Chapter 2

Mara

What’s more human than dying?

What’s more human than living?

Either way, it seems to be up to vampires to decide.

“Mara, duck!”

I don’t question Elias’s shout—I duck.

The vampire—an uncommonly broad brute of a Viral—screeches as the arrow pierces clean through his pale throat. Red-black blood sprays across my chest. It burns like hell, the smell rank, but it’s nothing new, so I twist out of the Viral’s stumble and kick toward him.

My boot slams into the back of his knee. He wails again, falling face-first onto the concrete sidewalk. I heft my double-ended spear—I fondly nicknamed it Beheader, very original—and make it whistle horizontally.

A roar bursts from my chest as the swing takes my last reserve of energy. The sharpened metal bites clean through the Viral’s neck meat, but it lodges into bone.

That’s when teamwork comes into play.

Elias is already charging toward us, his weapon less handmade—a crossbow that hadn’t failed anyone since he first got his hands on it that’s designed to shoot arrows with frightening speed and force.

And he has impeccable aim.

I don’t duck as he fires.

The vampire twists his fangs toward me while clawing at his neck to dislodge the blade lodged in his flesh, then his whole body jerks and goes limp. Pulling my Beheader back as the vampire crumples, I watch him bleed out across the pavement from a sizable hole in his skull.

I huff, catching my breath, then look up at Elias. He’s grinning and panting, and then I’m grinning, too.

“Nice day to not get sucked dry,” I say happily.

Elias raises a bemused eyebrow. “It’s barely past dawn,” he notes, picking up the two arrows. He uses the overgrowth to wipe them as clean as possible. “And don’t say—”

“Semantics.”

“—that.”

I laugh, and I’m only half-surprised how tired it sounds. I hoped the adrenaline would make me forget my exhaustion, but no such luck, it seems. I work to strap Beheader to my belt. I unlock the right end from the metal lock that keeps the two rods together to form one big spear, sheathing it on my right hip. The other end sheathes at my left hip.

“There’s never just one,” I say as Elias matches my stride, his crossbow hooked to his belt. “We search while the sun’s high, then shelter for the evening.”

“You think we’ll find anything or anyone here?” Elias asks. His voice is husky and weary, but when I glance sideways at him, his look doesn’t match his tone.

Elias Reve is a warrior. Almost two decades of surviving have made him tall, muscled, and ruthless… but not merciless. His dark brown hair is plastered in places from blood spray and sweat, and his eyes—as green as summer growth—are filled with both warmth and wariness. They’re set straight ahead, scanning for anything that moves.

My eyes linger on his scars. Virals—the virus-infected vampires—use their claws as much as their teeth in fights. They are grossly long and yellowed, though always licked clean of whoever they just drained empty.

Three long strips of raised scar tissue rake from Elias’ left temple down his cheek, and they end near his jaw. His dark stubble doesn’t grow there anymore.

That’s the biggest one. The others are smaller, less brutal, but no less earned. They make him rugged, and whenever we pass through colonies, girls still have the survival instinct to swoon at his favorable attributes.

“You’re gaping, Mara,” he says without looking. “Is the blood eating a hole in my face or something?”

“Definitely,” I tell him, shaking myself, then turning to survey the sector of whatever city we are in. It was nicknamed Blood Quarter for pretty obvious reasons.

Names are lost and found in this world, and found and lost again. Cities, towns, humans, vampires… It’s all just one big mashup of messed up.

We walk in silence for a while. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of what we’re looking for. Food? Water? Civilization? Danger? All of it is a yes, and it’s exhausting.an

But that’s life now. It didn’t used to be. No human nowadays can tell anyone what used to be really means, though. Every generation saw a different era of decay—old tech failing, new tech growing, then the inevitable downfall—but there was one constant that would never fail, whose generations would never end.

Vampires. The Virals, of course… and the Subjects. But we haven’t seen them in a long time.

“Are we going to do this forever?”

Elias’s gait falters at my soft question. We slow to a stop and look at each other. His expression is as exhausted as I feel. My stomach aches, hollow as the city itself.

“No,” Elias lies. Or maybe it’s the truth if he assumes we’ll die young.

“I don’t want to die,” I tell him, still soft, my throat tightening with more than just thirst. “It’s been a year since we’ve been traveling together, Elias. What do we have to show for it?”

His mouth thins into a sympathetic line, but his green eyes spark like popping embers. “We’re alive, Mara. That’s what we have to show. We’ve saved people—kids.”

“Yeah, we have,” I admit.

It was the day we met. Small scout groups from each of our colonies happened to cross paths when we were ambushed by Virals. The scout groups were all warriors, but mine had young siblings needing aid from another colony known for its plentiful healing herbs.

Elias and I had acted first, and in the chaos, we killed one of the Virals that targeted the kids. Our groups decided to stick together and go to the healing colony.

The whole way, Elias and I bonded, and soon after, our colonies decided that we should be independent scouts—travelers, representatives who went from place to place seeking better resources. We wanted to work together, and the responsibility of becoming nomads wasn’t ideal.

Sometimes I resent my colony. Other times, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Elias gently bumps his knuckles on my arm. “There, enough said. Now, let’s get to that water tower before the sun starts setting.”

So, we set off again. I feel a little lighter, but there’s always that nagging feeling of hopelessness. Resources are so thin….

“There!” Elias gasps, pointing to a gap between two half-crumbled buildings. Then he frowns. “That’s not good.”

“What?” I ask worriedly, standing on my tiptoes to get a better view. The hopeless feeling turned to dread. “Well, shit.”

“Regulators,” we growl together.

“We don’t have anything to barter,” I say, even as Elias breaks into a brisk walk. “They won’t let us get even close.”

Elias grins over his shoulder. “If we can fight and kill vampires, we can earn some water.”

“Earn,” I emphasize as I jog to catch up. “Regulators already have warriors. They won’t need two extras.” I falter, annoyance growing alongside the dread. “Damn, I sound whiny and negative.”

“Hey, you’re just saying what I’m thinking,” Elias says. “We—”

But he’s interrupted by a clatter. We whirl at the echoing sound of scrap metal being kicked, our hands ready to unsheathe our weapons. I scan the area, my heart pounding in my chest and ears, not in fear but in readiness.

But nothing moves in the sun-created shadows. Nothing is slipping underneath the ripped awnings or climbing through shattered windows.

Then, glass crunches.

Above.

Two Virals leer from the second-floor ledge of a hotel. They are ready to jump.

And we’re ready to run.

So we do, wordlessly, too much of a team to need direction. But we need to reach the water tower with the Regulator’s crest carved into it.

Maybe we’ll let these Virals attack them, save them, then claim that’s payment for a canteen or two, I think darkly.

It depends on how fast we run.

Elias loads his crossbow without breaking pace as I unsheathe the right side of Beheader—Justice, I call it because it has a good-luck necklace wrapped at the base of the scythe. Vengeance, with its carving of my colony’s sigil, stays at my left hip.

Noise erupts behind us. The Virals have strength, speed, and senses more heightened than humans could ever hope to have, and they’re getting way too close, way too fast.

A bridge stretches ahead. It’s not a surprise to see it cracked and half-caved in. Green overgrowth makes it look pretty, somehow.

And rigged.

A delirious laugh bursts out of my chest as I recognize the human-made trap: dizzy snares. And where there are dizzy snares, there are hunters.

Elias and I run straight for the crack. I sheathe Justice as Elias re-clips his bow. The Virals’ hissing is getting very close. They’re too thirsty to even think that they’re running into a trap.

Vampires aren’t stupid—far from it—but their desperate instinct to bite and drink makes them reckless.

I’m not afraid to throw myself in feet first, skidding down a layer of moss over concrete. It scrapes my jacket sleeves and pants, but it’s better than tripping on the nearly invisible wire.

Elias joins me as we tangle in the thick overgrowth. We grapple for purchase in the vines, gasping and grunting with effort, but the sensation of drowning is worth it.

The Virals trigger the wire. They scream as UV bombs explode, blinding them into brief disorientation—dizziness—and giving the waiting humans the chance to leap out of hiding and behead them.

I duck my head and close my eyes as the bombs go off—they’re just pure light—and listen to the mad scramble of hunters. They roar war cries. The vampires hiss. Then I hear the slashing and bumping of the humans.

A severed head rolls through the bridge’s crack and tumbles into the snaggles of vegetation. It goes right past my head and eventually lands on the street below with a meaty thud.

A few seconds later, the second head does the same.

Other than our heaving breaths of survival, there’s nothing but silence. I look at Elias wide-eyed and mouth the question, “What now?”

But he shakes his head to say, “Wait. Listen.”

“For leading them here, you get water,” the two people finally say. “But you’ve gotta bring their heads.”

I let out a long sigh. There’s some relief in there, but it’s mostly resignation. I don’t want to bag a head, but if it means water….

I climb down the vine ropes and snarled foliage. Elias beats me to the street, already kicking a head into a rusted bucket. I unsheathe Justice and stab it through the skull and walk with it at my side.

Elias matches my tired stride wordlessly as we make our way to the water tower.

There, we’re met by the two Regulator hunters, a man and a woman smeared with black and green greasepaint for camouflage. They tell us to leave the heads nearby, then hand us two two-gallon jugs with thick wire to strap to our bags.

“Thank you,” we say simultaneously with every bone in our bodies.

Then I add, stupidly and bravely, “Uh, where can we find food?”

The woman raises a brow that recognizes the stupidity more than the bravery. “Skitters everywhere. Good luck.”

We exchange careful, thankful nods and go our separate ways. My neck prickles with nervousness that the rumors about Regulators prove true: They don’t give handouts. But there’s really no issue since we got some water, and I follow Elias to another building.

We scout first, deem it safe enough, and find a door to the lower level. Everything’s concrete and metal, and it echoes. The air is stale, still, and heavy with iron—the iron of blood.

But we hear skitters, and that’s all we need. We’re desperate.

Elias and I track the creatures down, putting their furry bodies out of their misery, and pathetically celebrate that they’re not string-thin. The Blood Quarter has enough scraps for rodents to get fat, apparently.

We cook four of them until crispy, then dig in, drinking water straight from the jugs. Hell, it’s good. Tears burn the backs of my eyes as the water relieves my dry-as-dirt throat. The meat hits my stomach, and I feel lulled into a sense of peace. Full bellies and wetted throats make one forget all other problems, at least for a little while.

Safe for the moment, I sag against the wall and close my eyes. Elias does the same beside me. “We’re alive,” I murmur, half to myself.

Elias hums, and I feel pleasantly woozy. “We’re alive,” he agrees softly. “We’re alive.”

He says it like a promise. Part of me believes him, and part of me doesn’t. But he hasn’t betrayed that promise since the day we met.

“We’ll find a safe haven, Mara,” Elias says as he pulls out his bedroll, urging me to do the same with a jerk of his chin toward my pack. “We’ll find a solution. I have hope.”

That’s what our colonies told us to find: a safe haven. There are enough rumors to make it exist, but the question still remains.

Where in hell’s name is it?

Minutes later, we’re snug, our weapons and basic traps surrounding us. It’s barely past sunhigh, but we need to recuperate.

I fall asleep fast, knowing Elias is a light sleeper and full of something scarcer than food and water… hope.

He has enough of it for both of us.

But I’m a light sleeper, too.

I hear the footsteps first.

And they’re too quiet to be human.