Strays Read online

  “You’re welcome.”

  She stared into his eyes, green now, and she felt like she had done her good deed for the day. As dizzy as she was now she doubted she would be doing that again, but she was glad to see him healthy and more like himself. She wondered when he would start being rude to her again and calling her names.

  “Just sit for a while.”

  “No, I’m fine now.” She stood up. “The sun’s out. We’d better”—

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll get Curly.” He went back into the house. Max leaned against one of the pillars to hold her weight. She was still dizzy. She didn’t know how Curly could do that for him all the time. It had knocked the wind out of her. She wondered how long it would take for her to recover. Her hands went up to feel the wounds. Tiny holes, still bleeding. The blood trickled down the side of her neck. She would have to work hard to hide them from Curly. Her hand went to her hair, which she was so used to keeping in a ponytail. She pulled the string from it and let it fall to her shoulders. She hadn’t kept her hair down since her mother was alive, when she used to straighten and brush it for her. It hurt to think about her mother almost as much as it hurt to think about her father. She needed to find Eric. She needed him.

  Curly, walking slowly, but holding his bag on his back, emerged from the house a couple minutes later with Dakota behind him.

  “Ready,” he said, walking to her.

  Dakota had on his sunglasses, probably to hide his eyes from Curly. He would know Max had let him feed if he saw they weren’t red anymore.

  “I think they’re close,” Max said.

  “And what makes you think that?” Curly asked.

  “She’s going off her impeccable, unmistakable instinct,” Dakota said, sarcastically, pushing past them both. “Don’t trip over your own shoes on your way down the steps.”

  Max looked after him, stunned. She didn’t know if he was back to his old self so fast or if he was just putting on a show for Curly. If he was putting on a show, had he always been pretending? She wondered.

  “Ignore him,” Curly said, grabbing her hand.

  Max had the instinct to snatch it away, but she didn’t want him to look at her funny. She put on a fake smile and walked with him down the steps. She would save the Curly-Dakota drama for another moment, when she had the time to think about it. Right now, the only thing she could worry about was Eric and how close she felt. He had to be close They would search all the houses, every last one, until the sun went down and they couldn’t anymore.

  Eleven

  Dakota

  ●

  My name is Dakota Joseph Reagan.

  My name is Dakota.

  I was human once.

  Human.

  My name is Dakota.

  I was human.

  I have to remember that.

  I have to remember…

  Dakota’s heart broke as he watched her stand over what looked like an old shirt. It had been soaked in blood once upon a time. Now, it was a plaid ball of brown, dried like it had been toasted. A moment ago he had been thinking about how long they had been walking and checking every house, and how they hadn’t seen another human or vampire face for days. He missed his group. He missed his mother. He just wanted to see someone other than Curly, and he could hardly look at Max since he sucked blood from her earlier.

  The tenth house they had come up to—he thought it was the tenth house, though he had lost track hours ago—was protected by an old worn and white gate. The white paint had chipped, revealing dirty tan underneath. It wasn’t the only thing trying to hide its skin. Dakota wanted to be as far away from Max as possible in that moment because more than anything he wanted to console her, or try at least, but he knew he couldn’t do anything with Curly standing there. Curly did nothing. He didn’t even put a hand on her shoulder.

  “It was the last thing he was wearing,” Max said, tears in her voice.

  “How do you know? There could be a million people with that exact shirt.”

  She picked up the shirt and held it out. “It’s his.” So much blood had dried on it that it was hard to open it up. So she kept it balled in her hands when she pressed it to her nose.

  “Maxxy,” Curly tried to speak, but before he could say anything else, Max took off into the house. “Max!” Curly chased after her.

  Dakota didn’t know her brother, but he recognized the pain. He stared at the house. Someone had been tending to it. They had piled a bunch of garbage and old belongings in the front yard, so he didn’t doubt that people had been there. The house was surrounded by bright bulbous lights, off now. Dakota stepped carefully over a crack on the pathway, up onto the porch and into the house. He didn’t make it that far inside. Max had stopped in the foyer, her eyes on a yellow ball cap on a high table. Dakota slowly closed the door after him. Someone had been tending to the inside of the house, too. It had been swept recently.

  “Who has time to clean?” he said, stepping around Max to observe further.

  “Eric,” Max said, lowly.

  “Who?”

  “My brother.” She grabbed the hat, which was also spotted with specks of blood. “These’re his clothes.” She burst into tears, hugging the pieces to her. “He was here.” She started toward the stairwell, leading straight up. He might’ve been there earlier, but he wasn’t there now. “Eric!” She called out for him, nonetheless.

  “Max, quiet,” Curly said, following her.

  “Eric!”

  Dakota watched them disappear together up the stairs. He didn’t question anything when Curly grabbed her hand on the landing. He knew his brother liked Max and he had every reason to. She was pretty, young and had a smile like someone who hadn’t lost everything. When he first met her he had thought she was weak, but she wasn’t. She was stronger than many women he had met. She was a fighter, too. When he had stared out of the window of Lincoln Academy and watched her run full speed from those Strays, she had proven to everyone in that building that she was a fighter. So no, he didn’t question Curly’s feelings for her, or the way his fingers intertwined in hers. What he did question was Max’s hesitation, how she pulled away from him for only a moment before grabbing his hand tighter.

  He walked down the hall. His shoes left a trail of dirt on the freshly swept floor. He passed the empty living room. Even the bookshelf looked dusted. Shaking his head, he stepped into the kitchen. Max’s cries for her brother grew more desperate by the minute. The cabinets were empty. The refrigerator had been cleaned out, too. Around the back door knobs was gray wire, which he easily pulled free. He pushed open the door.

  Max was stronger than him. The only person he had ever lost in his life was his dad and that had messed him up pretty badly. He tried to remember him being in his life, but he had purposely blocked his father’s face from his mental. What he remembered the most about his human life was wearing glasses and being bullied and not having the balls to stick up for himself. He remembered Rosemary. He loved and was thankful for Rosemary. Not only had she saved his life, but she had opened his eyes and given him a new, magical world, which had made him stronger.

  My name is Dakota.

  He had lied to Max about the transformation thing. He remembered it well. He remembered it all so well that thinking about it caused him physical pain. It had been a pain unknown to man, a new kind of pain that he thought never existed. It was a pain he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemies. Not even Strays. He couldn’t tell her that. How he had survived it was beyond him. When he had opened his eyes for the first time as a vampire, blood-thirsty, and confused, the first thing he had seen was his mother’s tears. Being a vampire wasn’t at all how he expected. Hearing things clearly was a constant struggle, he couldn’t see any better than he had as a human, and even though he was a lot stronger and astonishingly faster, his hunger for blood made him tired and weak. He craved it all the time, felt like there wasn’t enough in the world. Drinking from his brother had become second nature, and the taste of his blood was
bitter, like black coffee.

  Max’s blood… he was thirsty just thinking about it. She was the first female he had tasted. Now he understood why Curly had been so adamant on not letting him. He wanted more. Craved it. All he could think about was putting his lips to her neck. He shuddered when the thought crossed his mind, like it was some dirty sex fantasy. He couldn’t imagine how Curly would react when he finally saw the lesions on her neck.

  Max ran out into the back yard and past Dakota. She jumped up and down with her head thrown back and Eric’s shirt pressed to her chest. Curly stood abreast Dakota, shaking his head.

  For a long time he said nothing.

  “Eric.” Max cried. The grass had grown too high for her to sit comfortably, but she sat down anyway. “Eric.”

  “There’s a body burned in the bathroom,” Curly said, sympathetically, watching her rock back and forth.

  Dakota had never heard pain like that before. He had seen it and it had broken his heart every time, but hearing it was something different entirely. It was a different sort of heartbreak.

  “Eric.”

  “It’s her brother?” Dakota said, taking a step forward.

  “It’s burned too badly to tell,” Curly said.

  “Eric,” Max repeated again and again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “She thinks it is though.”

  Clearly. Dakota stepped forward to go to her, but Curly stopped him with a hand on his chest. Dakota stepped back.

  “I got it,” Curly said.

  “Yep,” Dakota watched him go. He turned his mouth up, fought his urge to follow.

  He watched them. He watched them until Max asked to be alone.

  She sat quietly, cross-legged on the back porch and Curly and Dakota sat at the table in the living room. She had stopped sniffing her brother’s shirt a long time ago. Now she stared blankly ahead. Dakota could only imagine what she was thinking. They had spent the whole time fighting to get her back to Eric—had been attacked by Strays, and all—only to find out that he was dead? It was cruel. He couldn’t help, but take some of the blame for it. Her hopes had been high from the beginning. He should have been the one to knock her back to reality.

  “I’m hungry,” Curly said, scratching the curly hair on his chin.

  Dakota turned slowly to look at him. “You’re thinking about food?”

  “Well, death or not, we’ve got to eat. There wasn’t any food in this place?”

  Dakota was disgusted. Sure, Curly probably liked her, but his priorities were a little mixed up. Food was the last thing he should have thought about when someone he appreciated was hurting. “Should have brought some food from Lincoln.”

  “Well, I didn’t. The sun’s setting fast. We should check another house for some.”

  Dakota snorted. He went outside and shut the door after him. He sat beside her. She had stopped rocking. She sat quietly, slouched over, her eyes ahead. For several seconds, they didn’t speak. Then Max’s head went to his shoulder.

  “How could I’ve expected a different outcome?” she said, in a quiet tone.

  Dakota always struggled to hear her when she talked like that.

  “This world… in this world… people die. I can’t expect anything more. I just”— she started to cry again and Dakota automatically put his arm around her. “I just didn’t know if he was scared or alone or if he thought I was dead. And this stupid shirt is all I have left of him.” That, and his hat. “I’m… I don’t know how I should feel.”

  “Hurt. He was still your brother.”

  “And I wasn’t with him.” Her voice squeaked at the end, but she cleared her throat and tried to maintain her composure. “I fell. Hit my head—some f-freak phenomenon. And now he’s gone.”

  Dakota didn’t know what she was talking about, but he felt sorry for her.

  “I might as well just give up here.”

  “No,” he said, a little too quickly. “You can’t. You’re still here. You’re still alive.”

  She shrugged. “But I have nothing to live for.”

  “Well, maybe not yet, you don’t. But”—

  “This world is… dead… Kota. I can’t live life like a normal person. I can’t graduate high school and go to college and meet some great guy. I can’t get married and have children and live in a stupid house, and become a housewife until I get tired of it and fight with my husband and divorce and split the money and struggle to make mortgage payments, until I get it together and find someone new and live happily ever after. Until my retirement.”

  Dakota laughed. “You want all that to happen to you?”

  Max smiled. “I want to be normal. I want the world to be normal again. I want my parents to be alive and happy with each other, instead of getting a divorce. And I want my brother to know that I would never leave him if I could help it. Never.” She wiped her eyes. “And even though I’m never going to fall in love, I want to have it somehow, you know? My brother was that for me.”

  “Hey.” Dakota didn’t know what he could say to cheer her up over her brother, but he knew how to make her feel better about all the things this world would potentially never give her. “Maybe the world is garbage and maybe we’ll never fix it, or we won’t be alive to see it get fixed, but people exist everywhere. People are fighting to exist. We fight to exist. You’ll have love, Maxxy. And… you’re going to mean the world to somebody someday, kid.” Max looked at him and he couldn’t read the look on her face. It was something like confusion, like maybe she was trying to figure out if he had been replaced by someone else. He had to do or say something that changed that look. “Now, get over it,” he said, standing up. “You’ve got to be stronger than this.”

  Max nodded and stood up. Her brother’s shirt fell to her feet, but she didn’t bother picking it up. She held his hat in her hand. She considered dropping that, too, before Curly rushed outside. He grabbed her, pulling her to the side of the house, away from the window. Dakota stayed with them.

  “What?” he said.

  “They’re people in the house,” Curly whispered and pulled Max close to him, her front to his front.

  Max looked at Dakota, who quickly looked away. “It could be my group.”

  “I doubt that,” Dakota said, sniffing hard at the air. “They’re vampires.”

  “Then go talk to them.”

  “So they can kill me? Nope.”

  “I’ll go.” Curly moved Max gently away and brought his gun up against his chest. He inched toward the house, signaling with his hand for Dakota and Max to stay close behind him.

  “He’s such an asshole,” Dakota said, shaking his head. “Stay behind me. That ass’ll get you killed.” He didn’t care who she stayed behind, as long as she was safe. Curly wouldn’t let anything happen to her and Dakota wouldn’t either.

  I was human once.

  They were all human once. Vampirism had a starting point, though he wasn’t sure where it was. Maybe they could be talked to, depending on how vicious they were or had become since the end of the world. He listened to the low laughter of the strangers and the collected silence when they reached the kitchen, where the door was open and Curly stood on the other side with his gun up.

  “Well, look at this,” the dark-skinned, red-eyed male, obviously the leader, said. He had no visible weapons, but he was a vampire so Dakota knew he was fast. One didn’t need too many weapons when he was fast. “I knew I smelled human. And”— he looked over Curly’s shoulder at Dakota— “vampire.”

  “This your group?” Dakota asked, without looking at Max.

  “No,” she said.

  “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” the man said, scratching his bald head.

  “How come?” Dakota tilted his head, smirking. “Have we found some?”

  “No,” Max interjected. “We’re going to another house.”

  “Like hell we are,” Curly said, holding his weapon firmly. “This is a nice place to shac
k up.”

  “You ain’t taking this house,” the man said. “I can tell you that right now.”

  “We don’t want it.” Dakota didn’t feel like arguing and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to fight. Max’s blood had given him strength, but it was hardly enough. He couldn’t fight Strays if he wanted now, let alone some random vampires who looked malicious enough as it was. He wasn’t afraid to fight them, no. Just didn’t feel like it. “We’ll go to another house, Dante.”

  “The sun’s setting. We don’t have time to find another one.”

  “We’re going.”

  Max stepped between the men. She wanted to stop the heat before it got any hotter. “Relax,” she said, putting her hands up. “Relax. No need for bad vibes. We’re all equal here.”

  “Are we, though?” the guy in the front said. “You’re the ones who marched in on our territory.” He had an accent that Dakota couldn’t place and didn’t care about if he could. He had a lisp because of it, which lowered his toughness meter by plenty.

  “Nothing is anyone’s territory anymore,” Curly said, looking from one man to another.

  “Our only enemies’re Strays!” Max said. She kept her place between them. “Strays only. We don’t need to fight each other.”

  Dakota had to listen to her. She was right. He didn’t have the strength to fight them now, but even if he did it wasn’t right. They had to band together if they wanted to survive and if they wanted to somehow defeat the Strays… if that was even possible.

  “We’ll go.” Max put her hand over Curly’s and gently pushed his gun down.

  Dakota saw the admiring glint in Curly’s eyes when he looked at Max and he wondered how he could feel anything for her when he had only just met her. He followed her as she walked through the group of three vampires, who followed them with their eyes. They stood at the kitchen door, whispering to each other. Their whispers tickled Dakota’s ear and he wished he could hear what they were saying.