The Scarlet Dagger (The Red Sector Chronicles, #1) (23 page)

A chart had been left on one of the tables. Gritting my teeth, I carefully leaned over a body – praying I didn’t fall on top of it – and snatched up the chart. Notes too messy for me to read were scribbled across its pages, though I made out two words in perfect clarity: “test subject.”

A cold shiver rolled through me. Were they using these people in some sort of experiment?

What the hell’s going on down here?

A voice outside the door made me jump. It had a French accent.

Paris.

I had been so distracted that I hadn’t heard her walk up. Not seeing any better options, I crawled under one of the tables, thankful the sheets reached the floor.

Paris’ voice was muffled through the door, but not so much I couldn’t hear her say, “We’re right on schedule.”

A deep rumbling answered her, a man. But there was something odd about his voice, like his vocal chords or throat had been damaged, hindering his speech ability. I strained, trying to make out what he was saying but with no luck. A scent drifted from beneath the door, something familiar and forgotten.

Cinnamon and cloves… the same scent I’ve smelled on Aden.

I reached out with my glamour, trying to figure out who the man was. Though I could tell he was a vampire, I couldn’t find anything else, not even a stray thought or any real emotions. He was simply… empty.

I thought of Aden, how he had kissed me so passionately, like it was the last thing he’d ever do. Was he somehow in league with this man, the man who smelled of spices? And who was he, for that matter? What were he and Paris doing in the dead of night in a building housing a lab full of dead people?

The eerie possibility that Paris could be the one trying to kill me crossed my mind, but I quickly debunked it. If she had wanted to kill me, she would have already done so, as she’d had plenty of opportunities.

My leg was starting to fall asleep, and I tried shifting my weight. The table shuddered, and a second later a scalpel clattered to the floor. I tensed, silently swearing.

The man paused, and panic rose in my throat. Through my fear, I picked up one of Paris’ stray thoughts, something about the light.

Crap! I left the light on!

She must have been in here recently, and if she had turned the light off, she would definitely know someone else had been in here. I hoped the smells riding the air would be enough to mask my scent, and prayed Paris and the man would stay outside.

I felt a sliver of cold emotion from the man – suspicion – before Paris said, “I probably set something too close to the edge of a table and it fell off. Who else could it be? The dead?”

She laughed uneasily as they walked away, and I waited for the sound of their voices to die off before crawling out of my hiding spot.

I didn’t know what was going on, but something told me I had stumbled into a place I was never meant to see.

I shook my leg out as it tingled back to life, and limped over to the door, pressing my ear against it. Sweet silence beckoned me forward and I grasped the knob, turning it.

Fear gripped my throat.

It was locked.

Chapter
19

I pushed down the first strands of panic as I looked around the room, weighing my options. I could wait for someone to come in and glamour them, but I didn’t know how far I’d make it before I was caught. And if that happened, surely they’d kill me.

Or…

Think, Sloane.

I anxiously scanned the room. There had to be something here I could use to pick the lock. My eyes roved past a body, doing a double take.

It was the little girl I had tried to rescue from the cells, the day I discovered glamour.

Seeing her there, I felt incredibly guilty. So much had happened the past few days, I had completely forgotten about her. Sadness welled up in me as I stared at her lifeless face, remembering the warmth of her body pressing close to mine as we tried to find a way out of the base. But it hadn’t been enough – I couldn’t save her in the end.

I walked up to her, my chest heavy with regret, and brushed back the bangs from her closed eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. My fingers touched something cold and metallic; a shiny bobby pin was holding her hair back.

I bit my lip, glancing at her face again. Part of me felt guilty as I reached over and pulled the pin from her hair, my fingers brushing her cold skin, like I was again cheating death on her account. If I could’ve traded places with that little girl, I gladly would have, but she was gone. Her parents would never see her again, and I had let her walk back into Death’s clutches.

I closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths, which made me a little dizzy from the fumes.
It’s not your fault. You didn’t know, couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault…

I saw my brother’s face.
Just like his death wasn’t your fault. Orion would want you to live. So would Dad. You have to fight, for them.

Resolved, I raced to the door and knelt, inserting the bobby pin into the keyhole.

Once my mother had become Sovereign, she placed all kinds of etiquette rules and restrictions on me. When she saw I wasn’t living up to her expectations – meaning, I wasn’t kissing the asses of every visiting politician who came through our house – she would lock me in my room until the meeting was over. But it never stopped me. I always kept a bobby pin handy, twisting it into a makeshift key so I could use it to escape.

With practiced hands, I felt around until I heard the bolt click, and the door slid open with a
whoosh
. Exhaling a huge breath, I put the bobby pin into my pocket and looked outside. The hallway was empty.

Every muscle in my body was coiled into a tight knot as I snuck out of the room and crept toward the exit. A cart rattled somewhere to my right and I backtracked, ducking down another hallway as two people in bulbous white hazard suits rolled past with a stretcher, its victim covered by a white sheet. The person’s arm hung over the side, the hand visible beneath the edge of the sheet. Blood dripped from the corpse’s pale fingertips, leaving a trail. The two workers stopped at the room I had just come from, lifting the body and carrying it inside.

I swallowed hard and sagged against the wall. My head rolled to the right, and I noticed an open door. The light from the hall spilled inside, illuminating several filing cabinets.

You should get out of here while you still can
, my mind said.

Squeezing my lips together, I took a deep breath and walked into the office. I found a light switch and a thin book, which I used to prop open the door in case it was also locked. The room was large, and was laid out a bit like a library, with different sections in alphabetical order. Several rows of filing cabinets spread out before me.

I knew it was incredibly stupid, but the temptation to learn something was too great.

If I’m going to find any answers, it’ll be here
.

I walked down a row of metal cabinets. They were all labeled, some by month and year. I paused, my eyes glued to the label in front of me.

It was October, three years ago.

The exact same month Orion died.

I had to be quick. Glancing back at the door, I knelt and tugged on the drawer. Yellow file folders peered back at me, though they appeared to be in no particular order. Newspaper clippings about the Eclipse and biochemical warfare were stuffed haphazardly next to medical charts for people I didn’t know, along with more messy notes. Judging from the dates written on the files, the vampires had been experimenting on people for a while now.

But what for? What were they trying to gain from this? If not to harvest their blood, then what use were the humans?

A photograph of each test subject was paper clipped onto his or her chart. I flipped through them, not seeing how it could all be linked, when my eyes froze on the bright smile of a boy from my memory.

Orion.

I stared at his sophomore portrait, shocked to see him, before pulling the file and flipping through it.

Why do they have a file on my brother?

My eyes scanned a page. I could make out his name, but the rest of the handwriting was illegible, save for a few words that stuck out: “mutilated corpse,” “blood testing,” a few notes about his high IQ, and his estimated birth and death dates. With growing confusion, I flipped the page, coming to what appeared to be a record of blood tests. The dates of the experiments had been scrawled at different parts of the page, about ten total. I frowned when I read the last one.

It was dated three days ago.

“
What the hell?” I whispered, furrowing my brows.

Beside the date was a note and I squinted to make it out: “Level of infection is twice as fast as the bubonic plague. No known cure.”

The new information swirling in my head began piecing itself together. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and I swayed, splaying a hand on the floor to catch myself. The articles on biochemical warfare, the Mark of the Creator, the secret lab full of dead human bodies…

“
Oh my God,” I breathed. “They’re not just planning on fighting back against the human race. They’re planning to annihilate them with a chemical weapon.”

And my brother’s blood held the key.

My mind reeled. No wonder Aden had been so keen on turning me. They wanted to use me – my blood – as a weapon.

No
, my heart argued.
Aden wouldn’t do that to you.

I paused, thinking. Would he? I didn’t know anything about him; he kept his past so well-guarded. What if he had been lying to me all along? My heart sank a little, a feeling which I tried very hard to ignore.

Maybe that’s all I am to him, a pawn on his chess board.

And what about Paris, who Aden trusted so dearly? She was obviously in on this, in league with whoever the Spice Man was. A man I suspected Aden was also involved with.

My head spun and I shoved the file back in the drawer, rising more confused than ever. I wanted to kick something. Wasn’t there anyone I could trust down here?

Either way, I had to get out. More than ever, I had to get to the surface to warn everyone before it was too late. The humans could kill me if they found out what I was. I knew McGuiness wouldn’t hesitate. He’d probably make it a public execution, if he could. But I could never live with myself if Leo – or even my mother, despite our differences – died and I hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.

I walked to the door and listened. Silence greeted me, so I crept down the hall and out the back entrance. My heart pounded with adrenaline, my stomach churning with dread as I stumbled up the stairs and down the alley back to Paris’ apartment.

As I ran, I tried forming a plan. If I went aboveground, I would have to come back. I was afraid that if I stayed, the vampires would launch the attack premature. Warning the humans in the first place would all have been in vain, if that happened.

I thought about going straight to the tunnels, but decided against it. I had no clue where they led, or how to navigate them. Besides, if I ran now, Paris and Aden might suspect I knew something, and I needed their trust to help my friends and family.

The memory of Aden’s kiss shredded my heart in two. Since when had I started liking him? When had he become anything more than the sworn enemy?

Because he’s defended you, been kind to you
, a voice in my head said gently.

I shook my head. Lies. All of it had been just to get me to play along and not ask questions.

Well, if he thought this girl was going to play the part of love struck damsel-in-distress, he obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.

Luckily, there was no one out, and I slipped back into Paris’ apartment unnoticed. I sniffed my skin. It still smelled faintly of formaldehyde. I found the bathroom and a washcloth, and tried to rinse the scent from my skin, or at the very least, mask it. There was nothing to do for my clothes. Something told me Paris would kill me anyway if she found me wearing something of hers, so I just sprayed some air freshener and lingered in it – hoping it would stick to me – before walking back to the couch. I covered my entire body with the blanket, trying to douse any remaining scent from the lab, and before I knew it, I had drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter
20

I heard the gun cock right before I opened my eyes.

“
I could smell the lab on your clothes as soon as I walked through the door,” Paris said, anger burning on her face. She stood over me, aiming a pistol at my head.

I stared back at her, keeping my lips pressed together.

“
You followed me,” she said.

I swallowed and slowly rose. “Yes. How long have you known?”