Boy of Blood

by Megan O'Russell

  “Where are the Outer Guard?” Nola grabbed the arm of a Dome Guard. “Where did they take them?”

  “Next level down, to the barracks,” the guard said, not seeming to care that Nola shouldn’t be there. Even though the guard had been carrying others, blood seeped out of a gash on his thigh.

  “You need help.” Nola reached toward the guard.

  “We all need help.” The guard limped back out to the hall.

  Running the length of the room, Nola went out the far door, cutting down the corridor to avoid the doctors and taking a longer route to the stairs.

  The sounds coming from the lower level were different from those of the medical area. There were no screams of pain or panic. The Outer Guard were groomed to stay calm no matter what, but the lack of sound shot more terror through Nola than the screaming had.

  She ran down the stairs, but before she was three steps into the hall, a hand reached out and grabbed her.

  “Nola, what are you doing here?” Blood streaked Gentry’s face and matted her blonde hair.

  “Jeremy,” Nola said. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

  Gentry’s eyes flicked to the door behind Nola for a split second. “Nola, he’ll be fine. They’re taking care of him.”

  “Is he hurt?” Panic surged in her chest. “What happened?”

  “Nola, you have to get out of here.”

  Two women carried another stretcher down the stairs. The guard at the front pushed Gentry and Nola aside, not seeming to care if she knocked them over. Gentry’s grip on Nola’s arm slackened for only a moment, but it was enough. Nola yanked her arm free and ran toward the door Gentry’s eyes had flicked to, hoping it would be the right one.

  Nola shoved open the swinging door and froze.

  Jeremy, lying on a table, covered in blood. His own blood. Doctors moved around him, one of them giving orders to the others.

  One ripped away the tattered shreds of uniform that covered Jeremy’s stomach.

  “No!” Nola screamed without realizing the word had left her mouth, but the doctors didn’t notice the noise.

  Ragged gashes cut deep into the flesh of Jeremy’s stomach. Blood poured from a bullet-shaped hole in the center of his chest.

  Jeremy’s face was untouched; his helmet had protected him. His eyes were closed, he could have been sleeping.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” A doctor knocked Nola aside, a needle filled with black liquid held in her hand. “Someone get her the hell out of here!”

  An arm seized Nola around the waist, lifting her out of the room. She didn’t turn to see who it was. She couldn’t look away from Jeremy as the doctor rammed the needle into his chest.

  “Nola, I told you to get out of here!” Gentry grabbed Nola by the shoulders and shook her. “Nola! You have to leave!”

  “Jeremy.” Nola swayed on the spot. “Not Jeremy, please not Jeremy.”

  Sympathy flickered in Gentry’s eyes. “He’ll be fine, I promise you. My brother can make it through this. But you have to go before more people notice you’re here.”

  “I can’t leave him.” Nola tried to go back through the door. “He stayed with me in the hospital, I have to be with him.”

  “Later.” Gentry dragged Nola away, dodging between stretchers and shouting guards. “If you care about my brother at all, you will run as far away as you can and pretend you were never here. If anyone asks you, lie.” Gentry grabbed Nola’s chin and looked straight into her eyes. “Nola Kent, you have to lie. Now go!”

  Without another word, Gentry ran down the hall toward the stairs to the atrium. There were still more wounded coming down the steps. Most of them were on their feet now, being helped along by other guards. How many had been hurt?

  All of them. All the guards.

  Nola turned and ran down the hall in the opposite direction of the stairs. She couldn’t bear to pass them. To look at their faces and not know if they would survive.

  The Guard barracks made up the rest of the hall. She would find a place to hide, a place in the dark. A few of the wounded had been brought into the barracks, the ones who weren’t as badly ripped and bleeding as Jeremy. Nola’s breath hitched in her throat, and she ran farther, down to the end of the hall.

  There was a thick door she had never thought to look at before, but she didn’t hesitate as she reached for the handle. Didn’t wonder when the heavy handle turned easily. Didn’t stop to think until she had entered the long hallway that shouldn’t have existed.

  Chapter Eight

  The hallway was narrow. Nola noticed that first. It was long, too. Over a hundred feet. One hundred feet of tunnel that shouldn’t exist. That didn’t exist on the domes’ maps. The Guard barracks should have been the last thing on this level. But the long corridor stretched out in front of her.

  With a swish, the door to the barracks closed. The noise of the guards disappeared. Nola stood frozen for a moment, waiting for Gentry to grab her and shout that she wasn’t supposed to be here either. Even without Gentry yelling at her, the air told her this wasn’t a place she was allowed to be. Doors lined the hall. Thick, metal doors with tiny windows at the top.

  Fists clenched, Nola took a step forward, then another, walking toward the nearest door.

  The window was nearly too high for her to see through. Rising up on her toes, she peered into the room beyond. Six bunks hung along the back and side walls. People rested on the bunks. Nola ducked as Catlyn pushed herself up on her elbow, staring toward the window.

  Carefully, Nola reached for the door handle and tried to turn it. The door was locked tight.

  They left the workers locked in.

  Fear mingled with rage in her chest. Those people were from the city. Their families might have been hurt, and they were locked up.

  But they locked all the Domers up, too.

  Slowly, Nola peered back through the window. Catlyn lay back on her bunk. T had taken the bed beneath her, lying on her side, one hand draped across her stomach. Beauford was nowhere to be seen. Only women had been locked in this room.

  Nola tiptoed across the hall, peeking into the cell opposite. Men filled this room, but they weren’t lying on their beds. The men sat on their bunks, talking to each other, saying things she couldn’t hear. One of the men glanced toward the window, making eye contact with Nola for a split second before she dodged out of sight. The sound of fists banging on the door echoed through the hall.

  “Let us out of here, you filthy Domer!” The thick metal muffled the angry voice. “We didn’t agree to be your captives! You’re worse than the monsters on the streets! At least they don’t lie about what they are!”

  Nola leaned against the wall, her heart racing in her chest. They would let them out as soon as the threat was over, they would have to. Nola wanted to look back through the glass, to explain the domes meant them no harm, but she couldn’t risk him recognizing her later.

  What if I’m wrong? What if the guards don’t let them out of the cells as soon as the danger is gone?

  She crept farther down the hall. There were two more rooms on either side, all four the same size as the ones closest to the door, all four holding six outsiders. Six more closely spaced doors waited beyond the filled cells. Nola stayed on one side of the hall, looking through each of the windows as she passed. These rooms were empty. In each of them a single ledge of stone, which looked as though it were meant to be a bed, stuck out of the wall, and a crude sink and toilet were securely set into the concrete.

  “At least they didn’t lock you in there,” Nola whispered, wishing the man who had screamed at her could see the guards had put him in the better place.

  Moving across to the other side, she glanced into each cell. When she finally got to the last window in the hall, she sighed at the unoccupied bed, relieved for a moment the guards hadn’t been cruel enough to lock the outsiders up with only stone to sleep on. But then her eyes caught a glimpse of color on the floor.

  Scarlet and purple atop a figure
dressed all in black lying curled up on the ground. Slowly, the figure moved.

  Run.

  Her body shouted at her to flee, but her feet clung to the concrete as a pair of black eyes met her gaze.

  Raina.

  Her face was paler than even a vampire’s should be. She’d been stripped of the leather clothes Nola had always seen her wear and dressed in a black cotton hospital gown that hung open in the back.

  Raina’s hair hung limp around her face as she pushed herself shakily to her feet, her eyes not drifting from Nola’s face. Mouse-brown roots showed through the streaks of scarlet and purple in her hair.

  Raina lurched toward the door, stumbling and thudding against the metal. She was taller than Nola, tall enough that she could look easily through the window, her face only inches from Nola’s.

  “You’re alive,” Nola whispered, fear and relief mixed in her voice.

  Raina stared at her.

  “I thought you were dead,” Nola said as loudly as she dared.

  Raina rolled her eyes. Even that slight movement looked as though it cost more energy than Raina could spare. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

  “You were stabbed in the chest.” Nola’s hands trembled at the memory of it. The man trying to drink from Nola’s throat, Raina saving her. Raina jumping in front of a knife to save Nola…again. “I thought it killed you.”

  “He didn’t get my heart, Domer.” Raina sneered, swaying as she continued. “Though if I’d known this would be my fate, I would have stabbed myself in the heart. Or cut off my head. I’m not too picky.”

  “How long have you been in here?” Nola glanced down the hall. She still couldn’t hear anything from the barracks beyond. What if they had more people they wanted to add to the cells?

  “How long ago was the rebellion?” Raina asked.

  “Rebellion?” Nola’s voice rose in anger. “You mean the time you broke into the domes and murdered innocent people?”

  “Innocence is in the eye of the beholder.” Raina gave a weary shrug, like the thought of dead Domers meant nothing to her.

  “You destroyed our home,” Nola said. “You stole from us!”

  “We took what we needed to survive.”

  “Well, I hope you have a great time surviving in here.” Nola turned to leave.

  “Because I got captured after getting stabbed to save your damned life?” Raina’s crackling voice echoed through the hall. “Yeah, I’ll try.”

  “Don’t pretend you saved me because you actually like me.” Nola smacked both hands hard against the door, taking pleasure in Raina’s flinch. “You saved me because Emanuel told you to. And I don’t even know why he bothered to do that. Did it make him feel better about destroying my home?”

  “If you think this is what a destroyed home looks like, you know even less than I thought you did, little girl.” Raina turned and sagged back to her spot on the floor. “And it wasn’t Emanuel who cared enough to want you to stay alive. It was Kieran. Your precious Kieran. I guess I deserve to be locked up in this florescent-lit, concrete hell for listening to a lovesick kid. Now leave me the fuck alone. I saved your life, at least let me die slowly in peace.”

  Raina curled back up, her face hidden beneath the curtain of her hair.

  Nola slid down the door and pressed her forehead into the cool metal, taking deep, shuddering breaths, willing herself not to panic.

  Kieran had protected her. Told the others not to hurt her. She jammed her hands in her hair, pulling hard against the roots. He had wanted to keep her safe. She had to be safe, but everyone in the domes that she loved could die. Her home could be shattered, her family killed, but he wanted her alive.

  It was cruel.

  “He wanted to torture me.” Nola viciously wiped away the tears on her face. “That is not love, Nola Kent. If Kieran loved you…” She choked on the words. It didn’t matter if Kieran had ever loved her. His betrayal was too much to ever forgive.

  And Jeremy…wonderful, steady Jeremy who had forgiven her, or at least wanted to, was hurt and bleeding and she couldn’t help him. She couldn’t help anyone.

  Shaking so hard she could barely stand, Nola fought her way to her feet. She wouldn’t stay near Raina. And there was no point hiding in here anyway. She would have to leave the hall eventually, might as well be caught now. She would lie to the guards, say she had never seen Jeremy’s terrible wounds.

  Another lie to add to the ever-growing list.

  Slowly, she walked down the hall. Trying not to think of the innocent people who were still locked behind metal doors, hoping the guards really would let them out as soon as the domes were safe.

  Nola opened the door to the barracks hall and stepped forward. There were still doctors running between rooms, treating patients. There were still no screams of pain or fear from the Outer Guard, only the precision of orders immediately obeyed. The ten minutes she had been gone really hadn’t changed the scene that much. The doctors had moved on to other patients, and there were no more stretchers being carried down the stairs. But smears of blood still marred the floor.

  She looked at the door through which Jeremy lay, wanting to walk in and shout that she was staying with him and there was nothing they could do to stop her. But Gentry had said to go. Gentry had promised Jeremy would be all right if Nola left. She walked up the stairs, not daring to look back for fear she wouldn’t keep going.

  She had to trust Gentry to tell her the truth and Jeremy to heal. She had to trust the guards would let the outsiders go as soon as it was safe and keep Raina where she couldn’t hurt anyone.

  If I can’t trust the domes, there’s nothing left for me to hold onto.

  Nola turned away from the hospital corridor at the top of the stairs, heading back down the hall to Bright Dome. She shuddered at the sounds of the wounded Dome Guard, but two long corridors later, the noise faded away. Only the steady rhythm of her footsteps ruined the calm of the hall. The others must still be in the bunker below.

  Large letters marked the wall: Bright Dome. Nola traced the letters with her finger. Home. Bright Dome was her home. She wouldn’t be able to get back into the bunker anyway. And her mother would be locked in her lab with the seeds by now.

  She walked the rest of the way to her house in a daze. Examining every tree she passed. Trying to memorize the shape of each stone on the path that led her home. Counting the steps it took her to reach her room. The purple-spotted orchid sat on her desk. Jeremy’s wonderful gift.

  Even thinking his name sent panic surging through her chest. He had to be okay. There was no other choice. Nola climbed onto her windowsill and reached up. Her arms burned as she pulled herself onto the soft moss that covered the roof. She lay down, burying her face in the damp, earthy smell, and screamed. Tears burned in her eyes, and a sob ripped through her chest.

  “No!” Nola growled, hating the tears that poured down her cheeks. “No, no, no,” she whimpered as panic overwhelmed her.

  Curling up on her side under the dark sky, she sobbed. Alone under the glass.

  Chapter Nine

  The sun had already peeked over the horizon when voices from the ground woke Nola. She couldn’t make out any words in the sleepy murmurs but blinking away the clouds her tears had left behind, dozens of shapes appeared in the dim light. People making their way home. She rubbed her eyes, feeling their swelling under her fingers.

  She watched the group move, waiting for her mother to come toward their house. But Lenora wasn’t with them. Digging her fingers into the moss, Nola climbed back through her window and crept to her mother’s room. It was empty, as was the rest of the house. Nola stood in the pale darkness.

  A void had swallowed her whole. Her tears had dried up. But she had thought that before. When her father died, when Kieran was banished, when the domes were attacked. But it wasn’t true. Tears couldn’t dry up forever, just until the next terrible thing happened.

  Nola walked out the kitchen door and into the dome, brushing h
er fingers over her curls to get rid of the bits of moss that clung to her from sleeping on the roof.

  More people filtered into Bright Dome as she walked down the stairs.

  Jeremy.

  If people were coming into the domes, it should be safe for her to go and see Jeremy. Breaking into a run, Nola sprinted through the corridors, ignoring the sleepy glares of the people she dodged past.

  Through the corridors and down the stairs, no one tried to stop her until she reached the barracks level.

  “You can’t come down here, Miss.” An Outer Guard stepped in front of Nola, holding out a hand to block her path.

  “Jeremy Ridgeway,” Nola said. “I know he was hurt, and I want to see him.”

  Pain and sympathy creased the guard’s brow.

  “He’s okay.” Nola’s voice shook. “Please tell me he’s okay.”

  “He’s alive,” the guard said, “but I don’t have authorization to let you see him.”

  “Ask Captain Ridgeway,” Nola begged, letting the news that Jeremy was, in fact, alive embolden her. “He’ll say I can see him. I promise, I’ll wait here.”

  The guard stared at Nola before waving another guard over. The woman limped as she approached. “Ask Captain Ridgeway if Magnolia Kent can see Jeremy.”

  The other guard nodded and limped away toward Captain Ridgeway’s office.

  It’s not that bad. If his dad’s not with him, it can’t be that bad.

  But the blood and the terrible wounds.

  “How did you know my name?” Nola asked, seizing the only thing her mind could cling to aside from Jeremy being so terribly hurt.

  “You’re the one the Vampers captured,” the guard said. “We sent a crew into the city after you, organized a whole mission to find you. I was on the failed rescue mission in Nightland. It’s hard to forget a face you go into battle for, especially if you fail to save the person you’re after.”

  An all too familiar shadow passed across the guard’s face.