Strays Read online

  The front door opened when they reached the foyer and laughter filled the darkening hall. Another group? They couldn’t catch a break. Not only did they have to deal with getting away from these vampires, but they had to deal with another group of three—which Dakota smelled were human—and convince them they wanted no trouble?

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” a female said, holding something up high in her hand. It looked like a squirrel to Dakota, but he couldn’t tell. The female’s red hair was in shoulder length, wiry strings so sloppy and dirty that they hung like limp snakes from her scalp.

  Max froze where she was and watched the young woman, who couldn’t have been any younger than twenty. Her eyes went from her to the man beside her, brown hair and freckles. His beard was longer and thicker than the hair on his head.

  “Ginger?” Max’s voice was quiet, like when Dakota first met her. In a second she had reverted back to that shy, frightened girl he had met at Lincoln Academy.

  Ginger’s head snapped from the man with the beard to her. “Maxxy?” She dropped whatever dead animal she was holding and ran to her. “Max!” She threw her arms around her and pulled her in close.

  The man with the beard bent down and picked up the animal. “Maxxy, Maxxy, Maxxy,” he said, shaking his head. “You resilient little thing, you.” He hugged her when the woman named Ginger moved away. He held her at arm’s length. “We thought you were dead.”

  Max grinned. That was exactly what she thought they had thought. She wiped the tears from her eyes. She had found them. She had finally found them. No Eric. There was no telling how late she was, when he had died, but she was too late. “Yeah, well…”

  “Max?” Another voice made everything and everyone go still.

  A tall teen with black hair too long to fit his face and dark freckles around his nose stood there at the door. He pushed it shut behind him. It was dark outside now and there was fear drawn all over his face. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans.

  “Eric?” Max walked slowly toward him, but before she could make it to him he was across the floor and his arms were around her.

  Max pressed his head to her and kept her other arm around him. “I thought you were dead.” She cried—so hard that Dakota might have thought he really was dead.

  And that was is it? They had accomplished what they had left Lincoln Academy to do? They had fulfilled Reagan’s request. Max was safely with her group again, safely with her brother. He was relieved and conflicted at the same time.

  “Guess we’re allowed to leave now,” he said to Curly, shrugging.

  Curly looked from Max to him. “No.”

  Twelve

  Dakota

  ●

  Her bright red eyes seemed to light the room in a powerful luminescence. Bright streaks of blue hair hung from her head and curled at the ends, rounding her face. For a long time, she stood quietly at the door, watching me in a way a wife might watch her newlywed husband. I wanted her to stop watching me that way. She stepped inside the room and closed the door after her. I knew she was a vampire. She looked young, but she was one of the older ones. Her facial features—thin nose, narrow eyes—proved it. The veins shimmied like skinny worms through her face and her sharp fangs and canines transformed in her gums as she approached my bed.

  “You’re in pain,” she said, her voice possessing a child-friendly charm that eased me.

  I should’ve been afraid of her when she ran her fingers smoothly up my arm and to my neck. She turned my head just slightly to get a better look at my neck. I was too weak to stop her. I wanted to. I wanted to tell her that she had no right to touch me that way. She was a vampire, a filthy creature and she had the nerve to be in my room, touching me that way.

  A crash from the hall startled me, but my eyes stayed on her. They stayed on her as the commotion grew louder and louder, and they stayed on her as the screams surfaced. Vampires were up to something out there. I couldn’t see what or run if I wanted to.

  I wanted to die.

  Couldn’t understand why I was still alive.

  “In so much pain.” She smiled down at me and for the first time since she entered the room I realized how beautiful she was. She was more beautiful when she smiled, even with all those veins bulging in her face, even with her sharp teeth. She was beautiful. “I’m Rosemary.”

  I nodded and my face felt wet, but I didn’t know why.

  “Don’t cry.” She grabbed the chart from the foot of my bed and observed it for a few short seconds. She seemed oblivious to the chaos on the other side of that door. “Dakota.” She looked at me, right in my eyes. “I like that name.” She used her thumb to wipe the tears from the corner of my eyes. “Poor little thing.”

  “I’m hurting,” I said, and was surprised by how my recent puberty had abandoned me. I sounded like a small child.

  “Well, don’t worry about that. I’m going to fix that for you.” She smiled deeply and her entire face was overcome by something sinister and tragic and beautiful. Her mouth went to my neck so fast that I didn’t have time to think. At first I didn’t feel anything when she bit me, but the pain grew gradually, until I could barely stand it.

  Dakota’s eyes stayed on Max, who sat on the ugly peach sofa across the room. It looked like it had just come out of a fifties television show. He wished everyone would speak up, but Max’s group and this new vampire group had all grown accustomed to talking lowly when the sun went down. He couldn’t read everyone’s lips at once, so he focused solely on Max’s. If he controlled the world’s volume, he wouldn’t mind watching her on mute. She smiled at something Ginger said and her eyes went automatically to Dakota, who quickly looked away. He felt his face grow bright red. She looked at him a few seconds longer before turning all her attention back to Ginger.

  “What else was I going to think? The shirt’s covered in blood.”

  “Well, it’s not my blood,” Eric said. “We had to kill a few Strays to get this house.”

  “Was that one upstairs in the bathroom?” Curly asked. He sat next to Max on the sofa, his legs open and his elbows on his knees.

  They all sat around the fire in the living room and Dakota was thankful for the warmth. As much as he hated to think it, he was grateful for the presence of the other vampires. Three of them. They had obviously been vampires far longer than he had, but that didn’t bother him. He wondered which member of Max’s group was their blood supply. Not Eric. He was too young. Ginger? Most likely, the man with the thick beard since he was the only adult male and older vampires had some moral thing about sucking on the blood supply of females.

  “No, that guy was human,” he said, rubbing his fingers through his thick, tangled beard. “We burned the Strays outside. They burned like paper. I’m always surprised when I see them inside. Their natural habitat is outdoors.”

  Dakota stood up straight and pressed his back to the wall. He crossed his arms. “I think their natural habitat is anywhere there’s food.” That was where his would be if he was Stray.

  All eyes went to him. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

  Dakota smirked. He hadn’t been introduced to any of them, but he had learned their names through conversation. The bearded freak was Darcy, who looked much older than he was. The redhead was Ginger. Of course, there was Eric. The bald dark-skinned vamp was Taddy, the Latina was Mariana and the blond dude with the missing tooth and permanent scar at the corner of his mouth was Hank. He knew their names, but wasn’t sure they needed to know his.

  “I’m sorry,” Max said, as if it was her fault they hadn’t been acquainted. She grabbed Curly’s shoulders. “This is Dante. And that’s Dakota.” She smiled at Dakota briefly.

  “Anyone a friend to Maxxy is a friend to us,” Ginger said. “It’s so funny. I never thought I’d be cool with so many vampy dudes!”

  She said it like they were some horrid creatures that had no control over themselves. Back before Strays, when vampires hadn’t earned equal recognition, a statement
like that might have angered them, but times had changed. He couldn’t say that if he had a choice, he would choose to be human again. Sure, there were some things he missed about it, like the memories his childhood scars, gone now, brought him. He would miss human failures, even though vampirism had its own failures. He would miss the tiny things, but he was comfortable in his own skin.

  “Where’ve you guys been staying?” Darcy asked, looking from Curly to Max.

  “Houses mostly,” Curly said.

  “Which, I imagine, is how you ended up here,” Taddy said, rubbing the very top of his bald head with his index finger in a way that made Dakota raise an eyebrow. Taddy slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “We’ve been out looking for food all day. You wouldn’t happen to have any, would you?”

  Dakota shrugged. “Dry. We were hoping you did.”

  “Hope only gets you so far these days.” He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Welp. There’s a department store a short ways from here that we can hit up tomorrow. I’m going to bed.” He left the living room with a wave and Hank and Mariana followed.

  The living room was quiet for a long time after they left, as if everyone was having their own private conversations in their heads. “We’re going to go too,” Ginger said, after a while.

  “Aw, really?” Max said, pouting.

  “Listen. When he says tomorrow, he means bright and early. If I were you I’d go to sleep, too.”

  Max laughed, though the look on her face Dakota identified as suspicion. She wasn’t comfortable with Ginger following some vampire over her, but she had been gone for days and Ginger, Darcy and Eric had found a new way to protect themselves. “Fine. Go.”

  “Don’t worry,” Darcy rubbed her shoulder. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow.”

  Dakota snorted and rolled his eyes. There was no such thing as plenty of time anymore. He watched Darcy and the others leave the room and then watched Max return to her seat next to Eric on the sofa. Eric had sprawled himself out and was dozing off. He was tall for an early teen, almost as tall as Max, but much chubbier. Max went to Dakota and stood by his side. She watched her brother from there.

  “Yeah, this is a good view. Now I see why you can’t get enough of it.”

  Dakota felt his face grow hot. So she had noticed him staring at her the whole time? He stood up straight. “Don’t flatter yourself, kid. Curly, can I see your bag?”

  “Why?” Curly said. He looked momentarily at the now sleeping Eric and then back at his brother.

  “I want the papers. Where is it?”

  “The kitchen.”

  Dakota turned and went straight into the kitchen. He felt Max hot on his tail and wondered why in the hell she was following him. When he turned to ask her just that, she stepped up to him so closely that her head nearly brushed his cheek. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her a step back. “That’s far enough.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Why’re you always so concerned with what I’m doing?” He crossed his arms and stared at her with a raised eyebrow. “I’m doing the same thing you’re doing. Surviving.” He grabbed Curly’s bag from beneath the table and plopped down in a chair. A gray shadow was cast over the kitchen, only illuminated by dim candlelight. A hum was coming from somewhere above them. Dakota watched Max carefully as she examined the place, happier now than she had been earlier. Her eyes scanned a coke liter on the counter, filled halfway with dirt. Then they went to the circular window across from the sink, boarded with thick sloppily sawed pieces of wood.

  He turned his sight away from her when Curly walked into the kitchen.

  My name is Dakota.

  He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t stop staring at her. There was something precious about the way she took things in, individually, instead of all at once, as if she was placing a value on everything she saw, as if everything was beautiful in its own way. He didn’t know how to explain it. He just knew that he shouldn’t like it. He didn’t like it and he didn’t like her. He reached his hand into the bag and pulled out a stack of papers. He had lost his temper once and crumbled them all up, but clearly Curly had put them all together again.

  Max sat across from him, but only after Curly sat down.

  “What do you guys think about those other vampires?” she said.

  “They’re cool,” Curly said, without paying her much attention. “What’re you doing with those?”

  Dakota spread each sheet out on the table. They had written some ideas on torn sheets, some on newspaper, and whatever else they could find. Some of the pages had been damaged by water.

  “Do you like him?” Her blue eyes burrowed into Dakota so hard that he thought she might be trying to induce some deep, emotional connection to the dumb vamps.

  “Yeah,” Dakota shrugged. “Taddy’s cool.”

  “No, I meant Eric.”

  He looked up from the papers at her and squinted without knowing. He nodded. “I like Eric.” He looked from Max to Curly, who stared questionably at him.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty awesome.” She sat back in her chair, grinning, but looking at no one.

  “I like him too,” Curly said.

  Max smiled at him too. “I’ll leave you alone then. I’m a little tired.” She stood. “You guys are… the best thing that has happened to me, you know? You got me back here. Forget how stubborn I might be. I couldn’t’ve done this alone.” She stepped up to Dakota and kissed the top of his head. Then she doubled back and kissed Curly on his cheek. “Thanks, you guys. Really.” Then she went to the living room, leaving Dakota and Curly in complete quiet.

  “Well.” Curly leaned forward. He kept his right fist cupped in his left hand. “You two seem to have grown plenty close.”

  “I’m just going to assume you’re about to say something ignorant out of jealously.”

  “Why would I be jealous? I don’t even know her.”

  “Didn’t stop you from sleeping with her.”

  Curly snorted. “Sex is sex, Kota. It doesn’t mean a thing, unless you want it to.”

  Dakota rolled his eyes. “Congratulations. You’re a real Romeo. I don’t give a shit. I’m concerned about this.” He pressed his index finger in the center of a blue sheet of construction paper. On the paper someone had drawn a map with a Sharpie. He couldn’t remember if it had been Curly or someone else in their group, but he knew the map was of the surrounding area. The middle of the paper was Alias Corp, the colossal corporation that had gone under faster than ever when vampires were discovered. It had crumbled completely—like everything else—when Strays spread. In a straight line across from Alias Corp a line was drawn to a smaller dot. Above the dot, in Curly’s hand-writing, was WE ARE HERE. “You were looking at these the other night.”

  Curly sighed. He meant the night he had slept with Max. “You were awake?”

  “What do you think?”

  “So you heard everything?”

  “Dude, does it matter?”

  Curly shrugged. “I was just thinking about when we first came up with this and, I don’t know, was wondering if it could be possible if we got more people involved. I thought Max’s group would be bigger, though.”

  Dakota looked at the papers again. Alias Corp was the supposed headquarters of all things Stray. Even though they behaved like animals and killed people and ate their flesh, in some cases they still acted human. They still planned things out. They still needed places to sleep and live. And even though they could turn against each other at any moment, they hated vampires and humans more than each other. Once upon a time Reagan, Curly and Dakota thought that if they could come up with a solid plan, they could overpower them and destroy Alias Corp. It wouldn’t do much damage to the overall population of Strays, but it would stall them momentarily. It would send a clear message that their group wasn’t afraid of them. “It would start a war,” Dakota said, thinking harder on it. But maybe a real war was what they needed. How could they defeat them if they wer
e always hiding from them?

  Barging into Alias Corp was a plan, but it wasn’t a good one. They couldn’t go in there unprepared. They had to get away from Max and her group before they decided on or did anything. He wouldn’t drag her into it, and he already knew that she would feel indebted to them since they got her back safely to her brother. She would want to help.

  “It’s a good thing we’re soldiers then,” Curly said, even though he was the only one who had been a soldier.

  “By association.” Dakota stood. “I’m down for whatever you decide, but if we’re going to do it we have to do it right.”

  “We’ll go to this department store with them tomorrow, get supplies—you know, food and weapons—and then we’re out of here.”

  “Yeah?” Dakota stuffed the papers back into the bag. “You’re really going to go? Leave Max, lover boy?”

  “We were just having fun,” Curly said, shrugging. “We don’t owe each other anything. Plus, it isn’t me she’ll want to stay.” He walked past him into the foyer and down the hall. Dakota heard him going up the stairs, but he didn’t ask where he was going or what he was going to do. His eyes rested on Max, who was trying to fall asleep sitting up on the couch. Eric’s head rested on her lap. He couldn’t stay if he wanted to. He had his own family and his own group. He couldn’t stay.

  Thirteen

  Dakota

  ●

  I want to believe I’m stronger than this. I want to choke it down like it doesn’t exist, like pain is simply a term created to make people feel something, anything. It’s all in my head. That’s what I tell myself. This is all in my head, but I’ve never felt anything like it.

  I got my first tattoo on my fifteenth birthday. Sometimes if I sit really still and I let myself think about it, I can feel the needle stabbing on my clavicle again and again, creating what is to be a serpent. I got it to represent my father, but it’s done a better job at representing me. My tattoos and imagining them hasn’t hurt as much as this does. This hurts worse than the horrible nights I spent becoming vampire. This craving is something more intense. All I smell is blood. Human blood. And it’s all I want. And it makes everything inside of me feel ten times too small, like I’m missing some essential nutrient. Rosemary taught me nothing before she died. I have to learn how to do this on my own.