I studied him for a moment. For all the information he was giving me, I had an odd sense that he wasn’t telling me everything. “The red cloaks who were chasing you acted as one, and with a purpose. That speaks of a hive-type mentality rather than insanity to me.”
He shrugged. “The virus doesn’t always lead to insanity, and not everyone who is infected actually survives. Those who do, do so with varying degrees of change and sanity.”
I frowned. “How widespread is this virus? Because if tonight is any example, there’s more than just a few surviving it.”
“About sixty percent of those infected die. So far, the virus is mostly confined to this area. We suspect there’s about one hundred or so cloaks.”
Which to me sounded like a serious outbreak. It also explained the patrols around this area. They weren’t keeping the peace—they were keeping people out and the red cloaks in. “And everyone who survives the virus is infectious?”
“Yes.”
It was just one word, but it was said with such bitterness and anger that my eyebrows rose. “Did someone close to you get infected? Is that why you swore to hunt them all down?”
He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant thing to behold. Far from it. “You could say that. Remember my brother?”
I remembered him, all right—he wasn’t only the first child his mom had been able to carry to full term after a long series of miscarriages, but the firstborn son. And, as such, had never really been denied anything. He’d grown up accustomed to getting what he wanted, and I’d barely even begun my relationship with Sam when he’d decided what he wanted was me. He certainly hadn’t been happy about being rejected. Sam, as far as I knew, was not aware that his older brother had tried to seduce me, although there had been a definite cooling in their relationship afterward.
“Of course I remember Luke—but what has he got to do with anything?”
“He was one of the first victims of a red cloak attack in Brooklyn.”
If he’d been living in Brooklyn, it could only mean he’d truly immersed himself in the life of criminality he’d been dabbling with when I’d known him.
“Oh god. I’m sorry, Sam. Is he okay? Did he survive?” I half reached out to touch his arm, then stilled the motion when I saw the bitter anger in his expression. It was aimed at himself rather than at me, and it all but screamed comfort was not something he wanted right now.
“Luke survived the virus, but his sanity didn’t.” The fury in Sam’s eyes grew, but it was entwined with guilt and a deeper, darker emotion I couldn’t define. But it was one that scared the hell out of me. “I was the one who took him down, Red.”
No wonder he seemed surrounded by a haze of darkness and dangerous emotion—he’d been forced to shoot his own damn brother. “Sam, I’m sorry.”
This time I did touch his arm, but he shook it off violently. “Don’t be. He’s far better off dead than—” He cut the rest of the sentence off and half shrugged. Like it didn’t matter, when it obviously did.
“When did all this happen?”
“A little over a year ago.”
And he’d changed greatly in that year, I thought, though I suspected the cause was far more than just the stress of Luke’s death. “How the hell could something like this be kept a secret for so damn long?”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to know.”
A chill went through me. It wasn’t so much the words, but the way he said them and the flatness in his eyes. I had no doubt those words were a warning of death, but even so, I couldn’t help saying, “And what, exactly, does that mean?”
“It means you tell no one about tonight, or it could have disastrous consequences. For you and for them.”
And there it was, I thought bitterly. Fate’s kick in the gut. When would I ever learn to stop interfering with the natural course of events?
Sam stalked over to the bed, placing the shotgun in its slot and then picking up a regulation .40-caliber Glock semiauto pistol—a partner to the one he already carried. “We need to get out of here.”
“But I want to know—”
I stopped as his gaze pinned me and, with sudden, sad clarity, I realized there was very little left of the man I’d known in those rich blue depths. Only shadows and bitterness. I might have saved him tonight, but the reality was I’d been about twelve months too late. This was nothing more than a replica. He might look the same, he might smell the same, but he held none of the fierce joy of life that had once called to me like flame to a moth. This man’s world had become one of ashes and darkness, and it was not a place where I wanted to linger.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Don’t bother, Sam.”
He briefly looked confused. It was the second real expression I’d seen—the first being that moment of surprise when he’d realized who’d saved him. “What do you mean?”
I walked across to him. Ashes or not, he still resembled the man I’d never get over—not in this lifetime, anyway—and it was hard not to lean into him. Hard not to give in to the desire to kiss him good-bye, just one more time.
“I’m one of them, remember?” Bitterness crept into my voice. “One of the monsters. And I’m more than capable of looking after myself.”
He snorted softly, the sound harsh. “Not in this damn area, and maybe not against the—”
“I got in here without harm,” I cut in, voice as cold as his, “and I’ll damn well get out the same way.”
“Fine.” He stepped aside and waved me forward with the barrel of the gun. “Be my guest.”
I looked at him for a moment longer, then walked toward the door. But as I neared it, I hesitated and turned around. “I don’t know what has happened to you, Sam Turner, but I’m mighty glad you’re no longer in my life.”
And with that lie lingering in the air, I left him to his bitterness and shadows and went home.
Photo by Kasey Arthur
Keri Arthur is the New York Times bestselling author of the Outcast series, including City of Light, as well as the Souls of Fire, Dark Angels, and Riley Jenson Guardian series. She has written more than thirty books and has been nominated in the Best Contemporary Paranormal category of the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards and has won a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for urban fantasy. She lives with her daughter in Melbourne, Australia.
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Keri Arthur, Winter Halo
(Series: Outcast # 2)
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