For the Blood: For the Blood Book 1 Page 2

  I rolled onto my side to face Tobias. He was awake, his emerald irises darker than usual today. They scanned my face, dropped to my lips, and then jerked back up to lock with mine.

  “You hungry?” His voice was husky from sleep.

  My stomach rumbled in response, and Tobias held out a cereal bar.

  My eyes widened. “Where did you get that?” We’d gotten lucky after Aida was taken, and had come across an abandoned shelter that still had a few shelves of dried goods, but the impromptu dip in the river had lost us our pack and rations, or so I’d thought.

  Tobias’s stomach rumbled too. He coughed to mask the noise, but it didn’t help. That rumble was much too loud. “Had it in my sock, wrapped in cellophane.”

  I grinned. “Clever.” I eyed the cereal bar, making a point not to study his gaunt face, or the rings around his bright green eyes. I plucked it from his fingers and caught his sigh of relief.

  Idiot. If he thought I was going to eat the last of our rations by myself, he had another think coming. I peeled off the wrapper, snapped the bar in half, popped one half into my mouth, and held the other to his lips.

  For a moment, I thought he was going to argue, but then he opened his mouth, accepting the sustenance. He wasn’t stupid, just gallant. His lips grazed the tips of my fingers, and the back of my neck grew warm. I ignored the sensation and averted my gaze.

  We dressed in silence with our backs to each other. I opened my hair, ran my fingers through it, then scraped it back into a ponytail, which I tucked into the collar of my polo shirt. Less for them to grab hold of if they got close enough. Please don’t let them get close enough. I needed this night—the final stretch—to be easy. Just one easy night.

  We had maybe two hours of sunlight left before the world slipped into darkness and the monsters came out to play. How much of that mile and a half could we eat up before the shutters came down?

  We climbed down from the rafters and left the building behind.

  * * *

  “You sure this is the way?” Tobias asked me for the fifth time.

  No, I really wasn’t, but it was the best guess considering I’d lost my compass with our rations. I was using my gut, and I hoped it was right. Much of our world was wilderness now, but then we’d stumble across a stretch of land that looked untouched, a town frozen in time, undamaged by the crazy. The village we were cutting through was one of those spots; it looked deserted, but I knew better than to think we were safe. It wasn’t just the Feral we had to be wary of. Humanity had been tested harshly after the catastrophic event three decades ago, and not all of us had passed with flying colors. The New World brought out the worst in people. I’d learned that all that mattered was survival, and it was usually the fittest, the strongest, and the ones with the smallest conscience that survived.

  I hit two out of three and was still working on the third, although something told me that one I’d never master.

  The coordinates were for a place on the outskirts of the city. I’d looked them up on a map, a village called Gauntlet. We were maybe five miles out now, give or take a couple of hundred meters. I was shattered already. Lack of food and water, lack of sleep, it was all piling up to give me the mother of all headaches.

  “Don’t react, but I think we’re being watched,” Tobias said.

  I was instantly on alert, but my body remained loose-limbed and easy as I breathed into the panic and reached out with my senses, using my peripheral vision to scope out our surroundings. Everything looked dead, but things were never as they seemed, and a flash of light, like off a reflective surface, caught my eye. Three flashes, a pause, then a final flash.

  A signal.

  Someone was in the building up ahead to our left. Someone with a mirror and their own signal system. It wasn’t Morse code.

  “What should we do?” Tobias asked.

  “Keep walking. There’s an awning up ahead; we duck under there. You see the DIY shop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “’Kay.”

  He knew what I was thinking—weapons. My fingers itched for the sword Dad had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Lightweight, wicked sharp, with a slightly curved blade, it’d had its very own playlist when it had come to combat against the Feral. Man, that blade could sing. I’d lost it when Angie had been taken. We needed to arm ourselves, because I had a feeling we were going to need to fight a different kind of monster very soon. One I’d heard tales of but never had the misfortune to meet.

  We ducked into the long shadow of the awning, grateful for the growing darkness for once. Tobias tried the door to the shop.

  Locked.

  We’d have to break it and hope our watchers allowed us the few minutes we’d need to grab defensive supplies. Tobias shrugged off his jacket, wrapped it around his arm, then cocked his elbow, ready to hammer the glass above the frame.

  The air hissed, and Tobias jerked. His hand went to his neck, eyes widening, and then his knees gave way. My hands shot out to grab him. Too late. He crumpled to the ground before they could gain purchase. And then the skin just beneath my neck erupted in pain.

  What the hell?

  I reached up and pulled out the dart. It was a cocktail stick-sized thing, tiny and innocuous in my hand, and then I kissed the ground with my face.

  Chapter Two

  Was this what a hangover felt like? Pounding head, roiling stomach, and mouth like the inside of an ashtray?

  Not pleasant.

  “Eva? You awake?”

  “Yeah.” I really wished I wasn’t.

  Tobias squirmed against my back, jostling me and making my head swim.

  “Stop moving.”

  “We have to get out of here. These people are nuts!”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured since they shot us with potion-tipped darts and tied us up. Real cliché by the way, you think someone watched too many old kidnap movies?”

  Tobias sighed. “Not the time for jokes, Eva.”

  Yeah, because that would be cliché. Okay, assess, find a weakness, and exploit it. When all else fails, blow shit up. Thanks, Dad. “Fine, what have you learned?”

  “They’re some kind of cult. They worship some kind of monster. They sacrifice people to it once a month, and the Feral leave them alone.”

  Yes, the Feral weren’t the only danger out there. After the infection, other creepy shit had crawled out of the woodwork, probably attracted by the fact that we were super vulnerable. We were no longer at the top of the food chain; heck, we probably never had been.

  I sighed. “Let me guess, it’s that time of the month, and we’re the next sacrifice?”

  “Yep.”

  “Fuck.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know, a few hours if we’re lucky.” Tobias leaned back against me and this time I didn’t complain. His presence was comforting, helping the cogs in my brain to turn and work on our predicament.

  This was a bind, literally. The ropes they’d used to tie us were thin but strong. The room was small, dingy, and free from anything we could possibly use to escape. There was a small window in the wall opposite the door, too high up and too narrow to be of much use except to let in a sliver of moonlight. There were a couple of shelves in the wall, though, too high for us to see what they contained from our vantage point on the ground.

  “Hey, Tobias? Fancy trying the move?”

  I could feel Tobias’s smile. “Hell, yeah!”

  We shuffled into position and pressed back against each other. “You ready?”

  “Yep.”

  We began to rise slowly, carefully, using each other’s bodies for balance until we were completely upright.

  “Thank you, Frank!” Tobias said.

  Yes. Thanks, Dad. I’d whined and moaned the first time he’d made us try and do this, not appreciating why we’d ever need to know how to do something like this. I’d been fifteen and angry at him, as if everything that had happened was his fault, as if Mum’s death was on him. I knew bet
ter now, of course. Time and maturity change a lot of perceptions.

  “Careful now. Stay with me. Your left to my right.” I moved my right foot forward and Tobias took a step back with his left. Slowly, we shuffled closer to the shelf. Please be a bounty of wonderful weapons and sharp, jabby things, but as my gaze fell on the contents of the shelf my heart sank.

  “What? What is it?” Tobias asked.

  “A locket, a couple of rings, several wallets, a mouth guard, a grimy pink chiffon scarf, and a pair of broken eyeglasses. Something tells me we aren’t their first catch.”

  “Fuck!”

  Seasoned professionals. How long had they been doing this sacrifice thing? The little birdie of hope in my chest gave a croak and fell on its side.

  “We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Tobias said.

  Did he really need my confirmation? I could feel his fear in the sweat that soaked the back of his shirt and mine. Yes, Tobias, we’re screwed, I wanted to say. We are one hundred percent fucked. But then Dad’s face swam into my vision, the one he always made when I thought of giving up on something that was too hard. We were trapped, but we weren’t dead, not yet, and until then, there was still hope. The birdie pulled itself to its feet and chirped.

  Thank you.

  “Okay, let’s assess these ties.” I wiggled my fingers; circulation was good, which meant that the ropes weren’t too tight. My wrists pressed together, not crossed though. I frowned. Had they tied us up separately and then tied us together? I wriggled until my fingers were able to trace the tie on Tobias’s wrists. A zip tie! My heart leapt. “Tobias, I think we can do this. If we can get out of the ropes, we’ve got a shot with the zip ties!”

  It took five minutes, but we managed to loosen the ropes enough to wriggle free. I stumbled away then turned toward him. My breath caught at the sight of his face. An angry purple bruise covered the left side, and his eye was almost swollen shut. They’d fucked up his beautiful face. The bastards.

  Tobias attempted a smile, flashing even, white teeth, and then winced. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Your wince says otherwise, Dumbo.”

  Hugs were on the menu, but I had to get out of this tie first. Taking a deep breath, I bent over, raised my bound hands up and in an arc behind me and then brought them down quick and sharp against my buttocks. Once, twice, snap! The tie broke.

  Tobias copied my actions and was free a moment later. We stood facing each other, chests heaving in triumph. Not out of the woods yet but a hundred times better than we’d been a few moments ago. He held out his arms, and I stepped into them, burying my head in his shoulder, wrapping my arms around his waist and squeezing. He was muscles and bones and angles, and I was probably no better, but we were alive, and I’d be damned if I was going to relinquish that status anytime soon.

  I pulled back and blew out a breath. “Let’s get the hell out of here, eh?”

  The door was locked and a peek through the keyhole showed nothing but bulky darkness. Okay, now to find something to slip under the door, because they’d left the key in the lock.

  The scarf!

  I grabbed it off the shelf and smoothed it out on the ground. This wouldn’t be easy; it was thin fabric. Maneuvering it under the door would take a steady and patient hand.

  Tobias tapped me over the shoulder. “Let me do that. You find something to knock the key out.”

  I left him to it and scanned the shelves again. Dammit, there had to be something. My hand grazed the eyeglasses. I picked them up and studied the arm. Perfect. Hope surged in my chest. We could really do this.

  Tobias moved back from the door. “Done.”

  “Okay, here goes.”

  Taking his place, I hunched over and pushed the arm of the glasses into the keyhole until it met resistance. A wiggle and a push were followed by a moment of silence, and then the key hit the scarf below with a clink.

  Tobias grinned up at me and then winced again. Yeah, that had to smart. He crouched and began to slowly pull the scarf back into the room, bringing the key with it.

  “Almost there,” he said through his teeth.

  The sound of approaching footsteps stalled my heart. Tobias panicked and yanked the scarf back into the room. The key jostled, hit the bottom of the door, and remained on the other side.

  Fuck!

  The footsteps stopped outside the door, and we backed up toward the wall with the high window, watching the bottom of the door, watching the shadow of movement as our captor retrieved the key.

  “I’m going to open the door now,” a rough male voice said. “I have a gun. I will shoot you if you try anything.”

  I glanced at Tobias, who shook his head, his undamaged eye clouded with despair.

  I nodded. Nothing to do but obey … for now.

  The key scraped inside the lock, the handle turned, and the door creaked open. A man entered and closed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. He was probably too busy holding up the huge gun that looked like it belonged in an episode of The Walking Dead—the compound projector room had always filled out when they played that show.

  My eyes traveled up the barrel of the gun to the man’s face. Brown eyes that would have been warm if they didn’t look so conflicted, dark hair, graying at the temples, and a jaw that would be at home on an action man figure.

  “There’s nowhere to run,” he said. “There are two of you and over a hundred of us.”

  It was the slight tremor in his voice that alerted me to a possible chink in his armor.

  “You don’t have to do this, just let us go. We didn’t do anything to deserve this.” I injected a quiver into my voice and allowed my eyes to brim a little.

  The man blinked, looking thrown, but then his gaze fell to the snapped zip ties and discarded rope on the ground.

  His jaw hardened. “Cut the act. I know you’re more capable than you make out. We’ve been doing this for a while now, and this is the first time anyone has gotten free of the ties.” He pointed the barrel of the gun my way. “It’s the weaker-looking ones you have to watch out for.”

  I squared my shoulders and cocked my head, dropping the facade. “Seriously though, you really believe this sacrifice shit? You believe it keeps the Fangs and Claws away? You really think they give a fucking shit?”

  The man took a step back under the force of my vehemence. He swallowed. “I have to believe. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They come, but they never cross our borders. In exchange, all we need to do is give it one life a month. We have the Chaos Order to thank for that. They came and showed us the way. Some even settled amongst us, to keep our faith true.”

  “It? Who is it? Who do you sacrifice to?” Tobias asked, his tone even and calm. “Please, we just want to know what our fate is going to be. We just want to understand.”

  It was his reasoning voice, the one he’d used on me when we were kids, and I’d fallen into a strop about something. It had always worked to soothe me, and it was working on the man too it seemed.

  His steely gaze softened a little, and he opened his mouth to reply, but a commotion in the corridor beyond had the shutters coming down.

  He backed up and waved his gun in a get-going motion. “They’re coming; we need to go now. It’s almost time.”

  His mouth twisted, and I recognized the crisis of morality, the obvious distaste he had for this process, and the fear that forced him to do it anyway. He feared for his life, maybe for the lives of people he loved.

  There had to be a way to get through to him. A way to push past his fear. “Wait! You don’t need to do this, there are other safe places. We were headed to one when you caught us. It’s less than five miles out. I have coordinates. Come with us. Help us, and you can be safe without having to sacrifice anyone ever again.”

  His eyes narrowed a fraction, and I knew he was mulling it over.

  “Derek! What’s taking so long?” a voice called from outside the room.

  Derek’s expression closed. Dammit, we’d los
t our chance.

  The door was flung open and another man entered—slight with the sharp, elongated features of a rodent. His beady eyes took us in.

  “Shame ‘bout the girl,” rat boy said. “How old you think she is? Seventeen, eighteen? You think they’ll let us keep her, for breeding and the likes? S’posed to be one sacrifice a month, right. I say we ask.”

  I was nineteen, but he didn’t need to know that. If he thought I was younger, he was more likely to underestimate me.

  “Shut up,” Derek said. “We do what we have to in order to survive, but we’re not animals.” He addressed rat boy, but his gaze remained locked on me. His words were meant for me, to try to explain this messed-up deal. But he wasn’t getting off the hook so easily. I lifted my chin and glared at him in defiance.

  “They should let us keep her,” rat boy said. “Ain’t enough women in the world as is.”

  “Shut it!” Derek said.

  He was right about that. Dad had said the virus wiped out eighty percent of the human female population as opposed to forty percent of the male. Our world was dominated by testosterone now. Back in the compound, we’d been lucky to have pretty even numbers of male and female, but the disparity had been highlighted when we’d been forced to leave.

  “Well, let’s get going, tight buns,” rat boy said.

  With a final glance in Tobias’s direction, I followed Derek out of the room.

  Chapter Three

  They walked us through a dimly lit corridor, up a small flight of stairs, and through a metal door. I blinked as the bright lights beyond seared my vision and forced my eyes to adjust.

  We were in a library. A huge, book-filled space that smelled of ink and old paper, a smell that had my stomach squeezing with nostalgia and my chest aching with sorrow. I glanced up at the long electric lights. We hadn’t seen electricity in action for over three years, not since our small generator had died. I’d become accustomed to candle and firelight, so this, this was a treat, albeit a brief one. And books … So many books. A fist of anger formed in my chest at the thought that I’d never get to read them.