The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

CHAPTER 7

  Death is a shadow that always follows the body.

  -English proverb

  Tana directed Aidan to pull the car into a gas station about an hour after they'd left Lance's house. There were no other cars in sight, and these days all twenty-four-hour marts had bulletproof-glass cashiers' booths, so she thought it'd be safe to stop. Full dark had fallen, her arm was starting to ache from holding the tire iron, and she was pretty sure she wasn't going to be able to keep it together much longer. Exhaustion was creeping up on her, her cuts stinging and her head throbbing. She hadn't eaten anything since she'd woken-hadn't even thought of eating-and each time her stomach growled, Aidan looked over at her as though her hunger reminded him of his own.

  It was hard to stay alert, hard not to be distracted by images of the farmhouse, of bodies, rising up behind her eyelids when she blinked, everything drenched in red. And along with that, the memory of the vampire's teeth scraping the back of her leg, his hand clamped on her calf.

  She'd watched programs in health class talking about the spread of infection. There'd been an illustration of the human mouth and the vampire mouth side by side. She thought of it, illustrated in blue and yellow, pink and red. Vampire canines grew longer than their human counterparts, with thin channels that let the creature draw blood up through its teeth and into the back of its throat. When a vampire bit down, a little of its own fouled blood was pushed into the human bloodstream, causing infection. There'd been cases like hers before, cases where the teeth didn't fully penetrate. Sometimes people were fine, sometimes they weren't. If she didn't go Cold in forty-eight hours, she'd know her luck had held.

  Aidan pulled up to one of the pumps. "We can't keep driving without a plan. We've got to go somewhere. "

  "I know," she said, her panic-fogged mind going round and round, every possible move seeming worse than the last. She had no idea what to do next. All she knew was that she felt about ready to jump out of her own skin.

  As he opened the car door, a lock of hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it back, the way he'd always done. It seemed like such a normal gesture, when everything else was so not normal, when he wasn't normal, that she had to swallow past the lump in her throat.

  He reached for the pump, selecting regular unleaded.

  Tana felt as though everything was happening much too slow and too fast, all at once. During the drive, she'd been afraid to talk, because if she started, she wouldn't be able to hold how she felt inside. She wouldn't be able to make him believe she was in control.

  "We'll get a map and make a plan," she said, hoping he wouldn't see how tired she was. If she seemed weak, she might seem more like prey. She made her voice as steady as she could. "I'm going to the bathroom to get cleaned up first, though. I'll meet you in the mart after you're done with the gas. "

  From the trunk she heard a soft thump. Gavriel was back there, waiting to be freed. But what would he do then? Were they supposed to just dump him by the side of the road and hope for the best?

  "We'll be right back," Tana called, and despite trying to control it, her voice quavered.

  Slinging her handbag over her shoulder and grabbing her boots, she walked steadily away from Aidan and the car until she got to the corner of the mart, then she ran the rest of the way to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it. Before she could help it, she started sobbing. She cried and cried until she choked on her tears. She slid down the wall, crying so hard she could barely catch her breath. She slammed her fists against the loose linoleum tile of the floor, hoping the pain would shock her into calming.

  Shock, Tana thought, I'm in shock. But she didn't really know what that meant, only that it was bad and that it happened in the movies. In movies, people got over it quickly, too, usually with a slap to the face.

  Standing, she slapped her own cheek and watched it become rosy in the mirror above the grimy bathroom sink. She didn't feel any different.

  After long moments of standing there, staring at her reflection, she remembered that she'd said she was going to get cleaned up. She washed her arms in the sink, splashed water on her legs to rub off the blood. She couldn't see the scrape on the back of her knee very well, but from what she could see, it looked not much different from her other scratches and cuts. It didn't seem swollen or discolored. It didn't seem deep. It didn't seem like anything at all, much less something that could turn her into a monster. She cleaned it with the antibacterial soap in the pump and shaking fingers, hoping that could kill any infection before it spread. Then she stood up, leaning against the locked door, and started lacing up her boots, pulling the ties tight.

  When she was done, she called Pauline.

  Dialing the number was automatic, giving in to the temptation of momentary escapism. She couldn't think as the phone rang; her mind felt empty of everything but the feeling that if Pauline answered, then she was going to be all right for a little while. Tana didn't know what she was going to say, didn't even know how to put together words to explain where she was or what had happened. She'd been operating on instinct and impulsiveness at Lance's farmhouse-get everyone out and worry about the consequences later. But later had come. It was waiting for her outside the door. She could only forestall it.

  "Hello?" Pauline's voice was loud and in the background. Tana could hear music playing.

  "Hey," she said, like everything was normal. It felt good to pretend. Muscles along her shoulders relaxed minutely. "What are you doing?"

  "Hold on, I have to go in the other room. So much is going on. " A door shut on the other end of the line and the music dimmed. Then Pauline started telling Tana the news about David, her kinda sorta boyfriend at drama camp. He had a girlfriend back home-a girl he'd been with since middle school-but he'd been giving Pauline mixed signals all summer. Intense conversations and made-up excuses to touch each other during improvs, followed by agonized hand-wringing. His girlfriend was coming to visit Tuesday, but just that night David had kissed Pauline. She was freaking out.

  Tana felt relief wash over her along with the familiar drama. She sagged against the door frame, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. She could have interrupted Pauline, could have told her about the nightmare drive through the dark with the tire iron in her hand, told her about the vampires and the carnage and the scrape of a tooth. But if she did, she would have to think about those things again.

  So she listened to Pauline tell her the story, and then they rehashed it a bit; and when Pauline asked her how she was doing, Tana said that she was fine.

  She was fine and the party had been fine and everything was fine, fine, fine.

  "You sound weird," Pauline said. "Have you been crying?"

  Tana thought about asking Pauline to find an abandoned place with a door that could be barred and lock her inside with a few gallons of water and granola bars. Pauline would do it for her; Tana knew she would. And a week later, when Tana begged and howled and screamed to be let out, maybe Pauline would do that as well. It was too big a risk.

  So Tana insisted that she was really, really fine. Then Pauline had to go because she had a nine o'clock curfew and was leaving the common room to head back to her dorm.

  For long minutes after Tana hung up and put away her phone, she tried to hold on to the feeling of normalcy. But the more she stood there, the more her stomach cramped with fear, the more she was aware of how her skin felt hot and cold at once.

  She had to not be infected, that was all. She had to not be infected so she and Pauline could move to California after graduation as they planned. They were going to rent a tiny apartment, and Tana was going to get a boring, steady job-like maybe be a waitress or work the front desk at a tattoo parlor or at a copy shop, where they'd get discounts on head shots-while Pauline went to her auditions. They were going to do each other's makeup like pinup girls from the fifties and wear each other's clothes. And they were going to swim in the Pacific Ocean and sit under palm trees whi
le the warm breeze off the water ruffled their salt-crusted hair.

  Finally, Tana realized that she couldn't stay in the bathroom any longer. She opened the door, braced for an attack, braced for one of the vampires from the house to have followed her somehow, but there was no one and nothing-just a concrete lot and woods, lit by the flood lamps over the gas pumps. The night was sticky warm, and in the distance she could hear the singing of cicadas. Not caring if it made her a wimp to hate the dark, she ran back toward the brightly lit mart, only slowing when she was at the door. She jerked it open, wishing she hadn't left her tire iron in the car, even though she was sure they didn't let people bring stuff like that into regular businesses.

  From behind the bulletproof glass, a clerk grinned at her like a man who wasn't too worried about his security. He had a mass of red hair sticking up from his head in gelled spikes.

  There was a small television, mounted high up one wall, showing a feed from inside the Springfield Coldtown, where Demonia was introducing viewers to the newest guests at the Eternal Ball, a party that had started in 2004 and raged ceaselessly ever since.

  In the background, girls and boys in rubber harnesses swung through the air. The camera swept over the dance floor, showing the crowd, a few of which had looping hospital tubes stuck to the insides of their arms. The lens lingered over a boy no older than nine holding out a paper cup to a thin blond girl. She paused and then, leaning down, twisted a knob on her tubing, causing a thin stream of blood to splash into the cup, red as the boy's eyes and the tongue that darted out to lick the rim. Then the camera angle changed again, veering up to show the viewer the full height and majesty of the building. At the very highest point, several windowpanes had been replaced with black glass, glowing, but designed to keep out the kind of light that could scald certain partygoers.

  Tana's scar throbbed and she rubbed it without thinking.

  "Hey," Aidan said, touching her shoulder and making her jump. He was carrying a bottle of water, but he stared at the screen as if he'd forgotten about everything else. "Look at that. "

  "It's like the Hotel California," Tana said. "Or a roach motel. Roaches check in but they don't check out. "

  All infected people and captured vampires were sent to Coldtowns, along with the sick, sad, or deluded humans who went there voluntarily. It was supposed to be a constant party, free for the price of blood. But once people were inside, humans-even human children, even babies born in Coldtown-weren't allowed to leave. The National Guard patrolled the barbed-wire-wrapped and holy-symbol-studded walls to make sure that Coldtowns stayed contained.

  Springfield was the best known and the biggest Coldtown, with more live feeds, videos, and blogs coming out of there than from Coldtowns in much larger cities. That was partially because it was the first and partially because the Massachusetts government made sure that people trapped inside had power and communications sooner than the others The outbreak in Chicago was contained so fast that the quarantined area never had a chance to evolve into a walled city-within-a-city. Las Vegas was Springfield's rival in live-streaming vampire entertainment, but blackouts were common, disrupting feeds and making regular viewing unreliable. New Orleans and Las Cruces were small, and the Coldtown in San Francisco had gone dark a year after its founding, with no one broadcasting anything out. There were people in there; satellites could track their heat signatures at night. That's all anyone knew. But Springfield wasn't just the best known and the biggest, Tana thought, looking at the screen, it was also the closest.

  "It'd be a good place to hide out," Aidan said, with a sly look at the car and the trunk with the vampire inside.

  "You want to turn Gavriel in for a marker?" Tana asked him. There was one exception to the whole not-being-allowed-to-leave thing, one way out of Coldtown if you were still human-your family had to be rich enough to hire a vampire hunter, who would turn in a vampire in exchange for you. Vampire hunters got a bounty from the government for each vampire they put in a Coldtown, but they could give up the cash reward in favor of a marker for a single human's release. One vampire in, one human out.

  Even amateur hunters who turned in a vampire could get a marker. If Aidan got one, then he could go into Coldtown and, if he stayed human, if he beat the infection, he could get out again.

  "Not for a marker," Aidan said, his eyes still on the screen. "For the cash. We could get some serious money from the bounty on a vampire. Enough for me to hole up for a couple of months in some crappy hotel and ride this thing out. "

  "I think I got-not bit, exactly. " She blurted the words that she couldn't tell Pauline, that she'd been afraid to say out loud. He needed to know if they were going to make real plans. "Scraped. With a tooth. "

  That made him look at her, really look at her, his eyebrows drawn together with actual concern. "And you don't know if you're going to go Cold. "

  "I have to assume I am. " She tried to not let him see how scared she was, how her heart thundered to say the words. "We have to assume. "

  He nodded. "It'd be enough money for both of us to hole up for a while. Two rooms, two keys. We could pass them under the door to one another when we were done. But we've got to do something. I'm hungry, Tana. "

  "Gavriel helped us-" She stopped herself, unsure. The farther they got from the farmhouse, the more Gavriel seemed like a monster all on his own. She thought of his eyes, red like spilled garnets, red as poppies, red as the bright embers of a fire. She thought of what they taught in school: cold hands, dead heart. Plenty of vampires had forgotten how to feel anything but hunger. He'd helped her, sure, but that didn't mean she could trust him not to turn on her now that they were out of danger. Vampires were unpredictable. "At least that gives us a direction to head in. I'm going to grab some food. You should try to eat, too, and see if it cuts down the craving. "

  She waited for Aidan to make some comment, but he turned to watch more images from Coldtown on the tiny television, his lips slightly apart, his cheeks flushed.

  If she was a good person, she'd take him there. In case he gave in to the hunger. He might. And if he did, he'd be ageless, eternal. He'd be charming girls with his flipped hair until the Earth crashed into the sun.

  If she was a really good person, she'd take herself there, too.

  Tana walked around the store, picking up a map with numb fingers. There were notices tacked to a board near the coolers: photos of teenagers with MISSING underneath and phone numbers, advertisements for guaranteed homeopathic remedies to ward off vampires, kittens free to a good home, and one notice reading only CALL MATILDA FOR A BAD TIME.

  Tana grabbed a root beer and then a bottle of water for later. At the deli case, she selected the least scary-looking sandwich-turkey and yellow cheese on white bread-and picked up two of them along with half a dozen packets of brown mustard, an apple, and a bottle of ibuprofen. Then she made herself a jumbo-size coffee, emptying in a packet of hot chocolate for good measure.

  Dumping her feast in front of the guy behind the bulletproof glass, she paid for that and the gas. She had about forty dollars left, the remainder of her last paycheck from her part-time job at the movie theater concession stand. Forty dollars and a very sketchy plan.

  Tana wasn't sure how much Aidan knew about what going Cold was actually like, but if he was picturing himself in a hotel room, watching television, and sweating through it as if it were some kind of drug withdrawal, then he was picturing it all wrong. Once he was in the grips of the hunger, he'd break down the door if he could. They'd attack each other. And then they'd attack other people, maybe even kill them. Spread the infection even further.

  But if they weren't going to go to Coldtown and they weren't going to hole up somewhere, their only choice was to turn around and go home. Drive Aidan back to his house. Talk to his mother, a small, quiet woman in a housedress who had made Tana cups of tea when she came over and never commented on any of the outfits she or Aidan wore. Tana would have to explain that her s
on had gone Cold. Talk to his father, whom Tana had never even met. Tell them-and then what? Were they really ready to confine Aidan somehow and ignore his screams, knowing that if he got loose, someone would get hurt and they'd get arrested? Or would they ship him off to Coldtown anyway and pretend there were never any other choices?

  And what about her? Where could she go to sweat out the infection? Not the basement, where her screams would echo off the walls as her mother's had. Not the basement, where Pearl could hear her.

  "Okay," Tana told herself, with a sigh, taking a big swig from her mocha. "Time to go. "

  Outside, the cool breeze blew back her hair and the bag of food swung from her hand. She was looking forward to sitting down and eating. Then, after she felt a little less light-headed, she would decide on a route.

  As she headed across the station to her car, she noticed that the trunk of the Crown Vic was open.

  "Aidan," she said, her voice hushed.

  Slowly, dread in her step, she crossed the asphalt.

  The locking mechanism had been torn off and one of the hinges seemed loose, as though bent. Chains were coiled in a pile where Gavriel should have been, along with the remains of the blankets and black garbage bags.

  "How did he-" Aidan started, then stopped himself.

  "He tore them," Tana said, pointing to a metal link, warped out of shape, stretched and broken on one end. "If he did this, then he could-he could have always gotten free. Back at the house. He played us. "

  "Maybe they're weaker during the day," Aidan said. "Like, this one time, I found a bat just sitting on the side of the bank in town in the middle of the afternoon. It was tiny and looked really miserable, so I stuck it in my shoe and brought it home. I thought it would be cool to have a pet bat, so I kept it in this old birdcage and it just chilled out. Until night. Then it wasn't docile anymore. It got out somehow and started flying around like crazy. When it spread its wings, it looked like this giant, massive-"

  "Aidan," Tana said. "He's not a bat. " She stared at the mauled metal of the trunk and the way the chains were torn like tinfoil instead of steel.

  He shouldn't have been able to do that. Vampires were stronger than humans, but not that strong.

  "There's a reason people used to say they turned into bats," said Aidan cryptically.

  She sighed. Maybe he was right-in a way. Maybe like the bat in the birdcage, Gavriel had been waiting for dark, waiting to get out of the chains, drink Aidan's blood, and escape. But when she showed up, he figured he could use them for a ride through daylight, so long as he seemed harmless enough to need saving. A chill crept up her spine.

  "Well, he's gone now. It's just you and me. " Aidan grinned lazily at her. It was the exact expression he always wore when he was about to talk her into something.

  "Yeah," said Tana. He kept staring and his expression shifted. She didn't think he was seeing her anymore. He was seeing skin and bone and blood. She took a step back. The tire iron was on the passenger-side seat where she'd left it. She'd never reach it in time. "So let's get back in the car and keep going. Maybe find a hotel like you said. " She was just talking, trying to say something that would distract him. "Hole up, like you said. "

  "Or we could give in to temptation. " He shook his head slowly, coming closer. "Think about it. "

  "You don't mean that," she told him.

  "Why not?" he asked, advancing. "It could be fun. There's people out there who'd kill for what we have. "

  "I don't want to be a monster," she said, stumbling away from him. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the gleam of a security camera mounted on the aluminum siding of the mart above the door. "Let's get in the car. You can try to convince me. I promise I'll give it serious consideration. "

  "Oh good," Aidan said, and lunged at her.

  She'd been half expecting it, given the way he was talking, but the attack still caught her off guard. He was her friend, and no matter how much she knew he wasn't safe, all her instincts pushed her to trust him. She threw the mocha she'd been holding, hoping the hot coffee would scald, and ran. His legs were longer, though, and he was faster. He tackled her, his weight bearing her to the asphalt. She felt his cool breath on her neck, and her knees and palms stung where she'd scraped them falling. The bag of food fell next to her, cracked root beer bottle frothing as the tide of liquid spread to soak the skirt of her baby doll dress and mingle with spilled gasoline, washing away the spent stubs of cigarettes.

  This is it, she thought, this is where I'm going to die. And it's going to be on film, watched by the clerk from behind his wall of glass, taped on the camera and maybe broadcast later for her father and sister.

  Aidan made a sound like a gurgling scream, and Tana winced, waiting for the inevitable pain. But instead of the blunt burn of teeth, she felt him releasing his grip on her and heard him shout. She rolled onto her back, one hand reaching for the broken bottle, the only weapon available. Her fingers closed on it and she swept it out in a wide arc, hoping to hit skin.

  Then she gasped.

  Gavriel was standing in front of her, his arms around Aidan's chest, his mouth on Aidan's neck, his eyes shut. There was a terrible peace in his face as he lifted Aidan off the ground, a terrible pleasure as his throat moved, drinking down swallow after swallow of blood. Aidan's eyes were half open, heavy-lidded, and focused on nothing. He wasn't struggling anymore, his mouth hung open in sensual bliss, his body shuddering with sensation.

  For one long moment, Tana couldn't move. It was more than the fear of drawing attention to herself, more than the fear of being hurt. She ought to be horrified, but she found herself mesmerized instead.

  Aidan moaned, low in his throat. Gavriel's fingers tightened, pulling Aidan's body against his.

  Slowly, painfully, Tana pushed herself to her feet. Blood and gravel stuck to her knees and palms. Her once-white dress was filthy.

  "Gavriel," she said as firmly as she could manage, and prayed her voice wouldn't shake. She thought of the way you were supposed to talk to wild animals, the way you couldn't let them know you were afraid. "Gavriel! Let him go. "

  He didn't move, didn't even seem to notice.

  She grabbed his arm, half expecting him to whirl on her. "Please let Aidan go. He's going to die!"

  The vampire pulled back his head, eyes shut, fangs red, and mouth split in a wide grin. Then his eyes did open, bright as torches, and she stumbled back, terrified. Aidan's body sagged from his arms to the pavement.

  From the way Gavriel was looking at her, she wondered if he was thinking about the blood rising to her cheeks, of the way it pounded along with her speeding heart, the flush of it on her skin and the way it colored her lips.

  It came to her, all of a sudden, the words he'd said to her in Lance's house.

  If I'm hurt, you must be very careful. No, Tana, you must listen. You must be careful of me.

  He hadn't been worried he was going to get hurt. He'd been worried that he was going to hurt someone else.

  "Don't," she said, shrinking back, the jagged bottle stem she still had clenched in her hand seeming hopelessly inadequate, a bright piece of glass and nothing more. "Please. "

  Gavriel wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of one hand. "Come, Tana. The night is young and your friend is very tired. We should make him a bed-a cap of flowers and a kirtle, embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. " His voice sounded odd, abstracted.

  She bent down to where Aidan was lying and touched his chest. It rose and fell as if he was, indeed, only sleeping. "Is he going to-will he live?"

  "No," said Gavriel. "No chance of that. He wants to die, so he will. But not tonight and not because of me. "

  "Oh," Tana said. "So he's okay?"

  Under the floodlights, Gavriel's skin looked nearly white, his mouth stained red despite his rubbing it. It was the first time she'd seen him standing and again she was struck by the incongruity of him-tall, bare feet, jean
s, and a black T-shirt turned inside out, messy black hair, chains gone, looking like the shadow of a regular boy, a boy her age, who wasn't a boy at all.

  And there was a body slumped at his feet.

  "Yes," he said, reaching out a hand. "But you're hurt. "

  She looked down at herself, at the mess of her dress and the mess of her knees and the mess of everything. "I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone. " Horrifyingly, she felt her eyes prick with sudden tears.

  He bent down and picked up Aidan, slinging him over one shoulder. "We'll get you another day," Gavriel said, with such odd sincerity that she had to smile.