Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (2 page)

Though I disagreed with his methods, I couldn’t blame him for being bitter about the whole thing. He was the brilliant one in the family, having been on his way to a full academic ride before he was turned.
Having your future ripped out from under you like a rug had to hurt.

“That’s not what I mean
t
,” Aden said
softly
,
resting his hand
over mine. Even in the darkness of the car, his skin looked extremely pa
le next to mine, which was caramel colored
.
His fingers
also felt way t
oo clammy. I reversed our hands
so mine was resting on top of his
,
in an effort to warm it.

“I know.” My throat constricted and I looked aw
ay. “But
given the choice between seeing someone I care about get hurt
,
or
to
try and save them, I’d always take that risk, no matter who’s standing in my way.”

Aden’s eyes turned somber. “I never meant to pit the two of you against each other. I didn’t want you to have to choose.”

I still
wasn’t
over the shock of knowing Aden had been working for my brother all along.
T
hough the fact he’d tried to cover up the fact Orion was even alive hurt, I knew now he had only done it to try to protect me.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I said
in a half
whisper
.

Aden
inhaled a breath
to say something when the car came to a screeching halt. My head slammed into the seat, but I managed to catch Aden before he could roll onto the floorboards. I knocked loudly on the barrier. “Hey!” I shouted, then bit my lip when I saw Aden wince. “What’s happening?” I called, a bit softer.

A rectangle slid open in the middle of the barrier, allowing me to see the driver.
It was a guy
and his eyes were brown; that was
all I could make out. “There’s a barricade set up.”

“What? Why?”

“Er, proteste
rs, I think.”

Proteste
rs? For what?
“
Never mind
. How close are we to the base?”

“Less than a few hundred feet, I’d say.”

“Good enough. We’re getting out.”

Aden was already sitting up, giving me a look of amusement as the driver protested. “Sergeant McAllister,” he said as I fumbled for the door handle, “I advise you to stay in the vehicle. I won’t have anyone to escort you and Captain Knight to the base if you get out now.”

I snorted.
“Please. I don’t need an escort –
I
am
the escort.”
I finally grabbed what felt like
a thin length of
metal and pulled. Something clicked and the door cracked open.
Shoving i
t
,
I
stepped out onto
a dirt road
.

We were back on the base. The vampire city was
nowhere to be seen, and the gra
y and brown structures that resembled crude buildings stuck up all over the place. Directly in front of the car were a series of
roadblocks
on every entrance to the base
,
and even a web of yellow
caution
tape.
Several shoddily assembled
vans rested outside the barricades, their doors thrown open as if its occupants had left in a hurry.
I scanned the area, frowning slightly. Where were all the guards?
They wouldn’t still be back at the academy, or at least, I didn’t think so. And who did all these vans belong to, and where were the owners?

I heard another door open and Aden stepped outside, much to the disgruntlement of the driver. He surveyed the area, eyes sharp and ready, though I could see the creases of pain around them.

Ever the soldier.

He took a step – and nearly went down.

I was around the other side in less than two seconds. “Easy,” I said, looping his arm around m
y shoulders and hauling him up.
“Can you walk?”

He nodded. The area around his eyes lifted, and I knew he was flashing me one of his token, devil-may-care smiles. “Sloane, please. While flattering, you’re –”

His breath was lost in a fit of violent coughs that buckled him over.

“Aden!” I knelt in front of him, feeling his arms tremble. Strong, invincible Aden was
trembling
. My fear spiked as I saw the mask stain deep red with several splotches, a
telltale
sign that the virus was taking its toll. “We have to get you to the medical wing right now.”

Without arguing or coming back with some smartass remark, Aden let me haul him past the barricades and down a dirt road.

As we hobbled along, with Aden’s arm draped over my shoulder and my hand at his waist,
holding him up,
I thought my heart was going to bruise my sternum bec
ause it was beating so hard
.

“Sloane,”
Aden said a little breathlessly. “R
eally
,
I’m fine
now
.”

“
No, you’re not
.” I shot a quick glance at him. His forehead was dotted with sweat
,
and his platinum bangs we
re plastered to his skin, which admittedly
was a good look for him. B
ut the fact that Aden kick-your-ass-and-never-brea
k-a-sweat Knight was perspiring
meant something was terribly wrong. “You even sound breathless.
Breathless
, Aden.”

He chuckled and
tugged me to a stop. Before I could blink or even sort out what had happened, he’d spun me aro
und and had one hand in my hair
while the other caressed my cheek
. Gently, he lifted the mask and
hi
s lips hovered right over mine.

My breath lodged in my throat
,
and for a moment
,
I forgot how to breathe as I took in his angel blue eyes.

“If you give me a few seconds, I cou
ld make you a little breathless
to
o, then it wouldn’t seem so out of
place,” he said, his voice becoming husky.

“I – er –” I squeezed my eyes shut, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When I opened my eyes, Aden was
grinning
. “Oh, stop gloating,” I said,
placing his mask back on. I took his hand and laced
my fingers through his. “You’re still sick, and I’m taking you to see Paris.”

“And I believe you, Sergeant McAllister, sound a little
breathless
,” he said, letting me pull him along.

I pursed my lips,
not saying anything, and turned
away
to hide my embarrassment
.

Stay focused
. Remember why you’re in a hurry.

Ice-cold fear
washed over me and I quickened our pace.

More people cro
pped up as we neared the Syndicate, our training academy. There were a ton of black-
uniformed military men and women running around, which didn’t su
rprise me. After all, when the e
mperor of the vampires gets
shot out his office window, it was
bound to make a scene.

What I did not expect, however, was the hoard of vampire civilians, soldiers, and reporters swarming outside the main doors to the training academy.

I drew up short, stunned.

For some reason, it never really dawned on me there would be reporters down here. But the
re they were; microphones
, cameras, fake smiles, and all. The
y scrambled between the proteste
rs, a cluster of at least one hundred vampire civilians from every corner
and era of the world. I heard a multitude
of different
languages being thrown around.
It made the noise seem that much worse,
like a static hiss from a television that’s lost signal
.

“Do you guys have a, I don’t know, unified language?” I asked.

Aden shrugged. “Not really. English tends to be the most common, with a scattering of others. The government thought about making it the primary language but later dropped tha
t idea.
Imagine trying to
teach a
three-hundred
-year-
old Italian vampire English, and you’ll see why they did. The brain’s capacity for learning starts to go after a while.”

For the most part, the civilians were dressed in
twenty-first
century attire, though I caught sight of an elderly gentleman who looked like he’d stepped off the set of
Gladiator
.

Aden whistled
, surveying the
vampires
along with me. “Seems the crowd isn’t
taking the overthrow of their e
mperor too well.”

“How did they find out so fast?” I asked. “It’s been, like, thirty minutes.”

“Vampire media is
no different from humans’. A hot story will usually catch fire and spread fast. As for t
he signs and stuff, the proteste
rs probably grabbed whatever they had at home and marched over here as soon as the story broke. The city’s not far.”

I squinted.
He was right.
Some people had signs, though only a few of them were in English. They said things like “Long live Nero,” whic
h was my brother’s alias, and “m
ilitary dictatorship” with a big red X running over the words.

Several protesters were being interviewed or screaming at the line of shield-wielding militia standing in front of the main entrance.
Every single one of
the soldiers
wore gas masks.

So far
it looked like the protest was still under control,
since
the crowd wasn’t pushing against the barrier or anything.
As I’d grown used to doing, I scanned the entire area and found several black, nearly indiscernible forms sprinkled along the rooftops.

Snipers.

Beside me, Aden shuddered and my attention snapped back to him. “Come on,” I said, taking his hand and charging forward.

I approached the crowd without slowing. Angry mob or not, I was getting into that
building
.

No paths opened up as we approached, so I decided to make one. Turning sideways, I began shoving my way through, tugging Aden along behind me.
For the most part, the proteste
rs parted with ease, too caught up in their cause to notice one more person shoving them around.

It wasn’t until we were actually in the heart of the crowd that I noticed some of the soldiers were trying to hand out masks exactly like Aden’s. An official stood off to the side, blaring urgent instructions to place the masks on
immediately, but that only seemed to fuel the crowd’s anger. They ri
pped the masks from the soldier
s
’
hands, threw them on the ground, and stomped on them. One guy even ripped his in half like a barbarian.
Some of the reporters, casting nervous glances at each other, accepted the masks, putting them on without question, while others seemed more worried it would mess up their makeup or hide their million-dollar smiles.

One reporter jerked her arm out to grab a mask right in front of my face, and I nearly slammed into her. “Put this on,” she ordered her cameraman, snapping
her own mask into place. “It will
look more authentic. Our bosses are going to
love
this!”

Something about that really struck a nerve. “Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “We’re in the middle of a crisis, and all you care about is your damn story?”

The girl turned
to
me with a vicious, cherry-lipstick smile, eyeing me up and down. When her eyes reached my face again, they were wide with a mixture of fear and excitement. “
Sloane?
The
Sloane
McAllister?”

I felt myself pale and quickly cleared my throat, making to move past her. “You must be mistaking me for someone else.”

A manicured hand slapped down on my shoulder, and I spun, taking it and starting to twi
st her toward my body in an arm
lock. “Sloane!” Aden hissed, grabbing me before I could get very far with it. “Don’t. The
media
doesn’t
need any more gossip to film, and I’m
sure catching a soldier rough-
handling a civilian won’t do us any favors in calming the protests.”