He grabbed my marked wrist first, examined it, and then stepped back. “What do you think?”
What did I think about what? I scrabbled around my head for an answer.
“Caine claimed her—erroneously,” a familiarly accented voice said from behind me. “His intention was to kill.”
I stiffened, caught between wanting to look and not wanting him to see what I’d become, trembling in rags, legs caked in mud. I’d see myself in his eyes, and I couldn’t have that, because it would break me. It was worse, somehow, knowing Jack had seen me before as Lynher Aris and now as food.
“Caine needs more discipline,” the heavy one said, returning to his desk to park his plump rear against its edge.
Jack emerged to my left, gracefully cruising into my peripheral vision. He approached the desk and stopped partway between it and me. Every tailored stitch and every strand of hair were all perfectly in place. He didn’t seem real. Nothing about this felt real. This room, them, the desk… was I still in the dark somewhere beneath this building, listening to the dead shiver?
“Have you seen the mark before?” Bulky asked.
“Not that I recall,” Jack lied.
I blinked. He’d told me he’d been to the station before. He’d seen the mark on me. He knew what it did and what it represented. Why not tell his overseer companion the truth? I could tell Bulky how his overseer pal had lied, but he’d probably laugh.
Bulky’s expression pinched. “Didn’t this one threaten you?”
“Yes.” Jack stiffened. I only noticed because I was determined to stare him down.
Bulky waited for more, but Jack showed no signs of elaborating, so he gave in with a resigned sigh. “I don’t have time for all this nonsense. I’ll have it drained and sent to the burn house.”
“Of course.” A piece broke off Jack’s wooden smile.
“I’ll tell you,” I blurted, pointing at Jack. “Only you. And then… do whatever you want.”
“My apologies, Ghost,” Bulky blustered, bulbous face blotching. “Her tongue hasn’t been removed. An oversight. Guard!”
“It’s quite all right.” He casually waved away his partner’s groveling. “There’s some merit in its words. I’ll take it off your hands.”
“Aren’t you due to leave for the capital at dawn?”
Jack dipped his head respectfully. “More than enough time to get what I want out of it.”
The guard reappeared, and I was marched behind Jack’s tall frame, through labyrinth-like hallways and into another room, this one more plain than Bulky’s suite. A daybed, a dresser, a cupboard. All dull brown. All unremarkable. How typically Jack-like.
The guard pulled a length of rope from his pocket to bind my hands together.
“That won’t be necessary.” Jack waved him away and stared at me until the door had clicked closed. “Lynher Aris.” His lips pulled on a sideways grin.
Part of me wanted to burst into tears. Another part wanted to spit at him again. And more wanted to yell and ask him if he knew what they were keeping in the basement here. “You fucking bastard.”
“Such a sweet tongue. I’m pleased you still have it.” He went to a table, poured ice water from a pitcher and then handed it over. I considered throwing it in his face. Maybe I would with the second glass, but my dry throat demanded I drink. I gulped it down without stopping to breathe, acutely aware of his gaze on my neck, and then handed the glass back.
Dirty fingerprints marked its shiny surface. I looked at my hands, trembling fingers dried with filth.
He set the glass down, not refilling it, so I took myself across his shiny floor, leaving dirt flakes in my wake, and poured my own damn glass of water. When I was done with that one, I pitched the glass against the far wall and watched it shatter, delighting in the bright, tinkling sound of raining glass.
“Did that help?” he asked.
“No.” Now I was breathless and shaking and felt like I might fall, but I couldn’t. If I fell, I might not get back up. My skin itched, and my blood was cold. I scratched at the thing they’d shot into my arm. “There are people… underground. Children! Why are they there?”
His cheek flickered. He turned his head, looking away in shame, I hoped. “They only light the burn houses when they have enough—”
I groaned and leaned too hard against the table. I couldn’t do anything for those poor people or for myself, but I could take Jack back to hell with me. I lunged at him, got my filthy fingers around his smooth lapels, and pulled. We stumbled against the table, and the pitcher toppled. Water spilled. I grabbed the pitcher’s handle, funneling all my rage and hate and fear into it and swung.
He caught my wrist, twisted it, yanked me forward, and slammed me facedown against the tabletop. His fangs would be in my neck next, and I’d die drunk on his venom while thanking him for being so terribly nice as he killed me. “Get off!”
“Silence!” The word burned the back of my neck.
“Get off me, you son of a bitch, or I will scream this place down, and when they come running, I’ll tell them how I saw you out cold, naked and vulnerable, in one of my beds, with all your markings on display.”
His growl rumbled through him and down my back, but he let go. When I turned, he was all the way across the room, straightening his hair and cuffs, putting all the pieces back together again.
“Why are you lying to them?”
“Lower your voice.”
“Why?”
He tore open a closet and rummaged through the interior, swearing when he didn’t find what he wanted.
“Tell me.” I approached on wobbly legs.
He slammed the closet door closed and marched to the main door, his limp more pronounced. “Stay here.”
The second he was out the door, I gave it a tug. When that didn’t work, I tried the windows, but they were all sealed, with no means of opening them. There had to be something I could use to escape or as a weapon against him. I tried the drawers in another desk, smaller and more basic than mine, and came up empty. Then I searched the closets, leaving the doors hanging open. There was nothing.
The door lock rattled, and he strode in, spare clothes draped over his left arm, boots held in his left hand, and a covered food tray in his right. He dropped the boots and locked the door again, his eye catching mine to confirm I’d seen, and then he tossed the clothes onto the bed and set the tray down on the desk.
He eyed his open closets and ransacked dresser. “Did you find whatever you were searching for?”
“No.” I poked at the red lump in my wrist. “What did they put in me?”
“A tracker. Stop scratching it.”
“It hurts.”
“It will hurt more if you dislodge it.”
“I hate you, and this place, and your wretched species.”
“Good, because we’re leaving. But before that, change your clothes and eat.” He lifted the lid off the tray, revealing a medley of fruit and bread. I lasted all of a few seconds before descending on the food, taking bites out of everything. Apples had never tasted so divine. I ate until the plate was clear, and only then did I realize he’d been watching the entire time, propped against a far wall like a proud, elegant statue that had murdered generations for fun.
“Hurry,” he said. “My train leaves at dawn. I do not intend to be on it.”
Was this a game? I’d play it if it meant escaping this hell, so long as I didn’t end up in a worse one. But nothing could be worse, could it? “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m helping myself.” He glanced out the sealed windows. The iron bars painted the same shadow bars across his face. “Now hurry.”
I picked up the dark cotton pants and blouse. All black with red threading. Vampire clothes. They’d fit—he’d been paying attention. Plus, they were better than the thin gown the drones had thrown over me.
I stripped off my damp gown and tugged on the clothes, not caring about modesty. The drones had already stripped that away too. My fing
ers trembled as I buttoned up the blouse. Simple as they were, the soft fabric felt like a gift against my cold, mottled skin. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t right now, not with my body warm and belly full. I’d hate him again later.
“It’s all I could find,” he said, as though he had genuinely sought out clothing I’d find more comfortable.
“It’s fine.” I rolled up the sleeves. Were we really leaving? Was that what was happening here? But there were people inside the chambers and other buildings like this one. How could I leave them? I knew how he could. He cared only about himself.
“Why are you afraid of the dawn train?”
“Ask your questions once we’re outside the farm.” He pulled a coat from the closet and handed it out.
I looked at the coat and then up into his pleading eyes. “Those people… I can’t leave them.”
“They’re already dead.” He shook the coat, urging me to take it.
“No, they aren’t. I can’t just leave. I can’t.” I picked at the tracker in my arm, trying to pry it free. “There are kids down there, Jack. They’re alive.”
Lowering the coat, he sighed through his nose. “And what would you have me do?”
“Something. Anything. You don’t even have to do it. I’ll do something. Just… help?”
He laughed. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Even if we freed them, there is nowhere for them to go. That’s what I meant. They’re dead. Today… tomorrow, it’s all the same.”
I searched his eyes, hoping to see a spark of emotion, something other than self-preservation. “I’m not going with you.”
“Lynher—”
“Miss fucking Aris.”
“Fuck,” he snapped back. “Why do you have to be difficult?”
The way his clipped accent made fuck sound so utterly obscene had me half smiling. “Because… because it’s working?” And it was. My stubbornness had him rattled. He really, really wanted to be gone before his train arrived. “Because, unlike you, I have my own mind and I know what is wrong and leaving them down there to die is wrong.”
He rolled his eyes, backed up, and then came forward again as an idea occurred to him. “I could bite you and have you follow me about like a pet. I’d like to see you smile then.”
“Do it.” I lifted my chin and swallowed. Stupid, stupid, stupid. My fingers curled into fists.
His gaze flicked to my throat, but his mouth twisted. “You’re claimed. Your blood, should I taste it, would be unpleasant… somewhat like its owner.”
He’d called me unpleasant. The mass-murdering, blood-sucking bitch-queen’s slave hadn’t looked in a mirror lately. “I’m not going anywhere until we’ve at least tried to help them.”
“Only Lynher fucking Aris would dare issue orders to me in a bloodfarm.” He growled low in his throat and threw the coat at my chest. “Fine, but only because it will stop your arguing. I do not have the luxury of time.”
Jack made for the door. Throwing the coat on, I hurried behind.
“Keep your eyes down. Don’t say or do anything,” he murmured. “And stay behind me.”
We came upon the first drone standing outside a stairwell door. She observed our approach, but with my head down, I missed her reaction, if she’d even had one. Most drones didn’t speak; they were empty vessels, but they were also the eyes and ears of the queen. Did the queen see us through her, I wondered, shivering as I passed under the drone’s glare.
Jack hurried down a stairwell. Down and down we went, until the air changed and I tasted death on my lips. The low ceiling and long corridor flanked by steel doors made the air feel heavy. I dragged it over my lips, breathing too hard.
“Which room?” he whispered.
“Third on the right.”
“Open the door,” Jack said, speaking calmly to the drone between us and our target, his tone leaving no room for argument. The drone flicked over the door’s locks. As he was about to turn back around, Jack grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed him face-first into the wall. The sickening sound of bone cracking was followed by the tumble of dead weight as Jack tossed the unconscious vampire aside like trash. I swallowed and stepped around the motionless body, avoiding looking too long.
Jack yanked the door open. “Everyone out!”
They shuffled from the dank air, adults and kids alike, all wrapped in filthy rags, eyes wide and streaming. They all shied away from Jack, although he was too busy staring at me to notice. They didn’t seem all that pleased to see me either. Their flighty glances flicked over my vampire clothing, assessing me as the enemy.
“It’s okay…” I held out a hand to a little one. “We’re getting you out of here.”
Jack’s jaw hardened. His cheek jumped. “This way.” He turned on his heel and strode farther into the facility.
“It’s all right.” I beckoned them on, hoping Jack had a plan, because mine had ended at getting the door open.
The line was slow to move, but they stayed quiet and obedient, likely because they’d already had their tongues removed. If we could get them outside the farm, maybe we could find them shelter. After that, well… I had no idea. But this had to be better than being locked in that room, waiting to die.
We climbed a set of stairs. Jack opened the door at the top and waved everyone outside. They all huddled in a corner, tucked in the shadows, out of reach of the floodlights.
“All right, here’s what you need to do. You stay here. You do not run. You do not break cover. I will lead the guards away. Lynher”—his vampire eyes flashed in the dark—“you’re with me.”
I told them again to stay, that they were safe, that this would all be over soon, and I followed Jack’s tracks through the mud.
“Your soft heart will be your undoing,” he said, his gaze on the floodlit guard post ahead.
I didn’t reply. It wasn’t a soft heart driving me to help; it was my humanity. I cared, and I couldn’t change that. No human could. When it came down to the wire, we all cared.
“Overseer.” The three guards straightened under Jack’s scrutiny, but the one on the left examined me, a human in vampire clothes. He’d hear my blood and sense my warmth.
“There’s been an incident,” Jack explained. “By the main entrance…”
The leftmost vampire’s eyes narrowed.
This wouldn’t work.
Lefty glanced behind me, his face tightening. “What the…?”
I glanced back.
One of the kids had bolted.
She was a tiny thing, no taller than my hip, but she could run. Wherever she thought she was going, she’d never make it. Her skinny legs pumped. She slipped on the mud, went down, but got her feet under her again.
The drones moved in as one. At first, I thought the shadows were converging on her, but the shadows merged, becoming an eerier silent flow of blood-hungry puppets.
Our guards started forward from their post, leaving Jack and me alone.
They’d find the others.
“Do something!” I hissed.
Jack’s top lip twitched. He looked down, his glare cool and knowing. I heard his words again, about how they were already dead, and moved forward. He flung his arm out, blocking my path. “You can’t help them.”
The others burst from their hiding place like a startled flock of birds, and the drones swarmed. It happened in near silence. They had no tongues with which to scream. The vampires rushed in and lunged, tearing into the prisoners, bringing them down. Some thrashed in the mud. Some didn’t even survive that long. And the girl… she ran like the wind, one little arrow of hope… until a drone tackled her, cutting her legs out from under her. Then he was on her, tearing her throat open.
I pulled my gaze away. Jack placed a hand against my back and shoved, and I let him guide me away from the massacre.
* * *
Rain hammered down, soaking through my coat, weighing it down so it felt as though I carried bricks in my pockets. In the dark, the guards all looked l
ike the same hulking lumps of coal, positioned at the corners of each building and along the fence. Jack somehow walked like he owned the world, even ankle-deep in mud. I did my best to trudge along behind him, trying to go unnoticed, trying to be less human, trying not to replay the sight of the girl running over and over in my mind, each time knowing how it had ended and blaming myself.
Should I have left them in that room?
Was Jack right?
We rounded a corner and walked into a yard packed with wheeled machines. Jack opened a door to one of the machines. “Get in the car, Lynher.”
Cars. That’s what these machines were. I’d seen them in the station’s library books. At least I was out of the rain. The windows fogged up. Jack wiped angrily at the condensation.
“If you could breathe less…” he muttered.
The engine burbled to life. He fiddled with the stick, and then we were moving, the heater blasting at the windshield to clear it. Gates loomed ahead, and as soon as I saw them, floodlights swung our way, filling the car, turning everything gray, even Jack.
He pulled up to the guardhouse. The driver’s window hummed down, and a guard poked his head in. Water dripped from his cap onto Jack’s thigh, leaving a dark stain.
“Papers?”
Jack withdrew a wad of rolled-up papers and handed them over. The guard ducked out again and returned to his little box to check the documents.
“What do they say?”
“I told you not to speak,” he hissed under his breath.
“Maybe you should have cut out my tongue,” I hissed back.
“Maybe I will.” His eyes flashed, catching the bright light.
The guard returned and handed the papers back. “All in order. Proceed, Overseer.”
The gates rumbled open, Jack worked the gears, and then we were rolling right out of hell. I twisted in the seat to look out the misty back window. The floodlights had swung back to the gate, and I could pretend, in the dark, that we’d made it, but the truth was I now faced hundreds of miles of barrens full of human-eating Dark Ones, with one such monster right beside me. I could run from him, but he was my only means of surviving whatever came next.
Twilight Seeker: Daybreaker #1 Page 12
