Poison Tree

Thankfully, he didn’t see what Alysia saw, which was Christian stumbling back so he could lean against the car and slide slowly to the ground, gray-faced. The blood on his lips spread further when he tried to talk and ended up coughing instead.

It took all Alysia’s willpower to move herself closer and not scream as the bolt in her knee shifted. The distance couldn’t have been more than a couple feet, but the move sapped all her energy. By the time she reached Christian, she was ghting nausea and breathing heavily, struggling just to stay conscious.

Don’t you dare pass out, she told herself. You wil not wake up in a better place.

Christian reached over, and the instant his ngertips touched her cheek, the worst of the pain receded. The uttery sensation in her chest remained, as did the pulse of adrenaline and the bolt that had completely punctured her left knee. Her good knee. He had been able to take away her body’s reactions, but not the injury itself.

As she examined the bolt high in Christian’s chest, she said, “If you were still human, I’d say your only chance with that injury is a damn good witch.”

How well could Christian heal these days? How fast? And how well could he ght once he was done? Because the vampire with the crossbow might have run for now, but he would be back, probably with reinforcements.

“Pull it.”

At first, Alysia could only stare. “You sure?”

When he nodded, she tried to remind herself that he knew what he could take far better than she did. It took a moment to get in a position where she had leverage, but then she reached forward, braced her opposite hand next to the wound, and yanked on the shaft with all her strength.

She could feel it fighting her. The tip was barbed; it tore flesh as she ripped it out. After it was free, she instinctively slapped a hand over the wound, trying to staunch the ow of blood as Christian hunched over, his breathing full of rattling and gargling sounds that gradually lessened, until within a minute he was able to look back up.

His wound wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

While Christian leaned over, Alysia watched with a curious detachment as he snapped o the front of the bolt set in her knee, a move that should have caused agonizing pain, and then tugged the remainder of the shaft from her body before pushing himself to his feet.

Alysia looked at her wound long enough to convince herself that it wasn’t gushing blood like it should have been and then accepted the hand Christian o ered to help her stand.

The pain was gone, but the tendons or muscles or whatever were in the knee had been sliced up; there was no way her left leg would support her. She prayed Christian had some kind of a plan.

Thankfully, the recent storm had made an icy mess but had left little snow behind. They left no obvious tracks in the frozen ground as they limped together into the woods, Alysia leaning heavily on Christian to walk.

“If we cut through the woods this way, I think we’ll get back to the gas station we passed,” Christian said. “I can veil us so we won’t be easily spotted.”

“Isn’t that the same technique that totally failed on Lynzi?” Alysia asked. She didn’t want to be critical, but she did want to be realistic.

“She’s one of my kind,” Christian replied. “Harder to hide from. I—” He paused and leaned against the nearest tree for a minute before continuing. “I can keep us hidden from vamps and humans without using too much power.”

He hadn’t o ered to heal her again. He could keep them hidden, but he didn’t have any extra magic to burn.

The hike seemed to take forever. Alysia tried to ignore the way the numbness started to travel farther up her leg and the way her head started to spin. Pain was the body’s way of saying, We’re broken. Stop everything and help me. She didn’t have time to stop, and she couldn’t function with the pain, so she tried not to think how much more damage she was doing this way.

“I can’t sense anyone except the human girl running the pumps,” Christian said, “but the vamps do have that nasty habit of appearing unannounced. We should move fast.”

“A stolen car will be reported in minutes,” Alysia said as they reached the gas station, a one-pump, family- owned affair, “but we need transport. How are you at persuasion?”

“I think I can manage. You wait here, watch my back.”

Stay out of the way, she heard, but since she was hobbled and just about useless at that moment, she decided not to take it personally.

She waited at the forest’s edge while Christian approached the gas station. As he walked away, she began to feel her body again, starting with a vague ache in her knee, like a deep bruise or the soreness left behind after unusually heavy exercise. It wasn’t intolerable, but it served as a warning.

It wasn’t just for the sake of her own comfort that she hated watching him walk across the parking lot, though. She knew that few attackers would bother to take Christian on unless they were sure of a payout, which they would only get if they caught Alysia.

Logically, that meant if they didn’t see her, they shouldn’t go after him. But logic didn’t always dictate these things, and it didn’t take into account the fact that Maya might still be holding a grudge against Christian and Alysia, who had wiped out almost a dozen of her brats six years earlier.

Christian leaned in to irt with the cashier. Hopefully he could convince her to ignore the blood, hand over her keys, and then forget all about it. Meanwhile, Alysia watched for approaching vehicles. Christian would sense if anyone nonhuman approached, but that was little consolation when dealing with Bruja, and even a Triste did not have eyes in the back of his head.

The driver of the BMW convertible that pulled in at that moment was polite enough to have the top down, which meant Alysia recognized her instantly. She had been a member of Crimson back when Alysia had joined, and she still was, judging by Christian’s wary expression when she called his name and he turned to look at her.

Alysia debated stepping forward, but waited. Christian looked cautious but not concerned, which meant he believed he could handle himself. Alysia wished she could make out what they were saying. The woman seemed to be asking questions, to which Christian gave terse responses.

They both turned toward the next vehicle that approached, a beat-up truck in which

Alysia could see the driver one moment but not the next: vampire. The fact that he had disappeared was not a good sign. Alysia immediately turned, putting one of the larger trees to her back as she checked around her, which meant she wasn’t looking when the truck exploded.

She threw herself at and felt the double shock wave roll over her, rst from the truck and then from the pumps. Her ears registered pressure more than sound, and her skin was aware of a slap of heat, though she was far enough away not to get the brunt of the blast.

Ash and debris were falling, but she started to vault back to her feet.

The pain hit her like whiplash. All the agony of a brutal injury that had been ignored and further abused for more than an hour crashed on her. No warning. No buildup, which would have helped her mind tolerate it.

She tried to draw the knife at her waist but wasn’t fast enough to avoid a boot to the head and the inevitable blackness that followed.

She was walking down stairs. Everyone else in the house was asleep, but she wanted a drink of water. It was dark, but the path was familiar.

There was a noise in the living room.

Don’t look, she tried to tel her thirteen-year-old self, but of course a memory cannot listen.

She went to look.

She recognized him as the brother of one of her classmates. Why was he at her house at three in the morning? And why was he going through the box labeled “silver” that her parents had been fighting over for the last week?

Don’t make a sound! Just turn away before he notices.

“Andy?” she asked.