A Wind of Change (A Shade of Vampire #17)(45)

Six feet away from the exit, the brand in my arm began to burn again.

I looked over my shoulder to see River staggering, her face contorted in pain. Her brand was scorching her too.

What are these damn things?

It was almost as though they were conscious and were aware of our intent. I had been aboveground in the desert before without the tattoo causing me agony—like earlier this evening at the party. It only burned when it sensed that I was trying to escape. It sensed. I felt mad thinking of these tattoos as though they were conscious beings, and yet there was a clear pattern.

Clenching my jaw against the pain, I continued forward. As soon as we reached the boundary five miles away, I lowered Hassan and Morgan to the sand. Removing the beige rug from my shoulder, I waited until River had caught up with me and placed Lalia next to the other two humans.

“My God, River,” Lalia gasped as she staggered around, apparently dizzy. “When d’you learn to run so fast?”

All she got from her sister in reply was a hush.

I dropped the rug and moved backward. The blood covering them felt like it was wearing off—or perhaps I was just becoming immune to it. I took another swig of blood out of River’s container and breathed in deeply, desperately trying to distract myself from the humans’ sweetness, especially the little girl’s.

River picked up the rug that I had dropped. “Sit down in a huddle,” she said. The trio did as requested and then she placed the rug over them so that they were somewhat camouflaged. Then River handed the backpack to Hassan for safekeeping.

We had just a few minutes to get back to the apartment now. I hoped that Jeramiah wouldn’t arrive early. I scooped River up in my arms before sprinting back to the atrium. It was much faster than her trying to run after me.

Hurtling through the door of my apartment, I looked up at the clock. One minute until 3am.

River and I ran to the nearest bathroom and washed our hands. I looked at her clothes. They were stained with blood.

“You need to change,” I said.

Her eyes roamed me. “So do you.” She was right.

After we had washed our hands and faces, we found clean clothes. River ended up wearing one of my shirts, although it was far too large for her, and a pair of shorts—she hadn’t been able to find any female clothes other than dresses.

Then, taking deep breaths, we waited in the hallway and stared at each other. I was sure that the same worries were going through our minds simultaneously.

Jeramiah had said that he planned to bring Michael and Lloyd with us. I had to capture one of them in order to get us through the boundary. I didn’t know just how strong Jeramiah was, because there hadn’t yet been occasion for him to display his full strength in front of me. But I knew that he was a Novak, and that was enough to know that I ought not underestimate him.

The plan was wild, and so many things could go wrong with it, but it was all we had.

Jeramiah ended up knocking two minutes late. I walked to the door slowly, and opened it.

His dark hair was tied up in a bun, and he was dressed all in black.

“Ready?” he asked.

He seemed sober. I guessed he hadn’t drunk much at the party.

I looked over my shoulder and called to River. She arrived next to me.

Jeramiah smiled as he laid eyes on her.

“Good. Let’s go.”

That journey up to the desert was possibly the most nerve-racking experience I’d had since arriving at The Oasis. As we crossed the atrium, I looked down at the gardens below, my eyes traveling past Lucas Novak’s memorial stone, and I wondered whether this would be the last that I saw of this place.

Aboveground, Michael and Lloyd were already waiting for us. I looked around, glad to see that no witch was present, as Jeramiah had mentioned. If a witch had come with us, our whole plan would likely have fallen to pieces.

My fists clenched.

We had hit the first obstacle. How are we going to ensure we leave the boundary near where we left the humans? There were any number of directions we could exit the boundary. We had to leave near them, or the distance we had to run could cause our plan to unravel.

I decided to just take the lead.

“Shall we start moving then?” I said briskly.

Holding River’s hand and keeping her firmly away from Michael, who was glaring daggers at the two of us, I began to march toward the humans. Jeramiah looked a bit surprised at my initiative, but to my relief, nobody objected. They followed after me.

I sped up, and so did they.

“What time does the sun typically rise?”

“If we aim to be back by around 5am, we will be fine,” Jeramiah said. “That gives us two hours—plenty of time to catch a few humans.”

“Where do we plan to go exactly?” I asked, wanting to keep the conversation going as we approached the humans.

“The nearest town,” Jeramiah replied. “It takes about fifteen minutes to travel there at our full speed. And we must run at our full speed if we want to travel past the hunters alive… So we’ll have ninety minutes to look around the streets for any people out late.”

“Hunters,” River murmured. “Those men in tanks set up nearby… they’re hunters?”

“Yes. They’re the reason we typically travel with witches whenever we need to go out.”

“Do you steal people from their homes?” River asked.