point is. Some vampires are hundreds of years old before they know that. Now you know yourself. Knowledge is strength. And you will need every ounce of your strength.”
“So you keep saying. But what exactly am I supposed to use this strength for? To hunt Ticks? To kill other monsters? Because I was doing that before now.”
“The Ticks are not the monsters I’ve been priming you to kill. You’re going to kill Bob.”
“You’re crazy.” I bark with laughter. Or is it hysteria? Or Posttraumatic Eating Disorder?
“No,” he says softly. His normal sneer is completely gone. There is no bitter derision. No barely contained amusement. “I am not joking. I am not crazy. He has to be stopped, and you are the only one who can do it. No one but a vampire is strong enough. You are the only vampire young enough to walk onto his compound unnoticed. It must be you.”
My legs wobble beneath me. My mind races back through the past weeks and I know he is right. I have known all along that he wanted revenge against Roberto. I have even agreed to help him bring down Roberto. And he was cunning enough to let me think that was my own decision.
I know this is the real reason he made me. Not because Carter and Lily asked him to do it, but because it would help him kill Roberto. I was always part of his plan to kill Roberto.
“I will not be your puppet.”
“You will. Because your sister has been infected with the Tick virus.”
Shock roars through me and my knees go out from under me. No! Not Lily!
“You know what this means,” Sebastian says softly. “She is your twin. She, too, has the regenerative gene. She will not merely die from this infection. She will become a Tick.”
Instantly I think of the Ticks I’ve killed. Of their dumb eyes and their flaccid, drooling mouths. Of their rough hands. Hands that break ribs and grab hearts.
This is what Lily will become. Lily, who has always been quick-witted and strong-willed. Lily, who was always my lode stone—before Sebastian, that is. How can this be? How can I let this be? My own death would be preferable. If my own death were even possible.
Sebastian grabs me and pulls me back to my feet. His touch is gentle but firm. “Listen to me. Wailing in grief will not save your sister.”
I blink in surprise, because I realize I have been wailing, making that low keening noise I’ve always made when I’m distressed.
“Roberto has the cure. She and Carter are on their way to his compound right now. Once they are there, I am sure he will not let them leave. As long as Roberto is alive, his
Hope bursts through me—there is a cure! Lily may yet be saved. And then hot on its heels is another realization. Sebastian is right. Of course I will go to Roberto’s compound. I will do it to save my sister. If I need to, I will kill Roberto. I will probably even enjoy doing it. The bastard who has destroyed civilization as we know it deserves to die. If I’m the only one who can do it, then I will do it.
But the personal cost will be huge.
This is why Sebastian made me feed from this girl. So that I will never forget what I’m capable of. I have taken a life, but it was the by-product of my hunger. It wasn’t deliberate or planned out. It was not something I intended.
Killing Roberto is different. It will be premeditated. Calculated. Roberto will have surrounded himself with his human kine as well. And some of them may die when I go to rescue my sister. To pull this off, I must be smart and strong. I must be as manipulative and cunning as Sebastian has always been. I return to the girl’s body and perform one last violation. This time when I bring the katana to her neck, I don’t even flinch.
Sebastian turned me into a vampire eight weeks ago, but tonight he turned me into a monster.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Carter
Joe left at dawn. He took Josie and the bulk of our supplies and headed back to the Farm at San Angelo. He’d probably be there by noon. I had told him that no one would blame him if he wanted to bail on the Farm and head straight for whatever safety could be found at Base Camp. He had Josie to think of now.
He disagreed. Yes, he had Josie. But there were also nearly a thousand other Greens in San Angelo and they needed help, too. As he pointed out, his return would go a long way to convincing the Greens that there was hope they could actually fight the Ticks and survive. The very fact that he believed it enough to bring a baby into that fight might be the edge they needed. And I let him go, because I understood that he needed to be somewhere he was familiar with and that it would be too painful for him to be where McKenna had been.
I called ahead and talked to Dawn. I wanted her to know Josie was coming so she’d be able to get whatever supplies she needed to keep Josie alive. She sounded exhausted because she’d been up most of the night treating Greens for various injuries that had been ignored too long. Listening to her talk, I sent up a silent thanks that she’d convinced me to bring her and Darren. Competent medical care had gone a long way toward convincing the Greens to trust us. Far more than my reputation had, that was for sure.
Watching Joe drift off, I run through the situation in my head.
I’d been doing the math, thinking about the statistics until my head spun. My father had always been great with manipulating numbers so things benefitted him. When you were the CFO of a multinational corporation, that was just part of the job description.
There is no good and evil, he used to say. There are only facts and numbers. It’s all about making the math work for you.
I’d thought a lot about that as Joe was packing up. A thousand kids were waiting to be rescued in San Angelo. Another hundred or so up at Base Camp. Plus the people who lived in Elderton. If I rounded up, that was close to three thousand humans. There was no way—no way—those three thousand lives were worth trading for one life. Lily’s life.
Despite that, I would never be able to stand by and watch her suffer, because even though she was just one person, she was the one person I loved.
After Joe was gone, I handed Lily the tranq rifle. “I know you hate these things. Since it has to be done, you should do it yourself.”
She held it clumsily, like she didn’t quite trust it to do what it was supposed to do. “Based on the map I found in the gas station, Roberto’s ranch should be a couple of hours away, somewhere between San Angelo and San Saba. Even if I go for the neck shot, which would be the most potent, it’ll wear off before that. You may have to shoot me a second time.”
I nodded. I kept my gaze on hers as she did it. No matter how many times I told myself this crazy plan would work, part of me knew this might be the last time I really saw Lily when I looked in her eyes. I didn’t want to miss a second of that.
As I drove, I pretended that Lily was asleep in the car next to me. That she hadn’t been tranqed. That there was nothing dangerous beneath the bandages I’d applied to her foot right before she knocked herself out.
Could this have been our life, if the Tick-pocalypse had never happened? Maybe if I’d never been sent off to Elite Military Academy.
I had told her once that I’d stolen my father’s car that day because of her. Because I’d been scared of what she made me feel and because I knew stealing his car was the one thing he couldn’t ignore.
I’d been telling the truth, but not the whole truth. At the time, when I was that dumbass fifteen-year-old, I’d been scared of her and of how much I wanted her. But that wasn’t all I was scared of.
Those nine months were the longest I’d lived at home since Giselle—my mother—had gotten tired of having a kid and shipped me off to boarding school when I was ten. At ten, I’d worshipped my father and loved my mother, even though they were indifferent to me. By eleven, I’d learned that rotten behavior got visits from home more reliably than straight As. By fourteen, I hadn’t cared about visits nearly as much as my freedom. When they’d
