WARNING: DO NOT READ the following chapter if you haven’t already read Too Little Days (Book 2)
***TEXT CONTAINS SERIES SPOILERS***
Below is the tentative first chapter of Infinite Tomorrows.
Please be aware that this first-edit text WILL 100% change during final edits.
Thank you for your patience! It’s quite the story, so I’m taking my time to do it justice! XOXO, Summer
Silence.
The warring storm that had followed Slade from the woods went still. The pouring rain ceased. The vicious thunder and furious lightning strikes mourning with us stopped responding to his tormented cries.
Because… Slade went quiet.
Sudden and severe blazing wrath suffocated the air, radiating fury pulsing stronger by the second. An eerie chill slipped down my spine; fear gripped my shoulders, pulling my attention away from Delano’s closed eyes to track the darkness emanating from the man across from me. Slade’s heartbroken stare hardened into a demonic scowl. Fiery red erupted around his pupils, blazing like flames against the night sky. His bellows became growls, his neck and jaw twitched, his lips pulled back, viciously baring his fangs.
“NOOO!” Exploded from him in a deafening scream, the blasting rage smacking me like a hand and knocking me backward.
My hand tore away from Delano’s.
Slade shoved his arms under his brother, heaved him up from the ground and crushed Delano to his chest, and with a surge of brute strength, rose to his feet.
Invisible pressure pinned me down, my limbs stunned and locked, watching with delayed vision as Slade spun and catapulted into a sprint, trampling through the tall grass at supernatural speeds, hauling Delano’s massive figure like it weighed nothing—stealing him from me!
“Slade!” What the…
He vanished into the woods.
Thunder roared.
Lightning slashed through the sky.
The clouds unleashed, dumping pelting rain.
My reflexes kicked in, launching me from the ground and into a running chase, battling the whips of wet wind.
“Slade!” I shouted again, hurtling after them.
The trees howled, branches trembled, leaves crashed, mud spread, puddles pooled, too many scents clogged the air. The downpour blocked my sight, the wind filled my ears, my nose.
My heart ignited, pounding in my chest.
Soaked and muddy, I skidded to a stop, shut my eyes and forced my panicked heart to slow, homing in on the forest.
Hissing rain.
Cyclonic wind.
Crackling clouds.
Splashes.
Clanking. Metal? To the east. An engine! A car!
I lunged toward the sound, tearing through the brush at speeds beyond comprehension. And somehow, I ran with my eyes only half open, following the slapping tires through the mud. He was driving! Leaving me behind!
Cracked taillights broke through the storm’s wall.
I surged toward the moving car, slick mud slinging me against the passenger side, my palms crashing into the glass.
“Slade!” I belted out into the storm. “Stop!”
He only hit the gas harder, dragging me along sharp branches and unruly roots.
Refusing to let go of the door, I sprinted alongside the vehicle, yanking at the handle and pounding the glass. “Slade! Open the door!”
With my rush to keep up, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Delano’s body across the backseat just as the storming sky illuminated the diamond on my finger.
Delano!
I shattered the door’s lock, yanked it open, and flung myself into the car, catching the seat and scrambling to get upright. Seething and livid, I screamed at the driver, “What the hell are you doing?”
Slade stomped the gas pedal, the jolt sending the open door smacking into my shoulder as it snapped shut.
Ingrained habits had me slamming the seatbelt across my chest and bracing my palms against the dash as the tires thudded over wild and wet terrain.
“Where are you taking him?” I demanded. “Why are you driving when the base is only—”
BANG. The boom of the backfiring exhaust spooked me into a flinch and duck; the seat and dash under my grip rattling from the demand Slade put on the engine.
And then, as sharp as the lightning striking beyond us, Slade’s glowing red glare and lethal hiss sliced my way: “I’m getting him the fuck away from here. Before anyone sees—”
His jaw clenched, like his fingers around the steering wheel. He refocused on the road, gritting out, “We just declared victory. Delano is their fucking savior!” His voice exploded into a yell, “An invincible protector! He is their hope! This… this will destroy everything we’ve worked for! Every stride, fight, every fucking victory! This never happened! No one can know! Can’t even fucking suspect! This is the biggest fucking moment of our lives…” He stared through the battered windshield, his head suddenly shaking in a fast, convulsive twitch. “No… No! He’s not…” His fist slammed into the center of the wheel. “Fucking impossible!”
His anger receded into low mumbles, “No! No… no… no… no.”
“Slade!” But my interruption didn’t faze his possessed fixation.
With a sudden jerk of the wheel, he sent us careening onto a highway, swerving to avoid a downed tree.
“Slade.” I tried again. “Where are you taking him?”
His incohesive mumbling stalled, his voice clearing to say, “The antidote.”
“What!?” Frantic shock and desperate hope slung me toward him. I clasped over my heart, thumping from the shot of adrenaline. “There’s an antidote?”
Despite knowing the pain it’d cause, I peered over my shoulder, braving a glance into the backseat. Those black lines webbed under the surface of Delano’s skin stopped at the base of his neck, leaving his face clear, looking like he was just asleep. But my daydreams dissipated as fast as they appeared. “Antidote to the weapon?”
Why wouldn’t Delano have said anything? Begged me to save him? “Did Delano know? He didn’t—”
Slade’s foot crunched the gas pedal. The tires squealed against the slick road. The speedometer needle trembled like the man behind the wheel, both of them on the verge of combusting.
I asked again, “Did Delano know? Where—”
But Slade shut down, his red eyes narrowed, his focus locked, impenetrable and unresponsive to my following pleas and questions.
For hours, he abused the gas pedal while cranking the steering wheel to evade the path of unending debris and lightning strikes, hydroplaning us across the flooded highway. But then his foot let up, the speed easing under a sign for Pittsburgh.
“Slade—” Shit!
With a sudden snap, he jerked the wheel, careening us onto a highway exit, the car fishtailing along the ramp. I kept my mouth shut and my grip on the dash and door, afraid of the madman in control of the drive.
Continuing his rampage, he blew through abandoned inner-city streets, speeding over endless potholes, which knocked us around and hammered the tires.
Nothing slowed him until a three-story brick building came into view. But that deceleration lasted all of a split second.
SHIT!
I closed my eyes, holding on as Slade plowed over the curb and through a barbed-wire gate, metal shrieking all around us.
The fence blew open, the car skidded into a hard stop, hitting piles of rusted junk.
Slade jumped out, rain slashing across his shoulders as he ran back to the gate and wrapped the broken chain around the two posts, closing us inside.
I stumbled out of the car after him, shielding my face from the downpour. “Where are we?”
“The lab,” he hissed low, storming back with fire in his eyes. “Listen to me, De-lane-y. You don’t say a fucking word when we go in! Not a single fucking word!”
This was the Slade I’d first met, demonic and deranged glare, that low, shudder-inducing tone, and pure terror radiating from his presence.
I nodded, glancing at the back seat of the car. “And Del—”
“He stays,” Slade snapped. “Keep behind me.”
I trailed Slade through the tetanus-crawling junkyard, oily puddles reflecting the sparks of lightning overhead.
He stopped at a reinforced steel door that didn’t match the yard, hammering his fist against it. “It’s Slade Silletti! Open up!”
Only seconds later, the door hinges groaned, and steel scraped inward, revealing an older vamp in a white coat.
“Prall,” Slade barked, shoving past the man to get into the building. “Progress?”
“We’re doing what we can, given this new… lab.” The vampire turned on his heel, rushing into the black abyss after Slade.
Oh, God. My bare feet recoiled, toes lifting in protest as I stepped inside, crunching a skeleton before stepping on a lump of decayed filth. A sane person would turn and run, yet I continued in their trail, gagging into my sleeve as we traveled deeper through the disgustingly cluttered corridors.
A few turns later, the stink and grime gave way to a hidden, glass-paned lab. Before entering, Prall required us to scrub our hands with a foul-smelling alcohol, then he opened the steel door, allowing us in before letting it seal shut behind me.
Four stainless-steel tables stood parallel to each other, topped with plastic racks filled with tubes, beakers, what looked like an ice chest, syringes, some equipment with a crank handle attached to the edge of a table, and near the back, a closed-lid carton dotted with air holes. Unlike the outside, the lab was absolutely spotless. Not a speck of dirt or excess wax on the candles or oil lamps. There were even yellowing MIT and Stanford diplomas hung on the wall. Garrett Prall. Maria Torres. John Leung.
Two additional vampire chemists straightened from the far shadows, breaking from their work to turn their scrutinizing brows this way. They raised their protective goggles simultaneously, re-tucking their gray hair under the nets atop their heads. I presumed them to be Maria and John.
I forced my hand down from my nose, nostrils hissing from the sting of bleach, alcohol, and burning chemicals.
Maria’s gaze slid to Slade. “Who is the woman—”
“Status!” Slade barked over her.
She flinched from his tone, recovered, and grumbled, “We were instructed not to speak to anyone other than General—”
Slade’s yell interrupted her, demanding, “Status!”
Throwing a glance my way, then at Prall, she cleared her throat and answered Slade, “We have broken down the compound’s base. It’s a heavy alkaloid, an artificial neurotoxin. It mimics the natural deterioration enzymes and—”
“But it’s amplified,” the other chemist scoffed, cutting her off. “Spreads faster than any pathogen I’ve tracked. It floods the nervous system, turns the nerve endings against each other.”
“Antidote?” Slade’s low growl rattled the glass.
“Prototypes.” Prall walked over to a glass case set atop a cabinet and produced a key from his pocket to unlock it. Inside, six syringes glinted with faintly luminescent liquid. He went on, “We’ve managed to isolate the active venom and spun out a few counteragents. None have worked. In fact, one accelerated the toxin’s spread. The best, kept the subject alive for forty-seven seconds.”
Forty-seven seconds. Their best antidote only prolonged life for an additional seventeen seconds.
Slade stormed the case.
Prall’s arm swung out defensively, blocking him from advancing. “Reverse engineering an extremely complex poison takes time and trials. I expect to move into Phase Two in the next month, merging the crucial formulations between these existing serums. We’re hoping for a viable cure by the end of next year.”
Next year. No antidote. No cure. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.
Slade’s eyes swelled with red, his scathing hiss barely slipping from his clenched jaw. “So you have nothing!”
Prall’s composure snapped. “You cannot expect a cure in months! With few test subjects, limited supplies, and a team of three! On top of moving us from a hospital into a scrapyard! This is extinction-level chemistry, and you want a miracle?”
“Yes!” Slade fired back. “I need a fucking miracle!”
Prall shut the case. “For now, rely on the armor we discussed.”
Slade crossed his arms over his chest, his bitter scoff more than menacing. “We’re not about to walk around in head-to-toe metal like fucking gladiators!”
The chemists exchanged wary looks, their eyes sliding to the delicate equipment around the room.
“We were supposed to be invincible!” Slade made a slow pivot toward the other chemists, the candle flames shrinking from the sudden lack of oxygen. The muscles along his neck feathered and chin tipped. “Clear the lab,” rolled off his tongue with deadly persuasion. “Now.”
Prall’s palms rose in protest. “I’d prefer it if you moved outside the glass. We can’t risk contaminating the lab.”
Slade’s eyes glazed over as if he’d been drunk for days; he glanced back… to a rear door, reinforced with iron bars and marked with warnings.
“Prepare your testing room,” he demanded of them. “Make sure it’s in order for my inspection.” Then with ease, he said, “I will not contaminate our only hope.”
Their hesitation only lasted a few seconds before they complied, filing to the back behind Prall, who unlocked the door’s two deadbolts.
As soon as the chemists entered the back room, Slade rushed over, slapped the door shut and re-lowered the iron bars, locking them inside.
Oh, shit.
And then Slade bolted out of the lab.
What the hell was happening?
My legs lunged to follow, but my feet stayed planted. And before I could even make sense of it and react, Slade was sprinting back from the other side of the glass and bursting into the lab… carrying Delano’s lifeless body over his arms.
Oh, my God. “Slade?”
He stormed the table, smacking his arm out to swipe the instruments aside, metallic clatters bouncing off the floor. Then he rolled Delano onto the steel.
Warning ice dripped down my spine. My mouth went dry. Eyes widened too fast.
“Slade!” I fought the shock to keep my voice steady. “What are you doing? I thought you didn’t want anyone to know… are you going to ask them to test—”
Delano’s arm slid off the table, his head lolled lifelessly to the side with it. Oh, God. But as I went to reach for him, Slade dove in a manic lunge to the prototype case and ripped the locked glass cover off at the hinges, sweeping all six syringes into his hand.
SHIT! My heart thundered, beating harder than it ever had before I was turned, triggering my scream and leap forward to shield Delano’s body. “SLADE! STOP!”
But Slade rammed his elbow into my ribs, sending me flying backward as he leaned over Delano, his trembling silhouette casting a monstrous shadow against the wall as he raised his fists, gripping all of the syringes.
“No!” I cried too late, watching in horror.
The madman unleashed a guttural scream, driving all six untested antidotes deep into Delano’s chest.