Death Before Dawn

by Amelia Hutchins

  I smiled, wiggling my hips for him at the same moment that Jolene walked out of the same building he’d just come out of.

  “Kill her!” she screeched upon laying eyes on me, and I grimaced as I brought my hands out, pulled the pins, and flung the grenades outwards as if they were bowling balls, making sure they’d roll far enough away from both myself and Jaeden.

  Explosions rocked the camp as I dove for cover, reaching into the pouches of my bag for the hidden guns. Bullets hit the hoods of the cars that they’d used to build a crude inner fence with. I didn’t move. I palmed the gun with one hand, another grenade with the other as my heart thumped painfully against my chest. Still, nothing happened. I couldn’t freeze time, couldn’t move from the hail of bullets that hit the hood of the car I hid behind. I was trapped, and could hear the chaos of people screaming from the cages that housed them, as the armed townsfolk shouted loudly over their prisoners’ voices to kill me. Guess my outfit wasn’t enough to outweigh the fact that I’d just blown a lot of their armed guards up. I could hear screams of pain, rage, and more.

  I crouched to a hunched position and looked on either side of me, noting the guards couldn’t see where I had taken cover. I sent a silent prayer to the heavens and rolled away from safety, into the fray. I aimed, shot, and killed men who charged at me with their ungainly movements; bodies hit the ground as I rolled to my feet, ignoring the fact that all guns were aimed at me.

  I watched the man they called Jason stand up; I took careful aim and fired at least a full round into his body, but he still remained standing…immortal? I didn’t have time to figure it out, because he charged at me. Jason, the leader, wasn’t quite human. He let loose a howl and launched himself at me, but he never reached me.

  Instead, time stood still.

  I hadn’t done it. I felt nothing, no rush of power, nothing. I looked around the scene, noting the bullets which would have found their mark on my body, as they hovered midair. I exhaled and held a hand to my heart as the Sentinel materialized a few feet from me. He was wearing full armor, black and deadly from the look of it. It covered him from head to toe, as if it had been crafted just for him. His swords were drawn, and as he slowly walked towards me, he removed Jason’s head with those swords in a swift scissor movement that looked effortless.

  I stepped back, but the Sentinel materialized behind me, and before I could protest, he took me to the ground as the scene came alive again. I groaned against his weight, and his cerulean eyes snapped to mine. My head hurt from where he’d taken me to the ground, and my legs had instinctively wrapped around him in response. My hands gripped his shoulders; his armor was hard, probably bulletproof, and yet it hugged his muscular body perfectly, like a second skin, and, like the tactical gear he wore before, everything but his eyes was covered by the mask he wore.

  His eyes rose as he shifted his weight on top of me, bullets continuing to rain down around us, barely missing their target…us. He seemed oblivious to the peril of our situation and still I couldn’t find my words. Speech was just an alien concept at this moment. My heart was beating wildly, and my body was in a state of shock, as if it had become paralyzed. I couldn’t move to shield myself from the volley of bullets. He turned his head, looking at where my legs had wrapped around him in an automatic response. His gloved hand slid down to touch the outside of my thigh, and he growled as he found a scratch where a bullet had skimmed my flesh, barely missing me.

  He turned those cold eyes back to me, and I tried to force my brain to remember how to feed my lips words. One of the gunmen stepped closer and the Sentinel rolled us, snatching the gun from the ground where I’d dropped it, and took aim as he shot the man moving towards us. The Sentinel didn’t move from my body. He didn’t allow me to get up, as if he was protecting me, using his body as a shield. As if he was sheltering me from harm.

  The moment my body began to work again, I rolled him over without warning; pulling guns from where I’d hidden them in the pouches of my bag, and took aim as I sat straddling his waist. I felt his hands move to my hips as he watched me kill more men who moved in to end our lives. His eyes were hooded when I chanced a peek down at him; his gloved thumbs slid over my exposed midsection as I fired at those who were stupid enough to get too close to us. I’d planned on taking on a lot of the townsfolk in the assault. I hadn’t anticipated an army hiding in those houses and outbuildings. Perhaps I should have given more credence to the whole ‘Clarkston Army’ thing.

  They were flooding the area, guns blazing even though they seemed to miss us with every shot. I’d emptied the clip and was rolled beneath the Sentinel instantly. He got to his knees, with me clinging to him as he watched me. His hands reached for his swords and I watched as his swords spun and danced in the air, slicing through bullets; fragments exploded like glitter shot through a cannon. It was as if he could see the bullets even though their velocity was beyond anything he should have been able to see. I slid down his body, and turned until my back was against his chest, pulling out more magazines for the guns as I did so.

  “Stay with me,” he warned huskily; he moved us with inhuman speed. One minute I’d been touching the ground, and in the next he’d materialized in the middle of the mob of soldiers, swinging his blades deftly. He was trained for war, and damn good at killing.

  I ducked away from him, leaving him in the fray as I made my way to where Jaeden had been riddled with bullets. He’d lost more blood than I’d thought, and as I made my way to free him, arms grabbed me and yanked me back hard. I hit the Sentinel’s chest painfully, and more bullets zipped past us.

  I struggled against him, needing to get Jaeden down from the wooden post that held him up, making him a target.

  “Let me go!” I shouted as time froze and his eyes turned angry.

  “I’m not here to save your lover, Emma,” he snapped.

  “No one asked you to; I’ll do it myself!” I yelled, fighting to get away from him. His grip was like an iron noose; the more I struggled, the harder it was to get free. He twisted my arm, yanking it behind my back painfully, and then his hand slipped behind my back, yanking grenades from my pack, and pulling the pins as he threw them into the mob of soldiers, turning us just in time to miss being hit by the shrapnel from the blast.

  “Stay down,” he ordered as he pushed me to the ground.

  As if. I pulled my bag off and dug through it, looking for anything I had left to use against this guy. No more grenades, and I’d dropped my guns when he’d grabbed me before I’d tried to free Jaeden. I had nothing. I watched him systematically kill the men who remained alive, and then as he was strolling back towards me, time started up, people screamed from cages, and he ignored everything but me.

  I got to my feet and took a defensive stance as he watched me. There was no way I was allowing him to take me, or hurt Jaeden. I kicked out when he got closer, watching him easily deflect it. His eyes slid down the length of me hungrily as I struck out with my fist, once again finding his armor as the pain tore through my hand. I stepped back, and turned to run as I caught sight of Lachlan and the other wolves rushing towards me.

  No. He’d kill them; he would kill them all! He was a Sentinel, one who, much like my mother, killed humans. Like me. Hadn’t I just done the same thing? Everything I knew about my kind said that we’re supposed to protect humans. It was impossible to know if he’d allow them to live, or if he would slaughter them all.

  I turned back to him and shook my head as I watched him pull his swords once more. My eyes turned to the raised stage where Jaeden showed no signs of life, to the cages that held humans and vampires alike; men, women, and children who watched us with wild eyes.

  “No,” I pleaded, sensing he was preparing to slaughter my friends. “Take me, leave them alone!” I screamed, my heart constricting at the idea of losing the people who’d helped me; they were my friends. “You want me, not them!”
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br />   Cerulean eyes turned to me as if he was deciding what to do with me. After what felt like hours of silence, he slid his wicked looking swords back into their scabbards and grabbed me painfully. I heard Lachlan and his men shouting, but it was muted over the sound of our labored breathing. The Sentinel growled as he pulled me tightly against his body and peered over my head as the wolves charged our location. I turned my head, looking at Lachlan, whose green eyes were wild as he tried to reach me in time, and then the world started to change around me.

  “Save Jaeden!” I screamed, forcing the words out as the world shifted around me.

  He moved us. One moment the ground was littered with bodies, and the next we were in the forest. He moved like the other Sentinels, in bursts of distance at a time. My head swirled, my vision blurred, and then everything went dark.

  Chapter 12

  I awoke in a strange bed. The room’s furnishings and decorations looked as if someone spent a lot of time in some high-end furniture stores. My eyes tried to focus, but my head swam from whatever he’d done to me. I ached everywhere, as if I’d been beaten by a gorilla in my dreams. I stood, and instantly sat back down as nausea assaulted me. I could hear voices from somewhere close, but they were unfamiliar, strange.

  I scanned my body and saw that I wore the same outfit I had pilfered from the strip club, but my boots were gone. I had a few raw scrapes from the skirmish, but as far as I could tell, I hadn’t sustained any bad wounds. I gave myself a mental shake as images of Jaeden’s ravaged body flashed through my mind. Had he lived? Had any of them lived? Where the hell was I? Who were the people outside the room?

  I crept towards the only light that illuminated this room, and gasped as an elegant bathroom came into view. There was a huge claw-footed tub with a floating sink beside it. The entire sprawl looked like something you’d find in Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, instead of what I was used to, which was How to Survive an Apocalypse. There was a huge sheepskin rug on the floor, and a fire crackled merrily in a fireplace that was built inside the wall between the bedroom and bathroom. I shuffled towards the mirror, hating that I had to destroy the serene beauty, but I needed a way to protect myself and my bug-out bag was wherever Lachlan was.

  I placed a towel on the counter to muffle the sound, and used one of the bottles that lined the tub to shatter the large oval-shaped mirror. I carefully reached over, grabbed a long piece of glass, and tested it in my hand. It would work.

  I slipped from the bathroom and walked towards the other door, noting that whoever was in the other room was now laughing. I moved soundlessly as I slipped further down the long hallway. Huge paintings depicting battle scenes took up most of the wall space. Normally I loved art, but this wasn’t the time to stop and admire it. I had to get back to Jaeden and Lach; I had to know what had happened after I’d blacked out.

  I rounded the corner, and stopped cold. People milled about, bringing in boxes of food and other things from the front doorway and through a steel door on the other side of this great room that looked very much like the steel door entrance to the Ark. They were laughing as some of the women had stopped what they should have been doing to dig through the boxes the men brought in as, if it was Christmas. I swallowed and started forward to grab one of them to use as a shield until I got the hell out of the house, but my heart started to hammer and, before I’d even made it past the hallway, he was there blocking my path.

  His armor shimmered, his cerulean blue jeweled eyes watched me coldly as the people paused and started moving away from me as if they’d done this drill before. I knew the drill myself; I was stranger-danger to these people.

  “Inside, now,” he growled at them, but they hadn’t needed to be told. They stared at me as they shuffled in swift succession towards the thick steel door and disappeared. I was left standing in the front room with him. “Put it down,” he demanded, looking at the mirror shard in my hand, and I smiled coldly in answer.

  “Let me go, and I won’t slit your throat,” I offered.

  He laughed; the sound of it made my skin prickle as the fine hairs on the back of my neck rose. I stepped forward, and was slammed into the wall so hard my teeth rattled. I hadn’t even seen him move. I groaned as my head bounced; plaster shattered and peppered the floor. I braced myself against the wall, as I jumped slightly and wrapped my legs around him as I pushed the glass shard into his throat. The discovery of armor at his neck came too late as my hand dripped blood, the sound sickening as I felt the glass cut my hand so deeply it touched the bones in my fingers. I cried out, my teeth chattered from the pain, and yet I refused to give in. At least not until the sound of glass scraping across bone filled my ears, sending shocks down my spine.

  Drip-drip. Drip-drip. I dropped the glass, as his eyes continued to watch me with no emotion. I cradled my hand against my chest and did my best to ignore the burning pain. I tried to slam my face against his, but his elbow shifted and I whimpered as it collided with my face.

  “Stop fighting me,” he growled, and I opened my rapidly swelling eyes to growl back, but his hands, which held me firmly in place against the wall, became bare as his armored gloves melted away from them. “You’re safe here, Emma,” he bit out.

  “You had no right to take me!” I snapped, as I felt blood sliding from my nose and down my lip, hating every moment of my weakness. I also hated that my words were slurred from pain.

  “You invited me to come and get you; you challenged me,” he taunted. “I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge.”

  “Put me down,” I whispered, using my arm to wipe away the blood, which resulted in even more blood being spread around from where my hand was flayed open. It burned like hell. He pressed against me harder, and I felt his mouth against my ear.

  “Try to hurt anyone here and I’ll show you what hell really looks like, Emma. Much like your shelter, those here are under my protection and I won’t hesitate to kill you to protect them.”

  His breath fanned my flesh, sending a trickle of fear running down my spine. He didn’t release me, not even when I struggled against him. I turned my face away from his and felt him push me firmly against the wall, until my lungs burned and his armor bit into my flesh.

  “You smell of fear,” he mumbled as he finally allowed me to slide down the wall. I started to move away from him, but he captured my wrist and looked down at me through the slits in his armor. His thumb pressed against my open cut, and once I cried out, he released the pressure. “Tell me you understand that my people are off-limits.”

  “Fuck you!” I snapped, and tried to pull away, but he was immovable. He held me there, his thumb pressed against the wound and tears burned my eyes. I held back the scream that threatened to explode from my lips as his eyes watched me, until I nodded. “Fine!” He released me as if my flesh was fire that burned him. I hit the ground, the pain in my hand and face too much to feel at once.

  He kicked the mirror shard away from me and crouched down, resting his arms on his knees; his blue eyes scanned my face as he spoke. “I can make this easy on you, or I can make your time here hell, that choice is yours. You push boundaries, and enforce laws to protect your people from evil and harm, know that I do the same.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” I demanded.

  “Who I am is unimportant; what I can do to you is important,” he laughed mirthlessly. He picked me up without warning and before I could blink, I was thrown to the bed I’d left before this entire debacle had happened. I cradled my arm as I sat up, and watched as he entered the bathroom and made a tsking sound with his tongue. “You didn’t like the room? Or do you just normally destroy pretty things that were created with you in mind, Emma?” he called out from the other room, his voice floating through the open doorway.

  I didn’t answer; instead, I looked around the room. The paintings were of skulls made up of flowers that I would have loved to have owned befor
e the virus hit. The vanity had been carved from redwood and had a matching chair and a lighted mirror. Nowadays, that part was useless, but it looked like something from an era long past. A metal hairbrush with metal teeth had been left on the vanity tabletop, with a matching comb that had small sapphire jewels encrusted along the spine.

  The lounge chair against the wall was made of sheepskin, and looked as if it belonged on the pages of Vanity Fair, just waiting for someone famous to sit on it. I’d looked at one once, but the hefty price tag had given me a quick reality check. A matching sofa was on the other side of the room. The plush bed I sat on was covered in a velvet comforter that felt like heaven.

  My attention focused back to the armored figure as he walked back into the room with a first aid kit. He sat beside me and I instantly moved to get away from him, but he dropped the box and pounced. His long fingers captured my wrists, and he pushed his weight down on top of me.

  “I’m only trying to help you,” he muttered, but I wasn’t buying it.

  Maybe I was jaded. Maybe I didn’t think there were any nice beings left in this world, or maybe, just maybe, being taken to a strange man’s house and being an unwilling houseguest had set off every warning bell inside my head.

  When I refused to answer him, he laughed and straddled my body without releasing my wrists. The corners of his eyes crinkled, betraying that he smiled beneath the mask he wore. He sat back, releasing my arms and I felt something inside of me spark. As if something was grasping on to every nerve ending, until I couldn’t move. Fear erupted, and tears slid from the corners of my eyes unchecked. I couldn’t prevent it, couldn’t even move.