The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Unlikely Enemy, Unexpected Friend, pt. 1

IT WAS A LATE EVENING IN MARCH WHEN I WAS REMINDED OF THE horror. When my body recoiled and my mind revolted. When I tasted the blood again.

As others spent their time preparing for battle, I’d spent countless hours inside the apothecary, able to do what the elders told me it had taken them a century to learn to do, always on the first try, once I had learned to emulate their exact actions. It sent my mind swirling. The more I learned they could do, the more I knew they were hiding.

I’d reread Theogony for the 2,018th time in my life, literally, and I’d spent hours staring at the 1696 printed on the inside cover. Until recently, it was the one thing I was certain the elders had lied about: They had given me a book printed after their exile from Salem, which meant they had gone outside the city walls long before they had claimed to. Going into the apothecary changed the stakes of the game we were playing. They hadn’t only lied about what they had done, where they had been, and what they had seen. They had lied about what they could do. They had lied about who they were. Who we were.

And then, late on an unseasonably cold Friday night, something clicked in my head, and I snapped the book shut, got up from my sunken chair and went to find Everett. I had something to tell him. Something important.

I threw on a coat and walked out into the yard to the as-yet moonless night. The whole family was there, talking with my four favorite elders — Andrew, Lizzie, Hannah, and Sarah — in the pale light of old streetlamps that dotted the lane. I whispered to Everett that I needed to talk to him. In my mind, I told Ginny to get Mark and to come too. I made it two steps before I collapsed.

Wherever they were, it was warmer. Noah was running, surrounded by a large group of the rogue Survivors. There was sand under his bare feet, and a warm sea breeze on his cold skin. They ran along a deserted beach until they reached a lighthouse, and then turned toward the road.

I knew the road they were on. I knew they would turn left where they did, and I wasn’t surprised when the long, glass-fronted house came into view at the end of the road. It was the Winters’ home in Pacific Grove.

The pack broke in front of Noah, and burst through the front door, splintering it. A security alarm sounded, feebly at first, but then it got louder. The house was dark, but I could see perfectly. They tore the house apart, knocking over furniture and smashing breakables as they fumbled through every room, looking for something or someone.

I felt the tension rise in Noah when he realized that what he was looking for wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there.

“She isn’t here,” he said. The security alarm had picked up steam after the first minute, and it was blaring a loud siren now.

Derek, ever the ringleader, knocked a painting off with a flick of his wrist, and then he laughed.

“Stop it,” Noah cried. “Let’s go!” he screamed over the deafening alarm. Then he froze. They all froze.

“Smell that?” Derek asked, grinning maniacally.

Noah inhaled, and I could smell a warm, piquant scent hanging in the sea air. My mouth began to fill with liquid like it had before. “No,” Noah whispered, but he did smell it. The scent got stronger as I heard muffled voices outside the house. I had no idea what it was — though Noah clearly did — but whatever it was, it was the most enticing thing I’d ever smelled. My body tightened and my stomach prickled.

“Humans!” Derek yelled.

They ran outside. People had spilled out of their houses at the sound of the alarm on the quiet street in the sleepy town.

Derek lunged first, but the rest followed quickly. Only Noah held back. Only Noah seemed to hate what he’d become. “No, no,” he said — I said — again. I didn’t know if it was he or I screaming.

Fifteen Survivors leaped into the crowd of pajama-clad neighbors. One after another, they tore at the necks of the humans, their blood pouring onto the pavement. It was hardest to watch those who made it outside in time to see their loved ones being torn apart, realizing their own fates were sealed as well. The looks on their faces were burned into my mind.

As the blood began to spill, the scent became unbearable. I felt dizzy. “No, no!” Noah cried. I felt intoxicated. And I couldn’t resist.

I reached for a young teenage girl — thirteen or fourteen years old — and I held her close to me. “I’m sorry,” I heard Noah’s voice whisper. He kissed her neck before he bit her, his apology before his razor-sharp teeth sank into her flesh, opening her carotid artery.

Her screams faded quickly, and her blood began to cool the fire inside of Noah. Once her body went limp, he laid her gently on the ground and closed her eyes.

And then blackness.