CHAPTER 14 #2
Blood dripped down his palm, green like mine.
Dad held his hand up to my face, his baritone voice steady and sure.
“The world doesn’t care about you, Loredana.
If you bleed on the ground, the ground will drink it.
But family is different. No matter how old I get or how far away I might be, I’ll always fight to keep you safe. ”
Dad never broke that promise. Not then or now, even as the ground again waits for my blood.
The rifle fires, and the recoil jolts through Irene’s shoulder like a hammer.
But just as the bullet leaves the chamber, a roar echoes in response.
Blinding yellow light erupts as the device on my chest activates, and a shield materializes, its blazing energy flaring into a protective wall that envelops me completely.
My ears ring from the gunshot, and what follows seems to happen in a soundless room.
Irene’s bullet strikes the shield, and the surface ripples, generating a pulse of energy that sends the round flying.
The bullet ricochets and shatters a decanter in a spray of whiskey and glass.
Irene lets out a muffled cry of shock. She staggers backward, nearly tripping over her spaniel as the rifle slips from her hands and clatters to the floor.
Irene and her friends shrink into the corners of the lounge. Their eyes are fixed on the glowing shield around me, their faces frozen in disbelief.
I can’t believe it either.
Winston Glass gave me more than a gift. He gave me a prototype still in development, something most people, including Blues, don’t know exists.
A creaking door breaks the silence. The women’s heads snap toward the elk-head door as it swings open, revealing the Purple Copper. His expression morphs from neutral to alarmed as he takes in the shredded Pinkies, the destroyed lounge, and the armed Blues.
“Miss Waldsten, are you—”
The Purple Copper falters when he spots the shield, glowing around me like a halo. His eyes widen, linger for a moment, then his hand jumps to the plasma pistol holstered on his hip.
“In the name of the law, you will sheathe your weapons and stand aside.” He aims his pistol at the Blues, holds it in a double-handed grip, and pulls the charging handle.
Irene grits her teeth. All her weight shifts as if she’s about to rush the Purple Copper, until one of her friends grabs her shoulder.
I bolt toward the door, my thoughts reeling. I’m shocked the shield worked, shocked the Purple Copper kept his word, and most of all, shocked that Irene actually tried to kill me. There’s no way she and her Blues could have bypassed the Speakeasy’s surveillance. So what the hell was their plan?
“An earnest effort, Miss Waldsten,” Irene calls from behind me. “But boots are faster than heels.”
I’m unsure of her meaning until I notice the rapid change in the shield. The walls are fading to a pale, sickly hue, and the hum grows fainter as the electromagnetic energy sputters like a dying engine.
Dad warned me there’s no way to control the device manually. The shield is a prototype and still prone to glitches. It might cut off too early or fail to activate when I need it most.
When I reach the door, the shield sputters loudly, then the glow around me dies.
The Purple Copper meets my gaze, his face lit with sudden, frantic clarity. “Shit,” he breathes. “Run.”
We hurl ourselves into the corridor. Then we’re sprinting, feet pounding the floor, breaths coming fast and ragged as the elevators loom at the far end. Behind us, sabers spring to life with an electric whir.
“Faster!” the Purple Copper shouts.
I push harder, each step agony as my stiletto straps bite into my blistered ankles. The Purple Copper scans his Blood Ring against every private salon door we pass. One. Two. Three. The doors keep rejecting us, their lights flashing red.
The thunder of boots grows louder. When I hear a clicking sound, like a rifle bolt sliding back, I know Irene is right behind me.
On the fourth try, a salon door finally opens. I launch through, and one of my stiletto heels snaps as I hit the floor. The Purple Copper spins, slams the door shut, and locks it with a swipe of his Blood Ring.
The banging starts immediately. Dents bloom across the titanium, and the door shudders with each strike.
“Can they unlock it?” I rasp, eyeing the plasma pistol in the Purple Copper’s hand. Even with a full seventeen-round charge, it won’t save us.
“No.” He backs away from the door. “Blue salons can’t be unlocked from the outside while they’re in use.”
The pounding intensifies, each blow rattling the lamps on the tables near the sofas. The titanium door groans as if it might split open.
Then… silence.
The Purple Copper and I exchange a tense glance, sweat and fear tangling between us.
Minutes crawl by before either of us moves. I pull myself onto one of the sofas and strip off my heels. My feet are a mess, the blisters torn and oozing. The pain cuts through my panic.
Beside me, the Purple Copper kneels with a pale, focused expression. His fingers fly over the controls of the comm-link embedded in a bracelet on his wrist, tapping through menus and flicking between channels.
“No reception,” he mutters. “Emergency channels are silent, too. This isn’t right.” He cycles through encrypted frequencies, desperate yet methodical. Static greets him on each channel. “Something’s blocking them. Or us.”
“Could it be the room?” I ask.
“No. Something else. I don’t know what.”
It strikes me then that we’re trapped in this room until the Stag Leap Gala ends. All. Night. Long. But at least we’re alive.
“Thank you,” I say. “I thought you were lying about helping me earlier.”
The Purple Copper pauses, rubbing the swollen bruise on his neck where I hit him. Then he holds out his hand. “Sergeant Arthur Croft.”
I shake it with a faint smile. “Loredana Waldsten.”
“Glad to meet you, miss.”
He sits on the sofa beside me, and we wait a long time, listening for sounds outside the door.
The seconds stretch too long, and the silence is so heavy it seems to seep into the walls, the floor, and us.
Croft continues working his comm-link, with no better results, and I notice the confusion on his face slowly turn to worry.
Eventually, I grow restless and glance around for a distraction.
The lounge is lush and cozy, but the walls spoil the illusion. They’re covered from floor to ceiling with glowing digital photographs. Hundreds scroll and shift, each new image fading into the next.
I step closer for a better look. Photos of smiling faces fill my vision, a constellation of power staring back at me. Politicians. Tech moguls. Scientists. Celebrities.
And then… Dad?
He appears in one of the old photos, captured mid-laugh, in a moment from decades past. He’s wearing his Fraternity uniform, his flat-top cap tilted at a roguish angle, and there’s a wild, carefree spark in his eyes I haven’t seen since I was a child.
For a moment, I take in the image with a stinging heart. Then my gaze shifts, and I feel the air leave my lungs as if I were gut-punched.
Standing beside Dad, with an arm draped over his shoulder, is President Theodore Reeve when he was a student.
An unlit cigarette dangles from Reeve’s mouth, and he’s wearing his own Fraternity uniform, the vivid blue clashing with Dad’s green.
The shadow that usually casts sadness over Reeve’s face is gone, as if whatever caused it hasn’t happened yet. He looks genuinely happy.
What the fuck?
Dad always said to stay away from Blues. Time and again, he warned me never to get close to them, much less trust them. And yet here he is, looking like a best friend to one of the most powerful Blues.
Croft, noticing my alarm, steps closer. “Something wrong, miss?”
“No, I just—”
The crash of shattering glass cuts me off. We both spin toward the door, where a dark shape moves beneath the narrow gap and across the floor over the broken glass. I stagger back, my pulse spiking as deathstalker scorpions skitter toward us in a pale, glistening stream.
Croft doesn’t bother drawing his weapon. The scorpions are everywhere, far too many. Their claws scrape the floor, and their tails lash back and forth as they scurry closer.
I leap onto the nearest sofa and tear the digital photographs off the walls, hoping to find a hidden door or window. Then I spot the ceiling vent.
“There!” I cry, pointing to the vent. “Give me a boost!”
Croft sidesteps a swarm of scorpions and locks his hands together. “Hurry, miss,” he shouts as more deathstalkers close in, their claws clicking at a frenzied pace.
I step on his hands and push off hard enough to grab the grate, then curse when I realize it’s bolted in place. I punch hard, my knuckles cracking against the metal. Blood spurts across the grate, but my adrenaline is too high to register pain.
Croft staggers beneath my weight. The scorpions are swarming the sofa now, a feverish, poisonous mass.
My heart kicks wildly as I continue punching the grate.
Then, my fist tears through the metal, right into the hollow shaft above.
Blood winds down my arm in thin trails as I grab the edges of the grate and pull until the screws loosen and fall away with a clatter.
I tear off the grate, dropping it as I pull myself up into the shaft, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs.
Croft bites off a curse. His eyes are wild as he leaps over a patch of scorpions and swings onto the sofa’s headrest.
“Jump!” I yell.