Without thinking about it, she leaned over, plucked Roma off the ground, and slung the injured girl over her shoulder.
And Blue answered her. “The crawlers are indescribable horrors. They belong to no one and are…unending.” She shrugged, glanced once at Z, then started walking a fast pace away from the field of poles. “Some types are worse than others. Some of them you can almost have a chance at defeating. But the others...let’s hope you never have to meet them.”
Rune trotted after Blue, Z at her side.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Let’s hope.”
“Drink from me,” Roma offered, her voice as broken as her body. “I would be honored.”
It was tempting. Not only would the blood give her waning strength a much needed boost, but it could also go a long way toward healing Roma. And they could use her in the battles to come.
“Shit,” Rune said. Then, “As soon as we reach the cemetery. There’s no time right now.”
As they jogged, Z reached over every once in a while to touch the small of her back. “Rune,” he said, finally. “Give her to me.”
She ground her teeth. “I can carry a puny girl, baby. Don’t worry about me.”
“I missed that.” He threw a quick look back over his shoulder.
“You missed what?”
“Baby. I missed you calling me baby.” He grinned when she glanced at him. “It made me feel like I was special to you. Never mattered that you call everybody baby.”
For some reason, his words made her heart lighter. She returned his smile. “It’s good you don’t call everybody sweet thing. I’d be seriously pissed.”
“I hate to ruin this moment,” Blue said, “but—”
“I can hear them,” Rune told her. “The legislators are at our backs.”
“Dozens of them,” Z admitted. “Which means they already wiped out the ones who went to battle them.”
“Or the people ran,” Blue said. “I’m sure they ran. Soon as they saw they weren’t going to have a chance.” She sounded, for one heartbreaking second, like a hopeful child.
Probably she’d known a lot of the people who’d poured from the city to fight the witch’s evil slaves. Maybe she’d even loved some of them.
“They’re dead,” Roma said. “Lucky bastards are all dead.”
Rune agreed, but silently.
“How much farther to the graveyard?” she asked.
“A couple of miles,” Z said. “Can you make it?”
“We’ll have to split up and hope for the best,” Blue said. “There is a group of them right behind us.”
With their long, strong legs eating up the ground, the legislators were going to catch them. They just had to find them. And they would—Rune and her little crew had no time to cover their tracks.
Roma groaned. “Let me down, princess. You must survive.”
“Dammit,” Rune said. “Z. You and Blue find a place to hide until I feed. Then we’ll handle the fucking legislators.”
“Rune—”
“Do it, Z. Go.” She swerved away and ran with all the speed she still possessed—and even with black rot eating at her insides she was faster than any of the legislators—until she had put enough distance between them to give her time to feed.
She had to hurry. If they caught Z and Blue…
But they wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let them.
She dumped Roma unceremoniously onto the hard, hot ground and dropped her fangs. “Ready?”
Roma’s eyes widened. “Yes.”
Rune struck like a maddened snake, ignoring Roma’s gasp as she speared the abused girl’s torn throat.
Then there was only the blood.
God, the blood.
Rune drank and drank, and then drank some more. The blood was hot and full of power, full of strength and hope and life. She wallowed in the spurting, delicious liquid and moaned as it gushed down her throat and coated her insides.
Finally, she heeded the tiny, insistent voice in the back of her mind warning her that she was going too far. She was killing the girl she’d saved.
She took her mouth from Roma’s flesh and sat back on her heels, replete. High.
Even beneath the blood covering Roma’s face her paleness shone like a vivid light in a night sky.
“Shit,” Rune said. She grabbed Roma’s shoulders and jerked her upright, then shook her.
Roma was limp.
“Shit,” she cried, again. In the distance she heard the sounds of battle.
The legislators had found Z and Blue.
Once again Rune dropped her fangs. She bit into her wrist and held it to Roma’s mouth. “Drink, you little bitch. Drink.”
She smeared the blood on the cold, parted lips, pushing hard until the blood flowed into the girl’s mouth.