The Scarlet Dagger (The Red Sector Chronicles, #1) (6 page)

“
Release me!” I cried out, returning his sardonic smile with a look of pure contempt.

“
And where will you go?” he asked. “There is nothing left for you in your mortal world.”

His deep, melodic voice wrapped around me, sending chills up my arms. “That’s not true,” I said, but the seed had been planted. Doubt began to grow in the back of my mind. What if he was right? My mother hated vampires, as did Leo. What happened when the only allies you had left would surely want you dead?

Aden gazed upon me with sympathy. “I am truly sorry for what you’ve lost. Believe me, I wish there could be another way.”

I opened my mouth to speak, a retort hot on my tongue, when the back of my head exploded with sharp pain, and stars burst before my eyes. I stumbled, losing my grip on the receptionist as someone planted his knee in my back, forcing me down hard. My cheek slapped against the floor, a burning sensation spreading across my jaw as it dug into the carpet. Before I could react, my arms had been cuffed behind my back.

The guards began to scatter, but through the crowd my eyes found Aden’s, his smile now shifted into a mask of cold indifference.

My face contorted in unrestrained anger, burning not from embarrassment but from rage. “I hate you,” I whispered.

His lips parted to say something and I knew he’d heard me, but before I could make out the words, there was a feather-light prick along the back of my arm and a wave of drowsiness rolled through me.

Like a close friend, darkness consumed my line of vision, the regret in Aden’s too blue eyes the last thing I saw.

Chapter 4

If I thought my head hurt before, it was nothing compared to now. My initial reaction when I first registered the pain was to go back to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut, so focused on the relentless throbbing that I almost missed the hushed argument taking place beside me.

“
What were you thinking in bringing her here?” hissed a distinctly French-accented voice. “She should be moved immediately, if it’s not too late. You’ve jeopardized our safety, and hers, enough as it is.”

My insides cringed at the anger in her voice.
Paris. What does she mean? Am I in some kind of danger?
To me, it seemed like the worst had already happened, as the hunter had now become one of the hunted.

“
What other choice did I have?” countered Aden. “We’ll never, ever get another opportunity like this. Fate has sent us a gift!”

“
It has sent us a curse!” Paris took a deep breath, as if trying to compose herself. “We should tell Frost.”

“
Absolutely not. Frost can’t be trusted. She’ll leak that the girl’s here.” Aden paused. “I think we’re overreacting. We should just lay low. She’ll be far safer here than in the city.”

My head hurt even more with the added weight of confusion. Who was Frost? And what city were they talking about? Pittsburgh, or rather, what was left of it? Why wasn’t I safe?

On impulse, I tried to sit up. White hot pain shot through my core, and I fell back onto the pillows with a stifled cry. Cold metal pressed against my wrists, and when I moved my arms, they would hardly lift from the bed railing. I glanced to either side; someone had cuffed me to the bed. A band-aid had been taped to the middle of my right arm, which was sore and bruised from multiple needle pricks. The sheer thought of having my blood drawn turned me green, overpowering my curiosity at why it had been necessary. I didn’t want to think about it; otherwise, I might vomit.

Immediately, Paris was at my side, checking my vitals. “She’s steady. But I bet she has a nasty headache.” The last part sounded like she had said it with a smile.

“
Paris,” Aden warned, and she smirked, walking away. Through the flood of light, I traced the concern on Aden’s face as he leaned over me. “How are you feeling?”

“
What were you two talking about, just now?” I asked, ignoring his question altogether. I trusted him about as much as the bus driver I’d interacted with… how many nights ago was it? One? Seven? I wondered how long I had been gone.

I have to get out of here. But first, I need some answers.

I looked at Aden expectantly, and Paris stepped up to the bed. “That’s not your concern,” she said, crossing her arms.

“
No,” Aden said, keeping his eyes on mine. They somewhat softened as I returned his understanding gaze with a petulant glare, warning him not to toy with me. “She deserves to know. Besides, I’m sure she has a lot of questions.”

That’s an understatement.
Admittedly, I was a bit surprised he had agreed to tell me anything at all, though I had no idea exactly how much of what he said was one hundred percent true.

Paris pursed her lips, her beautiful face all soured up, but I spoke anyway. “Where are we? And don’t say in a hospital.”

Aden’s mouth turned up in the corner. “We’re underground, about two hundred feet directly below Pittsburgh, to be exact.”

That explains the bizarre power outages. I bet they have to tap into the White Sector’s power supply to run this place.

“
Paris and I” – he gestured between them – “are part of an independent military faction called the Syndicate. You’re in the medical wing of our training academy. Dr. De Lange here is the Chief of Surgery, and an expert in hematology, or ‘the study of blood.’”

My mind sorted through the information, latching on to one fact in specific. “Independent? As in, rebels?”

Aden’s gaze was steadfast. “Perhaps.”

My brain tried to process this. Before now, I – and the rest of the world – had thought vampires to be a plague, nothing more than horrific animals whose basic instinct were to feed off of humans like livestock. Aden and Paris were clearly reasoning, high-functioning creatures. Had I not known better, I would have thought them to be human. Neither of them was chalky, like the movies and literature painted vampires out to be. They could have been living next to me as my neighbors and I wouldn’t have been the wiser. It was an unsettling feeling.

And not only were they practically indistinguishable from humans, they apparently also had a secret military base.
This changes everything. What are they training for? The humans would never see them coming if they were planning to strike.

I kept my alarm buried, masking my face with cool composure. Based on the presented facts, I drew another conclusion. “Back in the house, you recognized me.” I couldn’t recall what else Aden had said. Parts of my memory had returned in perfect clarity while others remained riddled with foggy patches.

So that’s what Paris meant when she said amnesia was normal.

Paris gave me a look of pure annoyance. “Of course he did. Your face is on the television programs every time your mother makes an appearance.”

I chewed on my lip. They had been keeping tabs on the Pennsylvania White Sector, and most likely, on my mother
.
She had always been proud and driven – just like my brother – and her accomplishments as a Marine made her unique to the political circles she now ran in. She not only served as our sector’s Sovereign; as a skilled tactician, she oversaw the military operations not just for Pennsylvania, but for the entire collection of northeastern White Sectors. If the vampires had been tracking my mother’s movements, then it supported my theory they were planning to strike against the human race, possibly starting in Pittsburgh.

“
So that’s why you were in my house,” I whispered. “You were conducting research. You’re planning an attack, aren’t you?”

Aden’s face was perfectly stoic as he took a seat. He neither denied nor confirmed my accusation, which was confirmation enough in my mind.

I have to get back to warn them, even if it costs me my life.
If I didn’t, there could be hundreds more casualties. My own life seemed vastly insignificant in comparison to the mass homicide that would occur if the vampires launched their raid.

“
That’s why you needed me,” I said. “Because you recognized me from the television broadcasts. You want to use me as leverage against my mother.”

Aden’s eyes flashed as he nodded once, his gaze sharpening. “Yes. When I saw you, I couldn’t believe my luck, but I needed to turn you to insure you wouldn’t run back to your human companions so readily. Seeing as you come from a guild of hunters…”

They would kill me if they found out I’d been changed. Somehow I had forgotten that. Thank you for reminding me.

“
I didn’t want to change you,” Aden said, “but you hardly left me a choice. With you, we finally have an advantage in this blood feud.”

Paris snorted under her breath. “She’s more of a liability than anything else,” she muttered.

Aden shifted his weight, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. One sleeve was rolled up. The tip of a white cotton patch hovered right above the crook of his arm, like he had just given blood.

We
are
in a hospital. Maybe Paris had to check his blood to make sure it was free of Scarlet Steel toxin.

“
How long have I been here?” I asked.

“
One week,” Aden said breezily.

One week
, I repeated mentally.
Then Leo and the others will definitely know something’s wrong by now. I wonder if they’ll come looking for me?

Once again, Aden was staring at me. I followed his pensive gaze to my birthmark, a few petals of which showed slightly above the collar of my gown.

“
You know,” he mused, “if you stare at it with your head tilted at this angle” – he cocked his head about forty-five degrees to the right, keeping his eyes glued to my birthmark – “it almost looks like a forget-me-not.”

I tried to look down but my neck spasmed, and I rapidly snapped my chin upright.

“
Rather unusual, don’t you think?” he said off-hand, as if thinking aloud. “I’ve only seen one other with a marking as unique as yours.”

It took a split second for his remark to register, then my eyes widened to the size of tennis balls. “Orion? You’ve seen my brother?”

“
I have,” Aden said without pause.

I was so unbelievably excited, I could hardly stand to lay still. My brother. Someone had actually seen him! If I could find out when he had last been seen, maybe I could track him down and finally bring him home. Then, maybe an inch of normalcy would return to my life. Being reunited with him sounded so wonderful, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

“
Well, where is he?”

Aden looked at me long and hard.

“
Your brother is dead.”

Chapter 5

No amount of grief I had experienced in my short life could come close to the pain I now felt. As Aden’s revelation took form in my head, Orion’s smiling face shattered in my memories, which were all I truly had left of him. Though he had been gone for three years, and despite that Leo and several others had kept telling me to accept his loss and move on, a part of me still clung to the hope that he was somehow miraculously alive. It made the pain more bearable if I had something, no matter how small, to hold on to.

“
How do you know?” I asked in a tiny voice.

Aden was silent, running his hand methodically over his mouth. “I saw his corpse for myself.”

I couldn’t be sure what he said next. My brain had refused to listen after the word “mutilated” came out of his mouth, until his voice was a mere drone in the background of beeping machines and the rapid beating of my own miserable heart. Hot blood pooled in my cheeks, and a single tear traced its way down my face, splattering on my birthmark.

Aden at last finished and bowed his head, not apologizing. “I’m sorry” seemed inadequate anyway, and I was glad he didn’t say more.

At first, I tried to deny that Orion was truly gone, to console myself by believing in the impossible. But after those first early seconds of denial had passed, I was rendered nearly immobile by shock. My lips wouldn’t move. My ears had become deaf to the sounds around me as two guards came to undo the cuffs and escort me to a cell, like a common criminal. They had even given me a black prisoner uniform to wear, stamped with a number which had become my name.