This opened to a circular living area where there was recliner with a lamp and small table next to it. Like everything else, it was covered in a thick layer of dust. No one had been through there in ages. Even the wooden floor lacked any sign of footprints. It was reassuring, but I still had more levels to check. Who knew how big this place was? There was one bedroom with a creaky-looking brass frame bed and a single light on a lonely table next to it. The sheets were flat, made up one morning and never turned back down, forgotten. I crossed out of the room to where the wall hid a small hallway of windows to the outside.
The view of the ocean was impossibly beautiful, and I had to pause to admire its brilliance. I loved it and was so happy to be able to see it again. It made my heart jump with the excitement to have the beauty of the water so close. It was humid, but it didn’t bother me. My skin begged to be drenched in its richness. Nothing felt better than that. It was what I’d needed to feel renewed, even in the face of the unknown dangers to come.
I turned back to find Elijah watching me. He’d entered the hall of windows from the other side. His nonjudgmental eyes twinkled as he followed my gaze toward the horizon.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
I nodded, smiling that he understood.
“Come on, we’ll have a few hours to enjoy it. The spiral staircase starts here, and the living quarters end. Both floors are clear.”
“Okay.”
I joined him at the base of a scary-looking spiral staircase. The stairs stuck out from the wall of the tower without a railing on the open side.
“Ladies first.” He smirked and wagged his eyebrows. I gave him a dark look, readjusting the machete in my grip.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I said before jumping onto the steps, not daring to look to the side. I wasn’t afraid of heights, I just didn’t want to know just how far I’d have to fall if or when I did fall. Okay, so I was a fiery pessimist. So what? I didn’t really care what others thought about my attitude. I focused on the task and made my way up the creaky stairs.
They seemed to go on for miles, with no end in sight. I hated not knowing what I was heading into. Still, the call of the ocean outside was better than the arid desert I was used to. Nothing could dampen my excitement from being near the water, not even an imminent attack above.
The only thing missing was Rye. I gulped back the sadness that wanted to creep up my throat like rancid bile. I hated feeling guilty about something, but I really didn’t know what else to do about it. I’d left him behind. That was the fact of the matter, and he and I would have to deal with the consequences when we saw each other again. If we saw each other again. I wasn’t so sure we ever would.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Not This or That
We were nearing the top, where the stairs were swallowed by the ceiling and led up into the lantern room of the lighthouse. I prayed that since it had to be full of sunshine up there, no ferals would be crawling all over it. Maybe ferals were the last thing we needed to worry about. If there was someone or something up there, it would be conscious and probably more dangerous than a feral.
Right before I popped my head over the threshold, I paused, waiting to hear the telltale noise of a stranger. I heard it as I stepped up, just in time to drop weapons, duck and avoid getting my head chopped off by a swinging blade. It met with the metal around the stairs, twanging in a violent pitch. Whoever had tried to get at me was now backing up, waiting for me to try it again. I took their pause as a way in and sped up through the entrance, jumping to roll across the floor and slamming into the wall. Luckily, I avoided the assailant. They were caught by surprise as they scrambled to follow my path, only to have a leg pulled out from under them by Elijah.
Surprise, Surprise.
The thump of their body crashing into the floor and their blade skittering across the metal far from their grip happened so quickly, they couldn’t catch their breath in time to retaliate. They laid there, frozen in surprise, with hands up in surrender.
It was a woman. “Stop!” she said. “I surrender.”
Elijah pointed the tip of his blade to her throat. “Why’d you try to chop my friend’s head off?” he snapped. His eyes narrowed on the stranger as I stumbled over to drag her off the ground and frisk for more weapons. She had a total of six blades on her. One stuffed in her boot, three were on a belt, one strapped to her thigh and another had been tucked under her jacket in a secret pocket. She continued holding her hands up in a show of faith. It made me want to slap her on the back of the head and scream at her for trying to kill me.
She refused to answer and flicked her eyes to the floor.
“Who are you?” I waited patiently as she shifted her gaze to eye me up and down, assessing what I was with her nimble, dark-haloed eyes. She was pure hybrid vampire. Not hard to see that with those telltale rings. Though what she was doing in a brightly lit room at the top of a lighthouse was beyond me. Most hybrids hated the sun, though they could venture out in it, it would always burn their skin.
“You’re trespassing in my home.” Her scalding hiss was low and accusatory. Her stare was relentless, and I hoped she wasn’t thinking about getting her blades back. That would be the day. Elijah would get to her before she ever got the chance to lunge at me.
“You’re home? You live here?” I was surprised. “Quite a place you got here. Looks very much unlived in. So try again.”
She frowned, staring hard at the machete in my hand, which I’d retrieved from the stairwell. “I just moved in.”
“Yeah, okay.” I sighed, rubbing the tiny headache creeping into my temples. “So what would a hybrid want with a bright ass lighthouse? Not really your style.”
“It’s no concern of yours.”
Elijah shoved her to her knees, and she grimaced as they dug hard into the floor. “Wrong answer.”
She turned to glare at him, throwing him a disgusted look as she narrowed her eyes. “Sanctuary. I was looking for sanctuary.”
“From who?” I asked.
She chewed her lips before pressing them tightly together. Whatever she’d run from, she wasn’t willing to divulge much about it. I hoped we could change her mind. She could very well know someone who could help me with the antidote.
“Lark.”
“What’s Lark?”
She frowned, closing her eyes as if the name caused her excruciating pain.
“Not what, who.”
“Get to the point.” Elijah poked her in the shoulder, and she yelped, reaching over to rub it.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Lark is the leader of my hive. She’s been conducting experiments on my people, and I protested. She wouldn’t listen and even subjected me to some of them. I escaped, but they’re after me. She doesn’t take too kindly to people escaping.”
“Where’s your hive? Is it far from here?”
“No, it’s actually not too far. I figured I’d shack up here for the night. Just like you, I thought a lighthouse would be safer than the usual hideouts. I need to feed before I can travel more. She deprived us of blood, it was one of her reconditioning experiments.” The woman sat onto her calves, tired of stressing out her knees. “You don’t want to go looking for them. It’s too dangerous.”
“And why would that be? What’s your name, anyway?” I knelt down, drilling my eyes into hers. She looked afraid, nervous and desperate in a way. She kept averting her gaze from me and pulled away as I crept closer. Maybe she was more afraid of the scent of my blood than anything else. A starving vampire was no joke.
I wasn’t sure what she was running from, but it sounded like another Mercer and Christian sort of hive to me, people determined to study the different strains no matter who suffered.
She huffed at me, unwilling to continue the avoidance game we were playing. I wasn’t sure, but she looked reluctant to tell me her name. It spiked my curiosity as I waited for her response. Right about the time I was wondering if she’d speak again or not and Elijah seemed this close
to giving her an encouraging shove, she decided to enlighten us.
“It’s Raina. And you don’t want to go looking for them because you’ll become their experiment, too. They won’t hesitate to try out their new antidotes, serums or anything they can on you.” She sniffed and finally met my stare. “Especially since you’re a human.”
Studying her composure, I watched for signs of a lie slipping past her lips. When I saw none, I peered up at Elijah, who apparently was doing the same thing. He shrugged, already looking bored and increasingly impatient. After much deliberation, I stood back up, offering her a hand to stand.
“Okay, Raina. I believe you. But you have to tell us where this hive of Lark’s is. Otherwise, we get to tie you up, no matter what.” I offered her a cheesy grin to relax the atmosphere as she tentatively took my hand. Curiosity, tempered by a healthy amount of caution, made me want to probe her for more. What had she been doing in the last year and a half since the virus hit? She didn’t look much older than I was, and it made me recognize the detrimental effects it’d had on others my age. Maybe she’d been through more than I thought. Maybe she needed help, and we were put there for that very reason.
Who knew? I just felt a sort of kinship with her, more so than I’d had with Sarah after reconnecting with her. Sarah would always be my best friend, but this girl had lived through the same experiences I had. She was not much older than me and could show me so much of how the world had been effected here, in a whole other section of the world.
“Look, I’ll tell you where it is. Heck, I’ll show you, too. But don’t expect me to waltz in there with open arms and kumbaya with Lark. Make no mistake, she’s not your friend. She’ll trick you, earn your trust and twist her words to manipulate you into her sick games.”
“What did she do to you that you’re so hard up on her?” interrupted Elijah, who was leaning on the windowsill peering out across the expanse of ocean. His hard eyes met hers, challenging her to break under the slight pressure he exerted.
Raina shifted her weight, shuffling her feet as she looked away from the weight of his stare. “It doesn’t matter. Just know that she will. I know her better than anyone else there.”
“Really?” I stepped toward her, feeling some impatience creeping into myself. “Prove it to us. How so?”
Raina’s dark eyes flicked up to meet mine, challenging in her own way. She was intimidated by Elijah, but not so much by me. Why was that? “Because… she’s my sister. I know her better than anyone ever could.” This heightened my curiosity, and I wanted to know her more. Still, I trusted her as far as I could throw her.
“Why would your sister want to hurt you at all? Sounds like a family quarrel to me.”
Sarah chose that moment to jump up through the hole in the floor, katana in hand and looking around, still in warrior mode. “The outside’s clear. Randy is knocked out cold on the couch. I tied him to it, so he won’t be going anywhere soon. Unless he chews his way through the ropes. But it would take some gnashing and a lot of time.” She tilted her head at the girl still waiting before us. “Who’s this?”
“This is Raina. Apparently she’s taking refuge here, and we interrupted her humble abode.”
Sarah snorted. “Here? Really? Who’d live in this dump?” She peered around, wrinkling her nose at the place. I actually liked it, so I rolled my eyes at her comment.
The silence that followed along with Raina’s scowl filled the moment with thick tension. It made me shift on my feet. Sarah looked perplexed, and I didn’t blame her.
“Did I miss something?”
“She said her sister is the leader of a vampire hive near here that’s highly dangerous,” Elijah said. “They supposedly don’t know she’s here. Not sure whether to kill her off now or keep her for use later.” He was picking his fingernails with his hunting knife, looking bored as he leaned on the windowsill.
Raina crossed her arms at his remarks and averted her gaze toward the windows. The expanse of blue ocean was endless across the horizon, and it reflected in her haloed irises. A darkened look hooded them with a sense of sadness and longing. I wondered what exactly she was looking for, running away from her only family to this desolate place. I hated to find out if she’d been abused or something worse than that. Maybe we should heed her warnings. This whole thing gave me a sickening knot that clenched my stomach into a hard, apprehensive rock.
“Whoa… looks like I missed all the fun doing the dirty work downstairs. Why is it I get stuck carrying the heavy dead weight of a crazed vampire through the sand while trying not to burn him to a crisp while you guys get a history lesson about the hives in this area? Next time, I’m going in first.” She circled back toward the stairwell but paused before she continued down them. “I say we listen to what she has to say. She might have some useful information. Never know.” She shrugged and hopped down the steps two at a time, like the height didn’t bother her at all.
I wished I could be so carefree and naïve. Sometimes the things we lost in the vampire plague were the things I still needed the most.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. My sister can be ruthless, but she’s a scientist and bent on curing this disease. Even if it means making the problem bigger, or worse.”
“What do you mean ‘worse’?” Raina had my attention now, though I felt like it wasn’t going to be a happily ever after tale.
“Lark… she’s gained her position of power because of her smarts and ruthlessness. She would even sacrifice her own flesh and blood for the cause.” Raina’s voice shook as she took it upon herself to sit on the gritty floor, Indian style. I felt awkward left standing and hovering over her. Compelled to join her on the floor, I slid down and matched her position. Elijah lifted an eyebrow at me, but he could see that she was pretty harmless at that point. He let out a long breath and then stomped down the stairs, shaking his head and mumbling his opinions under his breath. As his head disappeared through the hole in the floor, I focused on Raina, giving her my full attention as she picked at her dirty fingernails.
It had escaped my attention until now that she was disheveled, hair wild with a film of oily dirt which clung to every exposed part of her body. Even her clothes looked wrinkled, slept in and ragged. I wondered how long she’d been hiding from this sister of hers.
“Lark wasn’t always so horrid. Like I said, she’s a scientist. Incredibly intelligent. First of her class at the university. Valedictorian, actually. She studied physics and genetics. Who majors in that crap? The intelligence gene completely skipped over me, though. I never graduated with honors or made it past my first year in college.” She nervously chuckled, picking at the sand stuck in the ridges of her boot treads.
“Anyhow, when the plague hit and she found out that everyone we knew had either died, turned into some sort of blood-seeking creature of the night or warped into some weird human vampire mutation—like me—she became obsessed with finding a cure. It was so consuming, she ended up trying a lot of what she came up with on herself.”
My eyes widened. “What? What do you mean?”
Raina sighed. She closed her eyes, suddenly looking very tired. The fatigue caused her to look much older than her years. She was young, but from the terrified innocence still present on her face, I knew she had seen a lot.
“She’s not like me anymore. She’s… morphed into something else.”
I groaned and ran a hand through the flyways escaping from my ponytail. “I’ve dealt with a pretty strange mutation of the virus before. Like a large bat woman with fangs and poisonous blood who could make herself look human. She sort of like that?”
Raina shook her head, her eyes looking more interested in my story now. “Really? No, not quite like that. She’s… well… the wild vampire ones that hide in the dark until dusk comes, she’s a lot like them. But she has none of their weaknesses. She can walk into the light, but her appearance has been damaged from the constant self-experimentation. She’s quite frightening to look at, actually.”
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“Explain.”
“Well, you know how the wild ones look?” I assumed she meant the feral vampires, so I nodded. “Well, her flesh isn’t falling off, but it’s really discolored. And her eyes are all red, and not just the irises. It’s really off-putting. Plus, her fangs hang outside her mouth, like a saber-toothed tiger’s would. It’s disturbing, and I never could get used to it.”
I swallowed. The visuals her descriptions gave me were horrifying, and I was sure that no matter what, Lark was hideous. “Go on.”
“Her hands are long, the fingers so thin, they look like sticks. Her need for blood comes and goes, but when the urge hits, she could very well kill whoever is standing right next to her. She usually warns us when it’s getting that bad and stocks up on blood, so she usually avoids it, but accidents do happen.”
I cringed, wondering what sort of genetic manipulation Lark had gotten herself into. It was fascinating, in a sick, demented way. “Would she be willing to work on something else that could help?”
Raina stared at me in confusion, wrinkling her nose as her eyebrows tensed together. “What sort of thing are you talking about?”
I smiled, for once feeling somewhat excited and hopeful at the prospect of meeting this frightening creature who used to be Raina’s sister. “I have an antidote. It worked on one of the feral vampires, the ones you call ‘wild ones.’ It turned him near human, but the effects are wearing off, especially at night. He returns to his demented state after a while, but I have some of the antidote with me.”
Her eyes flashed open, shock slowly blanketing her youthful face. “You have it with you? That would be like gold to Lark. She’d kill you for it if she knew you had it.”
I pressed my lips together, suddenly worried by her prediction. “You don’t think she’d be willing to work with us on it?”