The Lost Souls (The Holy Trinity #2.5)(2)

“Are you f*cking her now?”

Hockey glowered at Xan. “Yes.”

“Does she like it?”

“Yes,” he growled, feeling embarrassed. He wasn’t used to this. Guy talk wasn’t something he did. Actually, talking wasn’t something he did unless he had something he absolutely needed to say. And he needed to say this. For a good long time now, he’d needed to talk about this crap going on with Becki; he just hadn’t known who to go to and how to go about it.

Xan clapped him on the back. “There you go. Keep up the good work, and you’ll be fine. She liked you before the sex when she could have dumped your ass, and now she likes you and the sex. I’m thinking you’re all set.”

Hockey started laughing. Leave it to Xan to base everything on sex. “You know,” he said with a grin, “waiting used to drive me crazy. It was all I could think about as a teenager. But waiting for her was worth it. Personally, I’m glad I haven’t been with anyone else. I couldn’t give her very much, but I could give her me, all of me.”

Xan didn’t respond, and Hockey watched curiously as the guy stared sadly down at his cigarette. What was wrong with him?

“Heads up!” Mihai suddenly shouted from behind them.

Instantly, they scrambled to their feet, searching out the threat, and— Oh, Jesus. No.

Gunnar, Shandor, and Marko were running full speed toward them…with Skin Eaters on their tails.

“Fuck!” Xan bellowed, pumping his shotgun.

They let loose a flurry of bullets but the Skins were too fast, easily dodging their bullets.

“We’re not close enough!” Hockey roared.

Hockey jumped off the truck bed and went running down the street, toward his friends. He heard the shouts from behind him, his clan members calling him back, but screw it, someone had to do something. And that something had to be done quickly.

But instead of barreling straight into the fray, he made a calculated right turn down a side street. His plan was to circle around and take the Skins from behind, using the surprise-you’re-dead kind of strategy. Instead, he came skidding to a stop in front of a chain-link fence with a brick wall behind it. Dead end.

In the background, bullets were still cracking through the air, people were shouting…and then suddenly there was a moment of silence. Fear trickled down his spine as he paused, his ears straining, his heart racing. At any second, Skins could come tearing down this alley, and if enough of them came at him all at once, even the power he derived from his affinity for fire wouldn’t be strong enough to save him.

He waited.

And waited.

An engine roared to life.

Cursing, Hockey realized he was about to get left behind and immediately bolted back down the alleyway, already aware he was too far from the trucks, and more than likely he wasn’t going to make it back in time. But he still had to try.

As he cleared the sidewalk, he slowed to a jog before stopping dead in the middle of the quiet street. Doing a three-sixty turn, he stared wide-eyed at the carnage that lay strewn around him. Dead Skin Eaters littered the street, and there was blood everywhere. It was as if this small town had been bathed in it.

Glancing down the street, he found two out of the three trucks and the supply van they’d brought were still here, yet there was no sign of his clan.

But someone must have gotten away, taken the third truck, and fled.

Movement. His eyes snapped left, and his throat closed up. Shandor. Shandor’s body was lying limp on the sidewalk.

No, not limp. His arm was twitching. Was he still alive?

Hockey scanned the wounds on his friend’s body, stopping on the large chunk of skin and muscle missing from his leg.

No…Shandor wasn’t alive. He must be turning— Shit, oh God. Please, no…

Shandor’s body began violently jerking, flopping like a fish out of water. Screaming through what sounded like unfathomable amounts of pain, Shandor shuddered and his eyes flew open. His red eyes.

Hockey didn’t think. He ran.

He ran fast and far.





Chapter Two


Fall

“You really don’t want to do this,” the young woman repeated, her bright green eyes fixed on the shotgun barrel Carrie was aiming at her chest.

Carrie laughed. She laughed because the woman was right. She didn’t want to be doing this—any of it. She didn’t want to be holding anyone at gunpoint. She didn’t want to be starving. And she definitely didn’t want to be living through hell on earth.

“Where are the keys, bitch?” Jason yelled, whipping the woman’s duffel bag across the room.

Jason, her big brother, had recently lost his mind. The constant stress that bombarded them—the lack of food and other necessities of life, as well as constantly being afraid—had taken its toll, and Carrie knew he was going to kill this woman just for a set of car keys.

? ? ?

Caroline “Carrie” Andrews had been fifteen when the disaster struck. During her spring break from school, her entire family was at their church’s annual barbeque. Actually, the entire town of Elderton, Pennsylvania, was at the church barbeque. Elderton had a population of around three hundred and fifty people, so small that when a public event was held, absolutely everyone attended.

It was a town where everyone knew one another. No one locked their doors, and pets roamed free without problem. No one drove over twenty miles an hour through the town streets; everyone smiled and waved, and always attended church on Sunday. All four of her grandparents, along with every single one of her aunts and uncles and all fourteen of her cousins, lived in Elderton.