Frequency (The Frenzy Series Book 3) (16 page)

Mercedes was sleeping and Father and Ford had gone home for the night when the acrid scent of smoke filled the basement. “Tage?” I called out as I stepped toward the front door.

“Yeah?”

“Do you smell that?”

I heard him sniffing the air and then he was in front of me in an instant. “Smoke. But from where?”

“I’m not sure, but-” I began, but as he eased the door open, the sight stunned me into silence. “What is going on?”

Elders Yankee, Brown, and Beckett stood at the bottom of the steps leading to the doorstep that we stepped onto. Colonists, all dressed in their cotton and wool, black and white, stood behind them holding torches and pitchforks, hoes and axes. “How nice of you to pay us a visit,” Tage said, wrapping his arm around my waist and tugging me to his side. “We’d have cooked something if we knew you were coming.”

Beckett snarled, “We know you harbor an Infected in this house.”

Tage pursed his lips and tapped his chin with his forefinger. “Infected, Infected… Now, to what Infected are you referring?” He turned to me. “Do
you
know of any Infected in this house behind us?”

“I do not,” I growled, baring my fangs. The colonists, some whom were former friends and neighbors, gasped and took a measured step back.

The smoke was increasingly thick and I realized it wasn’t coming from their puny torches alone. Smelling for the source, Tage nodded. He knew it wasn’t them either.

“Bring her out or we’ll burn it down.”

Tage laughed. “You see, this isn’t our house; it’s Roman’s, and we’re merely house-sitting for him while he’s away on business. It would be incredibly rude for us to harbor an Infected inside, but it would be even ruder to let you burn his home to the ground. So I’m going to have to say no, because there is no Infected inside. And if you set this house on fire, I’ll tear your fucking head off your shoulders.” He grinned. I think he’d like that.

Yankee stepped forward. “Mercedes Grant is not in this house?”

“I am,” came a weak voice from behind me. I pressed my eyes closed, my heart dropping for a split second. Why did she do this? We could handle them. “But I’m not Infected. Porschia has found a cure.”

The collective gasp was deafening. Then came the chatter from the crowd.

“Truly?”

“Is it possible?”

“She’s one of them now, maybe it’s a lie.”

“How can we know for sure?”

Brown and Beckett whispered to Yankee, who spoke for the trio. “How do we know this isn’t a trick?”

“Because I am not dead. I can speak again and I feel better with each passing moment. Whether I’ll completely heal or not remains to be seen. Time will be the only judge of that. But I can tell you that she took away the Infection. I can tell you that my sister saved my life.”

Mercedes clasped my hand.

“And just how did she manage that?” Brown said, his eyes narrowing.

“She bit me, asshole.”

Voices, what sounded like a hundred of them, flooded my ears. I clutched them, crouching low. Tage’s hand was on my shoulder, squeezing, and Mercedes laid a concerned hand on my head.

Pierce is coming.

He has the night-walker.

Testing...

Saul is with him...

Serves them right.

It’s not right.

Suddenly crystal clear, everything else – even what was happening right in front of me – was tuned out. I found him: Saul. But he wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to my mother. I could hear her, too.

She was farther away...

They don’t know about the treaty at all, do they?
Mother asked.
The Elders are behind everything. They’re the ones who control Pierce and Roman. They are the ones who came up with the idea to experiment on people.

No, it wasn’t her speaking to him. It was him remembering their conversation, followed by a remembered conversation with Roman...
The needle didn’t pierce the fetus. It poisoned Miranda, not Porschia… My brother has lost his mind. You see that, don’t you? He would have killed her to dissect her...

You...and Tage. You both love her.

Saul?
I reached out to him.

Porschia?

Is it all true?

Is what true?
he asked, sounding as confused as I felt clear.

I took a breath and let Tage pull me up, releasing my temples.
I just heard your memories, or what I think were memories.

He was silent for a beat.
I’m not strong enough to block all of this.
His voice cracked and I heard him whimper.
It has to stop. He has to be stopped. He can’t keep doing this to people. But they aren’t people. Not anymore. The virus killed them. They’re hollow, like dead trees in the woods.

Who was he talking about?
Who’s hollow?

But I took care of them. For the Colony. For you. They can’t hurt you or your family or mine. Not anymore. I ended it.

Who’s hollow, Saul? What did you end?
My palms began to sweat and my heart clenched. I couldn’t control it. The smell.

“Tage?”

He raked a hand through his dark hair and turned his light blue eyes on the Elders. “What is it?” He glanced at me, keeping the mob in his periphery.

“Do you smell it?” I sniffed again to be sure. Yes, it was there. Burning human flesh.

“I do. Holy shit. Saul?”

I nodded.

“What did he do?”

Mercedes whimpered. “Mother?”

“Where was she?” Tage asked my sister. “In the main apartments or the special housing?”

“She was locked away,” Mercedes cried. “They call it the ‘freak show’!”

Tage jumped down the staircase, landing in front of the Elders. “Listen up. We are going into the city. If you so much as set fire to a blade of dry grass in this yard, I will personally hunt you down and drain you dry. Got me?”

Flabbergasted, the old men backed away from him, enveloped by the crowd, who had been watching with rapt attention. Most couldn’t peel their eyes away from Mercedes. I couldn’t blame them. For hours after I came home, I couldn’t stop looking at her either. I was afraid it was a dream or another hallucination, and that I would wake up and she would still be behind the flood wall or roaming the forest. I worried that she would still be my enemy and not my sister.

“Porschia?” Mercedes called.

We needed to go, but I couldn’t leave her behind with the colonists in an uproar and the Elders on a rampage. “Tage, we need to take her somewhere safe,” I whispered.

His breath fanned my ear. “Maggie’s?”

“She couldn’t defend them. We need to take her home.”

He nodded, gathering Mercedes into his arms. “Let’s run,” he said before speeding away. I watched the torch fire flicker in his wake before running after him.

Father and Ford had no idea that the Elders had rallied the colonists into a mob or that they tried to come after Mercedes, but both vowed to keep her safe while we went into the city. Tage sat Mercedes’ bare feet down on the worn planks of our porch. “I need to tell you something,” Mercedes said desperately, grabbing hold of my forearm.

“I really need to go.”

“I know, but it’s important. You know how Frenzy makes a vampire go crazy with hunger?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to hurry her along and wishing she’d get to the point.

“The Infected experience hunger as well, but more than that, it’s a different type of hunger. It’s a craving for normalcy, to have one’s life back and to do anything at all to get it. I was sent here by Pierce, but it was my idea as well. I wanted to trick you; to make you think I was still me and that you could trust me. Then I was going to poison you and drag you back to the river. They were going to bring the rafts. I just had to signal them.”

Jerking my arm away, I stared her down; Father and Ford both watching the scene with slack jaws. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I was using Mother to get to you, too. I knew you would protect her. I knew you would do the right thing, regardless of how horrific she was to you. You loved her. Pierce wanted you. He still does. He wants to test on you, and I’m afraid this might be a trap. I’m actually sure it is. I don’t want you to go into the city.”

“I have to! I need to see if I can save her. And damn you, Mercedes! If you were supposed to bring me to Pierce, why’d you bite me?”

“I was hungry and scared and I just did, okay?” She composed herself, smoothing her shirt. She was still wearing the clothes she’d left the city in the day she was brought back into the Colony. They were hideous and smelly. She looked longingly at my dress. I had put it back on when we returned from the forest. I never wanted to take it off. “You look good, Porschia. Fierce, actually. Just be careful. The Infection changes a person. It makes them focused on only one thing: finding a cure. Now that we’ve found it—which is so incredibly wonderful—you still need to be aware that some won’t be able to be saved. The damage is too significant, too consuming. Some, though technically alive and functioning, are already dead.”

Tears fell onto the porch from both of us, clear innocence mixing with crimson cruelty. She whispered, “I wanted to either kill you or Infect you and give you to Pierce. I wasn’t sure which I wanted more. He told me about what he and Roman did to Mother.”

I looked to my father. “And did you know about it as well?”

“There was nothing I could do,” he replied, his voice breaking. “The Elders ordered it. I fought it, but they had me beaten to within an inch of my life and thrown in a cellar for a month. Your mother had a hard time dealing with it afterward. I tried to refocus her on you, to get her to understand that you and she were both fine.”

“What did they do?” Ford asked, wide-eyed. Father’s eyes darted to him and back to me.

“Never mind. Tage, let’s go.” I reached for his hand and found his already reaching out. “We need to hurry.”

“Please forgive me,” Mercedes cried.

With Tage by my side, I ran toward the back yard. We scaled the ladder and jumped to the ground. Tage pulled me up and together, we ran toward the fire.