Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (44 page)

“Too many to count.” He ushered me forward.

I
shoved Ivan toward the hole
.
“Don’t get any ideas,”
I said, my voice low. He cast
me a fearful glance, then started to climb.
The hum of engines in the distance was quickly growing closer.

“Move!” Rook shouted. “We don’t have much time!”

Dezyre went down next. Beside us, Leo and Arika were arguing.

I caught bits and pieces of it – and was surprised by what I heard.

Leo’s going with me?
After what he had said, I thought he was too angry to come along. Why the change of heart? I listened in to their conversation once more.

“I can’t risk your safety,” Leo said, gripping
Arika
by the shoulders. “You’ll be the only human. You should take the jeep and find shelter until things settle down
, then head back into the city and hide
.”

“I’m
not
letting you go down there alone,” Arika shouted back. “You don’t know anything about these vampires.”

Leo looked her over with a pleading gaze. “Arika, please? You’re my prodigy, my sidekick. If anything happens to you –”

Arika wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him down as she kissed him.

Leo’s eyes went wide with surprise,
but he never moved to kiss her back
.

I watched, stunned.

So many emotions were rolling off Leo, magnified thank to our connection; affection, friendship, shock.

I was surprised by one; it was darker than the others were and left a bitter taste in my mouth. Then I blinked, realizing it wasn’t Leo’s emotion.

It was mine.

Jealousy.

I’d been jealous before, but this felt different. It was more like a dog baring its teeth at another dog that had intruded on its territory.

I frowned, uneasy. Since when had I started thinking of Leo as
my
property?

In my mind, the vampire version of me smiled knowingly.
“Since you drank his blood and claimed him as your own the night you made him a vampire,”
she said in a dark, sinewy voice.

I blinked, brushing the feeling aside, though it still troubled me deep in my heart.

The kiss only lasted a few seconds. They parted, Arika gazing into his eyes
, not seeming affronted in the least that he didn’t respond
. “I’m going with you,” she said.

Rook ruined the moment. “Well then
,
come on!” he shouted.

I shook my head. I’d worry about this later
, when we weren’t, well,
running for our lives
.

Rushing forward, I climbed down the ladder, followed by Arika and Leo, and finally Rook, who pulled the cover shut. Tunnels stretched out to either side, marked with the street names they coincided with.

The ground rumbled above us as the Guard pulled up.

“This way!” Dezyre shouted and took off running.

We thundered through the tunnels, following her path as
the Guard
tried to pry the lid off the
manhole
behind us. It must have had some kind of safety lock on the inside, in case this situation ever happened. Still, I never slowed my pace. I knew better than to think a measly lock would keep the Scarlet Guard at bay for long.

As we ran, Rook stopped every now and then, pressing buttons along the wall that lit up with a
one-minute
clock counting down.

“What are you doing?” I asked, waiting for him.

He grabbed my arm as he ran past, taking me with him. “Ensuring we’re not followed.”

I recognized the dirt-floored
room as soon as we barreled into it. As we climbed the small ladder up to the exit, I knew exactly what we would find on the other side.

Fire erupted from the tunnel behind us as a boom racked the air, and I nearly lost my grip on the ladder. “What was that?” I
asked
.

“The
tunnels caving in
,” Rook said, climbing up after me.
“We weren’t so stupid to think this could never happen, that the Guard would never be able to find us. We didn’t plant the explosives in the walls until after the hunters infiltrated our academy
the first time
. After that, Frost wasn’t taking any chances.”

He was referring to when a group of hunters had been turned and captured. Convincing Frost of their innocence and goodwill, they enrolled as soldiers
in the training academy
. What no
one knew was that they were bid
ing their time while they came up with a plan to wipe out the base. They attacked without warning, managing to take out several vampires – including Frost’s daughter – before they were killed. Ever since, Frost had been wary of hunters, and I honesty couldn’t blame her.

Rook’s revelation
should have relaxed me, but all I could think about was Aden.
Please don’t let me be too late.

We climbe
d out into a morgue. When Rook
was
at last
out, he slid the lid of the tomb we’d crawled out of back into place.
The lid had a picture of an ange
l rising out of the ground, its arms stretched for H
eaven. Above
the angel
, the epitaph read, “
We walk in darkness so we may dance in the light.”

I first came upon this place when
Aden and I had
been chased here by my brother’s lackeys.
We
had hid out below
ground, where I first learned about the tunnels that could take me back to the surface, where I thought I truly belonged.

I was wrong.

“Now what?” Arika asked.
I noticed she had both her sai
ready.

“We make for the base,” Rook said, his jaw clenching. “It’ll probably be crawling with guards. No matter what, Sloane has to get inside so she can get the sample to Paris.”
I tried my best to ignore the tint of doubt to his words that said, “If we aren’t already too late.”

W
e quickly went over some ideas. For the most part, Ivan lurked in the background, staying quiet. At last, we decided
upon a plan that probably would have been brilliant had it not sounded like a suicide mission.

I tapped my foot, anxious to start but scared I wouldn’t succeed. What if Aden
were
already dead? What if
they had this place surrounded and
we were all killed the moment we set foot outside?

Rook took me by the shoulders, gazing into my eyes with the weight of steel. “No matter what happens, keep going. I don’t care what you hear behind you, just go.”

I held his heavy look for a few seconds before nodding.

Feeling
more tense
now than ever, we crept out the morgue and silently glided past the fake rosebushes. Down here, most everything resembling a plant was fake, from the grass to what few flowers decorated the lawn.

Our f
irst stop was a small convenience
store. It didn’t have much, just the essentials, but then again, vampires
didn’t
need much down here. People learned to go without candy
and other superfluous goodies
when just
finding
a decent meal
was a top priority.
Judging from the
five-star
meals Mrs. Knight had served up while I stayed with her, vampires apparently didn’t have as much trouble finding decent food as humans. Then again, I hadn’t had trouble either while human; being the Sovereign’s daughter meant I ate well. It was the poorer folk who had to worry.

A guard stood by the corner
of the store
, near the entrance. Rook snuck up on him before he could ever turn around. I watched as he deftly knocked the man out, dragging him into the alley and stashing him behind a garbage bin before taking his gun.

Ivan’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “Incredible. What strength. What speed.”

“Can it, Doctor,” I snapped, growing irritated. I could just visualize him wanting to use us as science projects in some mad scientist lab. I still had to pick his brain later over whether or not he intended for the virus to morph humans into monsters so my mother could create her twisted utopia.
I also wanted to question him over the whereabouts of the first vampire king. Though I was dying to get some answers
, that part would have to wait. Now wasn’t the time or the place.

I lifted my brows as
Rook
sauntered back towa
rd us. “Not too shabby, Captain,
”
I said.

“That’s why I earned
that title
,” he said, smiling with a wink. “
Though Frost has probabl
y demoted me by now for aiding ‘
criminals.’
Here goes.”

Kicking the door to the store open, he fired off a shot toward the ceiling and shouted, “Everybody down!”

A few civilians screamed and ducked, covering their heads. The behind-the-counter clerk paled as Rook stalked up to him. “Hey, man, I’m not going to hurt you, but I need your help. Got any matches?”

The man nodded in quick, jerky movements, pointing toward the second
aisle
. Dezyre took off to find the matches while Rook leaned on the counter, keeping his voice low. “And what about a milk carton, or something I could hold some liquid in?”

“In the back,” the man stammered.

Leo walked away, and Dezyre returned with a box of matches. “Looks like we’re kicking it old school,” she said.

“That’s fine,” Rook said. “We don’t need some fancy lighter to do what we’re about to do.”

Once Leo had grabbed the milk, we went ou
t. “Don’t follow us,” Rook said to the clerk.
“And if you call for help…” He cocked the gun for dramatic effect. “I’ll come back for you.”

The man looked ready to faint.

I rolled my eyes as we walked away, a satisfied smirk on Rook’s lips.
Once outside, I said,
“Did you really have to scare him like that? I mean, he looked ready to pee his pants.”

He shrugged. “If it keeps him quiet.”

We
sneaked
back toward the base, hiding between the par
ked news “vans.”
I say “vans” beca
use they pretty much resembled
box
es
on wheels. We all watched mournfully as Leo dumped the milk carton’s contents onto the street. Milk was pricey, averaging twenty dollars a carton, since a lot of the farm properties where cows were kept now lay within Red Sectors.  The countryside was one of the first areas to be blocked off upon the Eclipse.

After the carton was empty, Rook grabbed it and
began goin
g around to each car – I guess
technically, each “Chimera” –
shimmying under them and poking a hole in the gas can so the gasoline drained into the carton. The others and I kept watch. It seemed the militia was too preoccupied with taming the increasingly
boisterous
crowd
still gathered outside the base to worry about patrolling
.

Once the carton was full, Rook capped it and we
all
convened. “Dezyre and I will split off and create the diversion while the rest of you
make
for the hospital wing.”

We hadn’t planned much further than that. All of us knew how this mission would most likely end.

I swallowed, feeling hollow inside knowing these were most likely the last few minutes of my life.

Might as well go down saving someone I care about.

Feeling sadder, I grabbed Rook in a fierce hug. “Be careful,” I whispered harshly into his ear.

He squeezed back. “You too.”

We parted, and Dezyre and I just looked at each other while Arika and Leo spoke quietly
off
to the side. Neither one of us seemed willing to make the first move. After a few moments of tense silence, Dezyre
said
, “Well, try not to die.”

I smirked, relaxing. “Thanks, Dezyre.
I’m worried about you too.”

Her lips pulled up in the hint of a smile.

When Dezyre and Rook took off,
taking a pale Ivan with them,
Leo, Arika, and I readied ourselves. “You don’t have to come with me,” I said, glancing at them. “Either one of you. I can’t ask you to die for me.”

“You don’t have to,” Leo said, smiling softly.

Arika avoided my gaze, clearly saying she felt otherwise.