Disarming (9 page)

Elijah

TEARS OF SOOT
and despair disappear in the dusty moonlight. Or so it seems. Elijah wiped away the grimy residue caked on his skin and weapons. It streaked across his face, leaving a trail from his rough fingers. The mirror, unlike the reflection it now harbored, was crisp and clean, like the rest of the bathroom. It stood sterile, pure and white all around him. He leaned against the rim of the sink, letting the black ash trail along the clean porcelain, staining its perfect surface. He liked that. He wanted to smear around what was left of the zombified vampires’ remains, which stuck to his clothes and clung to his hair. The burnt barbeque smell permeated his nostrils, making him remember the deed long after it was done.

He hated leading them to their deaths. Though they were no longer human and no longer resembled anything with higher thinking, he still regretted the fact that he was responsible for killing them. It was getting more and more difficult to push the guilt and horror of the world back into the tiny chamber inside his head, which harbored everything that had gone wrong in his life and hid the deterioration of his morality. Turning the faucet on, he let the warm water run and splashed it his face. The fluid churned black as he washed the grime away, soaping up his arms. He had to get a shower as soon as he could, but Katrina would be waiting for him at debriefing. She wouldn’t like waiting.

Slamming the water off, he dried himself with a towel, continuing to stare into the smooth mirror before him. His reflection remained constant—slightly tanned skin and gleaming brown eyes glinted back at him. His shaggy brown hair was getting long, hanging over his ears, and needed to be brushed back for him to see without it in his eyes. Short stubble grew along his jawline, making him look like a rugged woodsman. He smiled at the thought. Elijah, the huntsman.
Right
.

Pulling on a clean black shirt, he smoothed the wrinkles down and jerked the door open, entering the cool, brightly-lit hallway.
It’s too white here
, he thought to himself.
Sterile and plain
. Whoever had built this fortress had to have been a germ-a-phobe, he just knew it. That, or some mad scientist. The gleam of the clean walls and tile made him cringe. His thoughts wandered to a hospital he had visited before the epidemic. The smells had been nauseating, and the plain color scheme of the halls and waiting rooms just reeked of institutionalization. He wondered why they couldn’t have painted it more lively, vibrant and happy. Why make a hospital look like one? The same went for this place. Why so much white? Was there a deal on white paint when it had been built?

That was why he loved his city escape in the penthouse of the Palms Casino. Every time he returned to the underground, he longed to leave again and go back to his sanctuary above the city streets. Thinking of his apartment, his thoughts wandered to the girl, April, whom he had chased off. He had been surprised to see a human alive aboveground. It was something he had not expected to see for almost a year. Supposedly everyone had died or turned. If by chance any had lived, they’d have been eaten by now. No, ‘surprised’ was not even the right word for what he felt about his discovery. He was stunned.

He couldn’t ever tell Katrina about the girl. She would have them hunt her down and drag her against her will into the underground. He prayed she never came looking for him again. If she knew about the underground, it would be a death sentence for her, or at least a definite life imprisonment.

The underground city of Vida was the most boring and ordinary place on earth. It was inhabited by humans and hybrid humans alike. It had been the last place in Las Vegas left unaffected by the viral epidemic, the last stand. This made him smirk and almost laugh out loud. He’d never believed that. He couldn’t believe it was the last place on earth that was safe, especially now with April roaming around as proof of life above. He could feel deep inside him that there were others out there, somewhere. This knowledge crept in his mind and surged through his bones like a sixth sense. One day he was going to find them. With or without Katrina’s help.

The thoughts of the city’s dictator made him groan. The plain, thin woman had claimed leadership of this underground, prison-like facility. She had run the place before the outbreak and God forbid someone else run the place in the wake of the epidemic. She was ruthless, with dozens of loyal followers. She was pretty close to being some sort of cult leader. Waco, Texas had nothing on her. She didn’t hesitate to punish those who disobeyed. He’d had a taste of her wrath before, though she could’ve been harder on him. He believed she was wary of him, and maybe even had a soft spot for him. However, she kept tabs on all twelve of the hybrid humans living among her human followers. She barely tolerated their presence, and they knew this well. She would not let them forget it.

Elijah knew she was scared of them, of him, of their differences and their strengths. She used them as her ultimate soldiers but never forgot to let them know that they were not quite human anymore. She never neglected to remind them of their place beneath her, beneath the others, not once extending much courtesy toward them.

In fact, if Katrina could, he’d bet she would have thrown them all into a prison cell until they rotted. But they had their uses. So, until they became unnecessary, she used them for every little task which needed to be done. Elijah was made the leader of the twelve, mainly because they listened to him. And he did what he was told. Her hold on them was wrapped with the threat of being thrown into the unknown world, a world that was dismal and barren. That or death.

They had chosen to serve as her top security detail. It’s not that they couldn’t have overthrown her if they had so wanted to. But it would have been bloody. With all her faithful supporters, it would have been an all-out civil war.

It was best to avoid any confrontation with Katrina. Elijah couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something off about her. It made his skin crawl to be near her, and he didn’t even know why. She emanated power as though it leaked from her pores. Whatever it was that was different about her, he didn’t ask. He didn’t really want to know.

He never looked forward to seeing her, and despised her more than anything. For now, he kept it to himself. Just like the existence of April, it was all kept safely in his mind. Katrina would never find out about her, he would make sure of that. For now, the task of annihilating the zompires, as the Vidians had begun to call the wild vampires above, was her obsession. The half-zombie, half-vampire crazies were all that remained of civilization. This was a job he dreaded but he was satisfied that it kept her attention for now. He gritted his teeth the entire way to the debriefing room, wishing to be anywhere but here. As long as there was a “task” for the twelve, Katrina would let them remain in Vida undisturbed.

That was all he wanted, for now.

Chapter Ten

Holding Breath

April

I WONDERED IF
mom would’ve approved. The old mom, I mean. The Helen I craved to see once more, the mother of my past. I peeked into the storage room just long enough to get a good look at the cage she now dwelt in. She left it occasionally, but only if I was there and awake. Otherwise, it was back into the prison cell she has made ever so comfy for herself.

The old Helen would probably not have approved. I could see her in my mind’s eye frowning and shaking her head, disapproving of such an arrangement. She probably would have asked me to shoot her in the head. She would’ve made me do it already.

I felt defeated, like I was giving up on her as I turned away and flopped back onto my own bed. Night had crept over the horizon, and we had bunkered down for the evening. Rain had been threatening to fall all afternoon, and it now came down in sheets, keeping its ominous promise. It pummeled the walls, hard and unrelenting. I enjoyed the tapping sound; it brought life with it, something we all could use a little more of. When it rained here, it came down in torrential buckets, causing the valley to become flood zones with rapids all over the place.

I avoided the city when that happened. Even with the newly built flood channels, which remained intact, it was still dangerous to find yourself carried away in the swirling, dirty water. Some streets would flood completely and become impassable. Even some of the casinos were not left unscathed, filling up the first floors with muck and mud. If there were still people around, it might not have gotten so bad. But nature has a way of taking back the land, shifting the dirt and water to its own desires.

At least up here in the mountains we had no threat of flash floods, only the threat of mudslides covering the roads. I crossed my fingers that with every rainfall, the road to the city would remain clear. If we were cut off, it would take forever to dig our way out to get off the mountain. Not something I had time for.

I thought about the rumors of the underground city and the man in the Palms Casino—Elijah. I wondered if he was somehow connected to it. I doubted it, but I just didn’t know. I felt the rumors must have been based on reality, like most are. Rolling over in the bed, I leaned on my arm, contemplating what it would be like underground. How big of a city was it? How many people were walking around in there without knowing I existed up here? What was it like to live there?

So many questions and I had no answers whatsoever. Not even one hint of how it would be there. It made my heart jump, leaving it anxious and fluttering in my chest. It made me restless, eager to get a move on, eager to find it, even if it was the last thing I did.

It had been a long time since I’d had some sort of goal. This was what I needed. I needed this to focus my thoughts. I was going insane not having anything to concentrate on, not having anything to give me some hope for the future. It was agonizing and tortuous. I wasn’t the patient type, and having something to focus my energy on was a relief. It was a purpose, and I was going to find out everything I could about it. I was that driven.

“April?”

“Yeah, Jer.”

“Do you think Mom’s going to die?”

I turned back over, squinting my eyes as I looked at my baby brother. His face was a mask of concern, filled with features too old for such a young kid. It made my heart break, and I rushed over to give him a tight hug. “No, squirt. She’s not gonna die. She might not ever be the same, but she’s too tough a gal to die. Get me?” I ruffled his hair as I felt the hot tears leak from his eyes onto my shirt. He buried his face into my stomach and cried silently, never whimpering or calling out to anyone.

Mom was already gone as far as I was concerned. But how was it for Jeremy? What was he thinking about? My soul went out to the broken little boy still hiding deep inside the hard shell he had painstakingly built in the wake of being kidnapped. I wished there was something I could say to comfort him more, but the words were lodged in my throat and only silence remained.

Sucking in a breath, I licked my lips and attempted it one more time.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright. You hear me, Jer? I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll never leave you, and I’ll always be here. Don’t forget that, okay?” His head nodded softly in agreement as he tried to rub away the trails his tears had left behind on his face. He sniffled as I handed him a tissue. I was sure he didn’t want Mom to hear him. He would just bury his head into the pillow if she happened to walk in.

It hadn’t always been this way. Before they were taken by Christian’s hive, he was stuck to my mother like glue, her little sidekick. Now, a part of him had been ripped away prematurely, amputated, leaving him ragged and torn, orphaned. I understood it, knew what it felt like, but I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I’d been older when everything changed, and it had made a world of difference.

After he had settled back to sleep, I laid there awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm my mind with its erratic thoughts and endless chatter. I prayed for silence, even though only the hum of the machines filled the air. I felt more alone than ever, and I was desperate to find others like us. Not just for me, but mainly for Jeremy. He would need more than just me very soon, he would need things I could never provide. A family. Stability. If I could give him that, the one thing I actually could do, then I would do anything to do so.

~~~~~

MORNING CAME AND
I had not slept at all. I had been busy formulating my plan to infiltrate the building by myself. First, I would raid the government center near the downtown area for a map of the interior of the Wynn. That way I would be prepared and ready to go into the casino without being too lost. Maybe I could even find a way down to the underground city. There had to be some sort of connection to it from the building, most likely in the basement. If I could make it that far, past any hives of ferals, I might just find the entrance to this rumored human city.

I was excited, exhilarated even. This was my purpose now, my focus. I was up at the first light of dawn, desperate to get going. Breakfast was readied in minutes for the three of us. This purpose had me humming to myself as I tossed the meal of powered eggs and ham steaks together from the storage freezer, adding some concentrated orange juice to drink. I settled down happily at the table, a sense of renewed purpose filling up my soul like food in my stomach. I even got weird looks from Jeremy, who was too sleepy to inquire about my elevated mood. My mother didn’t even notice. She barely picked at her food as she sat there, lost in her own head.