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The girl, whose name was Lupe, gave us instructions, handing Jordan a pair of handcuffs and chains and pointing out a spot on the map. I was too distracted to listen—my mind was still on Andre and the way he had looked at me as he stalked away.
Luckily it didn’t seem like I needed to pay attention. Jordan took the chains with all the confidence of a seasoned activist and led me into the woods as easily as if it was his own back yard. I followed behind him, my feet making twice as much noise as his, my eyes fixed on the word “Unless” written across the back of his neck. He moved like a cat, relaxed and graceful but with a certain kind of power just under the surface. The shadows of the branches played across his brown skin until I couldn’t tell where the shadows ended and the swirl of his tattoos began, as if he was part of the woods, the dark of it and the light. I thought of the way he had looked when he stepped between me and Andre, the animal curl of his lips over his fangs. It made me feel shy, which I’m not used to feeling, and I was glad that we didn’t talk as we walked. It was chillier here in the deep shadows of the woods and my breath ghosted out in little puffs. It made me very conscious of the fact that Jordan’s breath didn’t; Vampires are dead. They don’t need to breathe. The thought made me shiver, and not just from the cold.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost walked right into Jordan when he stopped. “This is the place,” he said. We were standing at the foot of a huge elm, so wide around that it would have taken a very big tree-hugger to hug it. I looked up into its branches, spread like the fingers of a hand with nothing to hide. They seemed to go on forever, up into the lightening sky. “Wow,” I breathed.
It maybe wasn’t the smartest-sounding thing to say, but my face must have shown what I really meant because Jordan smiled like I’d given him a present. “I knew you were going to like her.”
“Her?” I said.
He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I call her a her.” He paused a minute, like he was trying to decide whether to trust me with something. Then he said “I call her Emily.”
“Emily.” I reached out and stroked the rough bark. Then I laughed. “You know, I feel like I’m meeting your family.”
As soon as I said it, I felt dumb. “Not, you know, that we’re going out or whatever… I mean, I don’t want to assume…”
He smiled a little sadly and took my hand, his skin smooth and cold after the rough cat tongue of the tree bark. “I know what you mean. And I’d introduce you to my family if I could, but I’m afraid they’re long gone.”
I bit my lip, embarrassed. “Jordan, I’m a dork. I didn’t mean to--”
“No, it’s cool. It was a long time ago. It’s just something you have to deal with, you know, in my position. I mean, if you are going to live a long time.” He reached back and rubbed the base of his neck self consciously, his hand covering the tattoo. “My friends—Lupe and Andre and the rest of them—they’re my family now.”
“Yeah?” I said, “Andre wasn’t exactly acting brotherly.”
“Andre has his issues. He was made by a radical group in the sixties. Back then, groups on both ends of the political spectrum made vamps. It was their way of making sure their cause would live on, and Andre takes that very seriously. He just tends to fly off the handle.” He shrugged. “He’s young.”
Young. How old was Jordan? And what was it like to outlive your family for so long? I thought of my dads back home, not even knowing where I was. “It’s good you have your friends,” I said, “But I’m sorry your family is gone.”
He gazed up at the light filtering through the branches of the tree. “Everything good about people lives on. That’s what I believe, anyways. Maybe not in some heaven up there somewhere, but in the places that they touched.” He spread his arms wide. “Like here.”
I stared at him, surprised. “Your family lived here?”
“Come on,” he said, “I want to show you something.” He took my hand and led me around to the other side of the big elm. “Now shut your eyes.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “But how can I see what you wanted me to see?”
“It’s easier to feel it.”
I shut my eyes. Jordan took a step closer. I could smell his jacket, the loamy smell of leaves mixed with the tang of campfire smoke. He took my hand in his and ran my fingers along the wrinkled bark of the tree. The bark was rough as stubble on a cheek but my fingers found an indentation, smooth as a scar. Jordan’s hand guided mine, tracing the fish hook curl of a J, the snaking curve of and S. I smiled, my eyes still closed. “They’re letters.”
“My initials. I carved them when this tree was just young, and I’ve come up and re-carved them a few times since, when I needed to get back in touch with who I am. J.S. for Jordan Sawyer. I was seven when I first put them there. I carved them in as high as I could reach. And now…” His voice trailed off. I opened my eyes and followed his gaze, down the slope below us to where the trees ended abruptly, like an ocean meeting a shore. Beyond that were only stumps. The cut logs lay in stacks like limbs amputated in a war. “Emily is on the schedule for today.”
“No!” The sound of my voice scared a cloud of crows out of the trees above us. They poofed and settled like dust. “We can’t let them.”
“That’s why we’re locking down,” He picked up one of the heavy chains Lupe had given us and we began to wind it around the base of Emily’s thick trunk. When the end had come around to meet the beginning, he threaded one side of the handcuffs through the heavy links and snapped them shut. Then he held out the other end of the handcuffs to me. “You sure you want to do this?”
I held out my wrist. “I’m sure.”
I felt the cold metal clamp tight around my wrist. It locked with a loud click.
“There!” Jordan said. “You’re set. Now you take my key and I’ll keep yours.” He took a little silver key from his pocket and placed it in my free hand. “Take good care of it,” he said.
“I will,” I promised. I slid the key into my bra, just above my heart. It was the safest place I could think of.
“Now I go lock down.”
“Wait!” It hadn’t fully occurred to me that Jordan wasn’t going to stay with me.
“Where are you going to be?”
“On that big fella there.” He pointed to a thick tree a few yards away. “I’ll be able to see you and you can always call for me if something goes wrong.” He looked me in the eye. “You gonna be okay?”
I nodded. “Sure. Fine.” Far away I could hear the whine and roar of the saws, mixed with the distant sound of chanting from the protest. A few hours ago, I had been afraid to be alone with a vampire. Now I was afraid to be without him.
Jordan must have seen it in my face. He took my free hand in his. “I’m glad you came today.”
“I’m glad I did, too.” His face was so close to mine. I wanted to reach up and lay my hand across the tattoo at the base of his neck, draw him in closer for a long, slow kiss. But my other hand was locked to the tree. All I could do was wish.
Maybe he wished the same thing. Jordan leaned in closer. I shut my eyes.
“Well,” said a voice, “What have we here?”
My eyes flew open. Jordan dropped my hand and spun around to face a cop standing behind him with his gun drawn. A second officer, shorter and rounder, came walking up the path to join him.
The first cop smiled under his bushy mustache. “Can’t usually sneak up on you blood-suckers. Not unless you’re… distracted.” He stretched the word out like it disgusted him. He was looking right at me.
“Put the gun down,” Jordan said, quietly. “There’s no need.”
“Really?” The police officer held the gun a little higher, “Because it looks to me, vamp, like you’re resisting arrest. Possibly assaulting a police officer. That how it looks to you, Kenny?”
“Could be,” the other officer said. His hand was on his gun.
“In which case anything I do would be self defense.
”
“He’s not hurting anyone!” I yelled.
“Well, he was going to hurt you! Got you all chained up, and he was just about to bite you, wasn’t he? Unless…” He moved the gun so it was pointed at me. “Unless you’re one of those girls who likes vampires.”
It all happened at once. Jordan lunged, fangs bared. There was a loud crack. I screamed and jumped forward, the handcuff snapping me back with a jolt that reverberated down my spine “Jordan!”
I watched, helpless, as he fell to his knees, then dropped face forward in the dirt.
He shot him, he shot him, he shot him, I thought. But where was the blood? Or did vampires not bleed? I stared at Jordan’s limp form, completely confused.
Then I saw it, sticking out between his shoulder blades: a thin silver dart, like the ones they use to tranquilize animals. My entire body shook with relief. “He’s asleep.”
“Bullets don’t stop them because they’re already dead,” The mustached officer said, “So Kenny knocks ‘em out til we can get an expert to deal with them. He’s got the tranquilizers.” He raised his gun, pointing it right at me. “I’ve got the bullets.”
BAM! Something hit the officer from the side, something so fast I couldn’t see it. The cop went down with a yell. The gun went off and I heard a crack as the bullet grazed Emily’s trunk a few feet above my head. Kenny had already turned to run. The other cop was scrambling to his feet, a wild look of panic in his eyes as the thing that had hit him came back for a second go. My mind said “panther”—the shape was dark and powerful and smooth—but it couldn’t be a panther. It took me another second to realize it was Andre.
He chased them down the path. He could have caught them, too, and I almost thought he would, but at the last second he turned and came trotting back towards me. With one quick jerk, he pulled the tranquilizer dart out of Jordan’s back.
“Damn cops,” he said under his breath. He bent over Jordan’s still form, flipping him over onto his back.
I was limp with relief, only the handcuff holding me up. “Thank God you came when you did! I thought he was going to shoot me! Listen, I know you and I didn’t exactly start out on the right foot but I just want to say that I really underestimated you. Now if you’ll just give me the key--”
“This key?” Andre turned to face me, my little silver key dangling from his fingers. “You think I’m just gonna let you go?”
Oh, crap.
“Listen, little girl, we’re gonna have a talk first. Because this situation wouldn’t be a situation if you hadn’t come in here where you had no business, do you understand?” He stalked closer to me, his eyes locked with mine. “Jordan says we have to let you humans be part of the solution, just because you’ve been the whole problem. Well it doesn’t work that way. You had your chance with this world and look what you did! They say we suck the life out of everything? Well you’re the ones who’ve been draining this planet dry. And now you’re gonna come up in here calling yourself an environmentalist?” He was very close now. I pressed my back hard against the rough bark of the tree, trying to put another inch between us. “Well,” he said, “If you’re such an environmentalist, then you must know what we do when a species is overpopulated, when a species gets too destructive.” He leaned in close, his voice low, fangs inches from my ear. “We reintroduce natural predators.”
I reached up with my sneaker and shoved.
Andre dodged it with all the grace of a cat, but it made him take a step back. His smile was cold. “Watch it.” He tossed the key so it landed in the dirt by my feet. “Get the hell back to the suburbs where you belong, understand?” He turned and loped off down the path, towards the grinding of the machines.
I reached out my sneaker and stepped on the key, pulling it closer until I could grab it with my free hand. My fingers shook as I fumbled the key in the lock. The cuffs sprang open with a click and I rubbed my aching wrist. I didn’t want to leave Emily unprotected, but I had to check on Jordan.
“Jordan?” I knelt beside him. Now that the dart was out, the tranquilizer seemed to be fading and he was already starting to stir. I reached under him and sat him upright as he coughed himself awake.
“Beck?” His eyes tried to focus on me, “What… are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, “They’re gone for now, but I’m sure they’re coming back. We have to move.” I dragged Jordan to his feet. We stumbled together into the woods.
“This way,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s already been cut, remember? No tree cover to hide in.”
“Yeah,” I said, “But they won’t expect us to go there. They’ll be focused on the trees. And we’ll be able to see them coming.”
Jordan nodded. “But not too far. I want to see Emily if they come.”
We dropped on a stump, a pile of cut logs shielding us from view. For a long while we were quiet.
“How did you get rid of them?” Jordan finally asked.
“I didn’t. Andre did.”
His eyes widened, suddenly awake. “Andre? Did he--”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “He just gave me a stern talking to about how humans couldn’t be part of helping the planet because we messed it up so bad. He made it sound like there was no hope.” I studied Jordan’s face. “Do you think that’s true?”
He paused. “What do you think?”
I thought about it. I thought about the hate in the cop’s eyes when he looked at Jordan, and the hate my dads had lived through when they were kids. I thought about the squealing, grinding noise of the machines below us, and about the stumps like gravestones all around us. I thought about my own life up until today, how I hadn’t cared about any of it. “I just don’t know.”
“Here,” said Jordan, “Look at this. Do you know what this is?” He pointed to the stump we were leaning against.
“A stump?”
“Look closer,” he said, “At the rings, the circles, here. The tree adds one ring every year as it adds a new layer of growth.”
I looked at the circles: tiny in the center, then growing bigger and bigger as they worked their way out. They were like the whorls of a finger print, like the ripples when you throw a rock in a still lake, like the swirls of Jordan’s tattoos. “They’re beautiful.”
“They tell the tree’s history. If you count them, you can tell how old the tree is. This one in the middle —” he tapped the center of the stump, “That’s called the pith, the heart. The light circles around it are called springwood, when the tree was growing fast. The dark circles are summerwood when then tree slowed down, getting ready for the cold. You can look at how thick they are and tell how much rain the tree got that year, how much sun.” He counted the first rings quickly. “That,” he said, pointing to a wide ring near the center, “That could be the year my parents died. There was a lot of rain that year. The river flooded. Which would make that…” he counted a few rings further, to a dark, thin ring. “This would be the year I became a vampire. The year I was seventeen.”
“A long time ago,” I said, staring at the rings.
“A long time ago. And in that long time, I’ve seen that things go in cycles, Beck. The world survives, through dark and light, floods and droughts. The constant is change. Everything changes. Is it too late to undo some of the damage? Yes. But is it too late for humans to change?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. As long as they want to change, I don’t think it’s too late.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He smiled back.
I tried to imagine this whole area alive with trees again. I tapped a ring near the center. “I wish I could have seen it then.”
He hesitated. “There is a way to see it. I can show you my memories. But…”
“But what?” I said.
“But I’d have to bite you.”
A nervous thrill slid through me. “Do it.”
He looked at me, hesitant. “Are you sure? Because--”
; “I’m sure.” I took his hand and pulled him closer. He glanced around quickly, but no one was there. We were alone except for the trees.
“Okay,” he whispered into my neck, “If you’re sure.”
There was just a pinch as his fangs pierced my skin. I gave a little gasp as I felt the first warm rush of blood. Then the whole world seemed to spin like the rings of a tree. My fingers traced the swirls of his tattoo, climbed to the letters on his neck and held him there as time shifted all around us.
I was in the same forest, but it was different. The trees were young. Light shone between them and purple wildflowers grew at their feet. A boy as thin as a sapling with skin as brown as tree bark ran laughing through the sunlight, his dark hair flopping, his clothes—a simple white shirt, pants too short for his legs—were streaked with dirt but he didn’t care. He ran to a tree like he was running to a friend. Then gently, carefully, he carved the letters: JS.
Jordan released me slowly. The world came swimming back and I opened my eyes to see the stumps, the cut logs. The world hadn’t changed.
But I had. I could feel the trees all around me, the way someone who has lost a leg can still feel it aching. And I could feel something else, too, something thin and new as a sapling but just as strong.
Jordan smiled at me, his fangs gone. “Did you feel it?”
I smiled back. “Right down to my pith.”
For a minute we just held on to each other.
“You know,” I said, “Usually, when people carve their initials in a tree, they carve someone else’s there with them.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I never met the right girl.”
I pointed to the rings of the stump. “In all this time?”
He nodded. “In all that time.”
“Well,” I said, “A wise man once told me, everything changes.”
“Yup,” he said, “Except what stays the same.”
He kissed me softly and I kissed him back.
I was so going to carve my initials in that tree.
We just had to save it first.
About the Author
Laura Bradley Rede is the author of the YA paranormal romance series The Darkride Chronicles (Darkride and Crossfire). She received Writers of the Future award for fantasy and science fiction and is the author of numerous YA short stories. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner, their three children, a huge great dane, and a small flock of chickens. You can find her at www.darkridechronicles.com
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