by D. A. Hicks
“You may be right.” She pulled me closer to her. “Come on, the utility vehicle is a few blocks from here.”
“You sure are a looker.” An old man at the end of the street slurred, blocking our way. He waved a gun over his head, then used it to point at Ry. “They said I could have anyone I wanted. I feel like killing something pretty today.”
I glanced at Ry as she shuffled back to shield me. “Drunk and stupid.” She shook her head at him in disapproval. “I don’t have time for this. Step aside, or you’ll regret it.”
“Not much to regret these days. I’ve nothing left. You people. You come and take. Now I’m thinkin’ it’s my turn to do some takin’ of my own. Earn me some creds.”
She focused her luminescent gaze on him, channeling her influence. The guy doubled over in pain, mumbling something like “not her.” After a few seconds, he recovered from Ry’s compulsion. Mouth open, he touched his stomach, then glared at his free hand.
“Not real.” His throaty laugh echoed in the empty alley.
“Enough of you have died in the past eight hours. Go home, old man.” Ry turned to me. “Get out of here. I’ll catch up.”
What was this guy playing at? Looks aside, the compulsion and the QEC gear were dead giveaways that Ry was immortal. His old school pistol couldn’t inflict more than a scratch on her. While infected with the Ukruum virus, she couldn’t be killed. If the old man was still standing, it was because she wasn’t like the other commandos. She was kind and took the immortal oath seriously. Her job was to protect and keep the peace.
“Catita, go get the vehicle and your uniform. Now.”
When I faced the alley behind us, a gunshot rung out. The awful din left a screeching buzz in my ears. My gaze darted between the old man holding the smoking gun in his hand and the spot where Ry lay on the ground wounded.
He stared at her. Eyes wide and wild, while he gasped for air. “It worked?” His head snapped up to me. With trembling hands, he cocked his weapon and aimed it at me.
I sat on my haunches, shielding Ry, and raised one arm in surrender so the old man wouldn’t shoot again.
8
Until the Blood Runs Red
Catita
From behind me, Captain Weston charged in and shot the weapon out of the man’s hand. He needed to do more than that. The drunk old man had a weapon that could pierce through immortal skin. How was that even possible?
“Catita.” Captain Weston called for me, but the humming in my head muffled his words. “Catita? Goddamn it, answer. This isn’t the time to lose your shit.”
“Yes, sir.” I snapped out of my initial shock of seeing Ry wounded and scrambled to my feet.
“Were there others?” he asked.
“I only saw him. He came out of that alley.” I pointed behind me. “Then he shot Ry with a pistol.” I glared at the old man. Now that I had time to really look at him, he seemed familiar, but his skin was so discolored and his features so distorted, I wasn’t sure. Was this Lee? Tek’s friend from the supply store, the one who helped us hide from the QEC commandos?
“What?” Captain Weston’s gaze scanned the area until he spotted the weapon a few feet from us. He picked it up and checked the barrel. “It’s empty.”
A throbbing ache burned across my chest as I glared at it. “He said doing this would earn him creds,” I said under my breath.
“He got paid and was only given one bullet?”
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ll find out.” Captain Weston stalked over to the old man. “Stay with Ry.”
I dropped to my knees and pulled Ry onto my lap. “It’s going to be okay. The Ukruum will heal you. Okay? You’re fine.”
“Catita, get back to the ship.” Ry shoved my hands away from her.
“Captain Weston is here. He’ll fix it.”
“It worked,” the old man repeated over and over, cowering near the dumpster.
“Who sent you? Where did you get that shot?” Captain Weston grabbed his arm.
When the man didn’t answer, Captain Weston clocked him in the face. Blood sprang from the man’s nose like a faucet, but he didn’t try to stop it. He wiped his face on his shoulder, leaving a streak of red on his cheek. But other than that, he didn’t seem to be in any kind of pain—not from the gash in his hand or the Captain’s interrogation tactics.
“What the fuck are you on?” Captain Weston gripped the man by the wrist and swung him around.
In a flash, the old man was in restraints, eating dust on the street. His dull eyes stared straight ahead as if he were dead. Maybe the dim light in the alley was playing tricks on me, but I could swear his skin had turned a grayish tone like concrete.
“How is she?” Captain Weston joined me.
“The bleeding hasn’t stopped.”
“Eli, take her away,” Ry said.
Her silvery, immortal blood seeped through the hole in her armor. I’d never seen her injured like this before, bleeding like the rest of us. Ry was the strong one. The one who couldn’t die. I didn’t know what to do other than lay her flat on the pitted street and let the virus heal her.
“It’ll save its host to save itself,” I said, as if saying the words aloud would make it happen faster. “Is the man on Ukruum wafers or something?” I asked Captain Weston.
“No, the wafers give you stamina and strength. This is something else. He can’t feel pain, and I can’t influence him.” Captain Weston knelt next to Ry, glaring at the man lying ten feet from us, then tapped on his wristband. “What the hell? I have no comms.” He tried a few more times, but the same out-of-range Phoenicis symbol hovered over his device.
“We need to get her out of here.” I couldn’t feel Ry anymore. Something was terribly wrong if she wasn’t strong enough to share her emotions with me.
“No one’s coming.” He glanced up and down the deserted street.
“There’s no time.” Ry winced and reached for my hand. “It’s starting again, Catita. No matter how hard they try.” Her words were barely above a whisper.
“Damn it, Ry. Why did you do it? I saw you.” Or at least I thought I had. The old man had fired at me. “You shielded me instead of going after him.”
“My job is to protect you.” A sound like a cough and a chuckle escaped her lips. “I didn’t think his pistol could do much damage.”
“What do you need me to do?” My hands hovered over her torso. “Captain?”
“Let me take a look.” Captain Weston touched my shoulder to move me out of the way.
“Why is she not healing?” I asked.
He shook his head, focused on Ry as he ripped open her breastplate and shirt. The man had shot her straight through the heart.
“How the fuck did he get his hands on this kind of weapon?” He stared at the damage in disbelief.
“What kind of weapon?”
He scooped up a fat, elongated casing off the sidewalk and showed it to me. “These are made specifically to carry a dose of synthetic antibodies meant to target the Ukruum virus and eradicate it in a matter of minutes.”
“There’s such a thing?”
“I’ve only seen this once before. In a proposal for a prototype that got shut down by the Forever Queen. But that was almost a hundred years ago.”
“You’re telling me there’s nothing we can do?” Adrenaline rushed through me at the idea of losing Ry.
“Ha!” Ry groaned in pain.
A spidery bruise spread across her skin as the poison leached through her veins. Ry was dying along with the Ukruum. I sat there frozen. My tears streamed over my cheeks and onto her gaping wound. On contact, luminescent sparks rushed through her silver blood. After a few beats, the strings of light puffed out and the exposed flesh turned dark red.
“Here.” She scratched her throat, pulling at the thin chain around her neck.
“What is it?” I asked.
She yanked at the locket she always wore around her neck and pressed it into my hands. “Take th
e memory chip in the locket. Protect the Prime Vector.”
“Ry,” Captain Weston whispered against her hair.
“Eli, promise me you will protect my sister.” She swallowed and winced.
“Don’t worry about that right now. We’re gonna get you some help.” He tapped on his wrist again.
“Eli, stop.” She took his hands. “Promise you’ll take care of her.”
“She doesn’t deserve it. Your love and this devotion. Why?”
“Please. For me?”
He sighed and nodded once. “For you.”
Ry touched her sticky fingers to my cheek and offered me a weak smile. “Sorry, Cat. I never thought we’d run out of time this soon.”
Was she giving up? They both had given up. “Help her. Ping the medical unit again. They can fix this,” I said to Captain Weston, but he didn’t move. “Until the blood runs red.” I recited the Immortal Oath to him. “We have to try.”
“They can’t fix this.” He stared at her, as if he couldn’t hear me.
I followed his line of sight and spotted a foreign object buried in her chest. The bullet? Would extracting the fragments help her? What other choice did I have? I dropped the necklace in the small pocket of my pants and wiped my hands on my top.
“Hold on. What are you doing?” He blocked me with his arm. For the first time ever since I joined the Mars Service Academy at sixteen, he didn’t treat me to one of his menacing glares. “Don’t touch her.”
“I have to get the bullet out. Look, her body is having a reaction to it.” I pointed at the infected flesh that looked dark red and somehow not alive.
“We don’t remove bullets. You could make it worse. Her body is not regenerating.”
His medical advice couldn’t exactly apply to Ry. We’ve never seen this kind of injury before. Immortal skin was impenetrable. Best practices couldn’t help us now. “It can’t be worse than what’s already happening. You have to get the casing out. It’s like it’s still leaking something.”
He surveyed my face for what felt like hours. We didn’t have that kind of time. “Do it.”
“Shouldn’t you do it?” I’d barely completed one class of first aid. He was the captain and had to be at least one-hundred years old. By anyone’s definition, he had way more experience than me.
He shook his head, furrowing his brows at the gaping hole on Ry’s chest. Unlike Captain Weston, she never blocked her emotions around me. I always felt what she felt. I didn’t need Captain Weston to let me in on how afraid he was. His face said it all.
“You’re scared? Why? You think if you touch her, you’ll lose your immortality too? She’s dying.” I raised my voice. When he shot me a glance that said he could bite my head off if he wanted to, adrenaline shot through me. “Sir.” I sat back on my heels and bowed my head, like a frightened sheep waiting for the big bad wolf to pounce.
“That’s a powerful antibody. Fuck.” He fisted his hands. “Help her.”
He could have denied it and told me QEC commandos weren’t scared of shit. Even the immortals had a weakness after all. They were afraid to die. I supposed if I had the opportunity to live forever, I wouldn’t want to give that up. My sister shouldn’t have to either.
“I’m sorry, Ry. But I have to try.” I dug my fingers into the gash.
The flesh around the pellet had a rough and rubbery consistency that had a tight grip on her heart. It didn’t come off when I pulled on it gently. This kind of injury would have killed a normal person instantly. Ry had a fighting chance. With a deep breath, I yanked at the charred capsule. When the muscle tore, she let out a screeching scream and then passed out.
The virus was trying to fight whatever agent had been released into her body. It had wrapped the bullet in skin tissue. We just had to keep her alive somehow. Just a bit longer to give the virus a moment to heal her. I took a big gulp of air and released it into her mouth to help her breathe. The wound oozed more of the glowing blood before a thin membrane of new skin generated over it.
“It’s working.” I breathed for her again.
I did three more compressions, took in another breath, and gave it to her. It hurt my lungs, but I didn’t care. Just like in my nightmares, I repeated the process over and over until Captain Weston stopped me and held both my wrists in front of me.
“Catita, stop.” He wrapped his warm fingers around my wrists.
Blood stuck to my hands and dripped down my arm. I swallowed the metallic taste coating the back of my throat. Ry was so still, her skin cold against my touch. The fragile skin that had regrown before was now dissolved. For the first time since we turned sixteen and she was inducted into the QEC, Ry bled red again.
Until the blood runs red.
I always figured those words were merely symbolic. Ry couldn’t be dead. I placed an ear to her chest and listened. Her heart and her breathing had stopped. My sister was really gone. A dark cloud closed in around me, and I couldn’t breathe.
“This is all my fault.” I regarded Ry’s peaceful face.
Captain Weston hung his head next to Ry’s and whispered something to her. Whatever he said, I couldn’t hear. The buzzing in my ears had returned. Except now, it was more like faraway cries pleading for help. My own voice begged for mercy as memories of Ry sifted through my mind like an old movie.
“No more.” I put up a hand. “All the muscles in my body feel like they’re on fire.”
“That’s how you know it’s working. You want to be stronger? This is what it takes. Come on. On your feet, soldier.” Ry bent down to look me in the eye. “Last round.”
How was I supposed to know that would be our final training session? I wasn’t ready to let her go. It was always supposed to be the other way around. I would die, and she would be forever young.
I pictured the vase of roses waiting in her quarters and all the other things she’d never get back to. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. A shock of raw energy rushed through me, and suddenly everything looked clear. My whole being filled with visions of what I wanted to do to the old man.
When Ry’s weapon rubbed against my thigh, a small sliver of relief washed away some of the pain. And then that was all I could think about—finding a place where my body wouldn’t hurt anymore, where the weeping voices in my head would be drowned completely. I yanked the pulse handgun out of its holster and jerked to my feet. A dozen broken images of the man writhing in agony on the ground flickered in my mind like a heartbeat.
With a death grip on her gun, I advanced on the old man, aiming at his head. “You killed her. And for what? What did you get? Money?”
“Yes.” Seeing the whites of his eyes staring at me in terror felt good.
The bombinating whispers grew louder. “He deserves it. He deserves it,” they screamed in anger. I exhaled a breath and squeezed the trigger. My vision blurred with tears as I shot at him two more times.
Pulse rays hit him square in the chest twice, burning a hole big enough to fit his hand. He opened his mouth as he glared at it in surprise. The next laser hit him between the eyes, and he fell backward without a single sound.
“Damn it, Catita,” Captain Weston shouted in his deadly tone. “I needed the drugs he took to wear off so I could interrogate him properly. Now we have nothing to go on.”
“She’s dead.” My voice didn’t sound like my own.
“I know.” Captain Weston pried my fingers off the handle. His gaze stayed fixed on mine as he slid the weapon out of my hand.
My sister and grandmother were the only family I had left. Neither of them could be killed. This had to be another nightmare. I doubled over and dry-heaved.
“Ry,” I whispered. “Immortals don’t die. Not while they were infected.” I wiped my hands on my pants, but the blood was already dry. It clung to my skin and clothes. “She’s gone.”
“I know she is.” Captain Weston wrapped his arms around me.
“Why?” I struggled against him, but it was like fighting a marble statue.
<
br /> “I’m trying to think. Obviously, someone staged this attack. Lady Sonja was right. The attack on the fields was an inside job. One of ours did that. And I’m willing to bet that same person did this to Ry too.”
I glanced up at him, and he released me. Ry had mentioned that Lady Sonja had taken personal offense to what’d happened to the crops. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Did Ry simply get caught up in some vendetta against Lady Sonja? “You think the fire from last night and Ry’s murder are connected? Was Ry the target?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. The old man barely knew himself. Ry must’ve been the first commando he ran into.”
My heart raced because I was almost certain Tek had something to do with the incident out in the fields. Did he do this to Ry too? He knew the old man from the supply store. The same man who’d let use us his storage room to hide from the QEC commandos. Tek wouldn’t do this. Would he? I barely knew him. How would I know what he would or wouldn’t be capable of doing?
“What is it?” Captain Weston cocked his head to meet my eyes, touching my arm.
I braced for the rush of fear to flood my mind, but it didn’t come. “I don’t know. I think I saw the old man earlier. He helped me before.”
“Before when Ry was turning this place upside down looking for you? You knew the shooter?”
I winced and nodded. Ry had always been there for me. Did I do this to her? “Did he target Ry because of me?”
“Who the hell knows? All we know for sure is that he got paid to do this. And whoever did gave him a deadly weapon along with some real fucked-up drugs. Fucked up and effective.”
“We have to get Ry back to the Epoch.” I wiped my face.
The worst had already happened, but I didn’t want anyone touching her. She deserved to go home and have the memorial given to all immortals who’d opted out. Even if this death hadn’t been her choice, she’d earned the honor.
“I’ll get a cleanup unit to take care of this.” He tapped on his wristband. When the hologram popped up ready to send a message, he released a breath in relief. “Until we figure this out, we have to contain the situation. No one can know what happened to Ry.”