Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (16 page)

His eyes turned cunning. “All right,” he said, straightening. “I can’t say I’m surprised. You always
were reckless and smart-mouthed, much like Rinaldi here until he reformed himself.”

Leo
gave McGuiness
a
proud,
frigid
smile
.

My heart twisted.
What has he done to you, Leo?

McGuiness
flipped the knife closed
and stowed it in his pants pocket, then leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Well, if you’re unwilling to talk to me, then perhaps what you need is a little girl time.
Takihara
, care to do the honors?”

“Gladly,” said the girl, flipping her sai about her thumb so the point was facing out. She moved over to me with all the easy grace of a trained predator. She tapped her short, hot pink nails across the top of the cuff, making the steel rub up against my already raw wrist. “Tell me,” she said softly and looking me dead in the eyes, “how is it you came to be bitten?”

That was easy. “I went into the Red Sector to look for my brother, and I was attacked by a Rogue.”

“And did you find him?”

“… N
o.”

“You’re lying.” She reached around to her hip and drew a second sai, crossing them against my throat. Instantly, I felt the bite of the steel against my windpipe. I tilted my head back as far as I could, knowing that in seconds the steel would eat away my skin and start to work its way through my esophagus. “We both know you’re hiding something. So, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

“Sure,” I said through gritted teeth, rolling my eyes down to look at her.
“One: Your outfit is ridiculous. You’re in the Black Cross Guild, not going cosplaying. Two: Go to hell.”

The girl stared at me for a second before her face morphed into a glare. She
lowered
her sai
and I gasped for a breath, which hurt like hell considering it felt like my throat was on fire. The girl brought one sai back, the point aimed for my heart, when Leo rushed forward.

“Out of my way, Arika,” he snarled, shoving her to the side.
“I can pry it out of her.”
He drove his elbow into the hollow of my throat, pinning me against the back of the chair.
For a minute, I thought he might be about to
roughhouse
me.
Then
he leaned forward and whispered, “Just play along.”

My breath caught, those three little words filling me wit
h hope. Maybe he was on my side
after all.

“Enough.
” McGuiness walked forward.
Leo loo
ked at his leader
and promptly backed away, bowing his head.
“
If she won’t tell us what we need to know,
” McGuiness said,
“
then she’s as good as dead to us. After all, the only go
od vampires are dead vampires.”
With a smirk on his face, he pulled a very large, serrated Scarlet Dagger from his belt.

I confess – my eyes bulged at seeing it. It looked like something you’d
use to hack through the jungle
or slaughter animals with. The teeth of the dagger gleamed in the light, looking that much more menacing.

A
sly look came over his face. “Exc
ept I’m not the one who should take care of you, McAllister. I haven’t earned that right.”

I frowned, puzzled. My confusion morphed in
to horror when he turned and offered he dagger, hilt first, to Leo.

“Care to do the honors?” McGuiness
asked
.

A sinister smile spread over Leo’s lips as he took the dagger. “Gladly.”

My heart started pounding harder as he moved toward me, slowly, a predato
r sizing up its prey. I tensed
as I tried to follow Leo with my gaze as he walked around the back of the chair, at last coming to stand beside me.

McGuiness leaned against the wall, his arms behind his head and a large smile on his face. “Ain’t nothing like watching a vampire explode into a pile of goo. This is going to be better than the Fourth of July.”

My imagination conjure
d
up that image
and I gulped. The air seemed too thin; it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. A shadow fell over me as Leo came around the front
of the chair
and leaned in, placing the dagger to my throat. I felt its teeth dig into my tender flesh, searing it away. The smell of burning skin permeated the air, making me want to gag, and I clenched my jaws in an effort to keep my vomit down.

Leo’s eyes stared into mine
intensely.

I didn’t dare blink, for fear I had only imagined what he’d said to me earlier.

Holding my breath, I waited, praying, hoping,
and
wishing
I wasn’t wrong about him
.

Leo’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, his throat looking as tight as my own as his breathing picked up. I could hear his heart pounding as he angled the blade, preparing to slice through my windpipe, possibly even take my head clean off.

I held his gaze, begging him with my eyes.
No matter what, don’t you dare close your eyes.

“What the –”

I heard a thump right before McGuiness slumped to the ground, unconscious. A nasty welt was rising at his temple from where Arika had hit him. She tucked her sai back into her belt.

Leo let out a long breath. “Took you long enough.”

Arika knelt and took McGuiness’
s
keys from his belt. “Did you see a better opportunity sooner?” she said coolly, twirling them around her finger.

He tucked the dagger in his belt. “Well, I don’t know, when we first walked in
to
the room would have been a good time.”

She looked at me, a slight smile on her petite pink lips. “No, I th
ink it was better to wait a bit, let McGuiness think he had the upper hand.
”

She enjoyed watching me suffer.

I stared back at her warily, still not sure if she was a friend or foe.

Arika walked to the door and peered out into the hall. “We need to get going, before the others realize something’s up.”

“I’ll meet you o
ut back in a minute,” Leo said.
“Go get the others out.”

With a scowl on her face, Arika reluctantly jogged out of the room toward the jail cells.

Leo produced a slender key from his pocket and began unlocking my cuffs. Part of me still couldn’t believe this was happening, like it was too good to be true. I flexed my wrists, wincing as my skin sealed up with little tufts of smoke. Though the main injuries were gone, my skin was left pink and very sore.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“Me saving your ass.
Again.” My feet were freed with the click of two bolts
,
and I stretched my legs out in front of me.
He was referring to the time he helped
me
escape
from
my
mother’s mansion.

He stood, offering me his hand.
“Come on. We don’t have much time.”

We bolted down the hallway toward the
holding
cells. My legs were wobbl
y from the after
effects of the steel, and I had t
o use the wall to help maintain my balance
.

Apparently, McGuiness hadn’t trusted Drake to guard Rook and Dezyre all by his lonesome. Three other guards were with him – on the floor, out cold.

Arika was just getting Rook’s cell unlocked when we got there.

“Hurry!” Leo shouted.

She grumbled something, then tossed him the keys
. While he unlocked Dezyre’s cell, she undid Rook’s S
carlet Steel binds.

Rook winced
and sho
t her a grateful smile. “Thanks.
”

She scowled at him, not saying anything.

Rooks brows rose. “I think.”
He looked at Leo warily.

“It’s okay,” I said.
“
They’re going to help us.”
I hope
.
I silently
prayed it wasn’t some part of an elaborate ploy to get
us
all alone so they could kill
us
.

Leo
freed Dezyre. “Let’s move,” he said, helping her stand. She grimaced, which I thought was supposed to be a smile, as we gathered in the hall and started to leave.

“Hey!”

Arika and I, who were in the rear, whirled around.

Three hunters stood there, their eyes wide with disbelief. “What are you doing?” one of them yelled, coming forward.

Arika drew
her sai
and
sprinted forward, knocking one guy in the back of the head before he realized what had happened
.
As he fell to the floor on top
of
his comrades, she
spun
on her heel, hooking one of the prongs around another hunter’s gun and yanking it from his grasp.
S
he flipped the sai back around, to where the point was resting along the inside of her forearm, and punched him in the
face with the po
mmel. As he gripped his bloody nose, she spun and kicked the approaching girl hard in the stomach, sending her flying into the wall. Her head hit with a crack, and her eyes rolled back as she slumped to the floor, knocked out. Bloody Nose was starting to recover, so
Arika
tucked her s
ai
away and reached out, pressing her thumb and index fingers to two points along the curve of his shoulder. In a split second, his legs went limp, and he too slumped forward, unconscious.

The rest of us stood there, brows raised.

“Damn, girl,
”
Rook said.

“Not
‘girl.’ Arika. Arika
Takihara
,” she said, sauntering back toward us.

Leo was all grins, looking like a proud papa bear.
“She’s my newest protégé.
She’s something, huh?
”

I felt a twinge of jealousy at the pride in his voice.
Leo had also been my martial arts teacher.

Arika
caught
my eye, giving
me
a smug smile.

I glared at her
,
and then Leo said, “There’ll be more where they came from
.
Let’s go.”

We followed him out through a door at the other end of the hall. The moment we turned the corner and starting climbing a set of concrete stairs, I heard voices coming from behind us.

“They know you’re gone,” Leo said to us over his shoulder.
“
It won’t be long before they sound the alarm.”

Right on cue, the lights dim
med
and
turned red
, accompanied
by a screeching alarm.

A metal door stood a few steps away.
Leo
leapt for it, cracking it open before
it could bolt shut. “Hurry!”

He held the door open, and we poured into the alley. When we were all out, Leo joined us and the door slammed closed. The metal vibrated as the bolts slid home, locking it from the outside. Voices shouted behind the door, followed by heavy banging as the hunters wailed on the door.

Dezyre eyed the door nervously. “Can they get through?”

Leo shook his head.
“No. Someone has to override the security code for them to be able to unlock it. It won’t take long, so we need to be gone before that happens.”

He took off toward the end of the alley, and we sprinted after him. The buildings standing out on the adjoining road were lit up by a weird orange glow, like firelight. As we neared the street, a cacophony of shouts drifted down the alley.

I glanced at the others, their faces
mirroring
the fear and confusion I felt.

As we turned the corner, spilling out onto the street, my eyes widened.

We
had stumbled into a
full-blown
riot.

CHAPTER
9

I swear if I saw another painted sign or crazed
proteste
r, it would be too soon.

The mob was packed so tight that we could barely maneuver our way through them. They stood clustered in front of the jail, somehow making
the
dilapidated brown brick building look that much more run-d
own. It was still well over in
the night. The sky was stained red with Scarlet Steel particles, giving everything a dull pink glow. The smell still burned my nose and throat, though it didn’t seem so bad now after having felt Scarlet Steel melt off my skin.