Ravenous (The Ravening #1)(24)
Author: Erica Stevens

“No!” Abby nearly screeched. I slammed my hand over her mouth, cringing as my gaze shot to the door at the top of the stairs. We all stood motionless, breathless as we waited to see if Hell would descend upon us. I moved my hand cautiously away from her mouth when it appeared that we were still safe.

I held onto her, but I barely felt her anymore, not through the ice encasing me. Aiden sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, Jenna’s eyes were rolling in her head, and Bret wouldn’t meet my gaze. Only Cade stared at me head on. His eyes burned with the intense desire to make me understand, to make me see, but I already understood, I already saw. I just didn’t like what I saw.

We couldn’t stay here.

It would only slow us down to bring her with us.

Or maybe we could stay here. Maybe this would all blow over. We had food; we had water, a bathroom, and weapons. We had a secure hiding place; we could make a stand for awhile. It may even be better if we stayed. Why did everyone think it best to leave then, including me? Well, I wanted to leave because I hated to be trapped anywhere. For my mom though, I knew I could suck this up, I could stay in that room for however long I had to.

We could all stay here. It would be fine, they wouldn’t find us, we would be safe until someone saved us, and of course someone would save us. We still had military, or at least I thought we still had a military, at the very least some military personnel. We had been shut off from the world for so long that I wasn’t sure we had a military anymore. For all I knew the aliens had taken them out first. In fact, they probably had been the first target, even ahead of the government.

Although every part of me screamed against leaving our mother in that tiny room, a place I never wanted to return to myself, I wasn’t sure there was anything else that we could do. There had to still be some members of the military left, but I doubted there were enough of them to launch much of an attack. More than half, if not almost all of them, were probably frozen.

Vehicles may still work, but no one could drive them without being spotted instantly amongst the deadened streets. That was if cars even did work anymore. No one, that I knew, had tried to drive a car in weeks. Never mind planes and helicopters, or tanks. There was no way to know if we could even attempt to mount any sort of defense against these monsters.

There was no one coming to help us, no one out there to rescue us. The realization wasn’t gradual in coming. Yes, it had taken me awhile to actually get to that train of thought because I hadn’t had time to go there yet, but the realization slammed me with sudden, horrifying insight. I was cold, choked with an agonizing sense of despair and yet oddly reserved. Oddly accepting of the unraveling course of our fates.

There was no one coming. There was no help out there for us anymore.

We couldn’t stay. To hole up in here and cower was to admit defeat. To hole up in here and cower was to die. With no rescue coming the food would run out, the water would dry up. Maybe, just maybe, the aliens would move on from here before all of that happened, but there was no guarantee of that. They could stay out there forever, waiting for us to emerge like a cat looking to pounce upon a mouse slipping from a hole. We could stay here for a little bit, but eventually we would have to leave. We would have to.

When the time came, we wouldn’t be able to take our mother with us.

Maybe we could stay for a bit, maybe we could wait, and we could hope, but eventually reality would catch up with us. It was better to face it now, rather than wait and see. It would be better if we broke free while the aliens were distracted with the remaining people, than to wait for them to come to us. Better to leave here before they came inside and discovered us.

“Oh,” I breathed.

“Bethy…”

I shook my head, holding up my hand to stop Aiden’s words. I couldn’t hear them, not right now. I understood them, but I couldn’t hear them spoken aloud. Bret rested his hand on my shoulder; I didn’t shrug him off. He was a good man, strong, and I needed his comfort and strength right now. “We’ll stay today,” Cade offered.

“No, we have to wait a few more days,” Abby protested.

“They haven’t started going through the inside of buildings in this part of town yet, the longer we wait the more likely they are to come here. No matter how many of them there are, it will still take them awhile to go through all of the houses. We have to get out of here before they reach us, and we should leave under cover of night,” Cade said.

“You don’t even know if they’re going through all of the houses and buildings!”

“What do you think they were doing last night at our home?” Aiden asked. My mind was spinning, running through everything I did, and didn’t, know. Abby would have to go on, I knew that. Aiden would take care of her, protect her with his life. “We have to carry as little as possible. It will be difficult at night but it will offer us cover.”

“Wait,” Abby’s words were choked. “We can’t.”

“It will be ok Abby,” I assured her as I hugged her. “It will be ok, you’ll see.”

“But we can’t leave her here all alone. We can’t.”

“We won’t,” I promised.

“Bethy,” Bret protested.

I shook my head, hugged my sister close again and released her. It would be ok I told myself, knowing full well that I lied.

CHAPTER 12

Night came faster than I had anticipated. It wasn’t until I crept back upstairs to peer out the window that I realized it wasn’t true nightfall. The larger ship had moved; it was above us now, blocking out the radiance of the sun. The sun’s rays peeked around it, illuminating its midnight color and reflecting vibrantly off of it, but the day was nearly night now. I turned away from the hateful sight of that awful thing.

“We should move soon,” Bret said.

I said nothing, there was nothing to say. The bag of food was by the backdoor. Tears were rolling down Abby’s youthful cheeks. Aiden couldn’t bring himself to look at either of us, I knew what he was thinking, but it wasn’t going to happen. He was the stronger one of us; he would have to be the one that stayed with Abby.

“I’m not going.”

I spun toward Cade, my mouth dropped as he uttered those words. Those were supposed to be my words; that was what I was supposed to be saying, not him. He was not going to be the one who stayed. “No.”

“It’s not going to be you Bethy.” I continued to gape at him. His eyes were shards of black ice as they locked on mine. “No matter what you may think.”