I am grave silent at this. I have seen Sebastian kill. I have seen him hunt and destroy. I have never seen him lose control. The idea terrifies me.
“The Tick microbe was created from the blood of a vampire. The scientists at Genexome isolated the original vampire virus and worked off of that.”
“Yes.” This part I know. Carter had explained it to Lily and me. Roberto—the vampire who owned Genexome Corporation—created the virus based on his own blood. He wanted to create creatures like vampires, but more biddable. An army he could control to take over the world. Roberto was older even than Sebastian. He had once been worshipped as an Aztec god. Was it any wonder he was a power-hungry megalomaniac? “So the Ticks are related to vampires. That’s why you can sense them.”
“Exactly, but they are merely a faint buzzing.”
“Not a berserker rage, then?”
“No, Melly. But I believe you might be able to hear them, even through you’re not yet fully vampire. And it will be quite useful if you can, so be a good girl and concentrate, will you?”
I try again. And fail again. I pull away from Sebastian, but he pulls me back.
“Try again.”
I want to stomp my foot, to temper tantrum my way out of trying, but Sebastian’s not the type to tolerate that. So I try.
I close my eyes and breathe deep and reach.
Then it hits me: not a musky dog scent, but something else. The sound of them. Not the coyote yips and yaps they make out loud, but the sound of them that
It is a far cry from Sebastian’s tribal beat, farther still from Lily’s lilting melody.
A badly tuned piano playing in a distant room. Or two floors up. Or upside down and backward. Distinctly not right. Unforgettably wrong. Their music is as twisted as their genetics. As miserably out of tune as their bodies are. And, yet, together, they are a kind of rhythm.
I open my eyes. “Four.”
“Good girl.”
His praise rolls me to the balls of my feet. I am an eager beaver to win his shark approval and that’s not the water mammal I want to be.
“How far away are they?”
“Close enough.”
I can see from the gleam in his eyes that I’ve guessed right.
He eyes me and I know he’s sizing me up for another test. “Do you want to wait here or go after them?”
I know, either from spidey sense or simple logic, that they will be back, probably before dawn. Waiting is the easy choice. The safe, Mel-ish choice, but it’s not at all what I want.
“Let’s hunt,” I say and it’s not until he smiles that I realize I forgot to search for a nursery rhyme. The fact that I have to search for nursery rhymes now disturbs me as much as my newfound thirst for blood.
The nursery rhymes used to be how I thought. Part of who I was. I don’t know why I cling to them. Or maybe I do.
As I run through the woods, following the sounds of the Ticks’ discordant notes, I wonder, do I have so much trouble letting go of the girl I was because I don’t yet know the girl I’m going to be?
Is there anything left of that other Mel?
All my life I’ve been prey. Twitchy and nervous. Fearful and frightened. Only the music made it bearable.
People say kids can be cruel, but they aren’t. They are natural predators. They are as proud as lions but more cackle than pride. Like hyenas, they hunt and scavenge. They pick off the weak, the strange, the affected. The girl I was, was perfect prey for a cackle of hyenas. Only my steady drumbeat, only my sister-flower, kept me strong. She was the rest of the herd that circles the frail and keeps them safe.
Now I live in bone-crushing darkness and soul-stealing silence, with a hunger so vast it is my everything. I miss the music, the wild cacophony that was my life in the Before. In my Before. In that other life. But for now, I am only hunger. I only feed. I am not prey, but predator.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lily
Ely didn’t mention the close call with the Ticks the next day. Lily didn’t, either. It seemed impossible that McKenna had slept through the attack, but if she had, who was Lily to tell her what a close call they’d had? Besides, the conversation with Ely had left her rattled. For all her tough talk, the idea of actually being exposed to the virus, of actually dying . . . well, it freaked her out. There was a big difference between talking about worst- case scenarios and meeting the gaze of someone who was willing to kill you. The fact that she wanted him to do it if it came to that didn’t make the experience any less chilling.
So once morning came, she kept to herself as they searched the store and loaded up the car. They looked for food in the back and unfortunately found very little. Ely siphoned gas from the cars near the airport.
She tried not to look at the more recent signs of destruction. She kept her head and her mind focused. Which was probably why she hadn’t noticed that McKenna wasn’t feeling well until they were packing up the last of their stuff.
“How are you doing?” she whispered. She wanted to urge McKenna to move faster, but her every step seemed to be a struggle.
McKenna’s eyes were wide. Her skin pale and blotchy. The hollows of her cheeks even more pronounced than usual. Her steps faltered and Lily grabbed her elbow with her free hand, wedging her forearm under her friend’s to support her. “How bad is it?”
She opened her mouth then pinched her lips together again. Her whole face quivered as if it was all she could do not to cry. Finally she said, “I’m okay.”
“McKenna—”
“Just those Barton Hicks things.”
“What?”
She pulled her arm from Lily’s hand and rubbed her palm down the side of her belly, taking a determined step toward the front of the store. “I read about them in my book. The one Justin found for me. They feel like contractions, but they’re really not.”
Lily fell into step beside her. She wedged the plant she was carrying into the crook of her elbow so her hands would be free to grab McKenna if needed. “And they’re common? These Hicks things?”
“Yeah.” Again she breathed out through her pursed lips. “Every woman has them.”
“Do they have this many?”
McKenna stopped, sucking in a sharp breath. At first, Lily thought something she’d said had freaked her out. Then McKenna hunched over, clutching her belly.
Lily dropped the plant and grabbed her arm. McKenna’s weight sagged against her. Panic seized Lily. “McKenna!”
Her fingers dug into Lily’s arm.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked. Which had to be the stupidest question in the world. Clearly she wasn’t okay. This couldn’t be right. Her head was ducked, her hair a curtain around her face, making it impossible to see her friend’s expression. Lily looked up, scanning the area, praying that Ely would come back. That he’d be able to do something. But he didn’t.
She was all alone, standing in the aisle of a looted Wal-Mart with a girl who was clearly, painfully in labor, and she was helpless.
Then, slowly, McKenna’s fingers loosened their grip on her arm. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sucked in a breath. Then another. Her legs must have felt weak, because she wobbled before straightening.
