Dead Awakenings (30 page)

The third floor had four apartments. Mac’s was down on the end. Nate knocked and Evaine heard the mumble of a voice say “I didn’t do it! Go away.”

“Macarthur Peterson, open the door, please.” Nate’s tone was pleasant but authoritative.

“Who, who’s asking?” squeaked Mac.

“It’s Nate and Luca.”

There was a pause and for a moment Evaine thought he wasn’t going to open it, but she heard the security latch rattle, then the deadbolt slide back, and finally the doorknob unlock. The wood groaned open, rattling on its hinges.

“N…Nate, Luca, what a surprise. Long time no see. How’s the House?”

“May we come in?” Nate asked politely.

“Uhm…not really a great time right now. Everything’s a mess and I’m expecting company soon.”

“Of course.” Nate spoke in a gracious tone. “We were in the neighborhood and we heard you were here and so we thought we would come and check on our old friend.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Trying to go on living, you know how it is.”

“Apparently not the way you do,” Luca said. “Have you been among the living for long now?”

“A few years…”

“Good, Mac, that’s good. I’m glad that you’ve been able to make a lifestyle with the living work out for you,” Nate said. “For me personally it’s just too much effort. I could never do it, but as I remember you always did want to go back.”

“Yes…yes, that’s always been my wish,” Mac stammered. The fear wafted off him like stink on a skunk. Evaine could smell it from where she stood, out of sight.

“Well, Mac, we really do need to speak with you. So if we could come in for just a few minutes—”

“I’m sorry, Nate, I am, but I really have someone coming. Another time perhaps. We could get together for some coffee maybe, or something else.”

“I’m afraid, Mac, this can’t wait,” Luca finally said. “You’ve been handing out these flyers, and we need to know why.” Luca pulled out the flyer that Tristan had given him and handed it to Mac.

Sweat beaded around Mac’s temple and his hands began to shake. “I’ve never seen these before.” He handed the flyer back.

“Never? Well perhaps we were mistaken then.” Nate gestured to Evaine and Jeff.

Evaine stepped forward. “Hello, Mac. Remember me? You handed me that flyer and said that you’d heard I could make some money quick by calling the number on it. Well, I called the number, and I apparently went in for the trial, what I didn’t get, was paid.”

“Come to think of it,” Jeff said, “I don’t remember getting paid either.”

“Evaine. Jeff. I didn’t know. I only give out the flyers. I never meant—”

“To make them like us? Of course you did. That’s what you get paid for, isn’t it?” Nate narrowed his eyes.

“No…I—”

“Well, well, this is a party.” A sour male voice came from the banister to the third floor. It was the Feeder from the alley who had tried to grab Evaine, followed closely by four other Feeders. The smell that they emanated was almost overpowering. She wondered how she had missed it. Aron stood between the two groups, slowly inching his way toward Mac’s apartment.

The four behind the leader were filthy. The mere sight of them would make a normal person run in fear. Caked in blood and gore, they looked and smelled as if they hadn’t bathed in months.

“Damien heard that you might be in town again, little miss, and he so wants to have a chat with you.”

“I’m not feeling very chatty right now.”

Victor and Luca managed to push Jeff and Aron into Mac’s apartment.

Nate stepped forward in an effort at diplomacy. “Please let Damien know that any time he would like to come up to see us at Haven House, he is more than welcome.”

“Damien doesn’t get out much, Nate,” the leader said.

“I feel at a disadvantage. You seem to know my name, friend, but I don’t know yours,” Nate said.

“I’m Julius, Damien’s second in command, and unfortunately my orders were to come back with the girl and Mac or not to come back. I quite like where I live, so I am afraid they’ll need to come with me.”

“Then you’ll have to go through us to get them,” Victor growled. Nate ducked into the apartment as Victor hit the Feeders with a kinetic blast. Luca took Evaine by the arm and pulled her backward into the apartment. The men hit the ground, Victor and Luca made it through the door just before Evaine shoved it closed. Yells and banging ensued outside.

Nate turned to Mac who had backed as far into the room as he could get. “Come with us and we’ll offer you sanctuary in Haven House. Stay, and you face them alone.”

Wide-eyed, Mac stuttered incoherently. The hinges on the crumbling door began to bend. He pointed to the window. “Fire escape.”

Aron, Mac, and Jeff made it out before the door exploded inward. The Feeders descended on the group in a frenzy.

“Kill them all, and grab the girl!” Julius shouted. Three Feeders charged. In the confusion Victor was unable to get off a blast. Grabbing his boot knife he sliced into the first Feeder he came in contact with. Evaine threw a second Feeder across the room, knocking him out. Luca rushed the third and had him down in a split second, but the Feeder was strong with human feeding, so he and Luca grappled for control. Grabbing the Feeder by the head Luca bashed it into the floor over and over until the Feeder stopped struggling and fell limp. Evaine watched with rapt interest. Luca’s expression was lethal. He snapped the Feeder’s neck.

Evaine picked up the last remaining Feeder and threw him out the closest window. His cries came to an abrupt end with a thud.

Julius stood in the middle of the room facing Nate, ready to attack.

“Stop.” The room swam with Nate’s word echoing around them.

Julius froze, and his eyes glazed over.

“You will go to Damien. You will tell him that he has caused war with the Haven Houses. From now on there will be no more food. There will be no more Isis. Our dealings are done. If we hear of Feeders causing deaths, we will not call first, we will act. You will tell him that Evaine is a member of our family and we will protect her with everything we have. You’ll go now and not stop until you have reached him.”

Julius ran straight out of the apartment. The group stood listening to him run out of the building.

“This will not bode well for any of us.” Nate planted a fist at his hip. “We need to get word out immediately to the other Haven Houses. I don’t expect that they’ll want a war any more than we do, but we can’t let this go. If Damien’s so brazen as to come to try to take Evaine by force twice, what’s to stop him from trying to get anyone?”

Evaine’s mind whirled. Why was she so special? “Why does he want me so badly?”

Luca took her in his arms. Fear crawled over her limbs. He pulled her in tighter.

“I have no idea,” Nate said. “I’ve never known Damien to be interested in anyone.”

The Feeder Evaine had thrown to the wall roused, moaning. He got to his feet sluggishly. Evaine pinned him to the wall.

“What about this one?” Victor looked ready to slice him.

“Let him go,” Nate said.

“Wait.” Aron stuck his head through the window. “We need to take him with us. Mac said his contact for the drug trials is Damien. That one might have more information for us.”

“Victor, bring him.” Nate motioned toward the Feeder.

Victor grabbed the Feeder by the neck. When he struggled, Victor flicked the knife to his throat. “I
want
to use this.” Victor held the knife steady. The Feeder stopped. One by one the group went out the window and down to the car. Jeff was shaken, but calm. Mac looked like he was going to puke, and the Feeder scanned back and forth constantly. When they hit the street the body of the Feeder Evaine had throw out the window lay on the front steps of Mac’s building. Nate and Luca walked over to the broken form, picked it up and carried it to the car.

Aron tranquilized the remaining Feeder, and Victor threw him in with the dead body. The smell of the Feeders overpowered the car, and they were forced to roll down the windows to keep the stench at bay.

Nate and Luca were deep in conversation in the front seat. Everyone had been quiet for much of the drive when someone leaned over Evaine’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Evaine.” Mac spoke in a quiet voice. “I had to do it. I couldn’t stand being like this anymore, and they promised me that if I brought in more people that they would find a cure and I’d be the first to receive it.”

She glanced back, incredulous. “And you believed them?”

“Well, yes.” He creased his brow.

“So you traded my life for yours? Traded Jeff’s life, for yours?”

Mac didn’t answer. Evaine stared, the cracks in his facade became more apparent. His makeup had smeared, showing his pale skin beneath. His hair needed to be colored, tufts of white sprouted from his scalp. He was pathetic, but worse, he was a coward.

Evaine turned on him, giving him a telepathic shove. He flew back into his seat. Holding him there she squeezed.

“Never. Speak. To me. Again.”

She let him go and whipped around in her seat. She wanted nothing more than to crack Mac’s neck with her grip. Evaine wrapped her arms around herself trying to hold in the building rage. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, the lump in her throat big enough to choke her. Evaine opened her eyes and glanced into the rearview mirror. Luca winked and then looked back at the road.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Nate asked for the third time. Bobby Lee, John Casey, and Ronan continued to stare at him.

“Karen told me Abbey needed some help on her PC in the upper house, so I went up. When I realized that Abbey didn’t ask for me I ran back down here. There was nothing out of place so I thought maybe Karen was joking. When I went down with Cami to feed the Forgotten, Simone was gone. I immediately called Bobby and John and they said that Karen had taken the Explorer and left.”

“We didn’t know, boss.” Bobby Lee shoved his hands in his pockets. “She said she was just goin’ out for a ride and she’d be back later. We didn’t know she had someone in there with her. No one ever told us not to let people out without permission.”

“No.” Nate sighed and rubbed his head. “No, Bobby, it’s fine. No one knew. She’d been with us for so long. How could we possibly have known that she would sell us out?”

“Karen Stimson?” Mac asked timidly. Every eye in the room turned to him.

“You know her?” Nate growled.

Mac swallowed hard. “She was Damien’s girl before she left the Feeders. Said she couldn’t take the filth anymore.”

“Did Damien send her here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know about her?” Luca asked.

“Not much. She’s power hungry and tried to latch onto whomever she felt would benefit her the most. For a while it was Julius, but she just used him to get to Damien. There was a meeting while I was there a while ago; they were discussing the Haven Houses. She seemed intrigued with the fact that you guys had done so well in the real world. She left a week later.”

“I always said it was weird how we found her,” Luca said.

“Where did you find her?” Mac asked.

“We found her in an alley way. We’d heard of a newborn who was killing people, and we went to investigate. We were getting the newborn into the van when she walked up, crying and acting all freaked out, begging us to take her too.”

“Why would Karen turn against us though?” Ronan asked.

“Because of me.” Luca shook his head. “I’d been ignoring her advances for years. Then Evaine showed up and it really set her off. Evaine said Karen sent her up to the computer room when you and Abbey were talking. She wanted Evaine out of here. A couple of days ago I found Evaine almost ready to kill Karen in the kitchen.”

“Luca, man, you have all the fun. What is it with you and the crazy chicks?” Victor laughed.

Nate’s cell buzzed. He looked at the text. “The Feeder’s awake. We should speak to him. Ronan, Bobby Lee, John Casey, you stay here. I need you three to start figuring out a way to secure this place even more than it already is. If Damien decides to come here and pick a fight, we need to have security measures in place that he won’t already know about from Karen.”

Luca, Nate, Aron, and Victor all turned to leave.

“What…what about me?” Mac asked weakly.

“You?” Luca seized him by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “You come with us. When we are done with this Feeder, you’re up next.”

* * *

Evaine stood watching the Feeder pace back and forth. He roared at her, spraying the glass with spit. His bloodshot eyes and filthy appearance made him look crazed. His hair was greasy and matted; his skin scabby from being picked at. He looked exactly like the zombies she had seen in horror movies. There was a wound on his arm that had been there a while. The flesh inside had begun to rot, and she wondered if Aron would be able to fix it.

Empathy overtook her. This used to be somebody. He probably had a family once. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Maybe a little brother that he used to play ball with. Or a dog he used to walk—Kale! Where was her dog? Suddenly she needed to talk to Tristan. She was about to run to the upper house to find him when she remembered he’d gone home.

Luca, Nate, Victor, and Mac came down the hall. Luca jogged up to her, feeling her distress.

“What’s wrong, did he do something?”

“No, it’s nothing. I just…it’s nothing.”

He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead.

Mac stood a little off, watching her.

“Has he said anything?” Luca motioned to the Feeder.

“No, not unless you consider wailing a form of communication.”

“Well, we need him to talk.” Nate’s mouth formed a grim line.

“What if he can’t?” she asked.

“He can.” Mac cleared his throat. “His name is Adam. He has no humanity, but he can talk. And he can be reasoned with, well, bargained with, I should say. That’s how Damien does it. They do what he wants; he gives them what they want most.”

“And what’s that?” Luca asked.

“Sport…and food.”

They eyed the Feeder in disgust. “What do you mean sport?”