Page 122 of A Taste Of Darkness

This couldn’t have been the doing of just one person… and I bet the only reason I was still alive was that whoever did this needed me alive to get to Milo.

Stuff like this was always going to be about Milo, I was sure of it.

With now trembling legs and hands, I rushed over to the security guard who was closest to me. His eyes were still open, but it was obvious he was long gone.

I didn’t know the guy, but I felt terrible because I knew in some way, I was the reason he died.

I closed his eyes before taking a deep breath and reaching for his holster to take his gun. I checked for ammunition and took some spare ones just in case, then made my way over to another fallen security guard.

He was still alive, covering his wound with his hands, but the blood just squeezed through the slits between each of his fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, but the man shook his head at me.

“Get—” He coughed up some blood, and it took everything in me not to look away. “Out.”

“I can’t.” As much as I wanted to jump out of the window and run, my sister was around here somewhere. Until I found her, there was no way I’d get out of the building. “Wait here.”

I got up and snuck over to an empty reception, looking for tissues of any sort. I was sure they’d do absolutely nothing for the guy, but I couldn’t just leave him here to die.

Carefully looking over the desk, I found a stack of hopefully sterile towels. Within seconds, I snatched them off the counter and quietly rushed back to the guy. He was still breathing, hanging onto every second he had left on earth.

God, I so badly wished I could’ve done anything for him.

Without thinking, I ripped his hands away from the stab wound and covered it with two of the towels, but he took over for me.

“Can I have your phone?” I asked to which he nodded weakly.

“My… pants.”

I reached for his jeans, pulling out the phone from his pocket. “Please hang in there, okay? I… I can fix this, and then someone will?—”

“1073,” he interrupted. “It’s the code.”

A tear rolled down my cheek, but I forced myself to stop crying before more came flooding in. This wasn’t the time to feel. “Please, hang in there.”

I took his gun so I could give it to Flora once I found her. Not yet moving, I unlocked the phone and scrolled through the guy’s last calls. Surely he was in touch with Kai last, so the first number I found, I dialed.

It rang once.

“Sterlie,” Milo picked up. How he knew it was me, I wasn’t sure, but it felt good to hear his voice. “Go hide.”

“No.” My voice was surprisingly confident. “Flora is missing.”

“What do you—” He cleared his throat. “We’re on the way, Sterlie. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“All of them are dead.” I got up again, now slowly, carefully making my way down the hall. “And I’m not going to lock myself inside a room, not knowing if my sister is still alive!”

I heard someone mutter in the background, but I couldn’t make out what the person said. While Milo was quiet for a moment, I pulled a knife out of another dead person’s body, shoving it up my sleeve and tying it to my arm with my hair tie just in case the guns weren’t enough.

“Flora is fine,” Milo said. “She’s on the phone with Kai.”

“You’re just saying that.”

He stayed quiet.

Another tear ran down my cheek but I ignored it. I had to focus.

As I rounded the corner, a shrill scream came from the other direction, making me flinch.

---