Through Glass(64)

“We don’t know how they change. We don’t know where the line is,” she said, the image of her body flashing a bit like we had a bad connection. “We’ve been trying to figure it out for years. Even the hotter we found before you, he woke up and he never changed… he just killed everyone he came in contact with.”

I flinched a bit at her words and then my eyes trailed back down to Cohen’s mark on my wrist. I had been in the darkness from the beginning and if he merely killed everyone, what would I do? I swallowed, my throat feeling sore and coarse.

“Is that what I am going to do?” I asked, my voice coming out heavy. No wonder she was afraid of me.

“I’m not sure.” Her voice was soft and said exactly what I am sure she couldn’t say, what she didn’t want to say. Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do. I had already felt it in me, growing… growing. I could feel it now. The thought of the ease it would take to kill Bridget, the way I planned my attack on her, the willingness to kill Sarah.

Sarah.

“You know,” I said, trying to fight how dangerous I suddenly felt, “before you found me, my best friend Sarah found me. I hadn’t seen her since before.” I stopped, the memory still so fresh it almost hurt. My head throbbed just thinking about it. “I was so happy and then I saw her wrists, split all the way around and seeping black blood. She changed right before me, spines ripping her skin apart…” I stopped, swallowing hard. The thought that they believed that was what was going to happen to me weighted my chest down, making it difficult to breathe.

“That is the only way we know when a change is complete,” Bridget interrupted me, her body leaning toward me again. “When the wrists are cut. Sometimes the hotters do it to themselves, sometimes the Tar do.”

Her voice faded out as my eyes snapped up to meet hers. They thought I would cut myself. People—infected people—cut themselves. It was the end game. You eat the food, you breathe the air and in the end they take you anyway. I swallowed at the heavy numbing feeling that was threatening to take over me. It felt weird, thinking of this as my fate, as the only future that they thought I was given. I wasn’t ready to accept that.

“What do you mean… the Tar do it?” I asked, fear rippling over me.

“If they try to eat you and they can’t, if you live through the touch of their talons, they take you and then they cut you.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, my heart rate suddenly beating so hard against my chest it felt like it would burst through any second. Suddenly the possibility that I might turn, that I might kill everyone—including myself—didn’t seem quite so important anymore.

I looked down at the drawing on my wrist, my other hand moving to cover them like they were sacred.

“You mean, you aren’t dead when they take you? You mean, he was alive?”

“He?” I barely heard her.

“He’s alive,” I gasped the words to myself, the heaviness that I had felt for the past few days evaporating in the air around us. I could feel my heart beat. I could feel joy. Cohen was alive. I pressed my fingers to my lips; his last kiss still such a vivid memory I could feel him against me… Cohen was alive.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Lex, but if you saw someone get taken, chances are they are one of them by now.”

I couldn’t deny her, there was no reason for me to question her. She was right, the chances of him still being alive were so minimal that it was disturbing that he was all I could focus on. That getting him back was the most important thing to me. Even then, I couldn’t see past that. I couldn’t accept that. I needed to get out of here. I needed to find him, to rescue him.

“I have to…” I began, my heart pulsing as I prepared to plead my case, but the words were cut off as Bridget stood. Her back turned toward me as she looked toward something I couldn’t see.

“It was what was in her pack, Tee,” she said, her voice changing to a sickly sweet tone I was sure didn’t belong to her normally.

“No… I don’t…” The sweetness in her voice left as soon as it had come, her body moving side to side as her hands raised toward something I couldn’t see. I watched her with wide eyes. Panic rippled through me at the change of pace. Everything bristled through me, my eyes scanning the empty space for a weapon, knowing it wouldn’t do any good even if someone was going to attack me.

“Tee! You can’t come in here!” Bridget yelled, her voice panicked and edgy.

My breathing picked up as I watched the odd movements of her body the way the image of her flickered in and out. I stood up slowly with my back dragging against the wall as I prepared to run or attack, although how I would accomplish either, I wasn’t very sure. Something was going on and by the tone of her voice, I could tell it wasn’t anything good.

“Get him out of here!” she yelled just as her body flickered out of focus, a new body taking her place.

“Alexis!” the new comer yelled, his voice deep and familiar. I froze as I watched him flicker into focus, the tall frame of a man one I wasn’t sure I would ever see again.

He looked like my dad, but taller than him, younger. He was covered in muscles that my father had never had, that I am sure he had built out of necessity. His dark hair curled around his face, brown eyes I knew all too well twinkling at me.