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 first chapter of Infinite Tomorrows. Please be aware that this first-edit text might change during final edits. Thank you for your patience, and I hope to have the book out in March! It’s quite the story, so I’m taking my time to do it justice! XOXO, Summer
Delano was dead.
The Legion General had fallen after winning a battle meant to be the catalyst for vampire freedom, purging the corrupt so the world could finally see we weren’t the monsters they feared. That vampires wanted peace, same as the unturned.
At this very moment, news of that victory was spreading across the country, cheers and celebrations surely erupting through the Legion camps, fueling their strength. All the while having no idea that their fearless, selfless leader lay motionless in the grass beside me, his eyes forever shut.
Insurmountable pain surged through my chest, shackling my limp limbs to the earth like those rusted chains. A body-racking shudder ripped through me, my jaw clattering as I tried to contain the devastation. Revenge was the only thread keeping me afloat, my wrath a buoy, ensuring I didn’t drown beneath the warring waves of grief and rage.
The storm above shifted, furious bolts of lightning igniting the sky, each flash illuminating the gold on my finger, a promise accepted too late. I clung to Delano’s stiff fingers, knowing it was our final touch. I became his, and a widow, in the same heartbeat.
I’d cheated death too many times, so fate found a new way to destroy me. To finally stop my heart from beating.
I knew better than to believe in more fairytales. My place in this world had been reiterated too many times. Yet I’d let myself imagine a lifetime with him, spending infinite tomorrows with the man I loved.
Thunder cracked like a punishing whip across the sky, but even that was nothing to Slade’s feral screams, his pain tearing through the night with the same violence as the storm. He begged, pleaded, threatened, and cursed God.
A lull in the storm emphasized Slade’s sudden silence, his stare hollow, eyes empty, skin paler than usual.
With an abrupt jerk, he lunged forward, shoving his hands under Delano’s body and with a surge of savage strength, heaved him into his arms.
“Slade—”
I toppled backward, crashing into the slick grass, my hand ripping away from Delano’s.
“Wake up, Goddammit!” Slade screamed, rising to his feet with Delano across his arms, shaking him. “No!”
Lightning strikes lit the grass, and in that startle, I saw the empty syringe glinting in the mud. I reached for it with shaking hands, curling my fingers around the vial of death and holding the evidence up.
“They came from nowhere.” My mouth was dry, raw, my throat shredded from the hours of tears. “I didn’t sense them. He must not have either. They were in the trees. One fired a gun, it—” I gulped, gasping from the memory. “It shot the needle. They’d been canvasing the mountain.”
“They?” Slade bit out, speaking to me for the first time since he’d fallen to his brother’s lifeless side.
“A hundred or so unturned.”
Balancing Delano’s weight across his arms, Slade lunged and snatched the syringe from my grasp, hurling it into the lake. “They have no fucking idea what they’ve unleashed!”
“I dumped their weapons with their bodies.” The lake beside me held those blurred memories, a version and vision of me that felt surreal. “They have recruiting offices. Volunteers sign up for tracking parties. Maybe the rogues were right. We should’ve let them hunt—”
Like a fired bullet, Slade launched into a sprint, plowing through the tall grass into the tree cover.
“Slade!” I reflexively sprang up and into a run, fearing whatever threat Slade must have felt.
I searched over my shoulder as I raced behind them but sensed nothing. Still, I didn’t risk shouting for him to slow down.
Slade hauled Delano’s massive figure like it weighed nothing, vanishing into the woods at speeds I couldn’t match.
Pouring rain blocked their scents. Spreading puddles blurred any shoe prints. “Slade!” My mind and body disconnected, stopping my legs, and forcing my eyes to close. I focused. Listened. Beyond the cyclonic whipping wind, past the crackling thunder and hissing rain came the faintest plops, racing footsteps. I hurled myself toward the sound.
Blended into the distant shadows, Slade clawed at a tangle of brush and ripped away a camouflaged tarp to reveal a buried stash car. In seconds, he flung open the back door, shoved Delano inside, and climbed behind the wheel, erratically starting the engine and reversing at full speed. Leaving me behind!
“Slade!” I surged forward, mud propelling me into the moving vehicle. My palms hit the passenger window. I punched the glass, screaming, “Stop!”
I wrenched the door open and threw myself into the car with a yell. “What the hell are you doing?”
He stomped his foot down, smashing the gas pedal before I was fully seated, the door crashing shut against my shoulder.
Raging rain battered the windshield, beating against the screeching wipers, struggling to battle this storm. I latched the seatbelt and braced the dash, holding on as the tires thudded over wild terrain.
“Slade!” I didn’t recognize my voice or the hysteria lacing it. “Why are we in a car when the base—”
The exhaust backfired as the engine sputtered to reach the speeds Slade demanded.
“Where are you taking him?” I belted out over the car’s rattling.
Slade’s red-rimmed glare flicked my way. “I’m getting him the fuck away from here. Before anyone—” His jaw twitched, hands tremored over the wheel. “Do you know what this this will do? We just declared victory! Delano is their fucking savior! A god! An invincible protector! Their hope! This will destroy everything we’ve worked for! Every stride, every fight, every victory! This is the biggest fucking moment of our lives… and…” His voice cracked into incoherent rambling, “No… no, he’s not… this… no… they can’t—”
“Slade!”
His feverish fixation focused on the road, flooring us from the mountain pass to a highway.
Eventually, he looked over, and said, “The antidote.”
I froze. Those buried cries silenced within me, the pain dissolved, mind scrambled to register his words. Then, like a shot of adrenaline straight into the heart, I gasped back to life. “There’s an antidote?”
Dipping my face, I braved a glance at the backseat. Delano’s shirt hung open, baring his chest, marred by the poisonous black lines, webbed under the surface of his skin. Self-preservation overrode my emotions, blurring the memories of this last week and forcing me to look away.
“To the weapon?” I pressed. “Did Delano know?” He would have told me! Mentioned it! Tried to save himself. “He didn’t—”
Slade’s foot slammed harder. The speedometer needle trembled like the man behind the wheel, both about to combust.
We shot through the rain, evaded the lightning zaps and vicious wind, hydroplaned across the lanes, the tires skidding over the flooded highway.
But the weather didn’t detour our speed.
Slade’s possessed focus broke with the incoming signs for Pittsburgh. He jerked the wheel, fishtailing off the highway.
Using his entire body, Slade cranked the wheel, taking us through side roads, ignoring the potholes hammering the tires.
Nothing slowed him, until a three-story brick building came into view.
I gripped the door. “Is—”
SHIT!
I closed my eyes just as Slade plowed the car over the curb, crashing us through a barbed-wire gate, metal shrieking as the fence blew open.
The car skidded to a hard stop amid piles of rusting junk. Slade was already out, rain slashing across his shoulders. He ran to the gate, wrapped the broken chain back around the post, sealing us inside.
I stumbled out after him, shielding my face from the downpour. “Slade! Where are we?”
“The lab,” he snapped, returning to knock the car door shut at my back. “Listen to me, De-lane-y. You don’t say a word in there! Not one fucking word! Understood?”
This was the Slade I’d first met, his demonic stare, that shudder-inducing tone, and that terror radiating from his presence. I nodded, glancing over my shoulder to the backseat of the car.
We wound through the tetanus-crawling junkyard, oily puddles reflecting the sparks of lightning overhead, until we reached a heavy steel door. Slade hammered his fist against it.
“It’s Slade Silletti! Open up!”
The hinges groaned, and the door scraped inward.
“Prall,” Slade barked, shoving past an older vampire in a white coat. “Progress?”
Prall scrambled after him. “We’re doing what we can, given this new… lab.”
The stench of decayed animals and their excrement assaulted my nose, the filth enough to make any sane person turn back and run away. I gagged into my sleeve, keeping my hand over my nose as I followed them through narrow, cluttered, and grimy corridors.
Which funneled to a sealed glass laboratory. Stainless-steel tables, beakers, and microscopes. All spotless, not a speck of dirt or excess wax on the lit candles. Two other vampire chemists broke from their work, turning at our arrival.
Their introductions came via the cluster of glassless frames on the wall, each holding an aged degree. Garrett Prall, MIT. Natalia Torres, Stanford. John Leung, Harvard.
Natalia and John, I presumed, raised their protective googles simultaneously, observing our entrance.
I lowered my hand from my nose, my nostrils hissing against the numbing, razor-sharp scent of sterilizing alcohol, formaldehyde, and burning chemicals.
Natalia’s gaze slid from me to Slade. “Who is she—”
“Status!” Slade barked.
Natalia flinched, recovered, and helmed the response, “We were instructed not to speak to anyone other than you or General—”
Slade’s slicing yell interrupted her, demanding once again, “Status!”
She cleared her throat and answered, “We’ve broken down the compound’s base. Positively identifying the more lethal components. Synthetic, mostly neurotoxin, similar to vampiric deterioration enzymes—”
“Amplified by ten thousand,” the third chemist cut in with a frustrated scoff. “It spreads and mutates faster than any virus I’ve ever studied. The compound hijacks neural pathways, forces synapses to poison their own neurons, resulting in total systemic failure.”
“Antidote?” Slade’s roar rattled the glass.
“Prototypes.” Prall walked over to a locked plexiglass case and produced a key from his pocket that he used to unlock the cover, flipping it up. Inside it, six syringes filled with faintly luminescent liquid. “We’ve isolated partial proteins and developed counter-variants. None have proven successful. On the contrary, one was found to have accelerated the toxin’s spread. The longest delay we’ve achieved is forty-seven seconds.”
Forty-seven seconds. Their best antidote only prolonged life for seventeen seconds.
Prall’s arm swung out as Slade encroached on the case. “Reverse engineering a very complex poison takes time and trials. I expect to move into Phase Two in the next few months, merging the crucial formulations between these existing serums. We are hoping for a viable cure by the end of next year.”
Next year. No antidote. No cure.
Slade’s jaw locked and red flared with his glare. “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 yelled back. “I need a fucking miracle!”
Prall closed the case. “For now, rely on the armor we discussed.”
Slade crossed his arms, his eerie cackle as maniacal as his grin. “We’re not about to walk around in head-to-toe metal like fucking gladiators! We were supposed to be invincible!”
The chemists exchanged wary looks, their eyes sliding to the delicate equipment around the room.
Slade swerved with a drawn-out pivot, the candle flames shrinking from the sudden lack of oxygen. “Clear the lab,” rolled off his tongue with deadly persuasion. “Now.”
Prall’s palms shot up with his protest, “I’d prefer if you moved outside the glass. We can’t risk contaminating the lab.”
Slade’s eyes glazed over like he’d been drunk for days. He strolled forward, his voice sinking into a vibrating purr, “Leave.”
He glanced toward a rear door, marked with ominous warning signs. “Go check your testing room. Make sure it’s in order. 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.
Once they were gone, Slade followed, re-lowering the lever to halt their return, or at least, delay it.
Then Slade ran.
What…
I stood there in shock and disbelief, confused by the man sprinting out of the lab and racing past the glass.
Where was he going… Delano!
But before I could chase, Slade burst back through the doorway with Delano’s lifeless body in his arms.
“Slade?” My limbs locked, stranding me.
He stormed to the table, swiping instruments aside, that metal clattering to the floor. My eyes flung toward the rear door, knowing the chemists heard.
Slade laid Delano onto the steel table.
“Slade! What are you doing? I thought you didn’t want anyone to know! Are you going to tell them? Test—”
Delano’s arm slid off the table, his head lolled lifelessly to the side. My stomach dipped and twisted, unbearable knots coiling from my gut to my hollow chest.
Time slowed with Slade’s abrupt and manic lunge.
He ripped the plexiglass cover off at the hinges and swept all six syringes into his hand.
“STOP! SLADE!” I lunged forward to shield Delano’s body, but Slade’s elbow rammed into my ribs, knocking me across the room.
I gasped, dazed and shook, as he leaned over Delano, his silhouette trembling.
“Come back!” Slade cried, driving all six syringes into Delano’s chest.