Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
It’s upon entering a narrow corridor that Kyle feels it.
His Reach flying ahead of him, like a dog freed, the leash slipping straight out of his hand.
It picks up the crashing of waves. An ocean twisted up by a raging hurricane of anxiety. Churning and tossing the waters any way nature pleases. Ships tumbling helplessly around in the sea. Captains shouting, wheels spinning, sails ripped to shreds.
Kyle recognizes that tumultuous ocean at once.
He stops at a fork in the hall. “We gotta go down here,” he says, pointing the other way.
Raya stops. “That leads into the hotel. If we go this way, we can move through the tunnels, which avoids contact with any of Markadian’s—”
“Elias is this way,” he says. “I can feel him.”
Raya blinks. “Who?”
“My boyfriend. Son of Madame Rose, owner of the—”
“I know who Madame Rose is. Wait. Are you saying your boyfriend is—?” She lets out a brief, annoyed sigh. “Of course. Tristan keeps so many fucking secrets to himself. He never told me. Oh.” She peers at Kyle curiously. “When I spoke Tristan’s name, your heart danced around it. And again when I repeated it just now. Should I not speak of him?”
Kyle looks away, ignores the question. “I think we should go through the hotel, not the tunnels. I want all of us caught on as many security cameras as possible.”
“Oh,” murmurs 4 thoughtfully, “smart.”
“I won’t let them cover this up,” says Kyle, “like they cover up the existence of this place, cover up my friend’s death … Brock’s death … cover up all their tracks and get away with everything.”
Now it’s Raya who is struck by a name. “Oh … Brock.”
Kyle feels something bitter stir to life inside her, a writhing pain threaded with betrayal. He can’t in any way explain how, but he knows at once that Tristan is involved. But why did the emotion make itself known at the mention of Brock’s name?
“Brock …?”
“Another time,” she decides, which further confuses Kyle. She gestures at him. “Let us proceed your way, then. Through the Scarlet Sands … all of us, a parade of escapees …”
“Do you know something about Brock?”
“Make haste,” she insists, taking the lead again as she heads down the other hall. “It does us no good slowing down when there are Ferals likely sniffing us out.”
The term throws Kyle as he catches up to her. “Ferals? You mean the full-blooded vampires?”
“Ferals, vampires … a thorn by any other name would prick as cruelly.”
“Shakespeare just leapt in his grave,” mutters Mei.
Nico comes up to Kyle’s side. “Now wait a sec here. What are these full-blooded vampires you guys are talking about?” He eyes Raya. “Aren’t you one of them?”
“What I am,” says Raya with grandeur, lifting her chin, “is nearly unrecognizable to what They are. They are evil incarnate, all of Them, with twice our strength and none of our humanity. And as long as I can still smell smoke and blood, we’re not safe.” She nods at the others behind her. “Watch your six, mortals. They are mighty, mighty fast … and terribly cunning.”
“Fuck me,” mumbles Nico under his breath.
It’s mere minutes later that the maze of hallways ends at a set of push-bar double doors. Kyle wastes no time shoving them right open. The transition from the House of Vegasyn to the Scarlet Sands is so subtle, Kyle can’t even distinguish which hallways belong to which as they beeline through them. Were the two so seamlessly attached this whole time?
“Who are you?” asks a uniformed employee rounding the corner and stopping short, his eyes wide. “Who are all of you?”
“Honored guests of Madame Rose,” answers Raya briskly, “and we are on our way out.”
“You can’t be back here. None of you—What’s that door?” he asks suddenly, cutting himself off, worked up. “I am down here a dozen times a day, I’ve never once seen that door.”
Raya sweeps by him, leans into his ear. “And if you even so much as step a foot through it, Madame Rose herself is gonna drink you like a milkshake and piss you out a window.”
With the employee left standing in the hall, stunned, the party of twenty-give-or-take head off, their shoes scuffing along the floor, all of them loud and heavy.
Kyle glances at her. “That was quite the imagery.”
“I guess Mance rubbed off on me,” she says bitterly.
“Who was that Mance guy? Some enemy of Markadian’s? What the hell did Tristan do to him back in that banquet hall?”
“He isn’t worth our breath.” Her eyes go dark. “Not anymore.”
The group turn a corner, then empty through another set of unremarkable double doors into the back of a casino, the atmosphere changing abruptly, now full of digital chimes and music, the haze of smoky lighting like a veil over their eyes.
As they hurry along, Kyle feels a sudden surge of emotion at his back, then realizes how deeply the humans are affected by the environment. Not one of them believed they would finally break free from that place, and now they’re walking through a real-life casino, filled with real people—other human beings. Kyle picks up amazement. Tears. Overwhelming relief. Giddiness and explosive glee. Kyle’s heart swells, relishing in their joy secondhand.