Chapter 26 #2
And that’s that. The three of us are still traveling together but, really, each of us is on their own.
“What do you think is taking Chase so long?” I wonder out loud.
I’m curled up in front of the fire, arms wrapped around my legs. Earlier, Chase took close to an hour to find a path down to the river, fill up our bottles, and lug them back to where Mav and I were waiting for him.
By then, Maverick decided to get a better look at his map, plotting another way from our side of the river to New York. There are plenty so we’re not worried, and I left him to it while helping Chase build the fire so we could boil the water.
The was shortly before sunset. We’ve camped in a small clearing that’s about a hundred yards away from the shore of the Hackensack River.
If lurkers pop their hooded heads out of the water, my sensing ability should give us enough of a head start to retreat if the roaring campfire isn’t enough to send them lurking in another direction.
My stomach is nervous. I can’t tell if it’s because there’s a lurker out there or if I’m just worried that Chase said he was going to find a quiet spot to take a shit in the woods, then take a peek to see if there are any signs of lurkers making a stand in this park before our arrival.
It’s been about twenty minutes. Part of me wants to go looking for him. The other part doesn’t want to give him hope that I’m coming around. I’ll deal with Chase when we get back to the Grave—but that means, first, we have to get back there.
Still, despite the way I’m doing my best to keep my distance, it’s impossible. Chase is on my mind, twenty-four/seven, and it twists my insides to have him out of my sight for so long.
That’s it.
I stand up. “I’m going to go looking for him.”
Maverick opens his revolver, checks to see that his last bullet is chambered, then snaps it shut. “He has his taser. He’ll be fine.”
“That only works against rogues,” I remind the cop.
“He took matches, too. Don’t worry about him, kid. Your sister’s man is a good hunter. He knows what he’s doing.”
Thanks, Mav. Like I needed the reminder that Chase belongs to Hallie.
I shake my head. “I’ll be right back.”
Maverick blows air through his nose. “Then I’ll come with you.”
“It’s fine. Keep the fire roaring. We’ll both be right back.”
I’ll make sure of it.
Maverick doesn’t argue again, and I start in the direction I remember watching Chase take.
Not like I expect to find his footsteps and follow them.
Nope. My plan is a lot simpler than that.
Hoping like hell that we don’t have any rogues camping nearby, I’m going to just head toward the river, calling his name.
Turns out, that’s not necessary.
I find Chase stumbling toward our firelight almost immediately. His eyes are wide. His face is panicked. His hand is clutching his upper arm, and instead of walking with the athletic grace I’m used to, he nearly trips between one step and the next.
What the—
“Chase!”
His head jerks up, finding me. “No.” He stops short, backtracking so quickly that his boot gets snagged on a tree root and he goes down.
That gives me enough time to reach him. Crouching down at his side, I peer into his sweat-slicked face and nearly moan.
Something’s wrong. Something happened out there… and it’s not good.
I zero in on his hand. “Chase? What’s the matter? Let me see.”
He tries desperately to jerk out of my reach.
“No, baby, don’t—” Grimacing and swallowing back a groan, Chase flops backward before I can touch his hand.
He turns away, hiding his face, hiding the pain and the fear and the panic I’ve already seen, but that’s nothing compared to the shiny, dark liquid seeping from between his fingers that I can’t miss now.
My stomach drops to the dirt. Blood. No. Fuck, no. It can’t be.
Can it?
“Is that blood?” I throw myself at him, intent on pulling his hand away. It’s so much more than the amount he spilled when he cut himself with my knife. “Damn it, Chase. Let me see!”
“Baby, no—”
I barely even notice that he’s called me “baby” twice now. Let him call me whatever the hell he wants. Right now, I need to see. I have to know.
I flop on top of him, the way I’m straddling him like this the last thing Chase would’ve expected of me. It works, too. He goes still, and I pry his fingers off of his bicep.
And that’s when I see the chunk of skin missing from the back of his arm.
Everything that happens next is nine months of trauma, of grief, of loss, of a sweet, feisty twenty-five-year-old chick forced to become a killer after watching nearly everyone she loves die.
I fall back, putting some distance between Chase and me. Lurkers start to Turn almost immediately. Once the venom from a bite is introduced into a host, it’s a matter of hours before the complete transformation is done. After twenty-four hours, he’ll be invulnerable.
Less than that, if I can get an antidote into him, he’ll be fine. He’ll recover.
He’ll be my Chase.
But I know him. He’d sacrifice himself. That, or the lurker bite would overtake him and he’d turn on me and Mav—and we’d have to put him down.
Fuck, no.
I’ll take care of this. I’ll save him the way I wasn’t able to save my brother, my mother, or my twin.
I fall back, but before I do, I snag the taser out of his holster. I’m glad Maverick showed Chase and me how to work it because it’s easier than I would’ve thought to shoot the barbs into Chase’s chest.
He was already on the ground. When the taser hits him, he jerks, body spazzing, before his eyes roll into the back of his head. He’s out, and as long as he is, he can’t eat us.
Here’s hoping a lurker’s increased metabolism and regenerative properties won’t have already kicked in to help him shake off being tased…
There’s no time to waste. I shove the taser back into the holster, then grab Chase by his boots. Unlike how Chase did for me when the cramps were terrible, I can’t pick him up and carry him in my arms. I can, however, drag his dead weight through the dirt until I’m back at the campsite.
“Help!” I shout, not caring one bit if anyone other than Maverick can hear me. “Now! Antidote. I need my antidote. Get me my pack!”
Maverick is suddenly at my side, crouching over Chase. No pack, I notice, and I want to scream at him that there’s no time to waste.
“The kid got bit,” he says uselessly.
No shit, Sherlock. “And I have an antidote in my pack. I can fix him. Watch him.”
“What the fuck happened to him? Shit, Xandra… he could Turn and attack us. You know that, and you brought him back here? Or did you kill him?”
If I killed him, I wouldn’t need the antidote. Besides, this is Chase Knight. I would never. “No, I didn’t kill him. I tased him. He should be out long enough for me to give him the antidote. It’ll work, and Chase will be okay.”
It has to work. He has to be okay.
I start to rise when Chase shudders. I drop down again. I’m prepared to tase him a second time if I have to, but when his eyelids flutter and I see those familiar blue eyes—blue, not black like a lurker—I know that Chase is still in there somewhere.
He reaches his hand out, groping wildly, searching for something or someone, and I can’t bring myself to leave his side.
Even when he says, “It’s my fault, Hal. I didn’t see it. It came from the water… the fire didn’t catch on the damp cloak. The stare failed before I could ignite the fucker’s skin. It got me… take me out. Put me down. I won’t hurt you, baby. I’ll never hurt you.”
A lump lodges in my throat. “I know, Chase.”
“I love you.”
Tears well in my eyes. “Know that, too.”
“Hallie…”
I squeeze his hand. “I love you, too,” I tell Chase. If he’s delirious enough that he thinks I’m my twin as he’s dying, it’s the least I can do, letting him have these few moments when he’s with her again.
He jerks his head, then closes his eyes. “Good. Then I’m ready. Do it. Kill me, baby, before I’m not me.”
Yeah. That’s the part that’s not going to happen.
“Maverick!” I shout. “Jesus fucking Christ, my pack. Can you grab it for me or not?”
“Hallie… it hurts,” grunts Chase. “I’m so sorry…
” His eyes fly open again. His back arches as if a shot of voltage has just gone down his spine.
Because he’s still holding my hand, I’m on this roller coast ride with him, up, then down as he crashes back onto the dirt so hard that it makes me wince in sympathy.
Or maybe that’s because he’s squeezing the life out of my hand.
“Get away from me,” he hisses between clenched teeth. He closes his eyes once more, screwing them up tight. “Run, unh, save yourself—”
The desperation in Chase’s voice, the desperation, the fear, the concern… I’ve heard it all before.
He sounds like my brother right before he attacked Mom and me.
“Don’t be stupid.” I snap. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Maverick finally gets up. But he doesn’t go to where my pack is nestled next to my rolled-up sleeping bag and the pile of blankets we’ve been toting around. I want to scream at him to stop dicking around… and that’s when he grabs his backpack.
Chase is shuddering, grunting and crying out now, but his grip is like a vice—he won’t let go of my hand and I don’t want him to.
However, I can follow Maverick as he unzips that secret pouch in the reverse side of the backpack that used to hold his hat.
“Mine,” I tell him. “The antidote… it’s hidden in a sock at the bottom of my p—”
My words fail as I watch Mav pull a sock out of his pack. He dips his finger in as he hustles over to Chase and me.
“Here,” he says, pressing a glass vial into my free hand.
There’s a faded red ribbon tied loosely around it.
My antidote in Mav’s pack.