Frequency (The Frenzy Series Book 3) (22 page)

After a long afternoon in the city and filling myself full of too much blood, I was sick. Tage helped me back over the wall. “Let’s get you home.”

“No. I need a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. We can take a breather.”

I shook my head. “I need to go to the cemetery. Alone.”

“Can I take you there? I’ll leave if you want after that. I’m...I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Nodding, I squeezed his hand. “Okay.”

He picked me up and ran across the Colony. The cemetery grass was overgrown now that spring had arrived. Tage eased my feet to the ground. “You need me, you yell. Okay?”

“Got it. Thanks, Tage. For everything today.”

He pressed his lips together tightly and one side of his mouth turned up. With a quick wave, he was gone.

I watched the grass rebound from the weight of his feet, blade by blade until they stood tall again. The cage still hovered over Meg’s grave. I let my fingers fall over the warm metal and sat beside it.

“I’m so sorry. I never knew that you were in danger, that being a friend to me would get you killed. My mother –” I swallowed. “My mother is gone now. She can’t hurt you. Neither can I.”

Lambs bleated from the direction of the barn. Horses whinnied. From the homes beyond, children laughed. A small blue jay perched on the side of the cage, tilting its head back and forth to assess me. Was I a threat? Yes. To everything.

“If I could go back in time, I would have turned her in. I didn’t know she was killing people. I never imagined that her hatred for me could have...” My chest heaved and I sobbed until there was nothing left. Looking up to the beautiful sky, I closed my eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry, Meg.”

The river was beautiful. It wasn’t the swirling, angry deluge it normally was. The dark water was calm and serene, as if it, too, was relieved. We’d carried our burdens across it for longer than I’d been alive. At times it muddied us and at others it cleansed. The river was the heart of this place; the only reason Blackwater remained a sanctuary despite those who manipulated her. Sliding my boots and socks off, I stepped onto the rocks. Those that were dry were warm, while those that were wet as I walked on them were cooled from the river spray. The rhythm of the falls was erratic but soothing. This was our song, our anthem.

“Porschia?”

I gasped, looking up to the opposite bank. Saul Daniels stared back at me, his hands in the pockets of his pants.

“What are you doing here?” My heart threatened to run away and my feet eased to the dry rocks, threatening the same. Saul was no longer Infected. He couldn’t physically hurt me. But the wound he caused was an insurmountable chasm in me. It was deep and angry and filled with sorrow. It also needed to be filled up with answers to the questions I wanted to ask.

“Why did you do it?”

“Set the fire?” he said softly, sitting on the bank, dangling his boots.

I shook my head. “The morning I volunteered. Why did you say you would marry me?”

“You needed help.”

“That’s it? You would help someone, just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have volunteered to wed just anyone. I’d seen you and Mercedes. I watched you from a distance.”

“Mercedes already had Jonas, so you figured, why not?”

He blew out a breath. “It wasn’t that. I just—I don’t know why I offered. I don’t know. I could say that it was love at first sight, but it wasn’t. I thought we could grow to love one another. I
did
love you.”

“No you didn’t.” The hell he did. You couldn’t hurt someone you loved so badly. If you loved someone, you put them first. You honored their friends and family. You stood beside them.

“I’m sorry, Porschia. I’m sorry that I hurt you so much.”

“Would you have done anything differently?” I sat to put my socks back on, angrily lacing my boots because I already knew his answer.

His stare pierced me. He ground his teeth together, but finally said exactly what I expected. “No.” Saul Daniels was nothing if not honest.

“That’s how I know you don’t love me and never did, Saul.” I stood up and took one last look at him before walking away, at human pace. I wanted him to feel each step, every inch and centimeter of distance I placed between us. Truthfully, there wasn’t enough space on earth to fill the space I needed between him and me.

When I crested the small knoll near the barn, Tage joined me. “I’m sorry about him.”

“You aren’t,” I said pointedly.

“I am.”

“Why would you care about how I feel about Saul? And how did you know to come to the river?”

“Because you hurt, and because I can’t stand for you to feel pain.” That damned bond. He stopped and looked at me. “I want to eat him now. Damn it, Porsch. You attract such losers.”

“He’s the only one I’ve attracted, so please.”

“Roman?” he asked, eyebrows lifting.

“Ugh. Fine. Him and Roman.”

“And me,” he added softly.

I stopped walking again and looked at him. “I’m just your favorite kitten, Tage. Isn’t that what you said at the wall?” Admitting to myself that his words stung was hard enough. Admitting that to him was excruciating, worse than when he first bit me at the rotation without numbing me first.

He tilted my face up to him and caressed my jaw with his thumb. “I only call pretty girls ‘kitten’, kitten.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course he did. Mercedes would be kitten, too, I supposed. I pulled away from him and started toward Roman’s. “Stop, Porschia.”

My feet obeyed and I turned to look at him. His face was already in mine. My hands found his chest. “Stop running from me. For once, just stop running.”

His warm breath fanned across my lips. “If you want to be my only kitten, you better say so. Now.”

I swallowed. “Fine.”

“Say it.”

“It.” I smiled against his lips.

“Kitten…say it.”

He was infuriating. “I’m reconsidering.”

Tage pressed his lips against mine, silencing any further smart remarks and stealing my breath. He kissed me like a man who’d been gone from home for so long he’d forgotten what his love tasted like. He kissed me like I was the only girl left on the planet. Pulling away, he stared into my eyes. His eyes? They said…say it. So I did.

“I don’t know what this is or how to handle it. My feelings are all over the board. What I
do
know is that I don’t think I could stand it if you called someone else kitten. I want to be your only kitten. ”

He smiled. “I know.”

I slapped his chest. “Asshole.”

“I like it when my kitty talks all dirty to me.” He wagged his eyebrows.

“I like it when my Tage kisses me.” I liked that a lot. And I didn’t have to say that part twice. He was happy to offer another. And another.

When we walked toward Roman’s, he held my hand. “Why the sudden change in heart?”

“You never left me.”

“Hmm?”

“Through all of this. The turning, the sickness, the meat eating…” He barely suppressed a shudder as I continued, “Mother’s banishment, the hunts, the cure, today… You stayed there. You never left me.”

“Never will, Porsch.” He threw an arm over my shoulders and we walked together toward Roman’s house.

Several weeks went by. Trees blossomed, flowers fell, and leaves grew wide and green. Flowers and vegetables sprouted from the rich soil. I appreciated it now, the dark earth. It gave life to everything in Blackwater. My sister was completely well and so was Roman. Father and Ford worked beside them both in their gardens. Roman helped everyone in the Colony, hell-bent on paying for the misdeeds he’d taken part in and thanking them for not banishing him along with his brother. No one ever brought that up and I was glad. Human Roman was someone I would have liked as a young girl. He joked, smiled, and threw mud like the best of them.

Kneeling in the freshly turned earth in front of my own house, I smiled. Tage and I had gathered our things and moved almost immediately after I saw Saul at the river. We needed space. So did Roman. But we wouldn’t be welcome across the invisible line of the pavilion. Roman wouldn’t either. I thought time would erase such boundaries, but maybe it would take more time than I imagined.

Tage was helping set snares in the forest. He’d learned the technique from the Freeman’s and perfected it over time. Small animals fell into his traps each day. Teams and families hunted freely for larger game now, but everyone still shared, splitting the bounty as they always had.

“You need a hand?” Roman called out as he approached. “Place looks good. You’ve done a lot to it.”

“I’m just planting some beans and cabbage.”

“I’ll help.” Roman dropped to the ground beside me and began using his fingers to gouge holes into the soil. He dropped a few seeds in each one before making new holes. I mirrored him to his right.

“I’m sorry, Porschia.”

“I know. You’ve said it a thousand times.”

He sat back on his knees. “I’m sorry that it wasn’t me. You’re being punished for something I did. You’ll never stop being punished for it.”

It was true. He’d set a lot of stuff into motion and many more people than me had been caught in the webs. But that was water under the bridge.

“It’s fine.” Turning my attention back to the beans, I kept working.

“It isn’t.”

“Fine!” I yelled, taking a cleansing breath. “Fine. It sucks. It sucks being the only one who is both things she hates, and it sucks not being able to be healed. I was pissed off at you for so long, but Roman, life goes on. You can’t dwell on this forever. I can’t dwell on it. I have to accept this shit and move on. So if you could stop apologizing and start helping me accept what I am, that would be great.”

He nodded determinedly. “I can do that.”

“Awesome,” I huffed.

“I want to go with you to spread the word. Some of the night-walkers nearby know me. It’ll help prove that what you’re claiming is true.”

“How far away are the next survivors?”

He squinted at the sun. “For a human, maybe a week of walking, shorter on horseback.”

“Mercedes is coming.”

Roman looked over at me. “I know. She told me that’s what you’d been waiting for. She wants to help. So do I.”