Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (12 page)

My eyes subconsciously wandered down to the birthmark above my
collarbone
. I stared at it for several long seconds as Orion’s voice played over and over again in my mind.
Chills broke out over my skin. Was
that my fate? To turn into a monster like him?

I really didn’t know much about our heritage, of how my family had ended up with the blood of the first vampire king. Orion told me our father’s side had carried the strain, but I hadn’t had a chance to do much digging into my family tree with trying to avoid being killed
all the time.
Maybe I should do some research, look deeper into vampire history
.

For now, it would have to wait for some time
when I wasn’t freaked that I was going to turn into a psychotic monster.

My shoulders slacked with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I just… lost it, I guess.”

They stared at me, their bodies still tense, as if waiting for me to snap.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to pull a Mr. Hyde again, I swear.”

Rook seemed to relax a little, but Deyzre lingered behind him, shooting me a glare that said she clearly felt the opposite. “Bloodlust is natural for a vampire,” Rook said, giving me a small, sad smile. “It can feel overwhelming, especially in the heat of battle, but it gets easier to control with time.”

“With time,” I muttered. “Yeah, I’ve got loads now that I’m a vampire.” Angel once told me that while vampires didn’t live forever, we lived a pretty damn long time.
It was
estimated we age
d
roughly on
e year for eve
ry three hundred
.

Rook studied me, as if weighing his next words. “I know it’s not the life you chose, that any of us chose for that matter.” He gestured to all of us. “But it’s not the end of the world, though it may seem that way sometimes.”

I looked back out at the mouth of the tunnel, at the growing sunlight. The rusting, dilapidated buildings looked even lonelier
during the day
. Golden light glinted off
the
busted windshield of a nearby car, the driver’s door wide open and partially rusted off. I imagined the driver fleeing in the night as monsters stormed the street behind him.

I closed my eyes, blinking away the image. “Sure looks like the end of the world to me,” I muttered.

Rook’s jaw clenched
, but he didn’t respond. Instead, a determined look came over him as he peered back the other way, at the seemingly never-ending
expanse of dark tunnels that le
d who-knew-where. “Pittsburgh can’t be far, and these probably run beneath the city’s streets. Besides, we’ll be safer here.”

“Not like we have a choice,” Dezyre muttered darkly, scowling at the sunlight.

I didn’t share her sentiment. While it still felt uncomfortable being near sunlight, a large part of me mourned not ever being able to go back out in it again. There were so many things I loved to do in the sun: walking, running, swimming.
Knowing I’d never again be able to enjoy the small, guilty pleasure of tanning was a hard pill to swallow.

“It could take a while to navigate the tunnels,” Rook said. “We should get going, in case we get lost.”

“Wait,” Dezyre said as he started to walk away. “We don’t know where these tunnels lead.” Fear danced
in
her eyes. “What if there are more Rogues down there?”

Rook gave
her a grim smile. “As you said, i
t’s not like
we have a choice – u
nless you’re proposing we hang out here until nightfall and then try
to sneak through the Red Sector. That is, of course, if
we don’t get ambushed by another pack of Rogues.”

Dezyre pursed her lips, smacking them when her mind was made up. “Fine. And I wasn’t saying we walk through the Red Sector,” she sneered, glaring at him and crossing her arms. “I was merely suggesting we consider all our options.”

“Well, let’s see,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “We could
A
) fry in the sun
; or B
) walk through the tunnels and not fry. You know, the more I think about it, I’m kind of digging option
A
.”

Dezyre cocked her head to the side. “Maybe you’d be doing us all a favor if you went and fried yourself. That
’d
be one less Rogue I’d have to worry about. Whoops!” She daintily covered her mouth. “
That’s right, you’re not a Rogue.
Yet
.”

That last word echoed around in my mind, fueling my growing doubt. What if she was right? What if I did eventually become a Rogue? They were, after all, vampires who had lost their minds and reasoning to insatiable bloodlust. And judging from how I had
behaved
earlier…

I shook my head
and stalked past Rook. “Whatever. Bitch,” I added under my breath.

“I heard that,” Dezyre sang, coming up behind Rook as he followed me into the tunnel.

It wasn’t wide enough for us to walk side by side, so we filed in one after the other.
Dezyre’s kitten heels
clattered along; they
were surprisingly modest for what I would have pictu
red her wearing
. When I couldn’t take any more, I whirled on her. “
Will
you please take those things off before you alert every Rogue within six miles of where we are?”

Her eyes blazed
, and I thought she might argue. B
ut with a scowl, she reluctantly pulled off her shoes and continued on barefoot.

The tunnels twisted and turned, coming several times to intersections that branched off in five or six different directions.
We didn’t really say anything to each other, too wired on listening for snarls or any other sign that a Rogue was near
. The tunnels were eerily quiet
and very dark. There’s this classic misconception that vampires prefer doom and gloom
,
and tight, dark spaces with the whole coffin fetish, but I
could
safely say I still preferred sunlight to an endless tunnel any day of the week. Though we didn’t speak, I fully expected Dezyre to start griping about ruining her pedicure from having to walk barefoot, but to my surprise she didn’t say anything. Her eyes were glancing around nervously,
her mind
seeming to be on things much worse than ruining her cute toenail polish.

There wasn’t any water or much of anything else
down
here besides the smell of
decaying
pipes and
dirt. For the most part, w
e guesstimated which way to go. W
hat felt like several long hours had passed before I said, “Are we lost?”

Rook q
uickly tried to compose his face
but failed to mask the fear in his eyes. “We’ve made great progress
,” he said, sounding confident despite the nervous flickering of his gaze. “
We just need to keep going.”

“Keep going?” Dezyre had one hand on the wall, using it to
maintain
her balance while she massaged one of her feet. “We don’t even know where we are, much less –”

“Wait,” I said suddenly, holding up a hand to cut her off.

She growled. W
hen the sound
of her annoyance
died away, I could make o
ut the muffled sound of a vehicle
rolling on the street above. “Do you hear that?”

“Yes,” Rook murmured
, walking farther down the tunnel
. “
It sounds like we’re close to the city now.
”

And that much closer to finding Orion and saving Aden.

Rook turned to look at me, a question in his eyes. “I didn’t even hear that. How did you…?”

I didn’t wait to consult them; my mind was too wrapped around the concept of saving Aden as quickly as possible.
Following the direction of the sound, I took off at a dead run.
I bounded through the tunnels, my sneakers squeaking against the metal, with Dezyre and Rook following close behind. Though my eyes had long adjusted to the dark, I almost sprinted into a long length of
chain-
link
metal fencing blocking
the
exit.
Even worse, it was made out of Scarlet Steel.

I swore, drawing up short.
I took a deep breath, grateful I hadn’t slammed face-first into that. Though I knew I would heal, I definitely didn’t relish t
he thought of having fence burn marks
on my face.

The others slowed behind me. Dezyre was panting, but Rook looked like he hadn’
t even broken a sweat. I guess
rules of endurance worked the same
way
for vampires as they did for humans. The more in shape you were, the less winded you would be after a jog. Dezyre was a medical student and Rook was a soldier, so of course he would probably be in better shape than her.

“What is it?” Dezyre said, examining the area in front of us.

“It looks like a fence,” I said flatly.

“No, I mean what’s it doing here?” she said sharply.

“It appears to be meant to keep intruders from entering this part of the tunnel,
” Rook said, walking forward
.
He grimaced. “And by ‘intruders,’ I mean apparently of the fanged kind. Ain’t nothing with a drop of vampire blood getting through that.”

I rolled this over in my mind
and my eyes widened. “Do you think it leads to the Pittsburgh White Sector?”

“Probably.” Rook straightened. “But getting through will be another issue. It’
s too bad vampires aren’t super-
strong like all the movies and literature paint us out to be.”

“
Plus, there’s the fact
it’s made out of Scarlet Steel,” I said, shuddering.

Dezyre rolled her eyes. “Honestly, am I the only one with a brain here?” She reached into her lab coat, muttering something about
us
being “stupid and unprepared,” and pulled out a pair of pliers and some gloves.

I raised a brow. “We
’re going on a man
hunt, and you decided to bring pliers?”

“Why not?” She
gave
me a frosty, pointed look. “Obviously, I was thinking outside the box here.”

“No, this is good,” Rook said, interrupting my
snarky
comeback. He took the pliers from Dezyre. They were almost too little for his fat fingers, not because he had a lot of extra weight, but because he was a big guy in general. He held his hand out for the gloves. “Are those spandex?”

“I’m a doctor,” she replied, as if this should be obvious. “What else would they be? Gardening gloves?”

He didn’t say anything as she handed them to him. Pulling them on with two quick snaps, h
e delicately pinched the pliers. “No offense,” he said, examining them, “but I don’t know how much good these will do against steel.”

Dezyre gave him a smug smile. “They’re reinforced steel.”

“And where did you get these?” I said, ey
e
ing the pliers doubtfully.

She shrugged and looked away. “I kind of raid the army supplies every now and then, to see if I can find anything useful.”

“You
what
?”

Dezyre didn’t acknowledge
that
I’d said anything. She remained facing the opposite direction, arms crossed, tapping her foot.

Rook, oblivious to what she’d said,
turned to face the fence. After studying it for a few moments, he carefully began snapping away at the links. I swore the metal hissed as he cut it
, working his way from the side
to the top and then back around again in a big circle.
He grunted as he worked.
Dezyre and I stood around, her examining her nail polish with a gr
owing look of disapproval while I paced
. I couldn’t seem to decide what to do with my hands. One minute, they were at my sides, and the next, they were either in my hair or
on my hips. I guess
that was b
etter than
wrapping them
around Dezyre’s neck
.

All the while
,
I couldn’t help but think of Aden, and of all the precious seconds slipping by while we waited for Rook to hack through the
fence
.

I finally stopped, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes.
Please, please be okay
, Aden
.

After what felt like a small eternity, Rook said, “There.
These suckers are pretty cool. They’re a lot tougher than I thought they would be.
”
He raised the pliers in the air.