only a fraction of the emotion I would have done at any other time. By the time I’d managed to shamble across the room, he’d gotten the bolt undone.

“Be careful,” I said, clutching his arm.

“Why?” he asked, even though the heaviness in his expression told me he was reading his worst fear in my face. We opened the door together. Meg was curled on the floor in the corner, her face turned toward the wall. For a minute neither of us could move, then David knelt next to his sister and reached out a hand. I held my breath, but she didn’t respond to his touch. He turned her over. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was clammy. Her dark curls stuck to her forehead. But her face was calm. Peaceful. I crushed my eyes shut as David reached out a shaking hand and pressed to fingers to her neck.

“She’s alive,” he said, voice shaking. I slumped against the wall, relief weakening my legs. “What’s happened to her?”

I clutched at the doorframe to stay upright. “Evgeniya…”

David looked up sharply. “What?”

“Terje’s former Magister.”

“Yes, I know who she is,” David hissed. “She’s here?”

I nodded. “Somewhere. She was the one luring Meg here—to talk, she said. She promised she’d turn herself in if Meg agreed to represent her…”

David stared at me. “She was meeting…her? Why?”

“She thought she could help.”

A number of emotions passed through David’s eyes. “Why didn’t she tell anyone?”

“Evgeniya swore her to secrecy. Meg thought she was negotiating the terms of her surrender…”

Tears brightened David’s dark eyes. He swallowed and looked down at the too-still form of his sister.

“Is she…”

It took me a long moment to find my voice. “She’s a haemophile…or very nearly… I’m not sure…”

David pressed a fist into his forehead and took a shaking breath. “How did it happen?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

David opened his eyes and weighed me up. “And you?”

“Not me…” I said. “At least…I don’t think so. She’s been…” I winced, rubbing at the dressing on my neck, the wound stinging and itching. “She drank from me. I think she was getting me ready.”

“Why?”

“She’s got some mad idea of building a commune with us…all of us.”

“That’s insane.”

“I did tell her that,” I said bleakly.

“Why you? Why Meg?”

“She said everyone from Blood Winter. I guess she thinks we all belong together…” David’s face paled. “What?”

“Jon Ogdell was busted out of prison last night,” he said in a low voice. “They suspect a haemophile attack…”

My blood ran cold. “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Fast.”

“For once I agree with you,” David muttered and leaned down to shake Meg’s shoulder. “Meg? Meg, it’s me…”

Her face twitched, screwed up, then she bared her teeth, hissing. David backed away, shock slackening his face.

“Don’t,” I whispered urgently. “Don’t try to wake her. Just cover her.” I shrugged myself out of my bloodstained jacket. “Can you lift her?”

“Of course I can lift her,” he said, sliding his arms under her. I draped the jacket over her face, tucked her hands underneath it and David lifted her from the ground. We moved, slowly, toward the door.

“What if they can’t—”

David never got the chance to voice his fear. Evgeniya was in the doorway. She snatched Meg from David’s grip like she was no more weight than a doll and shoved him back. He staggered into me and both of us went sprawling. I blinked through dizziness and swallowed the coppery taste in my mouth. David pulled his gun, but Evgeniya dragged him from the floor and pinned him to the wall by his throat.

“Right on time, Mr. Carlisle,” she said, and sank her teeth into his neck.

I cried out. David made a strangled noise, dropping the gun and scrabbling uselessly at her vise-like grip. I got to my hands and knees, crawled closer, reached for the gun…

The was a noise like a rushing wind and David was slumping to the floor. There was a confused moment of breathless stillness, then I realized Evgeniya was against the wall, blood oozing from scratches across her face, her fingers digging into the concrete, glaring into the shadows of the door. I blinked a few more times but couldn’t focus before Terje was attacking again. The air filled with bangs and crashes, flying feet and razor-tipped hands as they fought to overpower each other in the restricted space. I crawled to David and pulled him into my lap, attempting to staunch the bleeding from his neck. The wound had been ripped wide when Evgeniya had been torn away and his blood poured over my hands, soaking our clothes. He stared up at me, his eyes wide, mouth opening and closing.

“It’s all right,” I breathed, “It’ll be all right, David. Just keep still.”

“Meg?” he croaked

She lay sprawled in the doorway of her cell, raising her head to peer blearily at the chaos.

“She’s okay,” I assured him, clamping my hand harder over his wound. “It’s all okay. Terje is here…”

Evgeniya screamed, loud enough to shake the glass in the door. There was another crash, then the haemophiles were standing, breathing hard, glaring at each other across the room, their clothing torn, scratches bleeding on both their faces and necks.

“You’re faster,” Evgeniya said.

“You’re slower,” Terje returned.

Evgeniya grinned. “You can’t win, Terje. You know that.”

“I’m not alone,” Terje said. “Novák knows I was coming here. There will be others. Soon.”

“This is all beginning to feel very familiar,” Evgeniya said, glancing around us all, one at a time. “So how about, this time, you make the right decision?”

“And what’s that?”

“Join me,” she said, smiling a Blood-darkened smile. “We’ll start a new commune, Terje, with all these humans you hold so dear. I will give them all to you if you join me.”

Terje hesitated. His gaze landed on me, and for a horrifying second, I knew he was considering it. But then he shook his head. “No.”

“You can’t fight me forever,” she said, approaching. Terje appeared to be fighting the urge to step back. “These humans and you are the representation of everything that is conflicted and divided between our kinds. But the war is coming. If we band together, fight side by side, our kind will be united again. And when the fighting is done, we can be safe, away from all this, with the freedom to exist as we want.”

“You think I’d want that?”

“I know you do,” she said softly.

David moaned in my lap, his eyelids flickering. “Terje,” I said, my voice shaking.

“Ignore him,” Evgeniya commanded. “His friend won’t survive. There’s no need to rush on his account. However…” Evgeniya reached down and helped Meg to her feet. I clutched David closer, casting about, trying to find something more effective than my hand to staunch the wound, and spotted the gun just within reach. Meanwhile, Meg sagged in Evgeniya’s grip, breathing hard, her eyes heavy, staring at Terje like she was trying to remember why he was significant. Terje’s face hardened.

“What have you done?”

“Started our new family,” Evgeniya whispered.

“That was not licensed.” The shock evident on Terje’s usually impassive face was palpable. “Did she even consent?”

Evgeniya lifted an eyebrow. “No. But only because she didn’t understand what I’m offering.”

“It’s worse than if you’d killed her.”

“You don’t really think that,” she said, lowering Meg into a chair.

“You don’t see anything, do you?” Terje said. “You’re the reason everything went so wrong—why we’re hated, why they can’t trust us.” His pained gaze came back to me. I couldn’t move. I begged him with my eyes. David was going still. I could smell his blood, feel the pain that stiffened his rigid body. I gripped him harder, trying to summon the strength to stand, to carry him out, to try to reach the gun, anything.

“I’m the only one who can bring you happiness,” Evgeniya reasoned. “Peace. Security. You don’t need anyone else.”

“I need Alec.”

I froze with my fingertips on the gun’s handle. If I moved, David would shift and my grip on his wound would slip. If I didn’t get the gun and try to do something about Evgeniya, he was going to bleed out anyway. But in that moment, all I was aware of was Terje.

“And you will have him,” Evgeniya replied, like a patient parent lecturing a child. “I’ll turn him for you.”

“No,” Terje said. “I love him as he is.”

Fire rekindled in Evgeniya’s eyes. My heart exploded behind my ribs. Meg blinked between us all and, slowly, her expression changed. Her grip tightened on the chair. She looked at me, then her eyes fell on David.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Evgeniya said. Meg slid onto her hands and knees and began to crawl toward the gun.

“I won’t let you hurt him,” Terje intoned.

Evgeniya gazed at him, her face still. “It’s like you’ve gone backward—all the more reason to bring you into a commune as soon as possible.”

“Why me?” Terje asked, more emotion than I’d ever heard him express straining his voice. “Why this fixation on me? On these humans? Why risk coming back, risk everything, just for me?”

“Because you never lost it, Terje,” Evgeniya said, stepping close to him. Meg had almost reached the gun. Her face was tight, her fraught gaze flicking between her brother, Evgeniya and the firearm. “You never lost your humanity. It links you to this world. We need that balance to survive.”

“They don’t want this,” Terje said in a low voice. “Alec doesn’t want this.”

“How do you know? Have you asked him?”

Terje looked at me. The surging of emotion in his eyes was like a storm out at sea. A hundred thousand things to think, say and feel tumbled over each other, but I couldn’t even begin to fight them into order, let alone decide what they meant.

At that moment, Meg closed her fingers around the pistol and the metal scraped the concrete. Evgeniya turned, and in a flash it was gone, Meg thrown against the wall and David ripped from my arms.

“It’s time you all learned about consequences,” Evgeniya said. Terje lurched toward her, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop her snapping David’s neck.

Meg’s cry drowned out my own and reverberated around the walls like an air-raid siren. David’s lifeless body slumped to the floor. His eyes were wide and staring, fixed on me. My vision blurred, and I tasted bile. Meg flung herself at Evgeniya, but Terje thrust himself between them. The gun went flying. I tried to go after it, but the door slammed open and a dark shape, moving too fast to see, darted into the fray. Terje and Meg were flung back, and the pistol was scooped out of my reach.

With a crash hard enough to crack the brickwork, Evgeniya was slammed into the wall. I just had time to recognize the tall, coated figure of Hati Nenge when she brought the gun up, pressed the barrel to Evgeniya’s forehead and fired.

The silence that followed was more deafening than the shot itself. Evgeniya thudded to the floor, a neat hole, oozing black, above her right eyebrow. Her mouth was open. The fire in her yellow eyes had gone cold.

“Sorry I’m late,” Nenge said.

“She’s…dead?” I croaked.

“Oh yes,” Nenge said, pocketing the gun. She surveyed the scene with a crease between her eyebrows. “Dear, dear, what a mess.”

I scanned the room. Terje, cut and bloodied, stood staring at Evgeniya’s body like he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. At his feet lay the bent and broken form of David, soaked in blood, his eyes dull. Meg, whimpering, knelt next to her brother and gathered him into her arms. His head lolled sickeningly on her shoulder. She sobbed.

I tried to get to my feet. It broke whatever spell was holding Terje still and he was at my side in an instant.

“Alec,” he breathed, holding me up and looking earnestly into my face, “you’re hurt.”

“I’m alive,” I rasped.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice so choked that I felt for sure he was about to cry. “So sorry.”

I brushed the hair from his face with a shaking hand. My throat wouldn’t open to allow speech. I put my arms around his neck, rested my face in his hair and let the shaking take me. He wound his arms around me in turn and held me tight.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“I got home, and you weren’t there. I checked the call history. David told me where you’d gone.” He was silent for a moment. “I told him not to come…but day was near. I couldn’t get here faster…”

I clutched him tighter.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” he murmured into my hair.

“Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“You know what.”

He pulled back and looked into my face. His lips were pale, his eyes shining. “Of course I meant it.”

I kissed him. He tasted like home.