What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) by Delany Beaumont Page B

to keep on the highway, go past where the old airport was and find the city’s center. But that’s a long way.”
    “A very long way,” William says.
    Stace, CJ and Terry have stood up from the bed and watch the intruders warily. I can see the wheels spinning in their heads. A part of me wants to shout, “Just leave if you want to. If all we’ve been through means nothing to you, then just leave.” But Emily’s the only one who follows them to the door.
    “I’m going with them,” she says.
    “I don’t want you to,” I say. The words are so simple, so inadequate. “I need you, Emily. We need you.”
    She kicks at the edge of the sofa. “All right. I’ll stay with you a little longer.” She looks at Jendra and William. “I’m sorry. We’ll catch up with you. I can’t leave Gillian yet.” She says this like she’s the mother and I’m her wayward daughter.
    I wave Jendra and William out onto the landing. They stroll away slowly, whispering, glancing back at me as if I’m a crazy street person who’s been pulling out her hair and shouting obscenities.
    Sunlight glinting on the red buckle of a fire alarm catches my eye. It’s mounted on the outer wall of the motel, not far from their heads. They’ve almost reached the staircase when I take a shot at it. The bullet pings off the metal and disappears. I eject the spent cartridge, push in another, ready to fire again.
    Jendra and William flinch as if struck. I see them look back at me with real fear in their eyes and then they begin to run.
Four
    It’s dark, completely dark the first time I hear the Black Riders. The sound comes to me at first like I’m dreaming it, from far away.
    I’m in a park and the world is ordinary. Cars drive slowly by, people stroll on the sidewalks and pathways. I’m sitting on a bench with Larkin, tossing breadcrumbs to a noisy flock of ducks gathered at the edge of a pond. He’s telling me about something that happened in school that day.
    And then a steady, machine-like hum begins to fill the space around us. It grows loud enough to smother the sounds of the quacking ducks, the shouting children, the drone of traffic. No one but Larkin and I seem to notice. I ask Larkin to repeat what he was saying but he gets up and glances around in all directions. He runs a hand through his thick dark hair. He’s worried. “They’re coming,” he says.
    Then I wake to the deep black shadows of the motel room. But that hum, a metallic buzz rising in the distance, follows me into the room from my dream. I realize that I’m sitting hunched over, my back to the door with some cushions wedged in behind me. I’ve fallen asleep although I swore to myself I wouldn’t.
    It’s the sound of a motorcycle that wakes me, the stutter and grind of its engine ripping through the stillness. It’s been an eternity since I heard anything like it but the sound is instantly recognizable. The engine isn’t muffled and it soon splits into the noise of two or three engines, then into the roar of a large group of bikes fast approaching. The noise seems loud enough to make the walls of the room throb. I can feel vibrations beneath me that make my backside tingle.
    They must be weaving through the wrecks on the highway. I hear them splutter as they slow, then a rippling cascade of pops like firework explosions as they thunder back to full throttle and pick up speed.
    I jump to my feet. Getting up so suddenly makes my head swim and I let myself slip back against the door until it clears. For a moment it seems like I’m still dreaming. Then I feel CJ’s arms wrapped around my waist. “What is it, Gillian?” he says.
    I hug him tight, take him with me to the room’s front window and pull back the curtains. In a heartbeat, Stace, Emily and Terry crowd in next to us. The noise fills the room but we see nothing outside. As my eyes adjust to the weak starlight, I can just make out where the highway is, a wide valley between us and the shadowy blur of the