Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (38 page)

It was our first kiss.

Something softened inside me, warming my soul.

Dezyre gently touched my shoulder. “That should do,” she said softly.

I let up, wiping my mouth with the sleeve of my hoodie and pulling my hand back
from his mouth
. For a few terrifying seconds, nobody blinked or moved as I stared at him, waiting, praying, hoping for the impossible.

“Please,” I whispered, shaking. “Please, please, let this work.”

Dezyre hesitantly reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing.

I clutched hers back, surprised by the gesture but thankful because I desperately needed something or someone to hold on
to.

For the longest time
Leo never moved. My heart sank deeper and deeper as despair tightened its grip on me.

He was
gone.
I waited too long, and now he was
never coming –

Leo’s breath hitched as he took a lungful of air.

I nearly pounced on him, my heart beating frantically with hope.

Peering into his face, I gently turned his head toward me. “Leo?” I said, my voice hoarse. “It’s me, Sloane. Can you hear me?”

Slowly, he opened his eyes and gazed up at me.

That’s when I noticed it, the hint of red dying his irises, along with the telekinetic signature.

For better or for worse,
Leo was one of us
now
.

CHAPTER 22

Arika was still unconscious when w
e found shelter. Figuring the park would soon be crawling with every Scarlet Guard in the sector, we opted to move as far away as we c
ould manage. A few blocks north,
we found what used to be a grocery store.

No alarms sounded as we busted
one of the windows
and let ourselves inside.

There were no lights on, and the air stank
of
stale and rotting food. Being a vampire, it was almost ten times worse.

Leo, whose arm was draped around my shoulder for support, covered his nose with a groan. “God, what is that?”

“Smells like an appetizing mixture of rat droppings, maggots, and mold,” I replied.

“Ew,” Dezyre said, glancing back at me. “Could you be any grosser?”

Rook just chuckled. Arika was draped over his arms; he had carried her the whole way. It was probably b
etter she was still knocked out
because I was pretty sure she’d rather be left for dead than be carted around by a vampire.

“Ugh, this reeks,” Dezyre said. “Should we try to find someplace a little less, I don’t know, stomach-churning?”

“No,” Rook said promptly. “This place is perfect. It will mask our scents to the Guard.”

Reluctantly
she agreed.

We found some relatively clear floor space in the very back of the store.
Gingerly, I lowered Leo to the ground, helping him sit before taking a seat beside him. The blood had dried into the fabric of my clothes, making them a little stiff.
What I wouldn’t give for a shower.
I looked around, wondering if maybe there was still some bottled water I could use to rinse off in.
But there was more to it than being uncomfortable. The blood served as a reminder of what I had done, of what I’d become.

I shivered, pushing the thought to the back of my mind.

It was becoming easier to see.
It was times like this I was se
mi-grateful for being a vampire
because my eyes could easily adjust to the dark. It didn’t matter so much that we didn’t have any flashlights or weren’t able to turn on any lights for fear of attracting attention.

Rook laid Arika down a few feet away.
Dezyre checked
her
over one more time to make sure she was stable and then turned her attention to Leo. She’d fed him some of her blood back at the clearing, and because of it, the gash on his chest wasn’t so “gashy” anymore. Now it was just an ugly, long lump of marre
d skin. It still must have hurt
because Leo winced and grunted a lot on our way over, but it sure looked a lot better than it did.

“This is incredible,” he said, blinking
and looking around. “It’s super-
dark, but I can read the label on that can of soup over there.”

My shoulders somewhat relaxed. I was so afraid he was going to berate me for doing this to him, but he seemed to be taking his rebirth well.

I was
n’t sure if that was a good or
bad thing.

After Dezyre looked over Leo’s scar, Rook awkwardly cleared his throat. “Er, you, uh, had something you wanted to tell me?” he said, blushing slightly.

It dawned on me he probably thought Dezyre was going to confess her undying feelings.
Boy, is he in for a loop.

Dezyre paled and swallowed hard. “Um, yeah. Let’s, uh, go over, er, there.”

She glanced back at me as they walked away, and I gave her a small, reassuring smile. It was weird. Bef
ore yesterday at the
Laundromat
, I always thought of Dezyre as
a rival, as a pain in the ass prima donna
. But now, it was almost as if we had this secret bond going, s
ome mutual, unspoken truce. “Fr
enemies” would be the closest word for our bizarre relationship, I supposed.

It was really quiet, and I suddenly became acutely aware of Leo staring at me.

I bit my lip and looked away, not sure what to say. “Sorry I turned you into a
blood
sucking demon
” didn’t quite seem to cut it.

“Can you feel it?”

My attention snapped back around. “Feel what?”

“This… bond,” he said, pointing betwee
n the two of us. “It’s like I’m
part of you now.” He smiled softly. “And you’re a part of me.”

I blushed, tucking a strand of loose hair behind my ear. I
had
noticed it. It was similar to the bond I shared with Aden, only deeper. It was like I was always aware of where Leo was and what he was doing, if he was hurt
, sad, etc
. Flakes of his emotions ran through me, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of our new relationship, or if it was because one of us was unknowingly projecting their glamour onto the other.

When the elephant in the room got too big, I finally sighed. “I didn’t know what else to do,” I whispered. “All I know is that I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

Leo reached out and grasped my hand, the look in his eyes earnest and true. “I’m glad you did.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds, something special and only known to us passing between us. Adoration, deep affection, trust –

Love?

Something groaned behind me.

I blinked, startled by Arika’s voice. She was sitting up and rubbing her head, which had a nice purple knot on it. She squinted, staring at
Leo
. “What happened?”

“You took a pretty nasty fall and hit your head on a rock,” I said. I decided to leave
out
the part about Rook carrying her here.

She looked around, surveying her surroundi
ngs. Her eyes must have focused
because they landed on Leo and stayed there. “Leo,” she breathed, her eyes widening. Her gaze dropped to his chest.
“Oh
,
my G
od, what happened?”

She immediately stumbled to her feet and staggered over to him, falling to her knees on the tiled flooring. Her jaw dropped as she eyed the long scar.

“It’s all right,” Leo said quickly, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I’m fine.
I was attacked
and Sloane saved me.”

“Leo,” Arika said, hesitating. “It looks like your chest was cut wide open. How can anyone come back from this? And how did you heal so fast?”

Leo glanced at me, a question in his eyes.

That wasn’t all I saw there. A
ray
of the
security light
from outside caught the reflector
s
in his irises, making them flash red for a second.

I held my breath, waiting to see if Arika noticed.

The color drained from my face. Arika had gone perfectly still. She was staring a
t his eyes, fear building in her widening pupils
. Tentatively, she reached up and pulled his gaze back to hers. I cringed as his eyes flashed red again.

With a sharp gasp, she scrambled to her feet and backed away, her back slamming into a disp
lay with a loud rattle. “Oh
,
my G
od,” she breathed. “You’re one of them.”

Leo slowly rose to his feet, holding out his hands. “Arika, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” she screamed. “
How could you do this? How could you become a parasite?”

He winced
and she shook her head. “I know you,” she said. “Like a part of my soul. You would never do something like this, not willingly…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes locked
onto me, at first
thoughtfully
and
then
with
boiling rage. “You!”

Luckily
I was a vampire
,
or else I probably would have b
een toast. Whipping out her sai
,
Arika
lunged for me, trying to pin me to the floor, but I was faster. I sprang to my feet as the tips of her s
ai
dug into the floor where I
had just been sitting.

“Arika, stop!” Leo shouted, but she continued to stalk toward me. The look on her face was murderous. Despite her petite features,
she
was actually kind of scary.

“How could you do this to him?” she seethed. “You’re his oldest friend, and you betrayed him!”

“I didn’t have any other choice!” I yelled, backing away. “He was dying, Arika! What did you expect me to do? Let him
go
?”

She pressed her lips together but not before I noticed how her bottom lip had trembled at me saying, “He was dying.” “If it would mean he didn’t have to become a monster, then yes, I’d say you should have let him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I mean every word
!” she screamed, her words echoing throughout the store. “I hate them, hate all vampires! You don’t know what it’s like to watch them rip apart your family while you hide in the closet like a coward!”

I drew up short, stunned.

So that’s why she hates vampires so much.

I shouldn’t have paused for so long. Arika brought up her sai, preparing to run me through, but Leo stepped in the way and grabbed hold of it, halting its progress. Steam wafted up from his hand, and he grunted but held her at bay.

Arika blinked in surprise, her eyes locked onto his steaming hand. “What are you doing?”

“It’s fine, Arika,” he said, his voice tight with trying to hold in his pain. “She did what she could to save me. Let it go.”

Arika deliberated, her eyes flashing from him to me. At last, she let go of her sai with a huff, and Leo dropped it.

“Shit!” he spat, clutching at his bright red hand. “That hurt like a
mother
!”

Arika didn’t bother to retrieve it or apologize. She stalked off toward one of the aisles, disappearing around a corner.

I looked up, noticing two dark shapes nearby. Rook and Deyzre must have heard everything.

“If it would mean he didn’t have to become a monster…”

A rock-
hard wave of guilt slammed into me, and I turned
away
. “I’m sorry, Leo,” I blurted before darting past him.

“Sloane, wait!” he said, starting to reach for me.

“Let her go,” Dezyre said, walking up to him. “Give her some space. I’ll take a look at your hand.”

I tuned them out after that. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say, didn’t need another reminder of what I’d done. Had it been some huge mistake? Would Leo had been better off if he had died?

You turned him into a monster.

I blinked the thought away, suppressing it far in the deepest, darkest corner of my fears.
Finding the deli counter, I ducked down behind it and pulled up my knees, stacking my arms on them before resting my forehead there.

My body shook as I cried, letti
ng all my frustrations and pent-
up worries drain out of me. No one came looking for me, for which I was grateful. I had no desire whatsoever to speak with anyone.

Thanks, Dezyre.

After a few minutes, I felt completely drained of any emotion, leaving me feeling numb inside. It wasn’t so bad; I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to feel.