Frenzy (The Frenzy Series Book 1) by Casey L. Bond

metal. “If you could show me how, maybe I could borrow another bow and we’d have a better chance at taking them down tomorrow.”
    He stopped, lips parted. Water ran down his face and dripped off his top lip. He scoffed. “You think that’s what this is about? I’m off my game, and it’s because of that... that night-walking-fang-fucker!”
    My eyes widened. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard anything like that before or said it to Mercedes during one of our evening giggle fests, but hearing Saul say it was funny. I tried so hard not to smile, not to let out the giggle, but it had nowhere to go once the dam of my resolve broke.
    I laughed out loud, head tilted into the rain, abdominals in cramps. His big hands wrapped around my waist. “What do you think you’re laughing at?”
    “You,” I hiccupped.
    He smiled in warning, eyes firmly hooked on my mouth, and then claimed my lips with his. This was no soft exploration. He lifted me, pinning my back against the bark of the pine behind me. His hands knotted in my wet hair, pulling my head back so he could reach me better. My hands knotted in his coat, pulling him closer to me, but it wasn’t close enough. “Saul,” I breathed into his jaw. His lips moved in again.
    A high-pitched keening sound came from my left. Saul’s eyes widened and he pulled away, his fingers digging into my upper arms. “Very slowly, move around the tree.” My lips trembled, but I nodded, easing around the massive trunk I prayed would hide us.
    “The branches are low. Let’s climb.” He lifted me until I could reach the branch and pull myself up. I looked down to find him right on my heels. “Go!” he said, looking down below him. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. It takes more effort to look down. Down impedes progress. We need progress. I don’t want to be eaten. I felt for my poison ring. It was still there despite the rain, and despite the fact that I didn’t want to use it. It was there.
    Sticky pine resin coated my fingers as I shimmied up the weeping pine, its needles hanging down like a willow. Saul tapped my ankle. I looked down to see him hold his hand out. He climbed onto the branch, settling beside me.
    “Did you see it?” I whispered.
    “No, but I heard it.”
    “Why do they scream like that?”
    Saul pursed his lips. “Something about the rot on their vocal chords.”
    Another high-pitched screech tore into the night from just beneath us. I dug my fingernails into the bark of the limb across my chest, hoping the one beneath my thighs and Saul’s was strong enough to hold us. “What does it want?” I whispered into his ear.
    “Us.”

 
     

     
    I saw her through the darkness, through the rain that was only beginning to taper off. Her once-red hair was flattened and thin. Soaked tendrils clung to her flaking scalp, dull and lifeless. Her eyes were sunken in. Cheek bones protruded where plumpness had been only a few days ago.
    “It’s Meg,” I whimpered. My warm tears met the cold mist now falling. Saul’s hand on my low back steadied me. I wanted to climb down, jump from the lowest branch and throw my arms around her.
    How did she get Infected? I saw her in the water. I saw her blood. It coated my dress and skin and hands.
    My eyes questioned Saul’s, but they held no answers. Meg kept walking, sniffing the air periodically and letting out those soul-stealing screams. She wore only her white slip, and it was torn from the briars she walked through. She moved past us slowly and then a male chuckle filled the air.
    Everson moved toward her. “Must be my lucky night. I get to hunt, too.” Meg stiffened and screamed, her mouth stretching longer than should be possible.
    Before I could move, he closed the distance between them, grabbed her head, and twisted hard. The snap of her vertebrae echoed through the wood and Meg collapsed to the ground.
    “NO!”
    Damn gravity. I clambered down the tree limbs, slipping on the lichens, but I didn’t care. “NO!