“Sylas,” I warn, taking his arm, slightly worried at what he might do. “Maci’s usually right about these things.”
He studies her with wariness. “But she’s just a little kid.”
“A little kid that knows more than you.” Maci glares at him, crossing her arms. “And you need to go now before it’s too late.”
Sylas is shocked because he isn’t used to taking orders. “Are you telling me what to do?” He points at himself, flabbergasted.
“Yeah,” Maci answers with attitude. “And if you know what’s good for you, then you’ll listen.”
Sylas rolls his eyes. “I won’t take orders from a little kid.”
“Will you take them from me then?” I ask because I know Maci has to be right. If she says the Day Takers need to be here, then they need to be here.
Sylas turns to face me, pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, his lean muscles flexing as he crosses them. “Have I ever taken orders from anyone?”
“I’m not giving you orders,” I sigh. “I’m asking you to go.”
He continues to keeps his attention focused on me, and it’s hard not to look away, yet at the same time, not impossible. I maintain his gaze, hoping he’ll cave and realize this isn’t about who gets to give orders.
“Fine,” he relents and then surprises me when he leans over and gives me a quick, though passionate, kiss; stealing the breath right out of my lungs and making my lips swell. When he pulls away, he looks dazed, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the kiss or because he’s taking orders from a child. “I’ll hurry back as fast as I can… but it’s going to take me a while to gather them and bring them back.”
“Do you have to go back to the city?”
“I’m not sure,” he says with a simple shrug as he shuffles towards the stairway. “If they followed the orders I gave Emmy, then they’ll be at the Grates… but you never know with Day Takers since they hate taking orders.” He flashes me a cocky smile.
“Be safe,” I tell him. He gives me a look as if to say ‘no duh’.
“Of course, Juniper,” he says, winking at me when he uses my nickname. “I always am.”
He starts to step down the stairway towards the street, but pauses at the bottom to glance up at me one last time. For a brief second, he looks afraid, and for a fleeting moment, I feel the same way. Then he turns, and I watch him race off at inhuman speed until he vanishes out of the glow of the torches.
I turn my attention back to Maci, feeling my stomach burn, knowing the last time we split that terrible things happened. “So, what do I need to do?”
She points to our right to where the street curves up a shallow hill. “You need to protect Mathew.”
“Just Mathew?” I ask. “What about the rest of the people?”
“Kayla, go find Mathew and talk to him,” she says. “Then you will understand.”
I want to question her more, however I know better than to do so. She’s pretty much been correct with everything that she has told me previously, so after I drop her off at the building, with the woman teaching the children, I hurry off down the street to find Mathew. I make it past the fifth building on the street when I run into Nichelle. There’s a small group of people with her, wearing all black, and they all are armed with a knives, sticks, spears and even a few swords. They look like average people dressed up in fighting gear only creating the illusion that they can fight. I know it’s not real because beneath their armor I can hear their hearts racing with fear.
We’re doomed.
They’re doomed.
When does they’re become a we?
“Mathew said that we were supposed to find you,” Nichelle tells me. Her hair is pulled up in a bun and she has boots on that go up to her knees. There’s this strange black band around her neck with a small metal pouch hooked to it. “Poison,” she says.
I’m confused. “What?”
She points at her neck at the collar and the pouch. “I saw you looking at it and I can tell you’re wondering what it is.” She lifts up a hook on the pouch and beneath it is a pin-size button. “If I get bit, I push this and it injects my veins with poison that will kill me before the virus takes over my body.”
“So you’d rather die than change?” I’ve heard Sylas say this, but it’s surprising to hear humans are the same way, too; that we both feel the same way.
She nods. “Wouldn’t you?”
I nod. “I would.”
There’s a pause where we realize we’re not so different. Then Nichelle clears her throat.
“Anyway, Mathew said you’d show us where each of us needs to be so we can protect the town,” she says with an eye roll. “He thinks you’re going to save the town somehow—that you’re a better fighter than me—but he’s wrong.”
She’d think differently if she ever saw me in action.
“You know the town better than me.” I glance around at the unfamiliar structures and alleys around me; I don’t even know where any of them lead to. “You should be in charge of getting everyone into position.”
She nods, satisfied, and then starts to walk away when I snag her by the jacket sleeve and pull her back to me. “Sylas will be coming back sometime... please make sure that people are aware of this. Make sure that nobody attacks him or the people with him.”
“Sylas?” she questions, her brows dipping together. “Who the heck is that?”
“That guy I showed up with earlier,” I answer. “Aiden’s brother.”
“Oh.” She seems hesitant, but then gives in and nods. “All right, I’ll see what I can do… but what are you going to do?”
“I need to find Mathew.” I let go of her sleeve and fetch my knife out of my pocket as vampire cries grow louder around the colony. “Do you know where he is?”
“He went back to his lab.” She points to the left, towards where the street slopes down to a cluster of buildings around a sandy hill.
“Thanks.” I spin around and jog back down the street, hoping that Mathew will be in his lab when I get there. Hoping that I can find out why Maci wants me to talk to him; protect him. Why it has to be me.
When I reach the small square building, I notice there are no longer guards posted in front of the doorway. Everyone in town has been put on high alert and many of them have stepped up to the wall around the colony that was built out of cars. In fact, the wall of broken-down vehicles looks more like a wall of people as they line the top. I wonder how long they’ll have to wait there. How long it’ll be until the abominations will show up. Maybe we’ll end up getting lucky and they won’t show up at all. I doubt it, though, and I know that thinking that way can be dangerous.