Darklight

by Forrest, Bella

  "I know. But I can still offer some help. So I'm going to," I replied.

  I headed for the aircraft's door. Rejected or not, I wasn’t a quitter. I still cared about the vampires’ wellbeing, and my uncle might be willing to listen and take more of my ideas to the board.

  Casting a glance back as I reached the exit, I saw irritation and then guilt flash across my brother’s face. He knew I wouldn’t budge. After a brief exchange, Zach and Gina grabbed their things and followed. I didn’t try to stop them. After all, Zach had promised our parents that he’d keep an eye on me, and it would be nice to have company.

  We passed Bryce and a pilot on the tarmac discussing the wings on a new aircraft model parked there. I nodded professionally to him, and he squinted back, seeming confused that I was off the plane, but continued his conversation.

  Zach and Gina followed me for a few more steps, having a quiet conversation, then Gina called out behind me, “You go ahead and talk to your uncle, Lyra! We’ll stick around to fly back with you, but we’re going to see what Bryce is learning about these new wings.”

  I waved my assent and continued on my way. I knew that I needed to go home and exercise off the previous six weeks, but getting closure felt necessary. I wanted to make sure the vampires would be all right. And right now, the thought of sitting at home with nothing to do made me want to crawl out of my skin.

  I entered the Phoenix headquarters and made my way to the front desk.

  "Alan Sloane will be in a meeting for another two hours," the receptionist informed me when I inquired.

  I hadn’t planned for that, but of course my uncle would be busy. I could wait. I checked the wall clock, tapping my foot restlessly; the plane with the rest of the soldiers had likely already taken off for its next stop.

  I decided to take a walk.

  After studying the building map, I went to the stairwell and ascended a few floors. Truly, it didn't matter where I went or what I saw. My legs just needed to move.

  Once my muscles started to protest the continuous stair climb, I exited a stairwell door at random. On the other side, a guard sat behind a desk. Before I could apologize and back away, he held up a hand.

  “Name?”

  “First Lieutenant Lyra Sloane,” I replied.

  “Here with Director Sloane?” he asked blandly. Someone didn’t want to be at work that day.

  “Yes,” I replied. It’d be true once my uncle left his meeting, and I didn’t see the harm in wandering about before then. I wasn’t going to be poking through people’s desk drawers, just walking the hallways. It wasn’t like I didn’t work for the Bureau.

  The guard nodded and let me pass.

  Motion sensor lights lit the dim hallways as I quietly walked the marble floor. Inscriptions on the doors designated different conference rooms. Silence thickened the air, interrupted by a few drifting murmurs from some of the meeting rooms. The quiet made my restlessness deafening.

  I avoided the rooms that seemed occupied. The voices that carried were mostly muffled by the walls, so I figured I was far enough away to forego any accusations of eavesdropping.

  I walked each hallway on the floor twice before I decided to find somewhere to sit and write my questions for my uncle. I approached a dark room with a cracked door and peeked inside to see if anyone occupied it. Lights flickered to life at my presence, revealing a long mahogany table covered in organized papers. Plenty of empty chairs clustered around it. It reminded me a little of the room I’d given testimony in, back when this all began. It would do.

  Pulling out a chair, I dug through my bag for my notebook and pen. I set the spiral pad on the table, moving a few papers to the side to make room. My eye caught the word "vampire" on the top page. Without really thinking, I looked closer.

  The Bureau had purchased a half-developed gated community in a remote area, with plans to finish the homes and retrofit them for vampires. Each organized row of papers displayed structural blueprints for the new vampire lodgings, their rooms a variety of shapes and sizes. The plans included outdoor spaces, common areas. One building even had a playroom for children. A full smile flashed across my face for the first time in ages. Carwin and Detra wouldn't have to play question games to amuse themselves anymore. At least they'd be more comfortable, despite being stuck on Earth.

  I slowly scanned each building on the blueprints, visualizing what they would look like, a warm feeling growing in my belly at the thought of the vampires having a permanent home. Each building had its own name and completion date at the top of its blueprint. I nodded, impressed by the Bureau’s organization and preparedness.

  Then I reread the nearest scribbled mention. "Completion date: 6-11." I blinked and looked closer. That had been two weeks ago. Obviously a mistake.

  I moved along the table and saw another date. "Completion date: 5-15." We'd just arrived at the trial facility that week. Why would the Bureau have put money into these lodgings if the trial period had only just started? They’d only made their decision about giving the vampires asylum in the last few days—at least, that was when I’d heard about it. Beside the “completed” layouts were detailed construction outlines and billings for expedited services and overtime. They had multiple crews working through the night. The Bureau spared no expense, apparently.

  I grabbed one completed residence blueprint and compared it to several others, my eyes picking out more incongruous details. Each one included what I’d thought to be an outdoor storage space, with illustrations of detailed pipe systems in each shed, leading into the apartments. Sheds didn't usually contain AC or heat. Why would they need to connect to the housing?

  I picked up a different paper from the tabletop, this one looking like a written report. My breath stopped. My heartbeat heightened in my ears. The report was titled “Efficacy of Hydrogen Cyanide Compared to Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide.”

  I flipped through the other completed lodgings and found them all to contain that same shack in the yard connected to the lodging via pipes.

  I stepped back from the table, still unable to breathe. My hands felt like they’d touched something poisonous. Did this prove the horrible thing my thoughts had immediately leapt to? Fear gripped my chest—or was it panic? In the rush of disbelief, I couldn’t tell.

  No, there had to be an explanation. I shook my head, placing my tingling fingers against my lips.

  Heightened murmurs caught my attention, drifting in from the room’s air vent. They came from another meeting room. Creeping closer to the vent, I held my breath and listened.

  "That requires some discussion," a low masculine voice said, muffled enough to be vague… yet familiar.

  "A realistic timeline is necessary, Director Sloane," a male voice replied tersely.

  My heart beat faster. I was next to Uncle Alan’s meeting.

  I pulled a chair over to the wall and climbed it, pressing my ear against the air vent. The voices rewarded my effort, becoming more distinct. If I got caught like this there would definitely be questions, but right now I didn’t care.

  "That's why it's imperative to make them comfortable as quickly as possible," Uncle Alan replied, his voice sounding the way it always did: official, confident, and smoothly persuasive. "The sooner they feel secure, the sooner they'll call the others to join them in the other residences."

  "Would either of you like to propose a final date?" a woman's voice asked with a trace of impatience.

  "I say two months. No longer. We don’t want to risk the population changing its mind over time and bleeding thin," the other man remarked.

  "Ah, but that might be hasty. If we give it longer, say four months, we're more likely to get the entire population into the lodgings, or at least closer to it. We could take care of it all at once," my uncle said. I detected something unusual in his voice this time. It was completely cold. Devoid of even the slightest hint of emotion. So much so that if I hadn’t known it was him speaking, I’d have barely recognized it.

  "Vote?"
someone asked. "All in favor of four months say aye."

  A choir of "ayes" rang through the vent.

  "All opposed?"

  Only one man said, almost too faintly for me to catch through the vent, "nay."

  "Four months. Final day marked in the meeting notes as October 22nd," a woman said banally.

  "I just received an update," my uncle’s voice said. "The transportation team will move the trial group to the new lodging in a little over an hour. I'll phone security and make sure they lock the utility rooms where the extermination gas is kept before the vampires arrive. No need to raise unnecessary suspicions."

  My vision went white.

  No. This didn't make sense.

  My uncle wouldn't be part of this. He couldn’t. Maybe it hadn't actually been Uncle Alan's voice. It could be someone else.

  But whoever it was, he’d said the word himself. Extermination. There was no mistake there. That panic started rising in my chest again. I suddenly felt so unsafe, like the world was actually a completely different place than I’d ever imagined. A nightmare.

  My knees shook as I quietly lowered myself from the chair and slid it back under the table. My mind focused on action, tuning everything else out. The shock and panic I’d felt earlier numbed down into a list of things to do. If I told anyone on my team about this plan, they’d look at me like I was crazy. I’d need proof.

  I put the blueprints I’d been scanning back exactly as I'd found them—except for one, which I folded and shoved into my pocket along with the report as I packed up my notebook and slipped out the door. I was never one to steal, ever, but this was beyond necessary. Many lives could be saved by that one paper, even though its original purpose was the exact opposite. My boots moved silently over the marble, but my thoughts raced ahead. I had to warn the vampires.

  I rounded the corner that led to the stairwell. A new guard sat at the desk, looking more alert than the last. When he saw me, he stood.

  "I don’t recognize you. What are you doing on this floor?" He stepped up to me. His eyes narrowed, and a bolt of fear struck me, even though he probably didn’t know I’d taken the paper—or know that the paper existed at all.

  “I’m here with Director Sloane,” I answered, holding my tone as even as possible. “He’s my uncle.” I reminded myself on a loop to breathe, be calm. The thought of being calm felt insane, but I had to get out of this building as efficiently as possible.

  “I see. Please wait here a moment, miss, while I call to verify,” he said, having pumped some politeness into his tone. The guard pulled out his walkie-talkie and took a few steps away from me down the corridor, pacing back and forth as he called whoever he needed to call.

  As he spoke into the radio, received an answer, and spoke again, I felt time trickling away. I had maybe an hour to somehow reach the vampires and warn them before they were taken to the new facility. If this guard actually managed to get ahold of Uncle Alan, then I could still pretend I knew nothing… but my window of opportunity would be gone. Sweat tickled my spine as I hesitated—but only for a moment. There was no time for me to listen to the fear in my chest.

  The next moment, when the guard’s back turned as he paced, I tore past him, opened the stairwell door and pounded down toward the ground floor.

  “Hey!” the guard yelled at me. Then I heard him reporting a breach and giving my description over his walkie. I channeled that lingering fear into fuel for my flexing muscles.

  Reaching the ground floor, I rushed through the lobby, carefully zigzagging between two small groups of high-ranking soldiers who had probably just recessed a meeting. One uniformed man’s sentence trailed off as I rushed past him, his wide, confused eyes following me. I prayed no one immediately recognized me, and I made a point to avoid direct eye contact. I had to get out of there.

  I finally got back to the tarmac. Bryce, Gina, and Zach stood beside the new plane, still jawing with the pilot.

  "Captain!"

  Bryce turned and glowered at me. "Why are you yelling at a superi—"

  "We have to go." I rushed up, trying to speak through my panting. "Now. The vampires aren't safe at the facility. We have to go back and warn them, immediately!"

  "Lieutenant," Bryce started to chide, but he trailed off, studying my face, his eyes narrowing at what he saw. Gina and Zach stared openly.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" my brother asked.

  "Please, Captain. We have less than an hour," I said. “I swear on my career. They plan to murder the vampires. All of them.”

  Bryce shook his head, as though waiting for the punchline of the practical joke I was playing. “Sloane, that’s crazy talk. I’m sure it’s not all that bad. Where is all of this coming from?”

  Without a word, I pulled the blueprint and report out of my pocket and shoved it toward Bryce’s face. He squinted at the paper, his eyes bouncing back and forth. And then I saw his eyebrows climb his forehead, utter disbelief washing over his face, horror in his eyes.

  A moment of icy silence passed. Then he looked over his shoulder at the jet he’d just been admiring, and back to the three of us. A wild look sparked in his eyes. “Get on the plane,” he growled.

  Gina and Zach still looked bewildered, but I yanked them after me as Bryce and I leapt into the little jet. Bryce sat in the pilot’s chair, and the rest of us took the back. When I’d woken up earlier that day, I never would’ve imagined this turn of events—or seeing Bryce casually fly a military jet, for that matter.

  "Please hurry!" I urged, nerves shaking my voice.

  I gripped the armrests. We pulled away from headquarters, and the tiny craft sped down the airstrip. It still didn’t hold a candle to a redbill flight, but I could tell this model was much faster than our typical transport. Our heads rattled against the backs of our seats.

  I craned my neck to look back at the headquarters. Guards had flooded the empty tarmac behind us. The entire Bureau would know what had happened in no time.

  Sitting next to me on the small plane, Gina whistled softly. “That’s… a lot of guards,” she said, her voice concerned. “Lyra, what did you do in there?”

  The plane took off with a gut-dropping lurch, and Zach leaned forward from Gina’s other side so he could see me, clearly on the edge between confusion and anger.

  “No kidding,” my brother said. “Lyra, you better have a really good reason for all of this, because from what I’m seeing, we’re all about to lose our jobs.”

  I didn’t bother to preface it. "I saw these blueprints in an empty meeting room.” I handed the paper I still gripped in my fist to Gina, and Zach peered at it over her hands. “Plans for the new vampire lodgings. Each building is essentially a gas chamber. The shacks in the yards house gas, and these connecting pipes will pump gas into the lodgings while the vampires are in them. Here’s the report on the kind of gas they intend to use for the executions.” I gave it to Zach.

  Gina's hand covered her mouth.

  "I overheard the board's meeting in the other room when I saw the blueprints. They set an extermination date. They're going to kill every single vampire they can."

  Bryce cursed from the cockpit, and I felt more force as the plane accelerated faster.

  Gina's hand covered her mouth.

  Zach looked at the paper, then me, then the paper again. For once, my brother was completely dumbfounded to silence. He swallowed hard and slowly extended the blueprint back to me. I refolded it and shoved it deep into my pants pocket, so it wouldn’t slip out.

  Even though panic still riled my brain, logic resounded. I realized what could happen to Zach, Gina, and Bryce in this situation. And what would happen to me.

  “You guys don’t have to warn the vampires with me, or even get off the plane when we get back to the facility.” My voice carried a pain that emanated from deep in my core. The Bureau was my life, and I’d just thrown it away. I didn’t have time to think about that now. “But I have to tell them. I have to try and save them. I don’t wa
nt any of you to suffer for my decisions.”

  Zach looked at me so deeply I thought, in the panic and terror gripping me, I might even sprout tears, too. He drew in a breath and set his hand on top of mine.

  “You’re stuck with me,” he said, earnest, but almost resigned, like he knew what he had to do and it sucked. My heart leapt. Thank God.

  “I won’t stand for something like this,” Gina said angrily, pointing at the blueprint in my pocket. “This isn’t my Bureau. Those vampires are people. Good people. It’s my duty to protect them, not fall in line with something like this.” Her eyes glistened, her voice sad like Zach’s—but she sounded determined. I used my free hand to grip hers. That was my girl.

  Even though I was absolutely horrified and knew my life was about to splinter into a million pieces, I was grateful for my brother and closest friend. I was lucky to have them.

  "How long is this flight?" I yelled to Bryce.

  "Thirty minutes or so, I’m thinking," he called back. “Longer if you distract the pilot.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed my head back against the seat. We're going to make it. We'll make it in time.

  As our jet descended on the facility, I craned my neck to look out the window. Two large Bureau aircraft sat on the tarmac. Were we too late?

  "They're already here," I yelled.

  The plane touched down and braked to a stop. I tossed off my seatbelt and leapt to the pavement a moment later.

  Zach, Gina, and Bryce disembarked behind me, their faces strained, and we gathered on the concrete in the hot night air.

  "They're bringing them out," Zach said gravely, looking at the main entrance.

  I followed his gaze. Guards and soldiers that I didn't recognize walked in front of the vampires, escorting them from the facility toward the large aircraft. The vampires stared at their feet as they walked, as if they somehow knew they were actually prisoners.

  Bryce shot us a look. “Time for another executive order,” he said under his breath.

  He marched over to the thirteen approaching guards, his hands raised in the air to command their attention. We followed, the three of us instinctively gathering in formation behind him as though we were on a mission. And, I realized, the stakes were so high, we might as well have been.