Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (34 page)

What if I wasn’t strong enough to defeat it? What if the darkness inside me consumed me whole?

When Rook woke me up thirty minutes later, I cracked the back of my head on the washing machine from jerking awake so fast. Rubbing it, I glared at him. “What?” I snapped, my voice edgy bec
ause I still felt so exhausted.

Rook never flinched
and his kind, worried expression never changed. “I would have let you sleep longer, but I thought you’d want to know it’s time.”

I sat straight up, my heart suddenly kicking into high throttle. If he
woke me up
, it must be nightfall. “What time is it?” I asked, rising.

He backed up so I could stand. “A little after 9 p
.
m.”

“Shouldn’t we wait a little later, when people could be asleep?”

“They should already be asleep, or at least, out of the way,” said a voice that made my breath catch.

I whirled, finding Leo leaned up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. A bandage
was
wrapped around his forearm. My eyes froze on it, and I swallowed hard,
forcing myself to find
my voice. “Oh?” I said, the word sounding tiny.

His face was perfectly stoic, as if nothing had ever happened between us. “While we were out running reconnaissance, Arika and I discovered the Scarlet Guard had raised curfew. It’s
at
8
p
.
m
.
now.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked, momentarily forgetting about my soap opera drama.

He shrugged, seeming indifferent. “I
don’t know. It’s probably in direct retaliation against the increasing number of riots. Arika and I saw another one on our way back, out by an apartment building someone had set on fire
.”

The thought of what could have happened at that riot chilled me more than any demon could. What if people had been inside the building? What hope did humanity have if they were willing to turn on each other?

“If you’re done talking, we should probably get moving
,” Dezyre said, walking up behind Leo. She had tied her hair up in a messy bun, but it still managed to make her look like the artistic, eccentric type and not frumpy.

“Right,” I said, releasing a nervous breath. “Let’s go.”

It only dawned on me when I walked out the door that I hadn’t dreamt of Aden.

***

Worry over Aden – or rather, his absence – nearly gnawed my insides out as we slinked through the shadows, consuming my thoughts and distracting me. Forcing him to the back of my mind, I made myself focus on the task at hand.

Leo knew of a small weapons store nearby. We didn’t have to break into it because it looked like someone already had. The front windows were busted up and the door was wide open. Most of the stock was already pilfered, but I did manage to find a small
knife and – to my glee – a grenade.

“Is this shit even legal?” Rook said, eyeing it warily.

“We’re in the middle of the apocalypse, and you’re worried about us carrying contraband?” I asked. “Get your priorities straight.”

After grabbing a few more knives and two handguns, we were out in less than five minutes.
I had
also managed to swipe a small leather watch while I was in there. It was lying on the floor with a broken band, but we found some duct tape and managed to rig it back together.

At Dezyre’s insistence, Leo begrudgingly towed us to a
hand-me-down clothing
store, or the remnants of one. Though I didn’t say anything aloud, I was actually thankful Dezyre’s vanity had led us here. The baggy pants
Leo’s dad had given me
were starting to
wear
thin on my nerves, and the thin
cotton shirt didn’t do much for the cold.

The
thrift
store was also in disarray, but I managed to find something
that
looked like it would fit
after riffling through
the haphazard piles strewn about the p
lace. I had never been so happy
to see a hoodie
and sweatpants in all my life. Dezyre, to my surprise, pulled on a simp
le black sweater and some black
stretchy pants.

“What, no ball gown?” I asked, only halfway joking.

“Please,” she said, tuck
ing the knives in the boots she’d
found
in the shoe section
. “I’m girly
but not stupid.”

I smirked. T
hough she didn’t return my smile, her eyes had an unmistakable sparkle to them.

Rook and Leo als
o found black clothing to wear. Everybody dressed in record time and
we left, sneaking like shadows through the night.

According to Leo, the lab was actually nestled in Schenley Park, a few blocks away. Ev
ery nervous step made me cringe
. Now that I knew the Scarlet Guard were actually vampires, my stomach was rolling itself into knots at the prospect of coming up on one of them in an alley.

The farther we went
I noticed more and more
black crosses. They were spray-
painted against the side
s
of buildings, on stop signs, everywhere, just like a gang marking
its
territory.

Great. As if
the
Scarlet Guard didn’t give us enough to worry about.

The park was just as I remembered it during the
wintertime. The trees were bare
, their branches like talons clawing at the red-tinged sky.

After the Eclipse, the park had been closed down. It was rumored to be in use by the military for their secret projects, but I’d always thought that was just an urban myth thought up by people
in an attempt
to keep things interesting.

Now
I knew better.

Sneaking through the park, our breaths fogging the air, brought back so many memories of my childhood, when my dad would bring my brother and me here
to make snow angels without having to worry about a drive-by shooting
.
We hadn’t lived in the nicest part of town, and it hadn’t always been safe to play in the front yard.

Blinking away the sting of tears, I crouched behind Leo as he ducked down behind a bush a few feet away from the visitor’s center.

The building was still well-maintained, its red brick structure exactly as I remembered. Even the bushes looked like they had been freshly pruned. I almost laughed. It was kind of funny
that
someone’s day job was to trim the bushes on a secret government facility.

“How do we get in?” I whispered, trying to keep my voice down. My throat was dry from our sprint over here, and we were all trying to control our breathing.

Sha
dows moved around the building, and
flashes of red hoods
caught the security lights –
Scarlet Guard.

“
This place is crawling with guards
,” I whispered. “There’s no way we can get past them.”

“Not even with glamour?” Leo asked.

I shook my head. “I can’t do this many, remember? Even with Dezyre and Rook helping, there’s the chance their willpower could be stronger.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he breathed, sounding agitated. He chewed on his lip. “I think I might know another way in.”

Silently following Leo’s lead, we melted back into the shadows and sneaked around the tree line. I
was
so preoccupied with making sure we weren’t being tailed that I nearly slammed into Leo when he suddenly stopped, seemingly at random.

“What is it?” Rook asked.

Leo knelt, running his hand over the ground. Even the grass seemed greener here.
Just when I thought he had completely lost it, he grabbed a handful of grass and
pulled. To my utter puzzlement
,
a small square lifted, flashing with blinking red lights.

We all knelt next to him, watchin
g in wonder as he produced an ID
badge and held it in front of the panel. A
tiny
white light shone from the top of the badge to the bottom, reading it. The red lights changed
to green, and some
thing clicked within the ground
before a door opened up, right in the
earth
, with a soft whoosh of air.

“How did you know about this?” I asked, catching a glimpse of the face on the badge. It was his father.

Leo’s gaze was guarded; I could tell he was avoiding my eyes from the way he ducked his head
. “I went back to my dad’s shelter
and found all these floor plans detailing entrances and exits for emergencies.”

My mouth dropped open. “You did
what
? Leo, why would you –”

“Chastise me
for
my stupidity later, okay?
” he said, pleading. “Right now
we need to move.”

Something rustled behind us, so soft it was nearly imperceptible. Rook, Dezyre, and I all turned at the same time, whipping out knives and cocking guns. For a moment, none of us moved, our eyes searching the shadows.

At last, a raccoon burst from the bushes, scampering away and totally clueless it was about to be mincemeat.

With a long sigh,
we all relaxed.

A knife flew out of the dark woods
toward us
. Rook managed to turn his head at the last second, and the blade cut a long gash on his temple before burying itself in the ground a few feet away.

The glint of a red hood caught the light as a shape moved
for
us.

“Damn!” I hissed. I looked at Leo. “Go ahead! We’ll handle him.”

“What? I’m not leaving you here.”

“You’re no match for them,” I said. “Just go.”

Hesitating, he finally tucked the gun he’d just pulled out of his belt back inside its holster and descended the ladder into the entrance.

I rounded on the others. “Dezyre, go with Leo. Rook and I –”

She didn’t look like she was paying attention to what I was saying. As the guard stepped from the trees, lifting his
walkie-talkie
, Dezyre flipped her knife so she was gripping the blade and hurled it at the guard.
It flipped through the air, whirring before knocking the
radio
out of his hand. It fell to the ground in a shower of sparks, and Rook took the opportunity to fire the silencer-rigged gun. The bullet ripped through the guard’s hood as he turned back around, a growl rising from his throat, which abruptly cut off as the bullet planted itself in his head. The guard fell backward, dead.

“Will he get back up?” I asked.

“Scarlet Steel or not,” Rook said, lowering the smoking gun, “a bullet to the brain is deadly for vampires, just as it is
for
humans.”

I glanced at the destroyed walkie
-talkie
. “Nice move,” I said, looking at Dezyre. I genuinely meant it. “How’d you learn to throw?”

“Doctors have to go through basic combat training,” she said, as if I should know this already.

“R
ight,” I said, lifting my brows
and eyeing the guard. “They’ll find the body eventually. We should get in and get out.”

Rook and I dragged the body a short distance into the woods, hiding it as best we could under some bushes with the remnants of the walkie
-talkie
. Dezyre had already climbed down the ladder; she stood at the bottom
,
waiting for us with Leo. Leo motioned for us, letting us know it was clear, and Rook and I climbed down. Rook shut the entrance behind us, and we hopped off the metal ladder, looking around.

The hallway was slim and dimly lit. “What’s it with secret labs having poor lighting?” I said as we began quietly walking. “Is there some law that says you shouldn’t be able to see where you’re going?”

“I think it’s just because this is a rarely used entrance,” Leo said,
keeping his
gun in front of him, ready to fire. He was in the l
ead. “We came in through a back
door, so to speak.”

“Oh.”

The hallway had no other doors. A red
exit
sign hung above a metal door at the end of the hall. We lined up on either side of it, pressing our bodies to the wall and listening for a few seconds.

Silence.

Opening the door as gently as he could, Leo peered out into the hall, glancing in either direction.

I glanced at the watch. We had been in here for two minutes. I had allotted us fifteen to find what we needed and get out, figuring that’s as much time as we could get before running into trouble.