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CHAPTER TWO
EVELYN CAN TELL THE beasts are fairly newer because of how long it took for them to find the girls, and how easily the first went down. She's hit one in the neck before and watched it still try to attack until she shot it again, just beside the last arrow. You can't really see a difference in their experience just by their appearances, but you can always tell by the way they fight.
She calls the more experienced beasts "Old Ones." For no other reason than the fact that older people have always claimed to have more wisdom. She doesn't know how old they really are, of course. It's just a way for her to differentiate. It's a lot easy to fight when you know what exactly you're up against.
The beast remaining is clawing at the tree with his inhuman strength, and the bark is peeling off more and more. At this rate, he could have the tree thinned and falling within minutes. Delia is sobbing again up above her, repeatedly saying how she doesn't want to die, not like this, not by the hands of him.
"What's the plan?" she shrieks, looking hopeful at Evelyn.
"I told you," mutters Evelyn, pulling another sharpened stick back in the string. "I don't plan."
She lets the makeshift arrow fly, but with the beast alert, he catches it with unbelievable speed. It stops him from tearing at the tree, and he smirks wickedly up at her, snapping the stick in half with merely his forefinger and thumb.
Evelyn curses.
"How can you not have a plan?" Delia's pestering and fear is nonstop.
"Give me a minute," Evelyn snaps.
Her eyes try to measure the distance between the two of them and the ground. They climbed pretty high to stay out of sight, but now it's come back to bite them in the rear. Evelyn doesn't allow herself to panic, though. Panic distracts you from focusing and focusing is how you survive.
The beast has gone back to ripping at the tree. It's starting to swing back and forth just the slightest. Enough for Delia to lose her balance. Enough for her to slide off the branch, and enough for her to barely have time to get a grip around it.
She screams.
A sick part of Evelyn thinks about letting her fall. She'd snatch the attention of the beast for sure, perhaps for a long enough time for Evelyn to scurry to the ground and make a run for it. The image is easy, and she'd be on her own again, just how she likes it...
She groans, shaking her head to herself. Of course she can't let Delia be beast food. She can't stoop so low to sacrifice humans when they should be on the same side.
Evelyn grabs the above branch Delia is hanging from, pulling herself up. It's stupid to go higher when the tree is gradually swaying more and more. But Evelyn made up her mind, and she doesn't go back on decisions.
"Here," she says, reaching her arm down for Delia to latch onto. She does so rapidly, her nails digging into Evelyn's skin. Evelyn hisses. "I can't pull you up if you scratch my arm off."
Delia is too breathless and terrified to even attempt an apology.
Evelyn hauls her up just when the tree begins to shake violently. She looks down at the beast who is now gripping the tree, rocking back and forth with it.
She's never heard one of them talk. Doesn't think they can.
"No lady likes an impatient man!" she yells down to him out of spite, and the bitter humor relieves her stress only a bit.
"What do we do?" asks Delia, finding her voice though it's cracking and barely audible.
"We have to jump," answers Evelyn.
"Are you insane?" Delia is glaring at her with bulging blue eyes.
Evelyn glares back. "If you have a better plan, do inform me of it."
But Evelyn doesn't wait for a reply. She's strapping her pack onto her back and climbing down a few branches, hopefully to make the fall less painful. She positions herself right over the beast, planning to use him as a cushion and take him out. She gives Delia a glance, who still looks baffled and scared out of her wits, then she takes the leap.
She smacks into the beast, who wasn't expecting such a daring move. While she's on top and dominate, she reaches for the dagger in her belt and aims for the soft area between his collarbones at the base of his neck. He catches her hand, quick to recover from the shock, and bends her wrist. She tries to resist, but it's basically impossible to beat a beast's strength.
He rolls them over, a firm grip still on her wrist. He's baring his fangs and flashing his red eyes, but Evelyn doesn't falter. She's been up close to one before, and although it's just as eerie and unnerving every time, she refuses to let it get to her. She treats them like any other opponent, like any ordinary human.
However, when she took all of those self-defense and martial arts classes a couple years back, her opponent was never actually trying to kill her.
Getting her leg out from under his knee, she throws her own up into his groin. It hurts enough for him to shrivel up, releasing her arms. She's quickly back on her feet, grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking his head back, pressing the dagger against his throat.
Obviously, the fight can't be so simple.
His hands fly up fast and cup either side of her head. He flips her over him, making her land hard on her back and the air escapes her lungs. The beast positions himself over Evelyn, sneering, disgustingly amused.
"Look out!"
Evelyn looks up and her eyes go wide at the sight of the tree falling towards them. She looks back at the beast, throwing her head up hard into his and he stumbles back. She rolls out of the way just in time for the tree to squash him.
Out of breath and holding her now throbbing head, Evelyn stares in amazement at Delia, who must've climbed down while Evelyn distracted the beast.
"Nice aim," she murmurs.
Delia is beaming. "That was pretty amazing. Did you see how perfectly it fell? Like it knew exactly who to hit. All it took was a few more kicks and it just fell. Can you believe I did that?"
Evelyn rubs her forehead and she feels blood. She groans, pulling down her sleeve to hold against her head.
"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" Delia asks, still in awe.
"A lot of classes."
"So, you were a badass before everything went to shit?"
Evelyn snorts, but her lips curl slightly. Smiling feels strange, so she doesn't allow a full one to break out.
"What do we do now?"
Evelyn shrugs.
Delia gives her a look. "No plan?"
"No plan."
"I don't like not having a plan. It's more comfortable to be able to stick to something and follow it."
"You can't exactly follow a plan nowadays," says Evelyn.
"It's still useful to think ahead."
"Agree to disagree."
Delia sighs, and doesn't press the subject further.
Evelyn doesn't want to admit that she has no idea where to go, so she sticks to heading for the border. She tells Delia this, who has no argument, and they set off. However, it's getting dark out now. They were up in the tree for a while and time flew by. This makes Evelyn antsy, having to stop and make camp even though she's uncomfortably unfamiliar with the area. They stay in the woods, figuring it's a bit foolish to stay in the open.
Now Evelyn has to make do.
They found the treeline that runs alongside the road after a while of walking, and have been trailing beside it. That comforts Evelyn a little, knowing she has an exit if need be.
Delia is talking about her brother again, claiming herself cowardly for not going back for her him. She hadn't even tried, she says. She's getting choked up and keeps gulping loudly like the lump in her throat is too hard to swallow. She's depressing Evelyn, which makes the whole ordeal more difficult.
"And you called me pessimistic," grumbles Evelyn, digging a blanket out of her pack and laying it on the ground.
Delia either doesn't hear her or ignores her. "All you have is a blanket?"
"Used to have a tent." Evelyn shrugs. "Too hard to keep carrying around. Taking it down and putting it back up just seemed pretty redundant, and to be honest, it started falling apart."
"Were you on your own as soon as this all happened?" she asks.
Another shrug.
"It's hard to believe only a couple months ago we were all going to school during the war, and still worrying about adult responsibilities. I didn't want to be in school, but I didn't want to be an adult either. It was incredibly exhausting to be stuck in between."
"Thanks for sharing."
"I'm trying to make conversation, Eve. You don't have to be so cold."
Evelyn bites back a snide remark about being perfectly warm in her jacket.
Delia exhales exaggeratedly. "You're not going to ditch me in the middle of the night, right? Run off so you don't have an extra person to deal with."
"I wouldn't do that."
"I wouldn't be surprised."
Evelyn doesn't say anything else and settles onto the blanket. She scoots to one side so Delia can have the other, and they're both quiet as they lay there, their backs against each other. Evelyn keeps her pack close in case they need to make a quick getaway. She also keeps her dagger in her hand (safely sheathed) and holds it to her chest. She never feels at ease, but the discomfort is worse tonight in an area she doesn't know.
It's cold at night. During the day it isn't so bad when you're constantly moving, but even Florida can grow a bit nippy mid-January. Evelyn usually rolls herself up in the blanket, like a human burrito (wouldn't the beasts love that?). Clearly that isn't possible with someone else on the material, which makes it even chillier.
"Eve?"
"Hmm?"
"Did you get to be with your family on Christmas?" whispers Delia.
Evelyn thinks this over, closing her eyes. "Did you?"
"No," she whispers again. "That's when it was really bad, you know? The first month was just stray ones here and there, but then early December they just... They were everywhere. My neighborhood was bad, real bad. The vampires--" Delia clears her throat, her cheeks flushing "--monsters weren't even the worst part. It was all the street gangs trying to loot people's homes and make a run for it."
"I went through the same thing," mumbles Evelyn. "You don't have to remind me."
"Sorry."
Evelyn pulls her knees up, trying to curl into herself to preserve whatever warmth she can. Also, it's sort of a shield for her. A comfort thing, in the least, to curl into a ball.
"I can't go to sleep," says Delia.
"I can tell."
"Am I annoying you? I don't mean it, honest. I've always been a talker."
"Just close your eyes."
"They are closed."
"Then close your mouth."
Strangely enough, Delia falls quiet.
Well, almost.
Evelyn hears her softly crying herself to sleep.