The Scarlet Dagger (The Red Sector Chronicles, #1) (25 page)

I quickly finished washing up, killing the water shortly after Angel did. We both drew back the curtains and stepped out about the same time, wrapped in towels.

“
Why did you decide to help me?” I asked.

She shrugged, but I saw the determination in her expression. “I never got to say goodbye to my family.” Her eyes regarded me with sympathy. “My mom, dad, and my little brother… I let them think I was dead. They were very devout Christians, and I wasn’t sure how they’d perceive me if they ever found out what I had become.” She bit her lip, a tear sliding down her cheek.

I reached out and rubbed her arm. “I’m so sorry.” I truly meant it. “My father raised my brother and me.” I blinked, surprised I had just told her that. I didn’t talk about him with anyone.

Angel watched me curiously. “Where was your mom?”

“
In the military.” I sighed hard, frowning. “She was never really around, and when my parents divorced, my father won custody of us. His winning argument had been that we could stay with him and not have to move around all the time whenever my mom switched bases.

“
My mother was white and came from an old school, well off Southern family. When she became pregnant by my father – who was black – they practically disowned her and kicked her out of the house when she was barely eighteen.”

Angel leaned against the wall, water dripping from her hair. She crossed her arms, listening.

“
Neither one of my parents could afford outright to go to college, so my dad got a job at a local textile factory, working long hours, while my mom stayed home and took care of us. We never had a whole lot of money.” I smiled wistfully. “One day, my mom spoke to a recruiter for the Marines, and got this idea in her head that if she joined the military it would help our financial troubles. I remember hearing my mother and father arguing about it when I was little. My father didn’t want her to go, said he’d do anything if it meant her not becoming a soldier, but she didn’t listen and did it anyway. Two years later, they divorced.”

Angel was silent, digesting this. “Where is your dad?”

“
Dead,” I said quickly, looking at my hands. It tore at my heart to admit that. “He died of lung cancer.” I laughed bitterly. “You want to know the irony? He had never smoked a day in his life. One day he was fine, the next, he wasn’t. Orion was killed right after Dad was diagnosed. I think Dad lost a little of his will to live, to fight the disease, after that. I watched him suffer for little over a year, listening to him crying in the bathroom at night when he thought I was asleep.” My throat closed up, and I ducked my head to hide the tears brimming in my eyes.

“
I’m so sorry, Sloane,” Angel whispered, her gentle eyes bright. She crossed the short space separating us, her bare feet slapping against the puddle of water on the floor, and gave me a hug. I hugged her back, my face and eyes burning at the memory of my father.

“
Sloane,” Angel blurted, “are you… going to leave us?” Her bottom lip quivered, and I suddenly felt incredibly guilty. Though I wanted nothing more than to run away from this place for good, something in the way she looked at me now pulled at my heart.

“
I would like to see my family again, or at least, what’s left of them,” I admitted with a heavy sigh.

She suddenly grabbed my hands. “Promise me you’ll come back. If you don’t… if they find out I helped you…”

My eyes widened slightly as I registered what she was saying. I hadn’t thought about Angel suffering the consequences of helping me escape. All I cared about was getting back in time to warn everyone. It made me feel really selfish and shallow. After her sticking her neck out for me, there was no way I could just abandon her to Frost’s whims. I owed her more than that.

“
I promise,” I said firmly. “I’ll come back.”

Angel didn’t ask me again if I was planning on escaping. We changed, trying to make conversation but the air felt heavier now, our words tense and awkward.

“
Come on,” Angel said. “I’ll tell one of the guards to let Aden know you’re coming over to my place to study for our calculus test.”

I had forgotten about that. Not that I’d need to study much anyway. I had aced that unit in my studies back in Pittsburgh, before all this happened. Somehow, I doubted Angel’s cover would work, but I kept my mouth shut as we left the bathroom –

And nearly plowed straight into Rook.

His eyes widened when he saw me. “Er, hi, Sloane. Angel.” He ran a hand through his braids, biting his lip and looking away.

I blinked, looking up at him. “Where are the other guards?” I asked, slightly afraid. I hadn’t forgotten about the other day, when he’d nearly drowned me. It was the first time I had seen him since then.

“
Gone,” Rook said, crossing his arms with a small smile. “I’ve been out here for the past thirty minutes. For a moment, I thought maybe you girls had drowned in there.”

I laughed awkwardly at the word “drowned,” but Rook didn’t seem to pay it any attention.

Angel stuck her tongue out at him and he blushed. I quickly looked back and forth from them as they playfully bantered, Rook teasing her incessantly about her long showers, and Angel defending her beauty routine.

It wasn’t hard to figure it out.
Rook’s crushing on Angel.

I licked my lips, excited at this new development. Maybe I could use this to my advantage.

“
So what are you doing here anyway?” Angel asked. “Hoping to catch a free show?”

Rook waved away her comment. “Aden sent me.”

“
He did?” I asked. “Why?”

“
Frost’s orders. She thought you could use an extra body guard, so I volunteered.”

My stomach dropped. “You volunteered?”

While I knew little could probably get by Rook, this also meant an added complication to my plan. How was I supposed to write to Leo if Rook was going to be looking over my shoulder the whole time? There’s no way he would let that ride.

Angel seemed unfazed. “Cool. Well, you’re going to have to come with us. We’re going over to my place so we can study-up for our big calculus exam tomorrow.”

She made a gagging motion with her hand, and I gave her a tense smile. “All right,” Rook said, seeming pleased at being invited to Angel’s home. I noticed a back pack at his feet, which he tapped with his foot. “I’ve got some reading to catch up on, anyway.”

“
Great,” I said with a shaky, nervous laugh. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

***

The evening continued to get weirder. Upon retrieving my book bag from my locker, Rook immediately offered to carry it.

“
Please? I insist,” he said.

“
O-kay,” I said slowly. He had already taken the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He stared at me funny, like he was on the verge of saying something more, when Angel bounced up.

“
Oh, sweet. Butler service!” She shoved her hot pink purse and silver sequined bag into Rook’s arms, which he barely had a chance to get a hold of before she started walking. “Thank you, good sir!” she said in a pompous manner. “Now if you please, follow me.”

Angel’s apartment wasn’t far from Aden’s. I kept ahead of Rook and Angel, who seemed content on talking each other’s ears off. I smiled inwardly. The old Rook never would have been this open around a girl.
He must really like her.

“
Hey, Sloane?” Rook said beside me. I jumped, not having heard him walk up.

“
Yeah?” I asked, discreetly edging away from him.

He ran a hair through his braids, looking uncomfortable. “Sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”

“
Oh,” I said, surprised. “Um, it’s okay. I’m fine, as you can see. And I’m sure it was an accident, right?”

He nodded. “I get a little edgy and more aggressive when I haven’t fed in a few days.”

“
Fed?” Then it dawned on me. “
Oh
. You mean, drinking blood.”

“
The vampire equivalent to PMS,” Angel chimed in, coming up on the other side of me. “Only it affects males, too. Poetic justice.” She smiled sweetly at Rook, who rolled his eyes, muttering something about “unfair.”

A light bulb flicked to life in my head. “Is that why you volunteered as my bodyguard?” I asked Rook suddenly. “To make up for… well, you know.”

I swore his cheeks reddened. “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he said softly.

Still wary, I probed his thoughts with my glamour, but oddly enough, found no trace of ill will toward me. He was being completely, one hundred percent honest.

I gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s in the past now.”

Rook’s shoulders perked up a bit.

We reached Angel’s apartment after a short walk, and she ushered us upstairs. It looked the same as Aden’s, only not quite so nicely furnished. Then again, with Mrs. Knight being an interior designer, I didn’t think anyone else’s place could compete with what she could dream up.

Angel led us to her room and my eyes immediately froze on the laptop sitting on the middle of her desk.

I’m so close… with a few clicks of a button, I can let Leo know I’m alive.

Rook settled in a corner as I sat cross-legged on the small twin bed running alongside one wall.
Now I just have to get rid of Rook.

“
Make yourselves at home,” Angel said. “I’m going downstairs to make us some snacks.”

She trotted off down the hall, catching my eye and giving me a wink before descending the stairs. A moment later, there was a crash, and Angel squealed in frustration. “Oh, Rook?” she sang from the stairwell. “Could you come help me? I’ve broken the mixer again!”

Rook sighed and shook his head, getting up. “For someone who’s supposedly tech savvy, she sure has a knack for breaking a lot of shit.”

I waited for his heavy footsteps to die away before diving off the bed for the desk. My foot got caught in the comforter and I nearly careened into the floor, but I managed to right myself and plopped down in the chair. I pressed a button and the screen came to life. Pulling up the browser, I quickly found my email Login page and typed in my username and password.

From downstairs, I could hear Angel giving Rook the runaround on how to hook something up.

My inbox appeared, and I opened a New Message screen. After selecting Leo’s email address from my contact list, I hastily typed him a message:

“
I’m alive. Meet me at the playground this Friday night at midnight.”

I debated on changing the time to 11:59 p.m., hoping he wouldn’t take that literally, but quickly decided he would know what I meant and hit SEND. I released the breath I had been holding when the message cleared, showing it had gone through.

This Friday. That would give me three days to prepare everything I needed.

I scrambled back onto the bed just as Rook and Angel entered the room. Angel set down a tray of cookies and soda. “Hungry?”

“
Famished,” I said, taking a cookie. She gave me a questioning look, and I barely nodded my head.

She relaxed, smiling. “All right,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s do this!”

***

We studied for two hours before calling it a night. Rook offered to walk me back to Aden’s and I agreed, not seeing how I had that much of a choice.

Conversation between us was still a bit awkward. I didn’t think I would forget him trying to drown me anytime soon, no matter what he said or how hard he tried to make it up to me.

After dropping me off at Aden’s door with a goodbye, I went upstairs to my room. “Sloane?” Mrs. Knight called, and I paused on the stairs. “I made spaghetti for dinner. It’s on the oven. Help yourself when you get a chance.”

“
All right, thank you!” I called back, climbing the stairs and walking into my room.

I dumped my bag by my bed, but a flash of white caught my eye. There was a corner of something caught in the zipper. Unsure what it was, I knelt and unzipped the bag, pulling out a large, folded sheet of paper. I opened it and my eyes lit up with surprise.

There was a note, scrawled in Angel’s precise cursive. I thought she had been doing an awful lot of writing while we were at her place. “Oh, I remember things better if I write them out by hand,” she had said, never removing her eyes from the page.

But it’s math
, I thought.
What are you writing, your dissertation?

I eagerly scanned the page:

S-Dog
(I snorted),

Let me know when you plan on “flying from the nest.” I’ll make sure the cameras don’t see you. ;)

Love,

Angel
(There was a little drawing of a halo above the “A.”)

P.S. – Don’t forget the map.

I gasped, rereading the post script.

Fishing through my bag, I found an unfamiliar brown sheet of paper that had been folded over several times. Pulling it free, I flattened it out and rested it on my bed, bending over it in awe.

It was a complete, detailed spread of the tunnel system.