Scarlet Phoenix (Scarlet Angel Book 3) - C.A. Wilke

Scarlet Phoenix (Scarlet Angel Book 3) by C.A. Wilke

Book excerpt

I am lost in a land of confusion. Part of my past is gone, and my future is as clear as mud.

***

The void was all. There was no sound, no up or down, no cold, no hot. Just … nothing. And yet, that darkness shuddered. Somehow, the black shroud of emptiness shook and twisted. It shook and twisted until it seemed as if it would break.

Then it did and there was pain. A pain that reverberated across her entire body, like that time she was hit by a car while riding her bike on the sidewalk of a busy street. She’d been crossing a driveway when a car pulled out a little too far. She’d tumbled from her ride and landed on the asphalt barely a couple feet from the raging stream of metal and glass that was traffic. That accident had only resulted in a few bruises and scrapes, but it had hurt enough that she cried the rest of the way home.

This was like that, only much, much worse.

Her lungs burned, almost as if she hadn’t breathed in a long time, but that didn't make sense. There was a sensation, almost as if she was under water. Gravity, the tug of the Earth pulling her down, did not feel right. But if she was underwater and tried to breathe she'd drown. But no, there was no water.

With a mental scream, she forced her mouth to open, and air flooded her lungs. Stale air with the smell and taste of dust, but it was delicious air nonetheless. Her chest spasmed and her abdominal muscles cramped. She gave a dry, raspy cough. Each breath seared, but she forced herself to keep breathing.

Cold air pricked her skin, covering her in gooseflesh. She rolled onto her side and opened her eyes, blinking against a harsh, white light. A couple feet away to her left, the light sliced through darkness, highlighting walls of jagged, gray stone that rose up all around her. Still, gravity did not feel right.

The light moved.

The simple beam of light swiped across her face, but to her it felt like a slap. She gasped and recoiled. Even with her eyes closed, her vision was now punctuated by the horizontal line of green and purple afterglow branded into her eyeballs. Her muscles groaned with the deep ache of not having moved in a long time.

Something grated against the stone floor nearby. A flash of fear ran through her but was accompanied by a sliver of relief that she wasn’t alone. The light moved again. Lifting a hand, she blocked out the brightest center of the beam. She tried to peer into the dark shadows but saw nothing.

Opening her mouth to speak, only a dry, grating sound came. She shivered against the dry, chilly air as she gathered what little saliva she could. The second she swallowed, fire ripped through her throat. The pain quickly faded to a dull scratch as the trickle of liquid made its way down. Finally, her words came, sounding far more gravelly than she expected. “Hello?”

Her invisible companion coughed, the unfamiliar voice deep and masculine. When the person spoke, a Nordic accent tinged his pain-cracked voice. “Well, that is timing for you.”

“What?” She didn’t understand anything. What? Who? Where the hell am I?

The last thing she remembered was … fire? And pain. There was so much pain.

“I … I don’t understand.” She tried again. “Who are you? Where are we? Where’s Derrick?”

She looked down to find her body covered in a black, skintight bodysuit. A lump at the back of her neck indicated some kind of electronics. A distant memory of wearing something similar during her last physical at her doctor’s office. A medscan suit? Why in the world was she wearing a medscan suit?

The light shifted and bounced, and she realized the light was a lamp on the man’s helmet. He took the helmet off and angled the beam so it shone between them. At last, she could see his face.

The man—his neck veins bulging in agony—had a broad chiseled jaw. He lay on the ground on his side. His long torso stretched from the light into the darkness. The man’s left leg was crushed under a boulder. “I do not know who Derrick is, but I am Aksel, from the team that came to rescue you, Scarlett.”

Her confusion deepened. “Rescue me?” Realization dawned as memories of screams and explosions filled her head. She was in the Universal Dynamics research building, down in the basement test levels. Derrick’s voice had counted down over the loudspeaker. And then …

She coughed again. “Rescuer? Yeah. The experiment, it went … wrong. There was an explosion.”

That’s it! Flashes of bodies and rubble filled her head. She had a vague memory of being pulled from that scene, but it had to be a dream while she was unconscious. But if she was still

at Universal Dynamics, where was she exactly? And why did everything feel so weird and … light. Could it be an artifact of altered gravity? Some weird result of the Centaurus Engine malfunction?

Aksel’s face twisted in confusion. “Explosion? No. We fell. You probably do not remember. You were unconscious.”

None of this made any sense to her. Fell? From where?

“Scarlett, can you get up?”

She shook her head to clear the mental cobwebs and looked around. “Who … who’s Scarlett?”

“Who’s Scarlett? That’s you, isn’t it? They said that was your name. They said we were going to rescue the Scarlet Angel.”

The what?

She shifted into a sitting position. “I don’t know what that means. I’m not any kind of an angel. And my name’s not Scarlett. I’m … I’m just Jillian. I’m a physicist for General Dynamics, that’s all. Please, tell me where we are. Tell me where Derrick is!”

This time it was Aksel’s turn to shake his head. “Great. That woman said you were Scarlett; she just did not say you were crazy.”