by R. J. Blain
With a little luck, I could resume my studies, if I could convince the elite I had no part of Arthur’s schemes. If I couldn’t, I’d find another way to rise above my need to do my boss’s dirty work to survive.
In the meantime, if I did become a fugitive, I needed another goal. Rob was it. I’d make him regret his declarations; and the thought of having my revenge for treating me like property intrigued me.
I needed a challenge so I could get on with my life, and he would do.
I had no idea how long I drifted as a prisoner in my own body, but the quiet hum of conversation nearby helped me focus on the present instead of my meandering plans, none of which I could execute until after I escaped.
My right wrist throbbed, and as I became aware of it, the rest of my body reported in. There was definitely something wrong with my ribs and chest. When I breathed, it hurt. I didn’t think anything was broken, which left bone-deep bruises, likely from when Arthur had slammed me to the street.
A faint constriction around my throat alarmed me; it wasn’t quite the same as the suffocating reaction to Arthur’s touch, but it disconcerted me enough I cracked open an eye.
Wherever I was, it wasn’t the basement. The ceiling was painted white, and to mimic the elite, someone had attempted to apply stucco, resulting in a chaotic mess of plaster. It peeled away to reveal gray and black splotches of mold. While there was a light fixture mounted overhead, the dusty ruins of a broken bulb remained in the socket.
Instead, someone used a floor lamp for light, and they had left it on even though daylight streamed in through the room’s small window.
I was alone, which was perfect for my needs. Clenching my teeth so I wouldn’t make any sound, I eased my way upright. Maybe my ribs weren’t broken, but the movement hurt like hell.
I regarded the bandages wrapped around my chest and stomach with an arched brow. Did it count as naked if I wore bandages as a set of clothes? I ran my hand over my ribs and grimaced.
They were definitely bruised, maybe broken, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. It’d be days, if not weeks, before I recovered enough to do anything without wincing, especially if I couldn’t take advantage of the health care provided for those of the upper castes. If I had broken something, I’d probably be able to sneak into one of the fringe hospitals. Sometimes they asked for identification, but usually, no one cared.
I was tempted to use that to my advantage, except I figured the hospitals would be the first place the police checked for suspects, myself included. In other circumstances, I never would have considered turning myself in as a strategy, but for a change, I was truly innocent. The problem was proving it.
It wouldn’t matter if I proved to the elite I wasn’t involved in Arthur’s attack on the college. If I didn’t sniff out Terry Moore’s drug stash or recover Kenneth’s money, I wouldn’t live long enough for my innocence to matter. Careful to be as quiet as possible, I freed myself from the blanket.
Boxers didn’t count as usual attire for me, but I’d take them over completely naked any day of the week. While unorthodox, the bandages wrapped around my chest kept my breasts covered, which was good enough for me.
I didn’t need to worry about clothes, although I’d regret the lack of layers once I was on the streets. Autumn in Baltimore was a fickle mistress, and if my misfortune held, she’d prove it to me by inflicting snow on the city.
Having been in the basement, the condition of the floors worried me; in the best-case scenario, they’d creak and moan beneath my weight, alerting everyone I was awake and on the move.
However, the ongoing conversation somewhere beyond the closed door of my room tempted me. I didn’t doubt Arthur’s desire to rescue the kids, but I knew nothing of what had happened after I had been kidnapped.
Eavesdropping was a good way to learn things people didn’t want me to know.
There was a trick to walking across crappy floors without either falling through or making the abused boards creak and moan like they were being tortured. It was slow, it was tedious, but I gingerly eased my feet to the floor and forced myself to remain patient. I began with a toe on each foot, settling my weight until I could stand. I rose, tensing from the fear of making noise.
The floor held my weight without betraying me.
My body didn’t betray me, either, which gave me hope I might be able to pull off a second escape. Unlike many places in the fringe, the room’s tiles were new enough to still have the shine on them, which made it easier for me to slide my feet without having to redistribute my weight as often.
Inch by slow and tedious inch, I headed for the door, and when I reached it, I pressed my ear to the worn wood.
“We’re not killing her,” Arthur said, his voice muffled.
“She’s more than half-dead already, man. You’re going to get us all killed if we keep her. You’ve heard the word on the streets. They want her back, bad. What were you thinking, kidnapping a Bach-studies student? Fuck, Arthur. She’s the dean’s assistant. She’s not just any student. You stole the bloody top-rated one in the entire college.”
I blinked. I had graded well enough in secondary; it was a requirement to elevate to Bach studies, but I wasn’t rated as anything in the college. Did they mean for entry-level?
Although I was competitive enough, I didn’t really care where I ranked among the other first-year students. All that mattered had been earning my spot.
“We’re not killing her.”
“Then what the fuck do you propose we do with her? It’s bad enough they’re after the kids. It’s going to be hard enough hiding them in the system. Her? She fucking tried to cut off her own hand with a rusty nail. She’s crazy, Arthur. She’s going to blow this whole thing up in our faces.”
I had no idea who the second man was, but he was smart—and probably right about my mental health. Well, lack thereof.
It wasn’t like they’d left me with anything else. I wrinkled my nose. Maybe I was a little crazy, but only a little.
I had to be to work with Kenneth Smith and survive to tell the tale. A lot of girls didn’t. I had gone back to work at the college after narrowly dodging incineration. Once again, the memory of Rob pulling me to safety haunted me.
Without him, I’d be dead, and acknowledging that soured my mood even more than Arthur kidnapping me. I wasn’t a delicate flower needing to be sheltered or rescued.
I wasn’t his property, either.
I clenched my hands into fists, careful to keep my breathing slow and even so I wouldn’t betray myself by expressing my frustration and self-loathing. It wasn’t asking for help if I worked for my money. It wasn’t charity. I worked for Kenneth Smith out of necessity, but he had what I needed, and I provided what he wanted.
It was business.
The fact I owed Rob a debt pissed me off, and what he wanted was the one thing I wouldn’t give.
Flames crackled on the other side of the door. I cringed, forcing myself to stand still.
“We’re not killing her.”
“I heard you the first hundred times, damn it! What do we do with her, then? She’ll get us all killed. Is that what you want? You’re tough, but you can’t take on all of the elite. It was bad enough getting the kids out. Did you forget you killed a bunch of the elite when you did it? They want your blood, and if they find out the girl’s still alive and you have her, they’ll double their efforts to get you.”
My eyes widened. How many had died because of Arthur? I wasn’t friends with the elite, but the police had been friendly enough to me, and I even liked some of the werewolves. They were honest critters, revealing everything in the way they canted their heads, bared their fangs, and interacted with each other.
They had been human once, too.
“She’s a good source, okay? With her around, I’ll be able to do whatever I need. Unlimited power, Donald. That’s what she is. You saw. All we have to do is touch her and she’s in enough pain to harvest. Let them come. As long as I hav
e her, we can’t be stopped.”
I had no idea what Arthur was talking about, but I didn’t like it. He was harvesting pain from me? How? What did I have to do with his power? Was I somehow fueling his flames?
Why couldn’t my life make sense? Once again, I had far more questions than answers, and every time I thought I was getting a handle on the weird shit going on, things blew up in my face or somehow got stranger.
“So find some slut who likes hot sex, Arthur. They’re easier to deal with. You pay them, have a good time, harvest their passion, and you’re good to go. Everyone walks away happy with the arrangement. I didn’t sign up to torture people, let alone some poor girl who didn’t do anything beyond what she was told so she wouldn’t get expelled. Dump the girl in the bay, and put her out of her misery.”
“She’s too good of a source,” Arthur snapped. “I can’t let the elite have her.”
“Then you’ll either have to kill her or convince her to join us, and I don’t think you’re going to have much luck convincing her if you insist on hurting her.” There was a loud thump on the other side of the door. “Take her out of the city with the kids and dump her somewhere in the country if you don’t want to kill her or let the elite have her. You can’t keep her. You’ll get us and the kids killed at this rate.”
There was a long moment of silence followed by a heavy sigh. Arthur snapped, “I’ll deal with her tomorrow. Tonight, we have plans.”
I tensed at the creak of movement on old, abused floors coming from the other side of the door. I held my breath until the sounds stopped.
Tonight, I had plans, too, and they involved getting the hell out of Dodge before I found out firsthand what Arthur meant by dealing with me.
Fifteen
How hard could it be, indeed.
I waited for a long time, tense from worry Arthur or one of his cohorts would check on me. While I could make it to the bed quickly if I needed to, I’d make a lot of noise doing it, and they’d know for certain I was awake and able to move.
After my close brush with a vampire, it wasn’t a far stretch to believe Arthur—and other dae—could snack on my misery. After all, I had a macaroni and cheese friend capable of eating anything I gave it.
I hoped Colby had escaped Arthur’s fires at the college unscathed.
I forced my attention back to my more immediate problems. If Arthur could consume pain and misery, he was probably right—I was likely a tasty treat for him. All he’d have to do was touch me to feed.
He’d already had his way with me at least once. I ached and itched as a reminder of how familiar he’d gotten with me when I had been unconscious. I fisted my hands, my anger rising the longer I thought about it.
At least a vampire had to go through the effort of obtaining my blood. The idea of Arthur using me as a living, breathing battery—as food—horrified me. He had violated me for his personal gain. Worse, he’d done it so he could fight others. While the elite weren’t exactly innocent, not all of them deserved execution—or being burned alive.
Maybe he meant to save a bunch of fringe kids, but I still felt contaminated and in dire need of a shower. It wouldn’t erase the marks he had left pawing all over me, but I still wanted to scrub away as much of his taint from my skin as I could.
At least I had learned one very important thing from eavesdropping. The elite wanted me back. I could escape and return to the life I had worked so hard to build for myself. I still needed to deal with the problem of Terry Moore, but I’d have the time to do it.
I could keep moving forward.
Relief swept through me, leaving me breathless and shivering in its wake.
I still had a lot of problems, but instead of insurmountable, they were merely difficult. Escaping would prove the most challenging. My hands were still torn up from climbing out of the warehouse. I had no idea how damaged my wrist was, but it hurt like hell, and I doubted it would hold my weight if I tried to use it when I climbed out the window.
I crept my way back to the bed, knelt on it, and peeked outside.
The sun was close to setting. I’d run the risk of meeting Arthur on the streets again after dark—or one of the other hungry dae. I had two choices: I could stay or I could go. If I stayed, I’d find out what Arthur meant to do with me tomorrow.
There was no way I was going to let him keep using me, not like he had already. Donald was right.
I wasn’t going to choose to join Arthur’s cause, not after he treated me like a piece of meat prepared for his benefit. While I wanted to protect the kids and stop them from being used as tools for the elite, I wanted a choice in the matter. I didn’t want to be used, at least not without my consent.
I shivered.
What had Arthur done to me while I had been unconscious? The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Maybe I wanted to experience what other women could at their leisure, but I wanted to be a part of it.
I didn’t want some random man touching me. I wasn’t property, but what I had heard through the door made me feel like it. I shivered.
The evidence of Arthur touching me was branded on my skin. I itched everywhere, proof he had been thorough running his hands over me. It was reinforced by the boxers I wore, which belonged to a man—probably Arthur. It was there in the way even my feet were covered in red marks. How far had he gone when I hadn’t been able to defend myself?
I wanted to crawl in a hole and hide. Worse, I wanted to cry. Rape was a reality of the fringe, and a fate I had avoided by being smart—or had I avoided it? I couldn’t tell.
No one had told me how sex felt, only that it would hurt the first time I slept with a man. None of the other women I knew claimed to like it, except for Lily, who went out of her way to get it, and she wasn’t all that picky about who she got it from, so long as they satisfied her.
Most didn’t, and she complained about that bitterly the few times she talked to me about it, venting about how her latest conquest had disappointed her.
If I believed what I had been told, men were much happier with sex than women. It didn’t change anything for me; I wanted to know for myself what it was like, which was made all the worse by the fact sex was impossible for me.
I never understood Lily, although I smiled and nodded for her sake whenever she spoke about who she slept with. I had always believed kissing would be enough to kill me. What would sex do, if anything at all? Had Arthur raped me when I hadn’t been able to fight him?
I didn’t know, which only made things worse. What had he done to me?
My helplessness smothered me, and I shivered. First, I needed to escape and get as far away from Arthur as possible. Once free, I would come up with a plan. It would take days before the rashes covering me from head to toe faded.
I couldn’t face anyone until then. I’d hide until the marks of what Arthur had done to me went away, turning into yet another invisible scar I could hide in silence. After I healed enough no one would ask questions, I would manage to rejoin society.
As long as no one knew what they could do to me with a touch, I’d be all right.
First, I would wait until after dark. I would wait for when the streets were quiet. As soon as I was certain no one would notice, I would escape through the window. If I fell the three stories to the pavement below, so be it.
It was better than waiting, knowing I’d become a victim the next day.
By the time night fell, I was a nervous wreck. When I wasn’t anxious over Donald or Arthur returning, I wondered how many others were in on their plan—or were lurking somewhere else in the townhouse. I wanted noise, at least a little to help me gain my bearings. I couldn’t believe I’d been left entirely alone.
Then again, most people would’ve been deterred by a three-story fall to the street below. In my condition, only a lunatic would try the climb. Still, who left their kidnap victim alone and unsupervised with a way out? The window was plenty large enough for me to wiggle through.
There wasn’t much of a po
int in making a plan and thinking it through, but I did it anyway. Getting to the ground without breaking a leg or killing myself would be the most difficult part. I’d have to do it with one hand. I pressed close to the glass, peering down at the street. Like the warehouse, the townhouse was fashioned of uneven brick, offering me a lot of hand and foot holds. I couldn’t tell if there were any other windows beneath mine, and I wouldn’t know until I found them with my feet on the way down.
I waited until the city was dark. In the distance, a werewolf howled, and the beast was answered by a deep, rumbling roar I felt as much as I heard. Was it a dragon on the hunt again, flaming its prey?
I preferred when the fantastical nightmares remained within the pages of a book instead of haunting reality.
It took all my courage to unlatch the window, slide it up, and secure it. If I didn’t want anyone knowing how I had escaped, I would need to close the window behind me. The thought of balancing on my toes, pressed to the side of the building so I could use my hands, frightened me almost as much as the thought of smacking into the asphalt below.
My fear welled up, tightened my throat, and froze me in place. I stared out the window at a distant light.
If I stayed, I’d remain Arthur’s victim. If I made that choice, I would deserve whatever he did to me. Part of me wanted to stay so I could meet him again, wrap my fingers around his neck, and strangle the life out of him. Watching the life die in his eyes would be worth the blisters and scars.
Revenge would have to wait.
Shivering from the cold, I eased my way out the window, sliding over the sill on my stomach. The frame, like so much of the rest of the house, crumbled beneath me. The bandages spared me from the splinters, but I hissed at the pressure on my ribs and bruises.
