8. Maria
Chapter eight
Maria
The master bedroom—Moments later
Every memory from last night comes flooding back. How he shot me and then coaxed my daughter to do his bidding as I lay dying. I ball my fists and try to roll off the bed. “Where is Zinnia?”
“Easy there.” Before I get far, he sets the glass on a side table and grabs my shoulders, holding me in place on the mattress, his gaze meeting mine. “She’s fine. She brought her bunny with her. Carrot. They’re in the other room. So all is well.”
I shake off his hands, swing my legs over the edge of the bed, and plant my feet on the floor, panic rushing through me.
He stands too, blocking my way. I try to push past him, but either I’m terribly weak, or he’s incredibly strong.
“I want to see her.”
“You will. But we have to take this slowly. New vampires attack any mortal they come across—”
“I— What? Vampire?”
He pauses. “Nightcrawler, as you call us.”
My panic spikes, mixing with rage. “Of course nightcrawlers attack mortals. It’s why we never go out at night.” I pivot to the side to get around him, and he blocks me. “What’s the real reason you won’t let me see Zinnia? Did you hurt her?”
His eyes widen. “No, I didn’t. She’s perfectly safe.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the door. “She’s eating a snack in my kitchen.”
I blink at him. His kitchen? My daughter is—we are—in his lair. I know the word from books I’ve read, and it fits. “Who are you? What do you want with us?”
“I’m Christopher Atherton. Or just Chris.”
“Did you bring us here for our blood, Chris?”
“Oh boy.” He looks at the ceiling and shakes his head, the way Grammy would when asking heaven for help. “What’s the last thing you remember after I shot you?”
I stop seeing him or the room. His question transports me back to the moment I lay on the hard floor of the silo platform watching him, my chest bleeding out, the horror of it, the helplessness, the fear my baby would be next.
“Maria?”
Hearing my name draws me back to the present. “Zinnia spoke, then you bit me, and…something warm. You gave me something warm to drink.”
“That was my blood. It healed you.”
Healed me?
I touch two fingers to my chest and find nothing. No wound, no crusted blood—and I’m wearing a clean t-shirt. I rub the fabric with my fingers. Soft, not torn, not mended, not yellowed with age. A brand-new white t-shirt.
I glance down at my legs. I’m wearing a pair of soft pants, too.
Who cleaned and dressed me?
I raise my chin and lock gazes with him. Immediately, the answer is obvious. He’s seen my naked body. A riot of confusing feelings surges through me, and I rock on my feet, averting my eyes as heat crawls from my breasts to my throat.
“But to keep you from dying, I turned you.”
My focus snaps back to him.
Turned?
The word draws a complete blank. A person can turn a corner or turn themselves around, but what does it mean to turn me if I was dying?
Then the horror of my situation descends, dropping the veil from my eyes. “You turned me into a nightcrawler?”
“A vampire. I’m a vampire, and I can sire other vampires. That’s how I saved your life. You would have died if I hadn’t turned you.”
My mouth falls open. I don’t feel like a monster. “Y-you’re lying. You didn’t make me into a nightcrawler like you. You couldn’t.”
His lips press together while his eyes study me. Finally huffing out a breath, he reaches around me, picks up a shiny blue pouch from the bedside table, squeezes it, and then tears off the corner, pouring the red liquid into the glass on the nightstand. “You need more.”
Some sort of drink? I pick up the glass and sniff it. What a lovely scent. Reminds me of the fragrant, sweet pea blossoms I pollinated by hand because we had no bees. I take a taste.
He holds the pouch in front of me. Clone blood is printed on the front.
“From now on, the only sustenance you’ll need is mortal blood.”
My eyes grow wide, and I drop the glass. “No.”
Moving faster than I thought possible, he catches the glass in midair without spilling a drop. “Hey, no wasting blood. That’s the good stuff.”
A shudder runs through me. I’m drinking blood and liking it. Just like any nightcrawler.
I shove him away, but it’s like pushing against the silo’s wall. I pound my fists against his shoulders. “I hate you. You’re the devil himself.”
“Can’t be.” He grips my wrists one-handed and holds me in place, a slight smile forming on his lips. “I’m not that old. Haven’t hit two centuries yet.”
I stare at him. He has the skin of a teenager. “No, you aren’t. You’re younger than me.”
He laughs long and hard. “Welcome to the world of being a vampire. As long as you don’t take a stake through the heart—or an arrow—and as long as you keep your head on your shoulders, avoid silver, and don’t let someone light you on fire, you’ll live forever.
I was born in 1938, and turned in 1960, and I haven’t aged beyond the twenty-two years I was when my maker turned me. ”
Impossible. His white skin has no wrinkles, and his short hair is black, straight, and shiny, with a red streak through it. No white or gray.
“You’re looking at this, aren’t you?” He releases his hold on me, then pinches the red strands and lets them fall in layers. “Hair dye. It was like this when I died. Every night, I wake, and it’s still the same. Shouldn’t be, according to my maker.”
“Maker?”
“My sire. The one who made me, who turned me vampire. I’m your maker, but don’t worry about the lingo for now. Just drink up. You’re a new vampire. You need to keep the tank topped off so you don’t hurt anyone.”
He tries to press the glass back into my hands. I look in horror at the red liquid and push his hand away, then cross my arms so he can’t force me to take it. “I hate you.”
Nightcrawlers have been my lifelong enemies.
He raises the glass higher and waves the rim under my nose.
Scowling, I want to dump the nasty stuff on the floor and puke up what I’ve already drunk…except it calls to me.
A craving I can’t explain overpowers my resistance.
I grab the glass of red liquid and take a tentative sip, still not believing blood tastes like sweet pea blossoms. I try to stop drinking, to release the glass onto the nightstand, to be done with this nightmare, but I can’t.
I desire sustenance more than I abhor the idea of what that sustenance is and, in a couple of swallows, drain the ambrosia.
He takes the empty glass from me, returns it to the nightstand, and gestures to the box containing additional pouches. “More?”
I look up. He’s tall, so I need to tilt my chin to gaze into his striking blue eyes, the color reminding me of the foxglove blossoms we grew in the medicine garden.
Something unfurls in my chest—I know this feeling. “Why do I feel like you’re my husband now?”
His eyes go wide, and his jaw drops. At a guess, he’s horrified by the idea. So am I. Hate doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about him turning me into a loathsome abomination.
“Um, slow your roll.” He waves his hands back and forth frantically. “You’re feeling the blood bond, the bond between child and maker. Don’t read more into it. I’m not your husband. I’m your sire.”
I press a hand to my chest. “Will it always feel this way?”
“Uh, no, it’ll fade with time. And if I stop taking your blood…”
I step back, putting distance between us. The idea of having his fangs in me is abhorrent. “You mean you’d bite me again?”
“Easy. I don’t plan on it.” He pauses. “Zinnia said her papas died. Were you all alone? No one else at the silo?”
I narrow my eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
He sighs. “This isn’t an easy situation. I plan on going back to get the rest of the rabbits. But if someone else is living there—”
I shake my head. “No one. My parents and grandparents, along with Gabriel’s and Lehm’s parents, are dead.
They raised me and my husbands in the compound.
A few other unrelated families and their offspring were part of our Titan Community, but they didn’t survive as long.
Most of my generation died as children.”
“I’m sorry. And Zinnia’s father? She wasn’t specific.”
“Killed by nightcrawlers. Lehm went out to get medicine for Gabriel and Zinnia. They had the sickness, high fevers and croup. Lehm left and never returned. Gabriel was my other husband. He died and Zinnia lived.”
Sadness tightens the back of my throat, squeezing my airway. After the double tragedy struck, keeping Zinnia alive became my sole focus. I had no time to process my feelings. Now they’ve all bubbled up at once.
“I’m sorry.” He squeezes my arm. “Some of my kind didn’t play by the Lux’s rulebook. To feed their hunger, they slaughtered any mortal who survived outside the domes. We call them renegades.”
I push aside my grief, focusing on his words. “But you’re not one of them.”
“Correct.”
“Both you and the renegades are…vampires. And now I am.”
“Yes.”
“But my daughter isn’t. You haven’t turned Zinnia.” I say the statement with complete finality, because if he’s turned my baby into this, if he’s touched her, I will find some way to kill him.
“No!” He jumps back, looking aghast. “No. We don’t turn children. Ever. And the Lux would definitely execute me then.”
Relief makes me crumple back onto the bed. My head is spinning, but Zinnia is still alive. And I have…the Lux…to thank for these rules?
I wipe my tearing eyes using the sheet’s edge, then look up at him from the bed. “These Lux. Who are they?”
“Aliens who landed on this planet thousands of years ago.” He sits down next to me and the mattress dips slightly. “They’re sometimes mistaken for angels. You’ll see why when you meet one.”
My chest tightens. I don’t know what aliens are, but I know angels.
When my grandparents told the story of the Collapse, they said the weather kept getting worse and worse, and then the angels came.
They argued over the angels’ role. Grammy preached that, thanks to the angels, only sinners were left without a place to ride out the Collapse.
My grandmother on my mother’s side—Nana—called that a lot of horse-hockey.
To keep peace in the Titan Community, a truce was called.
They never spoke of the angels in front of me or the other kids, except Grammy died first, so Nana had the last word on the subject.
Was Grammy right? Is all that stuff in her Bible true? Nightcrawlers and angels exist in this world?
His hand grips my leg. “What’s wrong?”
“My Dad’s mother, Grammy, taught me about angels from the Bible—”
“I guarantee she wasn’t talking about the Lux.
They’re advanced scientists who invented the dome we’re in, the protective cover that keeps the bad shit out.
They dropped domes over some population centers, like Phoenix and Tucson, to save mortals.
No Lux or vampires live inside those domes—there weren’t enough vampires or members of the Lux to make every dome mixed.
Some domed cities remained mortal-only, isolated, to develop their own culture.
Other domes house a mix of Lux, mortals, and vampires. ”
“All three together? Don’t the vampires kill—”
“Hell no.”
“Oh.” I try to process the rest. “Domes? What are domes?”
He drops his head into his hands, cursing viciously.
“Don’t swear. Especially not around Zinnia.” I have no idea why I just said that. I don’t want him around my daughter at all.
He frowns. “Sorry. It’s just—there’s a lot to explain.”
I chew my lip. I know knowledge is crucial; my parents drilled that into me. But right now, all I want is to see Zinnia. “Then explain later. I want to see my daughter now.”
He purses his lips, grabs another shiny blue bag from the box, and hands it to me. “How are you feeling? Hungry for more?”
“No.”
“If you get thirsty, don’t hold back. You can have as many of these as you need.”
Despite the conflicting feelings fluttering in my chest, I don’t trust him. How can I trust a thief who made me into…this? I still want to drive an arrow through his chest again. “Take me to Zinnia now.”
Chris rubs his temples. “Let’s try it. But if you start feeling overwhelmed by the smell of her blood, drink another pouch, understand?”
Until I know Zinnia is okay, and I figure out how to free us from his clutches, I need to give him the answers he expects. “Sure.”
He heads toward the door then, and that’s the first time I really look around the room.
A pre-Collapse bedroom like the ones in the magazines Mom saved.
A proper bed, a real mattress, and what must be sheets.
At the compound, we slept on a cornhusk-filled mattress covered in rabbit fur hides.
My parents converted our sheets into clothing or bandages a long time ago.
He opens a door, and I rush past him, excitement in my chest.
Zinnia!
She sits at a table, trying to feed the bunnies something.
“Slowly.” He catches my arm and walks me to her.
“Zinnia—”
“Mommy!” She jumps off her chair. I kneel to hug her, and she latches her arms around my neck.
“Oh, baby, I’m so glad to see you’re okay.”
“Are you feeling better, Mommy?”
I rise to my feet with her warm body in my arms. “I’m fine. But what about you?” I shift her to my hip so I can look at her. The scent of sweet pea flowers wafts in the surrounding air. “Did Chris take good care of you?”
“Uh huh. And he took care of Carrot and Cabbage too.”
A pile of hay is scattered on the table. The two rabbits are sniffing their way over to the chair, looking for a way down. “I can see that.”
Zinnia looks at me with hope in her beautiful brown eyes. “The medicine worked?”
I scrunch my brow. “Medicine?”
Chris reaches for Zinnia. “I told her you were ill, and that I had special medicine for you.”
I swing away from him, keeping a hold of my baby girl and giving him the evil eye I learned from Mom.
No way am I letting him keep me from my daughter. I scan the room for any weapons. A sword is mounted on the wall, surrounded by other decorations. Can I grab it and drive it through him before he overpowers me?