Frequency (The Frenzy Series Book 3) (19 page)

Back at Roman’s, Tage had already laid Roman in his huge four-poster bed by the time I arrived. “I’ll get something for you to eat. Be right back. Stay with him.”

I nodded.

Grabbing a blanket from the hall closet, I spread it over Roman. He was shaking like a leaf, yet his forehead was hot to the back of my fingers. Whether it was from the fire or a fever, I didn’t know. I grabbed a towel and some leftover snow from outside, and he sighed when I laid it on his feverish head. I could’ve sworn I saw steam rise from his skin; a slow-moving, quickly-dissipating tendril of relief.

“Roman?”

He muttered something that sounded like, “Sorry, Porschia,” before his lips parted. I swallowed and moved closer. Roman’s fangs were long, longer than any other night-walker I’d ever seen. But I didn’t see them.

I eased the soft, poufy flesh of his upper lip up and quickly let it go with a choking sound. His fangs were receding. They were smaller than mine.

Tage rushed up the stairs and into the room, holding a rabbit out for me. “How is he?” He ticked his head toward Roman as I took the hare. Tage used his forefinger to close my mouth. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s healing.”

“Fire won’t kill a vamp, Porsch.”

“No.” I shook my head in disbelief. “But look at his fangs.”

Tage curled his lip, but did as I asked. “I’ll be damned,” he added softly. “The answer was there the whole time. The cure was one another.” Tage shook his head in disbelief and looked at Roman in wonder. “Vampire venom cures the Infection, and the Infection cures vampirism. It’s genius,” he marveled, a smile creeping up on his face. “Brilliant.”

“Night-walkers didn’t want to bite the Infected.”

Tage shuddered. “Who’d want to bite a rotter? You’ve smelled them!” He laughed, raking his fingers through his hair. “This is gonna change everything.”

“It already is.” I looked at Roman’s shivering form.

Tage looked at me and the brown hare in my hand. “Eat your bunny.”

“Damn it, Tage.”

I came to, lying on the concrete sidewalk outside the building that I’d torched, the one that once housed Pierce’s freaks. My palms dug into the gritty pavement as I pushed myself up to look around. The blue sky was streaked with pinks, oranges, and golds. The only cloud in the sky was a remnant of the plume I created.

The building couldn’t even be called that anymore. It was just twisted metal and crushed block. The facets had crumbled, leaving behind a heaping mess, gnarled like the Infection had gotten hold of it. The way it was contorted was how I felt right after the virus first worked its way through my system.

Flexing my palms and stretching my legs, I stood up. The familiar ache of pulled-taut muscles and atrophy wasn’t there. My back didn’t hurt. My legs didn’t hurt. Nothing but my head and neck hurt at all. I clutched my throat. Roman. He bit me.

Wren?

Pierce?

Porschia?

I threw each over my wall at their different frequencies. No one answered. The two-block walk was still tiring, but I didn’t feel like I was going to fall over. The stairwells of the apartment building were empty, but there was shuffling and movement behind the doors that lined the hallways.

Pierce burst through the door, Wren on his heels. He screeched at me, gesturing for me to leave.

Where am I supposed to go?
I threw back at him. He acted like he never heard me. Wren pointed to his hears and shook his head. They couldn’t hear me. Why couldn’t they hear me? Did I hit my head? I slid my fingertips over the back of my skull. No bumps or gashes. I opened my mouth. “P-pier-ce.”
What the hell?
My mouth hung open and so did theirs. While they couldn’t speak, they could still hear, and they heard me form Pierce’s name. “H-how?”

Pierce shook his head and pointed for me to leave again. Wren pushed past him, standing beside me in solidarity, and we left together. I just didn’t know where to go. I wasn’t welcome in the city. Pierce…there was something in his eyes back there. Relief? Guilt? Anger? Maybe it was a mixture of all three.

We wouldn’t be welcome in Blackwater. The only option was to see if we could cross the river into the forest, although with the snow melt, it might be difficult. I motioned toward the break in the wall on the far side of the city, the same one that I’d entered the city by. Wren nodded.

Walking was easier for me. The further I walked, the better my legs began to feel. They were more elastic. The tightness that had plagued me was gone. Wren wasn’t so lucky.

He hobbled past buildings and through streets until we began to pass houses and homes. The outskirts had long been abandoned, but if we squatted in one of these homes, Pierce wouldn’t have to know. It would just be until the river receded again.

I volunteered to go to the river and check it out, just in case it was low enough to cross at some point. Wren volunteered to hold up the wall of an old shed just inside the wall. Huffing for air, he leaned against the building and panted, motioning for me to go ahead.

“Wait here,” I rasped.

He nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

The river was high, but our salvation would end up being what damned me in the first place: there were rafts tied to stumps. We could push ourselves across. I knew there were still houses in the forest. They were deeper in, farther away from Blackwater, though remnants of some could still be found, reclaimed by nature. We could stay in one of those, safe from Pierce and his insanity and safe from the Elders and colonists who would kill us before they’d welcome us back inside the sanctity of the Colony.

I walked back inside the flood wall to find Wren, but he was gone. I checked the house and all around the shed and outbuildings nearby, finally realizing that he’d left. Probably thought it was safer staying in the city.

Most people were comfortable with the familiar. Anything else was too frightening to try. But comfort zones could become cages if you weren’t careful. They could hold you back and pen you in, and before you knew it, you were terrified of trying anything else.

Porschia,
I called out in my mind. She didn’t respond. Either I couldn’t communicate telepathically anymore, or she was done with me. Maybe both. I had to do it! I had to, and I refused to apologize. Seeing Pierce torture them was more than I could stand for another minute. And whether Porschia knew it or not, she was better off without her mother.

The long raft poles were leaned up against the bottom of the wall. I grabbed one, testing its weight. It was twelve-feet long at least. I could do this. I could push the raft across the water. The muddy river lapped at the rafts, although that term was probably too kind. The rafts were made of small tree trunks haphazardly lashed together. One good knock against a rock would break them apart for good.

I eased the rope off the stump it was tethered to on the bank and stepped onto the raft’s center, testing my weight. My boots filled with icy water, but I was determined to do this. It was holding me up enough. I just had to get across before the raft hit the jagged rocks ahead. Pushing with all my might and widening my stance, I let the current take hold and shoved the pole into the river bottom, guiding it as best I could.

The swirling liquid spun me around, but I managed to lift the pole and reposition it, shoving hard toward the opposite bank. The rocks were getting closer, but I kept shoving until I was across. The tether was underwater. With one leg on the raft and one on the shore, I fumbled for the rope, but it was no use. The water was too strong and I wasn’t strong enough to fight it. Stepping both feet back onto the muddy bank, my feet sunk in while the raft succumbed to the angry water. It spun around in a circle once and then was dashed against the rocks, breaking apart; the individual parts swept away by the furious current.

Fatigue was setting in and I needed to find shelter. This was going to be a long day.

With the birds chirping and sunbeams filtering down from the heavens, Tage and I helped Roman emerge from his bedroom and then his house. He said he was weak, but maybe he’d been incredibly strong for so long that he forgot what it meant to feel human, to feel mortal. Each step down the staircase that led to the sidewalk in his front yard was careful and deliberate. “You’re not made of glass, Roman. You won’t break.”

He gave a shaky smile. “I’m afraid I might.” Pausing, he looked at me. “I’m still afraid this is all a dream.”

“It isn’t,” I reassured him again. “This is real. You feel the pain, the difference.” It was the fiftieth time I’d said it in the last twenty-four hours. He’d woken in a cold sweat, panicked and afraid. I’d never seen Roman show fear before that moment. I wondered if he was happy to have his human life back, or if he already regretted having drank from Saul.

Tage was quiet. Too quiet.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he replied tersely.

Roman snorted. “Saul must be human now. That’s what’s wrong with him.”

“And…?”

“
And
he thinks you’ll go running back to him the first chance you get,” Roman completed.

I shook my head. “I won’t.” It was a vow, an absolute certainty. Saul was human now. If his blood cured Roman, then Roman’s venom must have healed him from the Infection. But it wasn’t the Infection that made him burn those people to death. He wasn’t sick that long. Maybe something made him crack, or maybe it was a sickness deep inside him. However, I couldn’t love someone who didn’t see others as human beings. I just couldn’t.