Darklight 2: Darkthirst Read online

  Roxy stirred against the wall with an embarrassed look. I raised a curious eyebrow at her.

  “Look,” she said. “You should know I radioed them with some info about the Canyonlands area. I had to report in. The Bureau planned to follow up the lead and raid this place in six hours.”

  It didn’t leave a lot of time, but it would be enough to make an escape.

  “What’s up?” I asked Sike, noticing he and Bravi were watching Roxy carefully.

  “She’s got good vibes still,” he said definitively. “She’s genuinely trying to help us.”

  Dorian stepped beside him and nodded in agreement. Bravi did the same.

  “She's honest,” Dorian said solemnly.

  Roxy accidentally met Bravi’s gaze. For a moment, they stayed like that, as if wondering how they’d gotten to this point after their alliance at the trial facility. Roxy abruptly jerked her head down with a scowl. Bravi’s expression wasn’t much better. Their comradery seemed dead and buried. I’d seen that friendship forged during those several weeks. They stayed turned away from each other.

  “We have to leave as soon as possible,” I suggested. Dorian nodded bleakly, then moved closer to me.

  “What do you want to do with them?” he asked, leaning his head discreetly toward mine.

  “I can only show them the evidence again.” I glanced over the four faces. Faces I had worked alongside for years. “If that doesn’t sway them, then we’ll need to think of something else. We can try to figure out what exactly that is while we wait for the scouts to return.”

  “Well, since we’ve been made,” Bryce announced as he removed something from his pocket. “I’ve got a call I need to make.”

  We stared at the older man as he placed his battery back into his cellphone. I gaped in confusion as he opened it up and tapped out a number. He put the phone to his ear, giving us all a saucy look.

  “Aye, what did you do now?” said a loud female voice with a Scottish brogue even thicker than Bryce’s. The volume was so loud that we could all hear them.

  The person on the other end sounded wild, like she was ready to fight at any moment over anything. Loud music could be heard coming through the phone. A glass broke somewhere. Someone cheered.

  “Calm down, calm down. I’m fine. Just found myself with a slight complication.” Bryce’s accent thickened, and his voice deepened as he spoke.

  A burst of words tumbled from the speaker, but between the accent and the frantic background noise, I couldn’t quite make out what was being said. Something about a rescue? Gathering the boys?

  “No, no, don’t trouble yourself,” Bryce said brusquely. “I can handle it.”

  Well, that was news to me.

  “Just calling to say that I may not be in contact for a while. I’ve got some things to take care of.”

  A pause came over the line, allowing the wail of what sounded like a fiddle and a set of bagpipes to slip through. Suddenly it was quieter, as it seemed the person had left the room.

  “Well, at least it isn’t as bad as the last time,” the voice said, but she sounded almost disappointed.

  I exchanged a look with Zach. What was the last time, Captain? And how on earth was it worse than this?

  “You’re right. I’ve got to go now. Give my love to the little ones. I’ll call when I can.” He ended the call and removed the battery again. When he looked up at us, a teasing glint lit his eye in response to our mouths hanging wide open. “What?”

  “You—” I couldn’t manage to find any words.

  He grinned, quite proud to have stunned us all so thoroughly. “You think a captain stops existing when he’s off the clock? I’ve got family too,” he said smirking. Then his humor faded. “Family I’d like to see again.”

  A chill ran through me as I nodded. The discovery of Bryce’s family connections made me want to fight even harder. My friends and I all had family we wanted to get back to as well.

  Light footsteps echoed down the entryway. We turned to see two vampires, older men. They must’ve been the first scouts. Their clothes looked tattered, the fabric the same thick linen-like material I was used to seeing on the vampires. Each cloak was a different shade of faded green and brown, gray dust skirting the bottom hem.

  “They’re nowhere to be found on this plane,” said the taller one to the vampires that were gathered. “They’ve flown through the tear, it seems.” He dropped his disappointed gaze to the ground.

  “Are you sure, Lex?” Rhome asked the other vampire in a rising voice.

  Lex, whose skin was almost as gray as the dust on his cloak, scratched at his red stubble and nodded slowly.

  “Then we’re ready to go,” Oleah said in a loud voice.

  “Let’s begin,” Dorian said and turned toward me. Even in the tensest of moments, his presence sent a warm sensation through me.

  “Is everyone ready?” he asked. From his expression, I knew he wanted me to make a decision about our captives. I sighed and rubbed my temples as I turned back to my former teammates. Zach came to join me. Part of me screamed to simply haul them along with us, insisting that I could find a way to convince them. But we didn’t have the time or energy for that. There was no right decision. In the end, it would have to be their own.

  “You can either come with us now that you know the truth or get left behind here,” I informed them. “That’s all I can offer you.”

  Roxy bit her lip with a worried glance. Fear tempered her anger.

  “We can’t just leave,” Louise muttered weakly. Roxy nodded in agreement, along with Grayson and Colin.

  I swallowed my pain at hearing their unbroken doubt. The truth hadn’t convinced them, after all. Perhaps I’d been foolish to still be hopeful.

  “The Bureau has been our whole lives,” Roxy said, avoiding my gaze for the first time. “For some of us, it’s everything. They trained us, cared for us, gave us a career and a purpose. And I get that what is written in that report looks bad and that the blueprints are awful. But… there has to be a good explanation for this.”

  Louise spoke up. “There has to be a reason. They must know something we don’t.” Her tone was colored with blind optimism, and I saw shame in her eyes as she flickered a look at Sike.

  I recognized the same feelings on the other three faces. I ignored the sting of their decision and looked at Bryce, who had taken a step forward.

  “If you all want to stay here,” he announced, “we’ll leave the four of you tied up in the canyon outside. We’ll leave you a bit of water. I assume you were each given a distress beacon?”

  Roxy nodded. “They couldn’t guarantee they could track our comms out in the desert.”

  The distress beacons were an electronic device no larger than the palm of my hand but sent out a powerful and incredibly accurate signal. The Bureau gave one to each of its soldiers when they were going out on missions into dangerous landscape. The beacons made sure that if any of us got into a tight spot, such as falling down a crevasse like Zach did one time in Alaska on a training exercise, there was a strong signal for search parties to lock on to. While there was a tracking device in all of our comms units, they became notoriously inaccurate outside a certain radius and were mainly to ensure teammates could keep track of one another out on missions. It didn’t surprise me at all that they had been given one for this mission, and I was annoyed with myself that I hadn’t been able to find any when I searched my teammates.

  Bryce looked satisfied. “If we weren’t in such a pickle right now, I’d say I was proud of how well I had trained you all,” he said. He bent and rifled through his former trainees’ pockets, finding a beacon on each of them. “Very proud, indeed.”

  Three of the beacons he crushed under his heel, but he kept one and knelt in front of Roxy. “I’ll give you this when our group leaves. The Bureau can come to pick you up after we’ve left.”

  In tense silence, everyone began to pack. Zach stared at the ground for a moment, his mouth twisted in conflict. G
ina went to grab their gear. The air between each and every human was thick with worry. This wasn’t the decision I’d hoped for. My nerves burned with dread. I had to keep moving even if I wanted to scream in frustration.

  My gear was already collected. We didn’t have much. “I’ll stand guard. Wait for Gina to come back and help you,” I told Zach. “You’ll need to lean on her to walk out of here.”

  He nodded, distracted. He was worried about this situation with Roxy’s team, but he wouldn’t back down. My brother was too stubborn for that.

  “I’ll stand with you,” Sike said to me. The hulking vampire, Gavril, had left without me realizing it, and the cavern was rapidly emptying. I nodded and thanked him.

  Sike stood in front of Louise, staring down at her with an unreadable expression. Their time at the trial facility was sullied by the recent developments.

  Grayson, as if seeing Sike’s presence as a threat, angled himself to place his body protectively between Sike and Louise. The latter didn’t seem to notice. She only had eyes for Sike, her cheeks dusted pink from the proximity of his gaze.

  Sike looked from Grayson to Louise, a question on his face. She lifted her chin higher to meet the vampire’s gaze, posturing in an attempt at pride.

  After a cold moment, Sike gave a shrug and stepped away, turning his back on the prisoners. Louise held her position for a moment, then slumped against the wall, looking slightly lost and off-balance, like she’d missed a step.

  Grayson leaned back, relieved. I averted my eyes.

  This was the mirror of my own decision. I had to give up alliances with my old friends, my ex-comrades. My stomach burned with dread. A feeling of finality came over me.

  I’d sided with the vampires. I had made my choice. There was nothing left to do but move forward.

  Chapter Four

  Bryce and Bravi quickly came to join us, carrying their belongings. We watched the prisoners while the rest of the cave group prepared for their own retreat. From the sound of their conversation, most had decided to return to the Immortal Plane. I tried not to feel sad as I covertly watched them. How many would stay with us? I bit my lip and rolled it between my teeth. Everything was uncertain.

  Bryce pulled the tracking beacon from his pocket and crouched by Roxy. He placed it in her hand. A strange pause fell over us. It felt as if Bryce were a captain again. It made this all the more painful. We used to be so close… and everything had changed. Grayson met my gaze, then looked away.

  “You only set this off once we’ve left,” Bryce said.

  Roxy nodded. We’d loosened her restraints slightly on one hand so she would be able to operate the tracking beacon. I hoped we wouldn’t regret it. They could easily betray us and send info about our plans straight back to headquarters. After all, they had made the decision to stand by the Bureau.

  Dorian had gone ahead to help the vampire group. Gina briefly darted out from a passageway to whisper in my ear that she would help Zach fly with Rhome.

  “Understood,” I said.

  She ran off to make preparations. An anxious feeling crawled up my neck. The hairs on my arm stood to attention. Something was coming.

  A sound caught my ear. There was a helicopter above us. I tried to calm my breathing, reminding myself that this had happened before. We were clearly in the middle of an airpath, with planes often flying overhead. Sike cleared his throat beside me. I glanced around to see Bryce, concerned. Sike put up a warning finger as Roxy attempted to stir and say something.

  The chopper sounded like it was getting closer, growing louder. My heart slammed in my chest. I eyed Bryce with worry, and he flattened his lips together, indicating for everyone to be silent with a raised hand. In stillness, we listened. After a moment, he moved toward the end of the tunnel, waving me after him. We eased out of one of the smaller exits onto a slim ledge to see a disturbing sight.

  Captain Finley and a group of soldiers spread out on the ground, a black Bureau-issue helicopter beating up a violent dust storm not far from the outcropping our hideout ran through. I studied them nervously. Although they were in uniform, I had been dedicated to learning the forms and postures of my team. If I wasn’t mistaken, Sarah and Lily were among their ranks. Bryce and I exchanged a dismayed look as Sike and Bravi, drawn by the sound, came to join us.

  “Crap,” Sike muttered. We retreated into the passageway, but we heard approaching soldiers coming from the other side of the canyon on the outside. The Bureau had trained me, and I should’ve known they would be crafty. They were a step ahead of everyone, even their soldiers like Roxy.

  “They lied about when they were coming on purpose. They factored in the risk that Roxy would try to help us,” I said with a shake of my head, angry at my lack of foresight. “What are we going to do?” I thought of Dorian and Zach.

  They must have heard the incoming choppers. Dorian could help Zach onto a redbill quickly enough, despite Zach’s injury. I hoped they would hop on the redbills and take off without coming back. If I had the choice, I wanted the others to be safe… even if it meant sacrificing myself to the Bureau as a prisoner.

  “Put your hands in the air!” a voice commanded.

  I froze, then slowly lifted my hands, as did the other three. Finley and a few helmeted soldiers aimed guns in our direction.

  “We’ll cover you!” Finley shouted. “Run from the vampires now!”

  I didn’t move an inch. Did they still think they were rescuing us? Or was it a trap? They’d told Roxy and her team a lie, but Finley might rank high enough to have learned the truth. Bryce and I shared a glance, recognizing the layout of the soldiers. Their formation was typical Bureau strategy: pin down and fan out. From the corner of my eye, I saw two or three redbills take off into the air. They lifted into the blue skies faster than I’d ever seen them move, which was saying something. Three soldiers brushed past us and went through the tunnel. From inside, I heard the distant shouts of Roxy and the other captives screaming for help. This wasn’t good. My hands wavered in the air.

  Dorian’s face flashed through my mind as Finley furrowed her brow at me warily. Was she trying to decide where I stood with the vampires?

  The redbills chirped above. Was Dorian safe? I licked my chapped lips and gathered my courage. If Dorian was caught… if the Bureau found him… I couldn’t let that happen. He had to survive. I straightened my back and prepared to stall her.

  “I’m not coming back,” I said firmly. “Roxy and her team are inside. You can take them as a consolation prize.”

  Finley’s face transformed with irritation, the tight bun of her curly red hair causing her face to become even more severe. “Your uncle wants you home safe,” she said. “We don’t want any more bloodshed, Lyra. We’re here to help you.”

  “I didn’t want bloodshed.” Heat flamed my face, and I tried to push down the anger. The blueprints burned in my mind. The gas chamber. I gritted my teeth as I remembered Dorian packing his few belongings. Again.

  “There’s been a misunderstanding,” she said in a gentler voice, shaking her head slightly. “A miscommunication. The Bureau wants to fill you in, Lyra.”

  A miscommunication about gas chambers and genocide? I bit my tongue to keep from yelling. I wanted to remind Finley that the Bureau taught all their soldiers how to negotiate with hostiles. It wasn’t a coincidence that she had gently used my name twice already. It was a common tactic, and I was no fool.

  “It’s rich that you’re claiming to rescue her while pointing guns in her face,” Sike said, with a shadow of his usual humor. I huffed out a laugh before I thought to hold it back. Finley scowled, looking sour. I regretted the chuckle, considering how close Sike was to her gun.

  If I can speak to Uncle Alan, then maybe that’s the last-ditch effort we need to avoid a struggle with Finley.

  “I want to speak to Director Sloane,” I announced. If I could get him on the line, he might actually have something worth saying… and if he didn’t, it still might buy us some time. Finle
y blinked twice as if processing my request.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “I can do that.” She pulled out her comm and spoke into it, “Requesting Director Sloane. First Lieutenant Lyra Sloane would like to speak with him.”

  A crackle sounded on the other end. She lowered her gun and stepped forward to hold up the comm so I could easily speak into it.

  “Lyra?” The worry in my uncle’s voice nearly broke my heart, though Finley’s guns didn’t scream familial concern. I couldn’t believe it was actually his voice coming out of the comm.

  I drew a ragged breath, knowing I was about to ask him for something he wouldn’t give me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Lyra, please. You don’t understand the situation. But I’m giving you and your brother an out. You don’t have to do this,” he said gently.

  I had said something similar to Roxy, but there was no denying those blueprints. He spoke as if he were being merciful. Funny, I felt the same way about there being a misunderstanding.

  “We can forget this ever happened… nobody will know.”

  Dorian’s face flashed through my mind again. I could feel his stone in my pocket. In a second, I saw every face from his clan. With crystal clarity, I recalled the dread of hearing Uncle Alan’s voice as I looked at the blueprints, desperate for there to be a misunderstanding.

  “I’ll know,” I reminded him. “I can’t forget what is written in those reports and in those blueprints. How can you ask me to ignore plans for mass murder?”

  He hesitated, then tried again. “Lyra, I understand you’re confused… but your parents miss you. They’re afraid you’re out of your depth. We don’t want you to get hurt. You or Zach.”