Chapter 10
We land in what looks like a relatively empty field. There are some areas of cracked concrete with dead weeds poking through and a few low metal silos painted with military camouflage. Otherwise, the entire place is barren.
When I’d peeked out of the helicopter despite my motion sickness, all I saw was a few strips of forest and fields. Until we passed over a town. Nothing big. Just a smaller, rural village sprouting up in a valley with a river running through it.
On any given day, people would be moving about, smoke rising from chimneys—activity.
When we flew over, there was nothing. No movement.
No humans. It felt like looking down at a cemetery.
My gorge rose, though I don’t know if it was truly from motion sickness or the knowledge that the humans in that town may have been wiped out—and that Valen may be responsible.
If I had to guess, I’d say we’re still somewhere in rural Virginia. The flight to get here was half an hour at most, all of it filled with dread. I can still sense worry, like an undercurrent of dark, cold water. Is it mine or Valen’s?
The engine noise dies, the rotor turning slowly until it stops.
Silence.
“What is this?” I yank off my headset and ask the soldier who’d helped me into the helicopter.
He doesn’t answer. Then I notice the halo emblem on his fatigues. The Saints. I instinctively press a hand to my stomach. Right where one of the Saints tried to gut me. Did gut me.
God, this was a mistake. I have to get out of here. I should’ve listened to Valen, to my own instincts.
The ground shakes, and I grip my safety belt.
“Our base of operations is necessarily underground.” Gage pulls off his headset and stands between me and the open helicopter door. “The remaining military, such as it is, operates from here. We also have a smattering of government officials embedded with us, though most of it is Pentagon brass.”
As we sink, a metal roof slides overhead, closing us in.
Underground again.
I stare around into the dark as unseen machinery whines, sinking us deeper and deeper into the earth.
The bright sun fades, the final rays of it erased once the ceiling is fully closed.
Only the scant lights of the helicopter offer any illumination, the air scented with dankness and the thick smell of machinery grease.
“We were prepared for doomsday, just not this specific vampire one.” Gage reaches for my safety belt.
I flinch back.
“Sorry.” He drops a knee in front of me. “I know you’ve been through a lot.” He holds his hands toward me, palms out. “I’ll go slow. You can trust me, Georgia. You know that, right?”
“You’re with the Saints.”
His face is in shadow now. “Yes.”
I run my hands along the straps, desperately looking to release them. To get the hell away.
“Georgia.” He covers my hands with his. “Calm down.”
“Let go. You’re with them. In DC, the Saints tried to—” I choke on the memory of it.
“That wasn’t us. We had splinter groups. You have to know I’d never approve anything like that. Anything that put you in danger.”
My ears are ringing, my face hot, hands cold. “Let me go.”
His grip only tightens. “You’re hyperventilating.”
“Let go!” I yank against him, panic screaming through my mind.
“Georgia, you have to calm down. You’re having a panic attack. I get it. But I need you to relax. You’re safe with me. I would never hurt you like that monster did. You understand that, right? You’re with the good guys now.”
It’s even darker now, pitch black. I can’t get free. I can’t breathe.
A deep, metal thump sounds from overhead.
A hangar door ahead of us begins to open, light pouring in from the other side.
Gage is still in front of me, concern in his eyes as he releases my safety straps.
“Breathe, Georgia.” He backs away. “You’re safe here. I swear to you. I’ll give my life to keep you safe.”
I bend over, head between my knees, and try to take deep breaths.
Voices, several of them, erupt outside the helicopter.
“Secured.”
“Is that her?”
“It’s her!”
“Holy fucking hell, boys. We got her.”
“Give us some room!” Gage barks.
“Sorry, sir,” a man close by says. “Everyone, out!”
Eyes clenched shut, I keep breathing in slowly until my ears stop ringing and I’m relatively certain I’m not going to pass out. I sit up and wipe the cold sweat off my brow with the sleeve of my sweater.
“Sorry about that. They know all about you.” Gage holds out his hand to me. “They didn’t want to hope too much that you’d come, that I could get you out, but this—you—are a big deal. There’s no other way to say it.”
“Great,” I groan.
“We aren’t leaving!” A woman’s voice. “This is still America, asshole! You can’t stop us!” I know that voice.
“Evie?” I get up, my legs wobbling.
“Ma’am, Colonel Howard instructed us to clear the—”
“I’ll give you something to clear, my dude. You’re about to meet my Krav Maga. Say a prayer to your preferred deity.”
“Wyatt?” My voice cracks. “Is that Wyatt?”
Gage takes my arm and helps me out of the helicopter.
“Evie?” I yell. “Wyatt!”
Two figures, both backlit from beyond the hangar door, are arguing with a third.
“Let them through!” Gage calls beside me.
“Yes, sir!” the soldier barks.
Wyatt head fakes at him. “You got lucky, my man. Bigtime lucky.” Then he jogs toward me, his face becoming visible the closer he gets. Then it goes murky again as my eyes water. “Georgia!” He meets me, an arm going around me and squeezing tight.
“It’s really you?”
“In the flesh.” He chuckles.
Then we’re both almost bowled over by Evie.
“You’re here!” she cries, wrapping both of us in a hug. “I can’t believe it.”
“Evie!” I cry, hanging onto both of them as we all cry. I never thought I’d see them again. Already mourned them, buried them in my heart. But they’re here. Gage was telling the truth.
“Are you okay? Is everyone—where’s Gretchen?”
“She … she didn’t—” Evie’s voice catches on a sob.
I caught the moment Gage failed to mention her, and I was too scared to ask. Afraid that the whole charade would fall apart and I’d be left without hope yet again. But when he didn’t say her name… I knew. Gretchen is such a big personality. No one could ever overlook her.
“It’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t.
We hold each other for a long time, until the sniffles overtake the sobs, and we step back. That’s when I notice Wyatt’s arm.
He catches my stare and waves the bandaged stump of his right arm at me. “Turns out it’s a good thing I’m left-handed.”
“Tell me.” I take his hand then grab Evie’s. “Tell me everything.”
“They came for us right after dark, and that’s when we knew we were fucked.
” Wyatt chews his food, the three of us huddled in a huge mess hall.
It’s between meals, so what I assume is a packed, bustling cafeteria is eerily quiet.
Cavernous with concrete walls and pillars, neat rows of tables and chairs, all of them spotless.
“The vampires attacked. We were huddled down in the back of one of the 18-wheelers. There was an insane firefight. Like, it sounded like the Fourth of July, but terrifying.” Evie puts her fork down, no longer interested in her MRE.
“It went on and on for what seemed like an impossible time.” Wyatt picks at his mushy peas.
“When it finally stopped, a soldier came a-knocking. I opened up. There were about 20 of them left, bloody and some of them really messed up. But they got all three of us out and herded us along the road to the front vehicle, the big armored one. I carried Gretchen.” He lays his fork down.
“I had her, you know? She was safe. As safe as I could make her.”
“When we got to that front truck thing, it was covered in blood. Like a slaughterhouse.” Evie shudders.
I wrap my arm around her waist.
“But they said it was the best spot for us, the only part of the convoy that could keep rolling. We piled in. I put Gretchen in the front. Did her seatbelt, you know? I made sure she was all right. Pretty sure she cracked a joke. You know how she was.” His voice trembles, and he pauses for a while.
“So anyway, she was in front and me and Evie in the back.” Wyatt sighs heavily, his eyes downcast.
“We thought we had a chance since we still had soldiers and the truck, but the vampires were just waiting us out. We got rolling, and that brought them right to us.” Evie leans against me.
“Yeah,” Wyatt agrees. “They ran at us from the dark, tearing through the soldiers who were left. They died shooting, a few died trying to run. I didn’t even blame them.”
“The soldier in charge got the armored car running and took off, but not before one of them reached through the busted windshield where Gretchen was and …” Evie clenches her eyes shut.
“You don’t have to.” I wrap my other arm around her. “It’s okay. Don’t—you don’t have to.”
“It was fast. So fast.” Wyatt rubs his eyes, one after the other, with the heel of his hand. “Even if we’d been in a hospital, I don’t think we could’ve done anything. I-I don’t know. There was so much blood so fast. She was gone before we had a chance to react.”
“Another slammed its fist through the bulletproof glass. Wrecked Wyatt’s arm.”
“They pulled the driver out through the window, and then we crashed into something.”
“Wyatt was in so much pain, Gretchen was—” Evie shakes her head. “And the vampires were all around us.”
“But then he came.” Wyatt seems almost confused. “The Specter. I saw him through the busted windshield. Walking up with those cat eyes in the dark. And I knew it was over, that we were never going to make it to Atlanta, never going to find a cure.” He falls silent, a contemplative look on his face.
“What happened?”
“He killed them all,” Evie murmurs. “The vampires. I don’t know how he did it. He moved so fast, so impossibly fast. Even faster than the ones who were there to kill us. One moment he was in front of the vehicle with at least a dozen other vampires, and then—”