Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (7 page)

“I shot you,” I snapped, in no mood for his games. “With Scarlet Steel, at which point you fell at least twenty stories out of a building.”

His eyes fixed on mine, dark and dangerous. The slow smile spread
ing
over his lips
made me uneasy. “
Yes, somehow I had forgotten that part. Thank you for reminding me of your affection.”

Guilt twisted my heart. I didn’t know why. He deserved it, and yet I couldn’t erase a lifetime of memories together,
most of which from
when he was less of a monster.

“How did you survive?” I
asked. My voice sounded
strained because my throat was so tight.

Orion’s eyes flickered red, reflecting like a cat’s would. “Because I am a
‘
god walking amongst mere mortals
’
. As you could be, if you chose to embrace our heritage.”

My eyes flickered to the spot beneath his suit
,
where I knew
the forget-me-not birthmark was
.
He was referring to our supposed ancestor, the first vam
pire that ever walked the earth
.
Many believed in
the myth
so deeply it was nearly a religion
, but I wasn’t sure what to make of the fabled vampire yet.

“I am many things, but not a murderer or a psychopath,” I said coldly.

He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You think you’re better than me, but you’re not.” Gracefully, he reached through the
slot
and toyed with a strand of my hair.
Something flashed silver; a ring stamped with the forget-me-not emblem rested on his middle finger.
I held my breath, trembling from a combination of loathing and fear. “There’s an animal inside all of us, waiting to be unleashed. And when it comes for you, dear sister, you’ll hate the vamps as much as I do
,
and you’ll wish you had let me follow through with my plan.”

His words sent chills racing across m
y skin as I recalled the barely
human monsters that roamed the Red Sectors. At one point in time, they had all been p
eople.

Just like me.

Did they know they were going to become mindless monsters?
Was that the future I had to look forward to?

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “No. No, I could never be like that.”

His smile turned knowing. “Are you sure? I hear you killed quite a few of my best men at the Knight residence.”

I felt my cheeks cool as I paled, remembering the feeling of slaughtering several men with little more than my bare hands. Killing seemed natural at the time
,
and I hadn’t thought anything of it.

Until now.

A dark chuckle interrupted my thoughts, and my eyes snapped up. “There it is…
bloodlust
.” He sighed
the
word, making it sound romantic. Running his thumb once more over the strand of my hair, he released it and let it flop back down over my chest. “It’s okay to be what you are.
Those men
were insignificant, and you are a goddess. We are more than any of them will ever hope to become.”

It was growing very warm in here, and for some reason, my heart started to race at the memory of their blood splattered all over the living room and kitchen. I took a shaky breath, feeling a hard push deep within me to feed, to savor the warm, syrupy sweetness of their blood as it drained down my throat…

I blinked
hard. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t want to be a vampire. The one time I had fed on a human – without meaning to, I might add – it was one of the most horrible things I’d ever done, or at least it felt that way to me. But now…

“Stop it,” I hissed, putting my hands over my ears. “Stop messing with my head.”

Orion smirked. “We’re twins. I’ll always be inside your head.”

An
d with that, he slammed the slate
shut. I heard the click of his shoes as he walked away, leaving me feeling shaken. Hugging myself, I turned and leaned against the wall, sliding to the floor.

If anyone said anything to me, I didn’t hear them. All I could hear
in the prison of my mind were
the screams of at least a dozen total strangers as I tore their lives apart in a flash of fangs and a
bloodstained
smile.

***

“Sloane…”

I was drif
ting. All around me was a murky
black ocean, and for some reason the air felt cooler. I felt calmer here, lost somewhere in the realm between waking and dreaming.

“Sloane, can you hear me?”

My
breath
caught.

“Aden?” I asked, my voice echoing through the darkness.

Far-
off, directly in front of me, a beam of sunlight rained down on a green field
sprinkled
with red dots. The tall grass rippled in the br
eeze, blowing the scent of wild
flowers toward me and ruffling my hair.

I squinted.

There was a figure standing there, with his hands inside his pockets. I was too far
away
to see his face clearly, but I knew without a doubt who he was when
I saw the white glow of his too-
blond hair.

“Aden!” I called, reaching out for him.

***

Screams woke me up with a jolt.

I had no idea when I’d fallen asleep. My back was stiff from leaning against the wall, and when I sat up too fast, a nerve in my neck pinched. Gritting my teeth, I looked out through the bars right as a body was thrown at them and hot blood sprayed all over me.

Gasping out of shock, I staggered to my feet, looking down
in disbelief
at the red streams
coating my clothes
.
The smell of fresh blood – hot red drops
full of life
,
with
that odd metallic tang –
tickled my nostrils, and I inhaled deeply, feeling the desire to feed grow stronger within me.

Gunshots fired, snapping me out of the fantasy, and I
dove for
the floor as a shower of bullets hit the
wall. From the corner of my eye
,
I could see Paris was also on the floor, covering her head with her hands while keeping her face down. There was a rush of air as a dark shape moved in front of my cell, and then the firing abruptly ceased as the sho
oter released a strange scream. It
was distorted by a gurgling sound, like he was yelling underwater.
I jumped as his body landed in front of my cell, his dead eyes turned right at me. His throat looked like it had been completely ripped out.

That should have disgusted me. I should have felt pity for
him
. But as I stared at the growing pool of blood beneath his face
, all I could feel was the tell
tale ache in my gums that said m
y fangs were elongating,
accompanied by
the almost uncomfortable urge to lap up his blood.

I squeezed my eyes shut.
Fight it, Sloane. You don’t need it.

Swallowing down my urges, I opened my eyes and shakily stood.

There were bodies lying all over the place, some not completely intact with all their limbs.
That
did make me sick, and I pushed back the bile that had risen in the back of my t
hroat. Blood covered everything;
the walls, the floor, the lights. One l
ight
bulb was dripping blood onto the little puddle of
scarlet
below. The sound was too loud in the almost eerie sile
nce filling the hall. Beside me
Paris was standing, but she almost fell
because she was shaking so bad
ly
. H
er breath
came
in shallow, shaky gasps. Even from here, I could hear her hea
r
t beating much too fast, at nearly the same pace as my own.

There was movement at the corner of my eye, and my eyes snapped to my right, seeing a man, barely alive, crawling over to the alarm on the wall. Raising the lid, he slammed his palm down on the red button right before a blur came out of the
darkness and snapped his neck.

Red lights flared to life along the ceiling as a siren began wailing, so loud it felt like it would scramble my
eardrums
. Covering my ears and gritting my teeth against the sound, I looke
d up as the shadow straightened
and turned to look at me.

My breath left in a rush. “Orion.”

“You look surprised, S
is
,” he said, flashing a smile.

“How did you…”
The question died on my tongue as
my mind
tried
to wrap itself around the fact my brother was standing outside the bars.

Free.

“Escape?” he finished. “It was easy. I glamoured
them. Their weak minds were easy enough to control.”

“Glamour alone wouldn’t be enough,” I said. “What else did you do?”

He shrugged. “Our glamour is stronger than most vampires since we’re descended from the first king. That being the case, we’re also stronger and faster than ‘lesser’ vampires.” He kicked one of the corpses out of the way with a look of utter disgust.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I growled. “You deserve to rot in a cell for the rest of your long, wretched life for what you’ve done.”

“
Oh, no, I don’t think so, S
is.” He knelt and grabbed a bloody
security badge
. Wiping it off on his jacket, he lifted
it up to the scanner while it was still around the man’s contorted neck. “I have far too many plans to be inconvenienced for much longer.”

The little light turned from red to green
,
and a door slid open.

“Sloane!” Paris yelled. “If he escapes, I won’t be able to find a cure!”

My eyes widened and I whirled around. “Orion, stop!”

He paused at the door, turning just far enough to give me a bitter smile. The red light
brought out
his glowing
crimson eyes and bloody fangs, making him look like a demon
. “No, Sloane. I’m never going to stop, not until they pay for taking my dreams away.”

Then he stepped
out the door, along with the only chance
I
had
at saving Aden’s life.

CHAPTER
5

It’s weird how life has those moments that seem to move both incredibly fast and slow at the same time.

I stared at the now closed door my brother had just left through as the sirens blared and red lights flooded the prison
ward. The ruckus disoriented
my surroundings
, but not to the point that I could
n’t see the set of keys lying in a pool of blood in front of my cell.

Kneeling so fast I slammed my knees
onto
the floor, I
carefully
slipped my arm
through the Scarlet Steel bars
and hooked my index finger beneath the ring.
Slowly lifting it up, I
began bringing my arm back in the cell.

“Hurry!” Paris shouted over the noise.

“You’re. Not. Helping,” I said through gritted teeth. My whole body was stiff with the effort of trying not to touch the bars, which I knew would burn through my flesh in less than five
seconds. This close, the
bitter
, acidic smell
wafting off the metal was so sharp it burned my nose, like swimming in a p
ool that
has
too much chlorine.

I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that slackened my shoulders once the keys were safely inside, and I rose, moving in front of the lock. My stomach twisted with dread. There was no way I could avoid touching the bars if I hoped to unlock the door.

“Quit being a pussy and do it!” Paris growled.

“I
f you’re going to talk smack, maybe yo
u should unlock your cell first and
then help me out
!” I shouted at her with equal fervor.

That shut her up. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed she’d
declined
my offer, or relieved to get her off my back.

Pulling the sleeve of my sweater down as far as it would go, I used it to cover my palm
before sliding
my arm through the narrow gap between two of the bars. Not wanting to put my face next to the
steel
, I knelt and awkwardly turned my wrist so the first key was angled for the lock. There were five total
.
I prayed I would get lucky and hit the right key on the first try.