Nola stood for a moment, teetering on the verge of shouting again. “Right. Sorry, Mom.”
She turned without giving her mother a chance to say another word and stalked past the shelves upon shelves of seeds, not stopping until the cold-storage door whooshed closed behind her. Nola leaned against the concrete wall of the hall, letting the panic of being three stories underground take her. Her vision swam and her heart raced. Every nerve in her body told her she would be crushed to death at any moment. The panic at being so far below the surface was better than the terrible fear and self-loathing that filled her aboveground, surrounded by the blatant signs of attack.
The seeds were stored deep under the earth in the safest place the domes had to offer, but still the attackers from Nightland had gotten into seed storage and medical storage right next door. More than thirty feet of hard-packed earth above and the Vampers had gotten in and out. They had known where they were going and exactly how to get past the guards. Nola’s hands shook. She dug her nails into her arms, willing herself not to scream.
Footsteps came toward the door of medical storage. Nola pushed away from the wall and hurried down the hall, past the guards, and up the stairs.
“Miss Kent,” the sharp voice sounded as soon as she reached the landing on the next level.
She froze for a moment before dashing up the next flight of stairs.
“Miss Kent, I need to speak with you immediately.”
Nola turned slowly, not needing to see his face to know Captain Stokes was the one calling her, his black eyebrows pinched at the center as he glared at her.
Captain Stokes was the head of the Dome Guard, the ones who protected the domes themselves. Just as Captain Ridgeway was the head of the Outer Guard, the elite unit that patrolled the streets of the city across the river, fighting on the front lines when riots overtook the decaying slums.
It was Captain Stokes’ men who should have stopped the attack from ever happening. His Guard who had failed five days ago.
“How are you, Captain Stokes?” Nola’s voice wavered as the powerfully built man approached her.
He limped, still favoring his right leg after the battle, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating.
“My fallen guards are up next for burning, the ones who are still alive are protecting the shattered side of the domes, and the damned doctors can’t set my leg properly,” Stokes said. “How well do you think I’m doing, Miss Kent?”
“About as well as the rest of us,” Nola said. “Everyone’s lost something, Captain Stokes.”
“But was everyone surprised by the loss?” Stokes narrowed his eyes. “I need to talk to you about your time as a prisoner in Nightland.”
Though she had been expecting his words, her heart began to race.
“You told us you had only seen the inside of your cell when you first came home, but when the attack came, you became a fount of information.” Stokes leaned closer, backing her into the wall.
The knowledge that Captain Stokes had every right to glare at her like he knew each horrible thing she had done didn’t make it any easier to not run away.
“How to navigate the tunnels of Nightland, how to find their leader’s home, even where they had been storing things aboveground. I’d like for you to explain to me how you knew all those things if you never left your cell, Miss Kent.” Stokes’ face was only inches from hers, but something in the foul stench of his stale breath emboldened her.
“What happened to me in Nightland was outside the domes,” Nola said. “What happens outside the domes is Captain Ridgeway’s concern, not yours. If Captain Ridgeway wants to talk to me, he knows where to find me. In the meantime, why don’t you go check on your guards? Make sure no more of them end up in line for burning.”
She sidestepped Stokes and darted up the stairs, not breathing until she had reached the lights of the dome two stories above. Sunlight touched her face as she gasped for air. Even through the glass of the dome the sun warmed her skin.
Her feet carried her toward Amber Dome, away from the workers with their heavy boots and noisy tools that toiled frantically to fix the side of the atrium before the rains returned. Back down a flight of stairs and into a short tunnel. Heavy panes of glass leaned against the wall, waiting to be used in the atrium. But the steel had to be fixed first. It would take days for the wall to be in place, and no one knew how long for decontamination to be complete.
The steps leading up into the Amber Dome were empty, and the few people tending the crops in the low, wide dome didn’t pay Nola any mind. The vents blew in clean air, and the fans lifted the scent of fresh, moist earth and vibrant leaves. Rows of leafy green vegetables ran along the outer edge of the dome, closest to the glass, but she headed straight for the center, to the middle of the wheat field that swayed in the breeze. She ducked her head low as she walked so no one could see her path, and when all the walls were out of sight, she lay down on the warm soil, letting the green and amber stalks surround her.
Thick, gray smoke cut through the dazzling blue sky above. Ten would be burned today. Ten of the seventy-two fallen Domers. A list had been read over the com that morning. PAM had displayed their faces on all the computer screens for ten minutes, one last memorial to those who had died. This was the third day of burning, and they hadn’t even made it to the fallen guards yet. They would be burned last, their sacrifice in protecting the domes given the highest point of honor.
Twenty-seven guards had been lost.
Nola rolled onto her side, covering her head with her arms. Twenty-seven guards who wouldn’t be there to defend the domes if Nightland attacked again.
But the Vampers from Nightland had fled the city. Taken everything they had and vanished. They could be hundreds of miles away by now. Or only a few. Kieran had never told her where it was Emanuel, the leader of Nightland, wanted to take his people.
She took a shuddering breath. Pain shot through her, but there were no tears. How could she cry for herself when she knew what was to come?
She had thought before that Nightland would never attack the domes. She had been delusional enough to believe she knew Emanuel and Kieran. That they were good people who would never harm her or her home.
Seventy-two dead.
Her home had been shattered. She had to pay the price, but she would be damned if she was going to wait for Stokes to come for her. Nola looked back up to the bright sky. The smoke had started to fade. Another body gone. Scrunching her eyes, she tried to memorize the bright blue. She might never see the noon sky again. But the blue held no thrall. No lightness or joy. All that was left for her was justice and darkness. She stood and, walking tall, headed straight for the Iron Dome.
* * *
Click here to continue reading Boy of Blood.
Girl of Glass
Bonus Material
Girl of Glass - Chapter 13.5
Two Weeks Before Nightland’s Attack
“Moving the plants is taking more time than was allocated.” Lenora Kent stood in front of the giant screen in the Com Room, her chin tipped up and hands planted on her hips.
“Why?” The image of Dr. Marcum leaned in.
Captain Ridgeway gazed down at his hands resting on his knees. He didn’t need to watch Lenora’s grand show of bristling at being questioned. He’d witnessed the display too many times before. He had better things to be doing than sitting with the rest of the Domes Council staring at a screen, but the Incorporation had summoned them.
The Incorporation rules us all.
“The work we’re doing is delicate,” Lenora said. “I made it clear at Green Leaf that I would need extra hands in moving the plants to make room for the new rain forest additions.”
“A request which we granted,” Dr. Marcum said.
“I thought,” Lenora said, “you would be sending me people trained in botany, not letting the children out of school to run amok with my plants.”
Captain Ridgeway glanced back to the screen as curiosity won
out. If Dr. Marcum took offense to Lenora’s tone, he didn’t show it.
“I’m supervising teenagers,” Lenora said. “I can’t do any of the work myself. I’m too busy making sure none of the students I’ve been given destroy the plants that feed the population of these domes. If the Incorporation won’t send workers from other domes to help with the process, then you have to choose. Do you want the work done quickly or done well?”
Dr. Marcum nodded for a moment before speaking. “I appreciate your situation, but the Incorporation doesn’t have the means to ship workers from one location to another. Moving the new specimens is enough of a strain on our resources.”
Lenora glared at the screen.
Any other department head from the Incorporation wouldn’t have stood for such defiance. But Captain Ridgeway didn’t even bother to hope Lenora would finally be told orders were orders and figuring out how to get the work done was a part of being trusted with the leadership of their domes.
“I can delay the shipment of the new rain forest assets by a week,” Dr. Marcum said. “Any longer would put the plants at risk.”
“Thank you, Dr. Marcum,” Lenora said. “We’ll have the dome ready to receive our new arrivals.”
Captain Ridgeway looked away from the giant screen and to the wide window that faced the city. No smoke rose in the cloudless sky. The smog levels hadn’t been high enough to cause real concern when he sent the morning patrol across the bridge to monitor the streets. No one had called him with word of any new food riots or violence of any kind since daybreak.
A small part of him wished a Vamp lab would catch fire. Just a bit of black smoke on the horizon and he’d have an excuse to leave the meeting.
“Captain Ridgeway,” a grating voice came through the screen.
The captain scanned the city for smoke one last time before standing up and taking Lenora’s place in the center of the Com Room.
“Commander Salinger.” Ridgeway gave a slow nod that bordered on a bow.
Salinger didn’t prompt Ridgeway to speak. He might as well have been a bald, long-limbed statue placed in Incorporation Headquarters.
“The dangers in the city are escalating,” Captain Ridgeway said. “The pure human population is practically extinct at this point.”
“Extinct?” Salinger said.
“Between Vamp and Lycan, there are barely enough unchanged adults to work in the factories,” Ridgeway said. “In the past week, we’ve had to raid two factories that had resorted to hiring Vampers as workers.”
“Disgusting.”
Ridgeway didn’t look behind him to see which of the Dome Council members had spoken.
“By our estimation, the number of changed residents in the city is well into the thousands,” Ridgeway said.
Salinger’s pale eyebrows pinched together.
Another figure stepped onto the screen. “Are you telling us that there are thousands of potential combatants in your city?” Dr. Ray, the head of Incorporation assets, said.
“Yes, ma’am.” Ridgeway gave another slow bow-like nod. “I’ve been warning the Incorporation of this possibility for months.”
“In all other dome locations, drug users have been killing each other off as quickly as newly changed have been created,” Dr. Ray said. “We’ve always seen stability in the Vamper populations.”
“If you’ll review my report,” Ridgeway said, “you’ll see Lycan is encouraging the formation of packs. Large groups of users that flock to an alpha leader. These packs are a massive risk to my guards.”
“That still doesn’t account for—” Dr. Ray began.
“How are the Vampers not slaughtering each other?” Salinger said. “The population should be held steady by the availability of human blood to drink and territory to claim.”
“My patrols have come to believe that there’s a Vamper nest in the city,” Captain Ridgeway said. “According to our sources, there is a group of upwards of a thousand Vampers who have banded together.”
The sounds of his fellow Council members stirring rustled behind him.
“If a force even a few hundred strong attacked my Outer Guard on the street,” Ridgeway said, “Commander, it would be nothing less than a slaughter.”
“That is the risk the Outer Guard take,” Captain Stokes said.
Ridgeway locked his arms at his sides, refusing to acknowledge Stokes.
“If there are a full thousand combatants hiding in the city,” Ridgeway said, “and that group chooses to cross the river and attack, in our current state we cannot defend the domes.”
“An attack on the domes falls under the realm of the Dome Guard,” Captain Stokes said, “not the Outer Guard.”
“The Dome Guard don’t have the training, experience, or capability to repel an attack on the domes,” Ridgeway said. “We can pretend otherwise, but if the worst comes, it will be my people fighting at the front, and we all know it.”
“How dare—”
Salinger raised his hand, silencing Stokes.
“It would fall to the Outer Guard,” Salinger said. “And from the sound of it, Captain Ridgeway, you yourself don’t believe your people capable of defending your home.”
“My guards are capable,” Ridgeway said, “but we’re fighting Vampers and wolves who can be shot in the stomach and not die.”
“Are you asking for the Incorporation’s assistance in remedying the matter?” Salinger said.
A shiver ran down Ridgeway’s spine.
“There are resources being produced in the city that are still very useful to the domes,” Dr. Ray said.
“I am confident in the ability of my guards to defend these domes without the assistance of the Incorporation,” Ridgeway said.
Dr. Ray’s shoulders relaxed.
“What I am asking for,” Ridgeway said, “is approval to move forward with the alternatives we have discussed.”
The scraping of chairs as the council members behind him shifted in their seats set his teeth on edge.
“My Outer Guard are battling Vampers and wolves every night,” Ridgeway said. “What I’m asking is for you to give them a chance to survive.”
Salinger raised a hand, muting the video. He turned his back to the screen, speaking to the out of sight members of the Incorporation board.
“This is wrong,” Lenora said. “We all know it. The domes were built to—”
“To survive the end of the world.” Ridgeway rounded on her. “I am finding a way for my men, for all of us, to survive.”
“My husband was an Outer Guard for years. He fought in the city,” Lenora said. “He never would have stooped so disgustingly low.”
“Your husband died on the streets,” Dr. Mullens said. “I, for one, am tired of Outer Guard corpses being carried back into the domes. It’s my job to keep our people healthy. If we have to take extreme measures, so be it.”
Lenora shook her head, biting her lips together as though for once choosing to swallow her words.
A ding rang from the screen as sound returned.
“You have the Incorporation’s blessing to proceed,” Salinger said.
“Thank you, Commander.” Ridgeway bowed. “You’ve just saved a lot of lives.”
“Protect the domes at all costs,” Dr. Ray said. “The assets in the domes are more valuable than what the city still has to offer.”
“Of course, Dr. Ray,” Ridgeway said.
“If you fail to secure the city,” Salinger said, “I will have no choice but to personally intervene. Do not allow the liberties the Incorporation has granted to have been in vain.”
The surge of triumph that had lifted Ridgeway’s chest vanished. “Commander, I am confident my guards will be able to protect the domes. You’ve granted us the gift we’ve been waiting for. Graylock will turn the tide of this war.”
Also by Megan O’Russell
The Girl of Glass Series
Girl of Glass
Boy of Blood
Night of Never
&nb
sp; Son of Sun
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The Tale of Bryant Adams
How I Magically Messed Up My Life in Four Freakin’ Days
Seven Things Not to Do When Everyone’s Trying to Kill You
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The Tethering Series
The Tethering
The Siren’s Realm
The Dragon Unbound
The Blood Heir
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The Chronicles of Maggie Trent
The Girl Without Magic
The Girl Locked with Gold
The Girl Cloaked in Shadow
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Sweet Romance Novellas
A Midsummer Love’s Dream
Nuttycracker Sweet
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About the Author
Megan O'Russell is the author of several Young Adult series that invite readers to escape into worlds of adventure. From Girl of Glass, which blends dystopian darkness with the heart-pounding danger of vampires, to The Chronicles of Maggie Trent, which opens the gateway to a hundred magical realms. 2019 has led Megan on a new publishing journey, which will see thirteen projects released within the year, including the Girl of Glass series, The Tethering series, The Chronicles of Maggie Trent, and The Tale of Bryant Adams. To be the first to hear about new releases, free short stories, and giveaways, sign up for Megan's newsletter by visiting MeganORussell.com. Originally from Upstate New York, Megan is a professional musical theatre performer whose work has taken her across North America. Her chronic wanderlust has led her from Alaska to Thailand and many places in between. Wanting to travel has fostered Megan’s love of books that allow her to visit countless new worlds from her favorite reading nook. Megan is also a lyricist and playwright. Information on her theatrical works can be found at RussellCompositions.com. She would be thrilled to chat with you on Facebook or Twitter @MeganORussell, elated if you'd visit her website MeganORussell.com, and over the moon if you'd like the pictures of her adventures on Instagram @ORussellMegan.
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