The Vault (A Farm Novel) (19 page)

CARTER

We headed south, back toward Roswell, driving fast and not looking back, always waiting to see headlights in the rearview mirror. Because we should have seen them.

There was no way in hell Sabrina would let us just waltz out of there. But other than a single standard patrol we had to dodge on our way out of Albuquerque, we didn’t see anyone. It was almost as if Sabrina hadn’t even noticed us leave.

At some point, Darren took over driving so I could sleep. A couple hours later I woke with the same thought running through my head: this had all been too easy.

I stopped saying it aloud, because Dawn and Darren were so excited about our escape they were practically bubbling. I got it. I’d been there before. There was a high that came from breaking out of a place. A thrill that came with subverting the system that’s designed to keep you in. I didn’t want to take that away from them.

If Sabrina had let us go only to screw with us farther down the line, we’d find out soon enough.

On the outskirts of Roswell, I directed Darren back toward the bag of supplies we’d stashed on our first trip through. Then I started looking for another car. I couldn’t get out of this Hummer fast enough. We found a beat-up Dodge in a neighborhood just south of town. All the houses seemed abandoned. None of them looked like they’d been that great to begin with.

While Darren popped the lock and jumped the battery, I pulled Dawn aside.

“You comfortable searching the house while I stand guard?”

I wasn’t sure she’d be okay with this. After all, I’d first met Dawn when a team from Base Camp had been searching her house during a supply raid. All the food we had at Base Camp was stuff we’d found in abandoned houses. It wasn’t fun digging through the belongings of people long dead, but it was better than starving. You got used to it. I just wasn’t sure Dawn was there yet.

But she nodded gamely. “Look for the standard stuff? Food, bottled water, that kind of thing?”

“Sure, but your first priority is finding new clothes. Everything new from the bottom, up, for all three of us.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oookay.”

“And a pair of coolers for the samples of the cure. Everything that was with us except for those three vials stays in the Hummer.”

It only took Dawn a few seconds to figure it out. “You think she put some kind of tracking device on us?”

“I think we got out of there entirely too easily. Either she’s incompetent or she’s playing us. And the incompetent vampires don’t live this long.”

Dawn nodded, and went off to search houses. Thirty minutes later, we had two working cars, complete changes of clothes, three coolers, and three boxes of Quaker Chewy Granola Bars. It wasn’t much, but it’s more than we had before, so none of us was complaining.

I divvied everything up—two coolers and two boxes of granola bars in one pile, one of each in another pile.

“What are you doing?” Darren asked, confused.

“He’s leaving us,” Dawn told him before I could say anything.

“What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he—”

“Because we’re being tracked,” I said. “There’s no way we’re going to make it to the Farm in San Angelo in this Hummer. Not when they’re following our every move. And we sure as hell don’t want them following us back there anyway.”

“So we ditch the car.” Dawn crossed her arms over her chest and attempted to stare me down. But I’ve been in staring contests with monsters a lot scarier than her, and I didn’t flinch.

“Then they’ll know where to start looking for us. There’s no way you’ll be able to get away.”

“What are you going to do?” Darren narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me.

“I’m going to take the Hummer and head out in the opposite direction. They’ll follow me and you guys can get away.”

“You don’t really think we’re going to do that, do you? Just drive away knowing they’re going to catch you? Knowing you’re going to die if they do?” Dawn looked furious.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“What about Lily? What happens to her if you get caught?”

That was the one thought that scared the hell out of me through all of this. The idea that I wouldn’t get to Lily before she became a Tick. But I couldn’t let myself dwell on that because if I did, I’d be paralyzed. I’d start making really stupid decisions and then we’d all be screwed.

“That’s what you’re for. That’s why you need to get through to San Angelo. If something happens to me, Ely will find her and he’ll know where to take her. You’ll have gotten through with the cure and then Lily will be safe and so will everyone else.” At least that was my plan. My hope. My mantra.

I hung on to it like a burr, refusing to even imagine things going any other way.

I reached into the car, pulled out the cooler that held the vials. I took two vials—one for Lily and one for Marcus—then handed the last one to Dawn. I put my vials in one of the coolers, packed ice around them, then watched as Dawn did the same.

“I don’t like this, Carter.” Darren looked more troubled than I’d ever seen him.

“There’s nothing about it to like or not like,” I told him. “Jesus, Darren, when’s the last time there’s been anything in this whole damned mess to like?” I shook my head. “This isn’t about doing what we want to do— it hasn’t been for a long time. This is about doing what has to be done.”

And I had to get the hell out of there. We were burning time, burning daylight that we couldn’t afford to waste. Besides, if Sabrina was tracking the Hummer or something in it, we’d been sitting in one place for way too long.

It was finally Dawn who moved things along, giving her younger brother a nudge toward the driver’s door. “You want to drive or what?”

Darren gave me one last worried look, and then said, “Hell, yeah.”

I gave Dawn a quick hug before she climbed into the passenger side of the car. She winced a little, which I didn’t like at all. When I crossed around to Darren, I shook his hand. “Head east, toward Lubbock, but you’ll want to skirt around the town itself. There’s a pretty big Farm there, one of the biggest in the state. There are plenty of smaller towns around there where you can find gas for the rest of the drive to San Angelo.” Then I added more softly, “When you get back to the Farm, make sure she sees a medic or something, okay?”

He nodded, looking way more serious than he usually did. He may be Dawn’s goofy younger brother, but he had her back.

What was that like? Having a brother or sister that you could count on to be there no matter what?

It was hard to watch them drive away. I liked Dawn and Darren. I trusted them, which in this world was all too rare. Even if they were a bit naïve, they were both smart and skilled. They would be okay on their own. Then again, it was the only reason I was even considering this. Because I knew they would do everything they could to get the cure where it needed to be while I did all I could to get to where I needed to be.

For a moment images of the helicopter crash bombarded me. I didn’t see it, but I’d watched enough movies in the Before to know what it had probably looked like. That was what haunted me. Pictures of Lily lying battered, bloody, broken, with no one around to help her.

For long seconds, the thought paralyzed me. But I shook it off. That was the thing about the world we lived in now. If you thought too much about it, you’d freeze up, wouldn’t be able to do anything. You had to keep going, keep moving to stay ahead of the monsters. Not just the actual monsters, but the emotional ones—the fears and doubts that would devour you more completely than any Tick.

Instead of giving in, I climbed back into the Hummer and headed south again, this time toward Alpine. I still wasn’t sure if I trusted Sebastian, but I wasn’t above borrowing his wheels. Besides, every car he owned was faster than this one. Around dusk, I stopped in Carlsbad to search for another car.

Dusk was prime hunting time for Ticks. They were just waking up. They were hungry. And if a pack of them found me, I was totally screwed.

By myself, there was no way I could fight off a whole pack.

But I stopped at dusk for a reason. If Sabrina was tracking this Hummer, she probably assumed I was stopping for the night. If looking for a car now bought me a few hours’ lead, then it was worth the risk.

I drove up and down the dusty streets until I found one with five different cars parked out in the open to maximize my chances. There was a Ford and a Hyundai that I couldn’t start. I passed up the VW Bug when I realized it was a diesel. It was hard enough finding regular gas. I struck gold with a Chevy. I started siphoning the gas from the Ford into the Chevy, and then went to clear out the Hummer. I carefully took the cooler with the two vials and placed it on the front-seat floorboard of my new ride. Then I pulled out all the clothes we’d been wearing and hid them behind a bush in a nearby yard. I didn’t know where Sabrina might have put a tracking device, but if it was on the clothes, I wanted to make it hard on her.

This was paranoia at its finest. I didn’t even know for sure that she was tracking us. All I had was this sense of impending doom, which may or may not have been brought on by the fact that my girlfriend was in a downed helicopter with her psychotic father and my best hope of finding her again was a guy who’d already betrayed us once.

Yeah, what’s not to be paranoid about, right?

Besides, Sabrina owned Smart Com. If anyone on the planet had tiny tracking devices, wouldn’t it be them?

I didn’t bother trying to get gas from any of the other cars on the street. If I’d been in one of the cars from Base Camp, I’d have spare gas cans, but I wasn’t and I didn’t. Maybe one of the houses nearby would have one, but just as I was debating if I should look, I heard it. A howl in the night.

I couldn’t tell from this distance if it was a Tick or some other animal. More howls joined the first. I told myself it could be coyotes, but it wasn’t like I wanted to meet a hungry pack of them alone in the dark, either.

I grabbed the box of food from the Hummer and was just sliding into the driver’s seat of the Chevy when I saw the shadows at the end of the block shift. I saw the movement rather than the shapes. I stilled instantly. Coyotes rely mainly on scent, but Ticks have great vision, too.

You’d think it’d be easy to tell one cunning predator from another. A Tick would have a hundred pounds on a coyote, maybe more. This creature kept low to the ground, but moved more slowly than a coyote. It was near the Ford, where I’d been not that long ago and where my scent probably still lingered. I slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door. The movement or the sound caught its attention. It straightened to its full height. I couldn’t see its face. I could only imagine the soulless hunger in its eyes. Another yelp echoed in the distance and this Tick answered with a long series of yelps and howls.

I fumbled to pull my flashlight out of my pocket, but the new clothes were unfamiliar and it took longer than it should have. I clicked it on and held it in my teeth as I grabbed the starter wire and the battery wire. I glanced up. Through the windshield, I could see the Tick charging the car. I had five seconds. Less.

I touched the wires together, but my hands were trembling and it didn’t spark. Damn it! This car worked. I knew it did. I’d gotten it started just a few minutes ago. I’d turned it off because only an idiot kept a car running while siphoning gas.

I dropped one of the wires, gave my hand a shake, and tried again. This time, it roared to life. I dropped the flashlight into my lap as I jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and revved the engine. The Tick landed on the hood of the car.

For one brief second, we stared at each other.

The Tick was female, and her long scraggly hair covered much of her too-thin face. Ticks were usually more muscular than humans. More massive. This one seemed underfed and bony. Not that I was worried about her health.

She clawed at the windshield, seemingly baffled by the glass that separated us. Yeah, Ticks just weren’t that bright. But she was determined.

She raised her hands, fisting them together. This was the Tick’s go-to move. You slam your fists into whatever you wanted to crack open. Which meant I was about ten seconds away from being dragged through a hole of jagged glass.

I put the car in gear and slammed my foot down on the gas. She tumbled forward onto the windshield. Ten seconds later, I slammed on the brakes. She flew off the hood of the car and landed in front of me.

Two weeks ago, this is where I would have hit the gas again and crushed her with as much speed as I could. Two weeks ago, I never would have passed up the opportunity to do that kind of damage to a Tick. I might not have killed her, but wounded and broken, she probably wouldn’t be able to kill me, either.

But now, with two precious vials of the cure in a cooler on the floor, I couldn’t make myself do it. This Tick had been human once. Like Lily.

And if we pulled off this crazy gambit, if we actually managed to re-create this cure, then this Tick could be human again. Like Lily.

In that instant, my whole world shifted. I couldn’t kill Ticks anymore. Not while there was the hope that we could save them. Not while Lily was out there somewhere, battling this virus.

I slammed the car back into reverse and floored it, driving backward down the street until I nearly reached the intersection. Then I spun the car around and drove off.

I could hear the Ticks behind me, not just the female anymore, but the others, too, their dissonant yips and yowls filling the night.

Somewhere out there, Lily was spending the night outside, away from safety and sanctuary. Was she huddled somewhere, hiding? Alone and afraid? I hoped so, because the alternative—that she was already dead—was unthinkable.

I didn’t stop driving. I kept heading southeast, until the sun started to creep over the horizon. Only then did I stop to dig the sat phone out of the duffel.

Ely answered on the first ring. “I hope you have good news.”

“I was going to say the same thing.”

“Yeah,” Ely said grimly. “I found them.”