Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (15 page)

Worry creased my brow.
What’s happened to you, Leo?

Not looking at me, he popped his neck,
then reached up and rubbed
out some kink.
My stomach rolled as I spied the two faded scars on his
neck from where I had bit him. Once a
gain
guilt punched me in the gut, nearly doubling me over.

After all the cells were locked up, McGuiness surveyed us like a proud warden who wa
s housing the FBI’s most wanted
. “That ought to keep them out of trouble, least ‘til we’re ready to start the interrogations.”

I swallowed, knowing exactly what type of interrogation he
had planned. Dezyre whimpered.
I wanted to snap at her to keep her mouth
shut
, that fear would only give McGuiness more power over her than he already had.

McGuiness pointed at a guy. “Drake, you’re up first for guard duty. If they so much as look at you the wrong way, you have my permission to knife
‘em
.”

“Yes, s
ir,” Drake said, crossing his scrawny arms and giving us a smug grin. He looked about fifteen, with gangly features that suggested he hadn’t started growing into his body yet.

“Rinaldi,” McGuiness said, turning to Leo, “you’re with me. The rest of you, get back to training.”

“Yes, sir.” The five other guys left
,
and McGuiness and Leo walked past and disappeared from sight down another hallway.

I glanced over at Dezyre. She was shaking, though I could tell from the way
she was biting down on her lip
that
she was trying not to sob anymore. At least she had that much common sense.

Rook looked uneasy. His eyes caught my own, hard and grim. “Why do you think they’re keeping us alive?” he whispered. “I thought the Black Cross Guild executed vampires on the spot.”

“They do,” I whispered back, glancing at the guard.

He was standing in front of Dezyre’s cell, eyeing her up and down like a piece of candy. She wasn’t shaking as badly, looking back at him with unmasked disgust.

I cringed. “They’re keeping us alive beca
use they’re probably wanting information
. I bet they’re going to torture us to try to find out where the base is.”

“How do you know?”

“Call it a hunch,” I said darkly. And by “hunch,” I meant “personal experience” with McGuiness’
s
brand of interrogation. It tended to line up with what Frost deemed as appropriate ways to fish information out of a prisoner.

“Drake!”

The boy’s spine went rigid, and he w
heeled about, his face draining
of color as McGuiness sauntered back into the hall. Leo and the Asian girl I’d seen earlier followed behind him. She spared me a quick glance and then looked away, her face all business.

Something sweet brushed my nose
and I sniffed faintly. It was so welcoming in the dank staleness of the jail
, like jasmine and honeysuckle.
Whoever she
was
, she
had
good taste in perfume.

Perfume – or any frivolous beauty product –
wasn’t cheap
,
and
was
becoming increasingly harder to come by. I wondered if she’d stolen it
,
or if she actually came from a well-off ba
ckground. Looking at her “thrift shop
chic
”
clothes, from her black
tights, to her lon
g, Victorian steam
punk jacket, I’d say she didn’t. Then again, having been forced to attend galas for my mother’s election campaign, I’d met some eccentric ric
h types who dressed similarly, so maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched
after all.

“Now, I know you w
eren’t just flirting with a low
life vampire,” McGuiness said, fire burning within his dark eyes.

Drake gulped. I swore he paled even more. “No – no, sir. She was getting ornery, so I thought I’d teach her a lesson.”

“Ornery my ass,” Dezyre grumbled.

“Shut up,” I hissed.

“What’s that, McAllister?” McGuiness stepped closer to my cell, his hands clasped behind him. He leaned toward the bars, peering at me with his mean, beady-eyed gaze. “You have something you’d like to share?”

I stared at him evenly. Oh, I had loads I’d like to say to him. A stream of obscenities built up along my tongue, but I kept my lips pressed firmly together. If I’d been alone, I more than likely would have flown off the handle by now. But with Rook and Dezyre there, I couldn’t risk their safety just for the satisfaction of getting a rile out of McGuiness, no matter how big a douche he was.

I looked away. “No,” I said coldly.

McGuiness made a face, indifferent. “That’s too bad. For your sake, I hope you have plenty to say, otherwise you’re in for a long night.”

Before I had a chance to process his words, he opened my cell
,
and Leo and the girl stepped inside. Faster than lightning, the girl retrieved a Scarlet Steel sai, digging the point
in
the side of my throat.

“Make one move, and I’ll kill you,” she said.

Her voice was husky but young, with that sexy, “always hoarse” quality few people could pull off well. Somehow, it made her sound confident and spunky, and I did
n’t doubt her ability to follow
through with what she said. Something told me she wasn’t a girl who joked around.

Leo undid the length of chain around my shoulders, passing it off to the girl so she could keep the point of her sai firmly planted in my neck. A raw, throbbing sensation remained where the chain had been. Even though it hadn’t pierced skin, I was still allergic, and i
t left me feeling itchy and hot from where it had partially burnt through my sweater.

“Get up.” Leo grabbed my arm and jerked me up, gripping so tight
ly
I thought I would lose circulation.
I was sped toward the door and out into the hall,
with
the girl at one side, Leo on the other, and McGuiness behind me.

My mouth went dry as I realized where we were going. Scenarios of McGuiness torturing me flashed through my mind, making my stomach churn.

Stay c
alm. You’re tougher than his will. You’re made of fire and steel.

We stampeded along, our footsteps echoing
loudly, yet still unable to drown out the sound of my heart in my ears. I was all too aware of the blood rushing through my veins,
filling me with nervous energy.

Leo kicked open an old
wooden door at the end of the hall, and we walked inside a small room wi
th white walls and checkerboard-
patterned ti
ling. The girl flicked a switch
and more lights came on
, making me squint. Their harsh
white glow shone down on the metallic chair bolted to the floor in the center of the room.
Red cuffs – also made from Scarlet Steel –
were attached to the arms and legs, and a weird machine sat off in the corner.

It took me a minute to figure out what it was.

It was
an electric chair
.

My brows furrowed. “Pittsburgh doesn’t have a prison with an electric chair,” I said out loud, really more to myself than to anyone else.

McGuiness walked into
the room as Leo forced me down. After undoing my cuffs, Leo
and the girl
pressed my arms against the armrests and
b
egan securing the binds. Tears welled in my eyes as I felt the renewed burn of the acidic metal, but I didn’t once flinch. Instead, my body
trembled
with the effort of holding in my pain, of trying to mold it into something else.

McGuiness strolled in front of me.
“We brought it in from Rockview,” he said proudly. Rockview was a correctional facility situated off in a smaller Pennsylvanian town. Far as I knew, it was lost to the wilds of the Red Sector, since the government had forced as many people as possible to relocate into the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia White Sectors, the only two in the entire state. “
It adds
a lit
tle extra something to the room
and really helps set the tone, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t argue. It did make me nervous. I shouldn’t have asked, but some morbid part of me wanted to know. Bracing myself, I said, “Does it work?”

A wicked grin came over McGuiness’
s
face, and
he walked over to the wall, stopping in front of the machinery I’d seen when we first walked in
. Staring me in the eye
s
, he reached for a lever and flipped it.

I sucked in a breath, my shoulders rising up around my ears w
ith tension, waiting to be fried alive.

After a few seconds, at which I was pretty sure I’d have a heart attack, McGuiness’
s
laughter
filled the room. “Look at you!” He pointed and slapped his knee. “
Miss
Badass Vampire
is
scared of being fried.” The smile fell off his face
. “You’re pathetic, not to mention
the weakes
t excuse for a hunter I’ve ever seen.”

I growled at him, flexing my wrists against the binds. “If I’m so weak, then why do you have me bound and chained in Scarlet Steel?”

McGuiness froze for a second, caught off guard. “So I can wat
ch you squirm.” Taking a Swiss A
rmy knife out of his pocket, he drew a thin line on the inside of both of his forearms.

The smell of fresh blood flooded the room, pulling forth my vampire instincts. Without thinking about it, my fangs protruded. Leo’s eyes widened for a second before he composed himself once more, and the girl just looked angry.

I struggled not to breathe, to not become any more of an animal.
God
, why did it have to smell so good?

McGuiness walked over and knelt beside me. He reached over with his knife and lifted up the fold of my lip, studying a fang. “She’s definitely a vampire,” he said, letti
ng it fall back down. “But how she go
t thi
s way is what I’d like to know. The Rogues should have killed her.”

“They almost did,” I said quickly. Something told me not to tell McGuiness too much.
“They barely left me alive when they seemed to lose interest.”

“Lose interest?” McGuiness said doubtf
ully. “If they ‘lost interest,’
then how come you don’t have scars?”

“Vampires heal quickly,” I said smoothly, never batting a lash. “And besides, our white blood cells are lot more sufficient than humans’. We can be injured but
left with
hardly have anything to show for it.”

McGuiness trailed a finger across my hand. “If that’s true, then why do you have scars at all?”

Forcing myself not to react, I glanced down. Little bumps of skin marred the flesh of my hands
and along the inside of my arms
where Frost ha
d tortured me. I silently swore
but didn’t let on that he’d just called me on my bullshit. “Scars acquired when human are different. They don’t heal. It’s anything new that you get, you know, after you’ve been a vampire.”

“I see,” McGuiness said dryly, rising. He pulled out the little
red
knife I’d seen him with earlier, the corner of his mouth turning up in a vicious smile. “Then why don’t we test that theory? Because I have a feeling you’re feeding me a load of crap, and I plan on getting
to
the bottom of it.”

Before I even had time to draw my next breath, he slammed the knife down, hard, straight into my hand. I cried out, feeling my tendons and veins light up with fire as the corrosive properties of the steel kicked into effect.

McGuiness grabbed a fistful of my hair, forcing me to look at him as he got right down in my face. He looked angry, far angrier than I’d ever seen him. “I know there are more of you. Where are they?” he growled.

Against all reasoning, I grinned. “In the cells back there,” I whispered.

His mouth rolled up into a sneer, and he backhanded me hard enough to pop my jaw.

Leo’s hand curled into a fist, but his face was stony as ever.

My heart jumped as I stared at his hand, but then McGuiness grabbed my chin and jerked my face back around.

There was a sharp flare of pain as he pulled the knife free and pointed it
beneath
my chin, right where my throat started. “I’m
going to ask you one more time.
Where is your nest?”

I pressed my lips together, staring back at him defiantly.