Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
A flash of movement outside the bars draws a gasp from several of us. I stare, doggedly intent on meeting my fate with my eyes open. I won’t look away from the creatures who turned our world to a graveyard, who took everything from me.
“Here.” A voice like the first dusting of snow on violets, soft and fragile. I know it well now. “These are the ones.” The vampire stops outside our cell, her long, straight white hair and smooth skin so perfect that the very idea of it defies nature. Before, when I’d see images of friends or even celebrities using too many filters to cover their plague marks, they’d look like this. Unearthly and smooth, devoid of anything that suggests age or breath or frailty. She’s that perfection at all times. A doll’s face to cover a demon’s soul. “He wants three to give as gifts. High ranking, preferably. Do we have any left worth offering?”
The guard unlocks the cage door. He’s Blood Dragonis. How do I know that? My head throbs when I focus on the knowledge, the thought disappearing like a snake slithering off into pitch black.
The guard swings the door open. I’ve seen him before, his pale eyes boring into me as he’s killed others. I feel like I knew him before my time in this cage, but I can’t quite place him. There’s a lot I lost when I was captured and interrogated, my thoughts scraped out of me by torture or pulled from my veins by another of the Blood Dragonis. By Whitbine, the interrogator. Bile rises in my throat at the thought of him.
The white-haired one walks into the cell, her crisp black suit tailored perfectly to her long, elegant limbs. She steps daintily across a small pool of vomit, her silver heels barely clicking as she surveys the room.
Pointing a long finger tipped with a sharp nail, her eyes narrow on Vince. “This one. He was with the president. Close to her.”
Her words hit me like a gut punch, grief and rage rising and swirling until I have to take a deep breath just to stay lucid, to stay here. Not back on the night it happened. The night the entire world fell apart. The night I can’t remember despite weeks of trying. The torture was absolute, my memory stolen and gone.
I can’t let her take Vince. The last vestige of my old life.
“He’ll do.” She twirls a finger. “Bring him.”
I lean toward Vince, shielding him with my thin body as best I can. Black spots swim in my vision at the simple act of sudden movement, my heart pounding and sweat breaking out across my brow as I lift a shaking arm to bar the guard from touching him.
The guard knocks me back, my head cracking against the wall sharply as he lifts Vince with one hand and carries him from the cell. Vince moans, his eyes opening and finding mine as I push myself back to a sitting position. Breathing hard, I don’t have the strength to do anything more. He disappears down the hall. Seventy-two steps and he’ll be gone forever. Tears prick behind my eyes, but none come.
The ethereal monster toes the body of a woman still wearing bits of military fatigues. “It’s still alive. Take it.”
The guard is already back, and he grabs the woman and leaves again. No one protests. No one does anything except try to survive.
“One more.” She clucks her tongue and turns toward me again, her gaze going to Sheila.
“Hmm.” She steps across a few more bodies and kneels with a grace any cat would envy. She gives the slightest sniff, her eyes narrowing. “Already dead.” She rises with a perturbed sigh.
“No.” My voice barely makes it past my lips in an ugly rasp. I press my palm to Sheila’s forehead. She’s cold. She must’ve passed in the last few hours. I’d given her my share of water only yesterday. Or was it two days ago? I don’t know, but she’s cold now, her body curled in on itself yet unable to find comfort. She couldn’t have been more than 20.
A sob catches in my chest, but I bite it back.
The monster turns, her gaze finally fixing on mine. “And who is this?”
“Me.” A weak voice carries from the back of the cage. “Take me.”
Her head snaps toward the sound, and she moves quickly to it. A spider picking its way across its web.
“I remember you.” The man coughs, a wheezing sound seesawing from his lungs as he sits up. That’s when I realize it’s Secretary Shaw speaking. His voice is cracked and hoarse, but I know his sharp tone.
“Do you?” She lifts him from the floor, dangling him in the air. His brown skin is faded, and one side of his face is deeply clawed and infected, swollen and oozing. The mark of Blood Tantun. “And what is it you think you know about me, dog?” she asks softly. A voice of beauty. A voice of pain.