The Undead by Rachel Caine

Author:Rachel Caine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

When we went out to the car, Sylvia just looked at the fresh ragged scratches gouged in the paint of her hood and doors. There was an insane fury about them, a destructive frenzy all out of proportion to reality. I was prepared to drive, but she surprised me by unlocking her side and taking the wheel without a word. When I was inside, she turned and looked at me.

“What am I going to do?” she asked, a helpless plea that I didn’t have any answer for. I saw the moonlight catch and hang on the tears in her eyes. She blinked quickly and the shine was gone, leaving only the pain. “Michael, she’s crazy. She’ll hurt us. We have to do something.”

“What?”

Sylvia didn’t say anything, just started the car. I knew what she was thinking, and I remembered Adam’s cold-blooded assessment of risks and survival. I couldn’t do that. I hoped I never could.

“I’ll tell Adam,” she finally said as we pulled out on the street. I nodded absently, my attention already on the street behind us. Sure enough, a pair of headlights turned the corner and fell in behind us. I watched them for so long that Sylvia’s green eyes flew to the mirror and widened. “Shit! That’s her, isn’t it?”

“Probably”

“I don’t believe this.” Sylvia’s face settled into unforgiving lines of anger. “All right, if this bitch wants to play games, then we play. I’ll drop you and take her for a little ride.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone.” I frowned. Sylvia shrugged, and gave me a razor-edged smile that had little amusement in it.

“I can get rid of her. I have to. I can’t take her home. I need you to get home and tell Adam what happened, okay? I’ll drop you and be home in an hour.”

Sylvia turned down toward her house, then slowed and stopped at the curb in front of a bar decorated with strings of Christmas lights and sputtering neon. We exchanged one quick look, and then I got out and she pulled away. I turned and went into the bar, keeping my face to the shadows in case Foster had better night vision than she should have; she kept following Sylvia’s taillights. When she was gone, I pushed myself away from the wall and started walking.

I was about three blocks away from “home”—I couldn’t stand to think of it without the qualifying quotes—when I became convinced someone was watching me. I stopped dead in the dark abyss between streetlights, hidden under the fluttering leaves of an oak that fall hadn’t succeeded in stripping. There wasn’t any sound that shouldn’t have been there. Car engines, distant and close. The wind stirring the leaves and singing softly in the power lines. The rise and fall of conflicting TV programs from the houses down the block. There was a playground to my left, and the swings creaked arthritically as the wind pushed at them.

No. Not the wind. Someone sat on one of the swings, letting it move only a few short inches forward and back.

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