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.
“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
