Dark Horizons (The Red Sector Chronicles) (19 page)

A few more tense moments of silence followed, and I started to get up.

Leo caught my hand. “Wait.”

My breath caught
and I looked at our hands.

“Stay, please,” he said, his eyes catching mine.

I stared back at him, searching his gaze. He looked lonely. And very, very sad.

My brow furrowed. Where was the joking, sometimes arrogant boy I’d grown to love?

Clearing my throat, I awkwardly pulled my hand back and sat down on the swing. I hadn’t meant to, but somehow I had sat as far away from him as possible.

Leo didn’t seem to notice. He was again staring out over the water. “It’s unreal, seeing Rook again,” he said casually. “I spoke with him earlier, after you’d gone to your room.” His gaze sharpened as he looked at me. “He told me what happened, what you’re trying to do.
” I could tell there was something more he wanted to say from the stormy look in his eyes, but he didn’t
elaborate
.
“
I can’t bel
ieve Orion would do that to you,
”
he said instead, shaking his head.

My throat suddenly felt dry. “Would it be so wrong?” I said softly. “If he succeeded in wiping out all vampires?”

“Of course it would be wrong!”

I jumped at Leo’s outburst, though to hear him speak with so much conviction felt reassuring. It sounded more like the Leo I knew.

I looked at him, tilting my head to the side and sending my hair falling in a dark veil past my shoulder. I no doubt had several snarls to work out in it, something I wasn’t looking forward to. It was unmanageable enough as it was. “You don’t think vampires are an abomination?” I asked reluctantly.

Leo shrugged, his expression growing dark. His eyes dropped to the black cross tattoo on his right wrist. “Some humans can be as much
of
an abomination as vampires, if not worse.”

I thought back to McGuiness, of his glee
while
torturing me, and I shivered. God help us if he ever became a vampire.

“What happened to
you, Leo
?” I asked
quietly
, changing the subject.
“You look, well, like you could use someone to talk to.”
I was starting to relax the more I
spoke
with
him
. We had done this so many times in the past that it felt natural.

That heavy sadness returned to his face, and his shoulders seemed to slump. “
My uncle
was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a week ago.”

I winced. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
I knew
from experience
how hard it was to watch someone you love fight for
his
l
ife against a horrible illness.

I glanced at
Leo
sidelong, still afraid to fully look at him. That haunted look was back again. I chose my next words carefully. “I thought you looked paler and thinner when I first saw you back at the prison.”

Leo shook his head, laughing once, dry and harsh. “My father is also missing.”

I sat up straighter. “What?”

“There was an explosion at the lab,” Leo said. His fathe
r was one of the scientists who
developed Scarlet Steel. He was one o
f the most brilliant men I knew
.
“I’m not entirely sure what they were working on. Whatever it was had super-high security clearance on it, and my father had been sworn to secrecy.” A bitter smile spread over his tightly pressed lips. “I guess whatever it was will remain a secret sure enough now. Everything was completely incinerated. They never found his body.”

“Oh, Leo,” I said, scooting closer to him. I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry.”

Leo didn’t have any other family. His mother had walked out when he was little, never to be heard from again, and his uncle was his father’s only sibling.
His uncle also happened to be divorced
and had no
contact with his ex-wife or kid
,
since she made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him
. I didn’t know the details, but it had something to do with his uncle’s family resenting him for his greed and
insatiable ambition
for obtaining more power
. Though I’d never said it to Leo, I thought that might be part of the reason why his uncle do
ted on him so much. He was the
default
family, a replacement for the son he had lost.

Leo stared out in the distance, his expression blank, like all the life had been sucked out of him. It broke my heart to see him like that.

Something swayed in the corner of my vision. An old tire swing was swaying gently in the breeze.

I looked at Leo hopefully, smiling. “Remember when we used to come out here and
jump in the lake from that thing
?”

Leo’s mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. His eyes seemed to light up some, which made me feel hopeful. “How could I forget? It took me a good thirty minutes to persuade you to try it because you were so scared.” He
glanced at me wryly
. “If I’d known taunting you was what it would take to get you to try it, then I would have called you a scaredy-cat sooner.”

I shoved him playfully with my shoulder. “Hey, that thing didn’t look like it could hold a bird up, let alone a little girl.”

“It was safe enough,” he said, giving me an indignant look.

“So safe that you broke your arm in three places when the rope snapped in half?”

“We’ve used stronger rope since then.”

I snorted. “I bet.”

He sighed. “I miss those days, when we were kids.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“They were some of the best days of my life,” he added softly.

The air suddenly felt incredibly hot.
I tried to pull away
,
but he held onto my hand, keeping me close.

He leaned against me, making me tense. “I’ve thought about you every day since you left,” he whispered.

That sent the
heat
hurtling all the way to my toes. I prayed he couldn’t hear how hard my heart was beating. “I’ve missed you too, Leo,” I whispered back.

Gradually, I found my shoulders relaxing, and I leaned back into him.

He turned his head slightly, his lips only a breath
away
from mine. His eyes searched my own,
filling
my chest with warmth. “I need you, Sloane,” he breathed, leaning closer. “I can’t get through this without you.”

My traitorous eyes dropped to his lips. They parted as the tip of his nose brushed my cheek.

I couldn’t think straight. And I don’t know why, but my eyes fluttered closed. “Leo,” I
breathed
, waiting for his mouth to meet mine.

A soft gasp came from behind us. I startled, leaning back from Leo and turning to find Arika standing a few feet away.

Her face looked murderous, and her hands were clenched tightly at her sides.

“What?” Leo asked, a question in his eyes. “What is it?”

Confusion swept over me until I realized he hadn’t heard her; only I had with my vampire hearing.

The sweet smell of Arika’s perfume floated down to me, intermingled with the bitterness of her anger.

I glanced over my shoulder. Arika was gone.

A dove began cooing in the distance, and I turned back to find the sky was beginni
ng to lighten. Almost instantly,
my skin began to itch, warning me the sun was not far behind.

I
cleared my throat
, rising. “It’s nothing, probably my imagination.” I gave him an awkward smile, hugging myself against the sudden chill. “I’ll, er,
see
you around.”

Leo l
ooked disappointed
but didn’t try to stop me as I walked around the side of the swing
,
back toward the house. He had been there when I first discovered what it felt like t
o be caught in dawn’s light. To say it was unpleasant would be putting it lightly
.

With brisk steps, I bounded up the stairs,
crossed
the porch, and entered the house, feeling Leo’s gaze burning at my back.

CHAPTER
11

The moment I got back inside, I went s
traight to my room
. My heart was racing a mile a minute, and I could still feel Leo’s breath on my lips.

As I leaned against the door, I reached up to touch my mouth.

What the hell happened? Had I
wanted
Leo to kiss me?
I had never been one of those girls who messed around with more than one guy at once. It just seemed to
o
slutty and inconsiderate and, well, not
me
.

Guess this means he’s not mad at me
, I thought wryly.

With a groan, I walked across the room, meaning to make for the bed but finding myself going toward the window instead. Brushing back the white lace curtains, I peered outside.

Leo was still sitting on the swing, but he wasn’t alone. Arika was standing beside him, gesturing
to the house
every now and then as she spoke. I couldn’t quite see her face; the windows looked like they hadn’t see
n water or soap in a long time.

Her voice wasn’t loud enough to carry to the house, though believe me, I tried to hear what she was
saying. Part of me already knew.
“She’s dangerous, Leo.” “You need to stay away from her, Leo.” “I’m jealous you look at her that way, Leo.”

I don’t know what she said, but Leo suddenly shot up, holding both hands up in front of him as if to calm her down.

Arika ran a hand through her hair and placed her hands on her hips, cocking her head sideways at him.

He placed an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her to him in a friendly hug while she looked away.

My chest constricted
, and I blinked away the twinge of jealousy. I don’t know why seeing him with her like that bothered me so much. Leo and I had always had a lot of friends of the opposite sex. It never got to me before.

So why did my stomach lurch while I watched them walk away and disappear from view?

Scowling, I let the
curtains fall back into place before pulling the shade down and flopping
onto the bed. I lay on my back, throwing a hand up over my eyes to block out the growing light from outside.

Please, please let me just fall asleep
,
and forget about this mess for a few blissful hours.

I cleared my mind and focused on my breathing, thinking of lying in a field while the sun warmed my skin.
It was a calming technique my late friend Angel had taught me.
It was hard at first to push away every stray thought that came in my head, but eventually I fell asleep.

And if I knew what I’d find in my perfect dream world, I would have tried to fall asleep a lot sooner.

***

Grass blades
tickled
my nose, and I sneezed as I bolted upright.
I blinked a few times, and an explosion of color slowly came into focus.

A sky so blue and bright
that
it hurt
my eyes stretched out above me while
a glowing yellow orb I knew to be the sun
shone
directly overhead. I squinted, holding up
my arm to shield my vision.
A field of the greenest grass
I had
ever seen billowed ou
t beside me, seeming to go on forever
. Big red poppies, my favorite flower, fluttered in the light breeze, smelling of sunshine, the ocean, and –

My breath caught.

Cinnamon and cloves.

I stood up quickly, my white s
undress rippling around my bare
calves. My hair whipped about my shoulders as I glanced around.

“Aden?” I called.

I held my breath, straining to hear his voice. My shoulders slumped. I was alone.

Soft fingers grazed my shoulder, running down the length of my arm from
behind me. “I’m right here
,” a musical voice whispered in my ear.

Gasping, I whirled around, my eyes widening so big they hurt.

Aden gave me a lazy smile,
shoving his hands in his jeans
pockets.
A white
button-down shirt hung partially open at the neck, revealing the curve of his
collarbones
and lightly muscled chest. Eyes so blue they matched the sky stared back at me as he cocked his head sideways, blinking every time his pale blond bangs blew into his eyes.