Meridian Six (7 page)

I relaxed my shoulders and expression into what I hoped was a mask of defeat. Dare's eyes narrowed, but her grip on the gun relaxed a fraction. The instant I saw her buy my ruse, I ducked my shoulder and crashed into her midsection. As in slow motion I pivoted off her stomach and twisted, launching off my back foot into a dead run. Behind me, I heard a shouted curse and a worried exclamation from the old man. I didn't slow when a crash sounded, and I sure as hell didn't stick around to find out if Dare's friend had anything to say.

I leapt off the end of the catwalk and ducked into the tunnel. Once the musty scent of the cramped space hit my nose, I realized my error. I'd entered the underground bunker through a slide. Hardly an ideal exit route. But I didn't have the extra seconds to spare scrambling around for an alternate exit. I skidded into the cavern where I'd first met Saga and scrambled when my foot caught on a rock sticking up from the packed earth. I was three steps from the chute leading toward freedom when a heavy weight slammed into my back like a wrecking ball. I fell face-first into the cold, packed dirt and every molecule of air in my body escaped in a painful rush. A low, mean growl hit my ear like a hot wind.

"Good boy, Polonius." Saga's voice sounded amused but winded. "Miss Six, that canine on your back is trained to attack on my word. Are you going to force me to utter that word or are you going to be a good girl and surrender."

Warm drool landed on my neck. Polonius was hungry. My own stomach growled in response. As much as I wanted to stand up and fight, I knew that even if I managed to get away from the dog and up that chute before Saga gave the command, I'd never make it out in the Badlands with no food, water or provisions. So, as much as it pained, me I lowered my forehead to the red earth and surrendered.

Six.

The cell was darker than the Badlands during a new moon. My hand was on a cold stone wall, but the dirt floors made it smell like a grave. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I swiped at them even though no one could see me. It was bad enough I had to be with myself and those fucking tears. They sickened me.

A specter of a memory haunted my brain. Of lying in a similar cell, only that old one was all-white and brighter than lightning. Back then I'd been crying too. But those tears had been innocent and pure. A child mourning the loss of everything familiar, a child's fear of the unknown. That was my first night in the dormitories. They'd taken me straight there after they'd realized my blood type. Back then, I didn't know how that simple test would determine my fate. I'd been so relieved they'd let me live that I hadn't thought about what a bleak existence it would become without my mother.

I remembered blood stains on my hands contrasting sharply against crisp, white sheets. A few tears mixed with the red like some morbid watercolor painting. I remembered feeling like I was being watched even though I was alone in the room. I remembered feeling like my heart was going to claw its way out of my chest and run away without me. I remembered feeling more alone than any other girl in the history of the world. But I'd learned quickly that tears only made the beatings worse, and the more I stuffed them down, the stronger I became.

But back then I'd had a future, even if I hadn't known it. Now? Even if they let me live until morning and forced me to help them attack the Troika, it was doubtful I'd last the week.

The sound of a key in a lock echoed. I swiped away the tears and sat up. They couldn't be allowed to see me broken. Even if--especially if--they planned to kill me.

Only instead of Icarus or Dare arriving with a gun, my visitor was Rabbit, bearing a tray of food. A lantern on the tray created a halo of light around his young face. "You hungry?" he whispered.

I nodded, but only because I didn't want him to leave. That kid was the closest thing I had to a friend in Book Mountain. Hell, he was the closest thing I had in the entire world.

He smirked and set the tray down on the floor next to the bed. "It ain't much. Saga says we can't spare too much since we might have to go underground again soon."

I accepted a small cup of water with a nod. "Go underground?"

"Yeah, Dare said we're going to make big move on the mosquitos, but after we might have to hide for a while." 

I froze. "Wait, you said 'we're'--as in you're going to help with the attack?"

He nodded with exaggerated patience. "Of course. I'm really helpful." His tone was heavy with offense, like I'd wounded his pride. "Icarus said I'm going to be really important to this mission."

I shouldn't have been surprised Icarus was going to let the kid take part, but I was shocked Dare was allowing it. She watched over Rabbit like he was her own young. "Hey Rabbit?"

"Yeah?" he said over a mouthful of dried meat I'd refused when he offered it to me.

"Did they say what they're going to do with me?"

A shadow filled the doorway, blocking out the dim light from the hallway. I recognized Dare's petite silhouette. "Rabbit," she snapped, "Saga needs help in the library."

The kid flashed me an apologetic look. I smiled back and shoved the rest of the dried meat strips into his hand. That earned me a real smile before he ducked out of the room. Dare stood aside to let him pass. The tenderness with which she'd watched him fled the minute he exited. Then those eyes hardened and watched my reaction as she slowly closed us in together.

The meager light from the lantern didn't do much to expel the shadows standing between the vampire and me. Her yellow eyes glowed in the dark. She didn't approach immediately. Just stood with her back to the door, letting the tension rise between us like a poisonous gas. I might be damned but I wasn't going to be the first one to speak.

Finally, she pulled away from the wall. "Have you ever tasted blood?"

The question was so unexpected, I jerked in shock. With a wary frown, I hesitated. "Yes."

"Whose?"

I licked my dry lips. "My own."

She nodded and took her time absorbing this information. "By your own choice?"

I looked up and met her eyes. "No." I'd expected this information to please her. Instead she grimaced and looked away.

"We're not all monsters, you know." She looked back at me, to make sure I'd heard. I didn't react. Her posture was tense and her mood too unpredictable for me to want to give her any reaction that might set off a chain reaction. "I haven't had blood fresh from the source in years." She paused. When she spoke again her tone was quiet, like a confession. "And I've never had any high blood." 

I stilled like an animal sensing impending attack. "Dare--"

She shook her head. "Don't worry. I'm not here to feed from you." She reached into her jacket and removed Icarus's old Colt. "I'm here for this."

Perhaps I should have felt shocked. Or scared. Or ... something. Instead, a weary numbness settled deep into my bones. Holding her gaze, I rose from the cot. She raised the gun a little higher in warning. I raised my hands out to the side and raised my chin. "Just be done with it."

Her eyes widened. "You're not going to ask me to spare you?"

I shook my head. "What's the point?"

"You're pathetic," she spat.

I lowered my arms. "What do you want from me? To beg for a life that never belonged to me in the first place? To fight for the chance to let another set of masters use me? I'm done being anyone's whore, Dare." I jerked my head toward the gun. "Do it."

The gun lowered a fraction. She stared at me intently for a full thirty seconds before she spoke. "What did they do to you?"

I squeezed my eyes together, but a traitorous tear escaped to roll down my cheek. "Just do it," I gritted out through clenched teeth.

 "Six? Look at me."

I heaved out a harsh breath and opened my eyes, prepared to let her have it for dragging this out to the point of torture. But when I saw the look on her face, the numbness was burned off as hot anger roared to life. But before I could scream at her or rush her and punch the pity from her face, she spoke again. "You stink of them, you know. Their scent clings to you."

Now it was shame's turn to make an appearance. "Then you know what they did."

She tilted her head. “I thought the concubine thing was just an insult because you spoke on behalf of the Troika."

I laughed bitterly. "In exchange for my services to the Troika’s propaganda machine, I was passed around like a trophy among the highest level vampires. It was something of a badge of honor to vein fuck Alexis Sargosa's daughter." Now that I was talking, the words spilled out like bile. "Some only kept me a few days. Others claimed me for months, a couple for years. Those ones delighted in turning me into their personal slave. I did everything from clean their silver to playing a starring role in their sadistic games. A few were kind compared to the others and educated me to amuse themselves. One or two preferred me to fight back so they taught me how to use weapons and my fists. Then they’d delight in disarming me and delivering punishment for being too good a student. But mostly I just served as a blood dispenser."

She'd lowered the gun and crossed her arms. "That's why you finally left. You couldn't stand it anymore?"

"No." Now that I'd admitted so much, I decided it wouldn't hurt to offer one last confession before I met the maker. "I left because after enduring their tortures, they found the one invasion I could not endure."

She frowned.

I laughed, but the sound felt flat to my own ears. "You haven't put it together yet?" I didn't wait for her to confirm what I already knew to be true. "Several months ago, the Prime came to me with good news. I was going to be given a great honor. The Troika officials loved my sweet blood so much that they were going to make me the first brood mare in their blood stables."

Dare gasped softly but I was beyond offering consolation.

"According to him, I was going to be put in a special dormitory and given my choice of men of high blood with whom to mate. If any of the children I created turned out to be AB-, they would be raised in the most favorable conditions and be given the honor of becoming concubines to the top Troika officials."

"And if they weren't high blooded?"

I looked her in the eye and ignored the phantom pain in my stomach. "Aborted."

The silence in the room was complete. Unlike the last time, it wasn't a silent gulf that kept two foes separated. Instead, those quiet moments were filled with shared knowledge of duty and loss and the longing for a tiny heartbeat against the skin.

“The night I left?” My hand went to my belly. “They just had informed me that I was to be impregnated again. I couldn’t go through that again—the loss.” I looked up again and saw empathy in her yellow gaze. “But more than that, I was terrified it would work this time and they wouldn’t abort it. How could I doom a child to my life?”

She watched me silently for a few moments. Tension zinged through the space between us like lightning. Finally, she sucked in a long, slow breath. "How can you say you want to run? They took your mother. They took your life." She stepped forward and pointed at my stomach. "They took your child. They took your choices away. How can you just run when you have every cause to turn around and fight back?"   

I blinked to stall the tears. "Because I want a chance to live for whatever time I have left."

She snorted. "Running isn't the same as living."

"Unbelievable." I shook my head at her. "You walked in here ready to kill me, but now you're angry that I'm not trying hard enough to live."

She made a disgusted sound and shoved the gun into her rear waistband. "I wasn't going to kill you. He just told me to scare you a little until you agreed to help us."

I crossed my arms. "That's what I don't get. Why would you want the Troika's whore to help you?"

She licked her lips and glanced sideways. "Look I-- I'm sorry about that. But see it from my perspective. You showed up all glowing and healthy and with your reputation preceding you. How could I not be suspicious of you?"

I laughed bitterly and lifted my shirt. Her eyes widened when she saw the patterns of bruises and scars covering my abdomen and torso. "They made sure the skin that showed was clean for the camera, but the rest was open season. And as for my reputation, well, I gave you credit for being too smart to believe their propaganda."

She grimaced at the dig. "Look, can we start over? We both came in with our own prejudices. Hard not to when we've both been burned, right?"

I nodded slowly. "Suppose so."

"As for why we need your help, well, it's obvious--or should be. You have inside knowledge of the Troika. You're the only one who's met the key players and knows their habits and perhaps their weaknesses. I know you want to run far from here, but where will you go? The Troika control the entire country. There's no place to hide, there's no normal life to return to. If you're going to survive, your only choice is to pick a side, dig in and fight. It's not a safe or a comfortable sort of life, but it's the best any of us can hope for right now. And maybe someday, if we keep fighting, we'll finally have a chance at safety and comfort again."

I sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. Her words exposed my half-baked plan for the child's quest it had been. Children trusted wishes. Adults trusted facts. And the fact was I wouldn't last a week on my own. But I also might not survive three days if I stayed on to help.

"Look," she continued, "I understand the urge to lay down and just wait for death to take you." She unbuttoned her jacket. Peeking above the fabric of yellowed tank top she'd tattooed two red hearts. "But the way I look at it, if I'm going to die anyway, I might as well try to send as many of those bastards to hell as I can before I go. It won't bring them back." She placed a palm over the hearts. "But I'd rather die trying to destroy the Troika than to let death catch up to me because I couldn't run fast enough."

Her passion and anger reminded me of another strong female. One who took up arms against the Troika and inspired others to join her in the fight. One who would hold me in her lap while she made impassioned speeches to disheartened people about the importance of never losing hope. My eyes sought out the twin hearts on Dare's chest.