Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (3 page)

I instantly let go of her, nodding. How could I have been so stupid?

“Ow!” The girl rubbed her wrist, gawking at me. Her mouth dropped at least another inch when she spied Aden. “Captain Knight, too? Oh. My. God.” She turned to her cameraman. “Get this,” she hissed, then
wheeled about and jammed her microphone in Aden’s face. “Word has
it you’re the one who shot the e
mperor. Are you scared of going before the Coun
cil and possibly incurring the death p
enalty?”

I thought my blood would literally start boiling. Snatching the microphone away from her, I snarled,
“He’s not the one who shot him –
I did.”

She must have turned up the volume in the microphone, because my voice boomed over the shouts and cries of the enraged crowd. The air went silent in a heartbeat, and every pair of eyes turned to gape at me.

CHAPTER 2

I stood perfectly still, as if in doin
g
so
I would
disappear.
In the sudden
quiet
, m
y heartbeat sounded twice as loud in my ears.

Not even daring to breathe, I
glanced at Aden, who looked as nervous as I was.

“She shot Nero!” someone cried, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

“Run!” Aden grabbed me
and we bolted for the barrier
. I scurried after him as he parted the crowd like butter, still clutching the microphone and using it to bat away people’s hands as they tried to grab me.

One of the soldiers was fra
ntically yelling in his walkie-talkie. A
s we neared
,
I heard Rook, Aden’s second-in-command and one of my oldest friends, yell over the
radio
,
“Let them through!”

Two of the soldiers stepped aside
, creating an opening
just wid
e enough for us to dive through. Once we’d cleared, the soldiers slammed
together again as the frenzied crowd pushed against them. My face flushed as I heard every obscenity under
the sun directed at me, but all my guilt
died the instant I laid eyes on Aden’s now significantly paled face.

Two soldiers were already moving to help him, but I hurried past them, beating them
there
. “Here.” I
draped
his arm across my shoulder and lifted him up. “Can you walk?”

He was panting
hard. Sweat dribbled into his eyes
,
and he blinked several times to clear his vision. “Sloane, really, I’m all right.” He took a step and swayed.

“Like hell you are,” I mumbled, steadying him. “Come on.”

“This way, Sergeant McAllister,” one of the soldiers said, his voice sounding alien through the mask. He walked toward the doors, leading the way as the noise grew behind us. A few seconds later, I heard the grunt of the soldiers as the crowd pressed against the shields, fighting to get through. My face started to flame, then I glanced at Aden, at the pain in his eyes, and any shame I might have felt
at shooting my own brother
vanished, replaced by a dead, hollow feeling that threatened to eat out my heart.

The escort punched in a code and the metallic doors swung open. I recognized the place immediately. It was the same lobby I had almost broken out of a few mont
hs ago, when I first learned I had
been turned.
It looked pretty much like any other lobby, only not quite so nice, with fake potted
plants nestled between some old-
looking chairs and coffee tables. A clock hung on th
e wall behind the main desk, it
s hands
telling me it was nearly 1:30 a.m
.

My shoes squeaked on the freshly swept tiled floor
as we made our way to the front desk, where a mousy girl with blonde hair sat furiously working her way through a stack of papers.
She also
wore a white mask similar to Aden’s.
When she looked up, her face instantly paled.

I bit my lip, looking away and
feeling sheepish. Last time I met her, I had
held her hostage and threatened to rip her throat out with my teeth, which I
never
would have done, but I was desperate. I couldn’t blame her for being a little nervous.

“Page Dr. De Lange immediately,” the soldier said. The girl sat there, staring at me with fear in her eyes. The man cleared his throat and she blinked, nodding and pressing a button.

Her squeaky voice blared over the intercom system. “Dr. De Lange, please come to the front lobby.”

We stood there,
with
me tapping my foot. I hadn’t realized I was grinding my teeth together until my gums started to hurt. Every muscle in my body felt like it was wound as tight as it could be, like any sudden movements and I would literally snap in half. I busied myself with listening to Aden’s shallow breathing, noting the faint gurgling sound coming from his lungs. A wave of nausea rolled through me, but I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to acknowledge it and let my fear get the best of me.

“Sergeant McAllister.”

I turned, finding the escort extending a mask to me. “You should put this on.”

I
groaned
. “
As I told the last bunch, I don’t need it
.”

When the soldier opened his mouth to protest, Aden cut him off. “She’s immune, Dennison.”

Before he could
argue
, the
sharp
tap-tap
of
s
tilettos rapped toward us. A moment later, a
bolt clicked and
a tall woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties
burst through the double doors
from
behind the desk.

I always thought Paris belonged in one of those classy, black-and-white movies, with her long lashes, deep auburn hair, and flawless complexion. She looked like she had come straight from the New Year’s Eve bash that
had
taken place on the base earlier; a red silk dress clung to her tall frame, partially obscured by her white
lab
coat. All the medical staff wore them, along with a red cross sewn
onto
the right shoulder, followed by a caduceus. Four gold chevrons pointed down in a stream below the winged staff, marking her as a
top-level
doctor.

Paris’
s
sharp eyes fixed on us immediately, and though I couldn’t see her mouth because of the mask, I knew her
crimson
lips were set in a deep frown. Adjusting her ruby-rimmed glasses, she strode toward us. “I should have known you’d be involved in this mess,” she said in her thick French accent, pausing to glare at me.

On any other day, I wouldn’t have hesitated to sling sarcasm right back at her, but today I opted to ignore h
er barb. It seemed too trivial
, given the circumstances
. I leaned in, trying to keep my voice down. “Aden’s been infected.”

Her eyes widened
,
and she pressed the stethoscope draped
around her neck to Aden’s chest
. All the rosiness drained out of her cheeks as sh
e listened. After a few seconds
she straightened, her face all business.
Whipping out her pager, she
punched in a code,
and
less than thirty seconds later
a nurse appeared
,
pushing a wheelchair. She lo
oked young, maybe about my age
, with dimples and a ponytai
l that looked annoyingly perky.
“You paged, Dr. De Lange?” she
asked
brightly.

“Yes,” Paris repl
ied, jerking a finger at Aden. “Take him to a room immediately.”

The girl’s gaze landed on Aden
,
and a blush stained her cheeks as she eyed him up and down. “Is that Captain Knight?” she asked a little breathlessly.

A low growl rose in my throat, and I would have hissed at her had Paris not said, “You’re one of my interns. You’re here to learn about medicine, not to treat this profession as some kind of a dating service. Is that understood?”

“Y – yes, ma’am,” she stammered, blushing profusely. She kept her eyes glued to the ground as she wheeled the chair over and I helped Aden sit.

“I’ll take him,” I said, pushing my way behind the
chair and gripping the handles. The girl moved without protest, a little stunned by my audacity.

Below me, I heard Aden softly chuckle. “Easy, tiger. I promise you’ll have me all to yourself soon.”

I was about to
come back with an equally smartass remark
when
Paris snapped her fingers, clearly irritated
by the girl, who stood there gawking
. “Get moving!”

“Ye
–
yes, m
a’am!” The girl ducked her head and
punched in a code by the double doors
.
Once they opened, she
briskly
started walking down the hall.

The soldier who had le
d us inside followed a few steps behind,
mumbling something into his walkie
-talkie
. Nursing staff flitted about in blurs of white, shouting to each other while doctors tried to direct them. Several civilians and even some
soldiers I’d seen back at the e
mperor’s office were b
eing either carted around or le
d away, surrounded by a cluster of medical staff.
As before, nearly everyone had on masks.

“Are all these people infected?” I asked, scanning the sea of frantic faces. “I thought the virus was contained.”

“It was, so far as we know,” Paris said, walking
quickly
.
Her heels were starting to annoy me, but at the same time they were fascinating to watch.
There was something
mind-
blowing
about her abili
ty to not twist her ankle in six
-inch
stilettos
when practically jogging on laminated flooring. “These are all people who might have been exposed to it before we, er,
you
got to Nero.”

Paris and Aden had known about my brother’s plot for months, and had been planning on taking him down when his kidnapping me forced them to act.

We
zigzagged
down some white-walled hallways before the girl abruptly turned into an empty room and flipped the
light
switch. A
bulb
stuttered to life in the shoddy ceiling above, fr
om which several wires hung like vines. I carefully wheeled A
den over to the little twin bed
an
d helped him lie down. “Leave me, just like this
,” he said when I tried to cover him up with the thin sheet.

I placed the back of my hand to his forehead. “Aden, you’re cold as ice,” I said, glancing again at the sheet.

“I assure you, I’m burning up inside,” he rasped, the last few words lost to a cough.

My insides t
wisted as I watched him suffer.

Paris immediately sprang into action, placing monitors to his chest and head
,
and delicately inserting an IV after rubbing the back of his hand down with alcohol.

I had
to
turn
away for that; e
ven looking at needles made me go cold all over.

The girl stood by, wringing her hands in her coat and looking like she wanted to help. She kept glancing
at Paris, who was finishing up
.

“Go,” Paris said, not looking at her and waving her hand as if waving away an insect.

Shoulders slumping, the girl trudged off with a defeated sigh. I watched her leave, feeling a little sorry for her. Being Paris’
s
intern couldn’t be easy. I hadn’t spent that much time with the French physician, but what little I had was plenty for a lifetime.

“Excuse me, Captain,” the soldier said, walking up
to the bed. He had
been so quiet
that I’d
forgotten he was there. “I… need to go.
Lieutenant Rook summoned me.
”

My brows steepened at his nervous tone,
but neither Aden
nor Paris seemed to pay him any attention.

“Of course,” Aden replied sleepily
.
His lids were starting to drift shut.
“Do what you need to do.”

The soldier saluted him and promptly left the room.