by Jan Dockter
“You never used to kick me out like this,” he said, a serious look on his face. “What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? What do you mean “what’s the matter”?” Isabel asked, pulling her robe together. For the first time, she didn’t feel good after a night with Gavin. The feeling was like being bloated after a big meal, but nowhere near satisfied. Something was changing, and Isabel had to figure out how she was going to cope with it. It was all so overwhelming.
“Isabel, we have an amazing time together,” Gavin said. “What changed?”
What do you mean “what changed”? Oh, I have a pretty good hunch it has to do with the fact that I’m locked up in a dungeon, Oz is dying and there’s a shape shifter on the loose pretending to be him?
“I, I don’t know,” she said, looking away. But deep down, she knew their plan was backfiring. Isabel was getting stronger, more in control. Gavin repulsed her. It was true she needed him to feed, but that feeling of exclusivity, or relying on him and him only, it completely vanished. Isabel didn’t know what it was that led to this progression, but it sure was working. And she couldn’t let Gavin know that was the case. This time, she was going to play it smart. “I think I was just scared, that you were going to pull away again,” she breathed, smoothing the hair off her forehead. “I was scared you would leave me hanging again.”
“I’m sorry I left you hanging, Izzy,” Gavin said, tracing circles over her bare arm. Isabel felt her skin crawl at contact with his fingers. “Are you okay? You seem cold.”
“You’re just making me hungry all over again,” she said, her lips curving to a smile. The truth was, Isabel had outdone herself. She didn’t know she could lie like that, to be able to turn her disgust into pleasure. “You’re making me want you all over again.”
“In time,” Gavin whispered. “I won’t be long.”
“You better not be,” Isabel mouthed. Inside, she was glad he was leaving. She hoped he would leave her alone for good, but she knew this wasn’t an option. She wrapped her arms around herself and let out a sigh, her eyes locked on Gavin’s. “I’ll be waiting for you here,” she hissed.
“You want to go back up to your room?” he asked, rising to his feet. “I know I can talk Analise into taking you back there.”
“No, I think I’ll be good here,” Isabel said. “I don’t feel so well, I better not take the stairs.”
“Alright,” Gavin nodded. “I better go now, but I’ll be back.”
Isabel smiled to him, and as soon as he turned around to leave, her face drooped to a scowl. “Well, that was definitely disgusting,” she muttered to herself.
“It sure was,” Oz said. Isabel looked over and he had pushed his body up against the wall. He was sweating, his skin glistening under the dim lights. “Now, who’s a better performer in bed, him, or I?”
Isabel chuckled. “Oh, God, I hope you didn’t see anything,” she said, her hand flying to her mouth. “You missed out on quite the threesome, though,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You wish that was me instead of Mikael,” Oz said, folding both arms across his chest. Isabel thought he looked weaker than ever, and yet, she was so attracted to him right now. A part of her just wanted to pounce on him, to revive that fervor they once had. Oz was her one chance at revival, and with him, she felt like she could do anything.
“I do,” Isabel said, rising to her feet. She walked over to his cell, which, in her haste, Analise had left unlocked. She sat down next to him, brushing his hair with the back of her hand, and when he looked up at her, Isabel felt something inside of her shake. She had missed Oz, the real Oz, and with Gavin, a part of her always felt like there was something wrong. “I think, I think we should join forces, you and I,” she said, her eyes roaming his face and neck. “We can beat the vampires at their own game, together.”
Oz wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She placed her head on his chest as he cradled her, and for the first time in a while, she felt safe. It was ironic, she thought, that the safest she felt in weeks was in a prison cell. But with both Oz and Ava around her, she knew nothing would happen to her. Isabel let out a sigh, not knowing what her next move should be. She looked up at Oz, and his eyes were fixated on the cement floor. She wondered if he was strong enough to do this with her, to face up to the enemy. But by the looks of it, they weren’t even close.
“Oz,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. His fingers were so cold and bony, but he squeezed back with just enough pressure to indicate that he was still awake. Isabel wasn’t really hopeful. “Do you want to do this together?” she asked.
“It’s not a matter of wanting to, it’s a matter of needing to,” he replied. “If I don’t do anything about this, I’ll die. I’ve been starving for a while now… they’re just giving me enough to keep me alive,” he said.
“Oz,” Isabel said again. “Why are they keeping you alive?”
“Because I help them,” he replied. “They starve me, Isabel, sometimes I have no choice but to give them what they want.”
“Do you give them information?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Oz nodded. “I tell them what controls you, what makes you tick,” he said. “They’re studying me like a lab rat so they can go on creating this image, this replica. They want to use me to get to you, Isabel.”
“Well, now I know the truth,” she said. “I knew it right from the start, that there was something wrong about this Mikael… he wasn’t like you.”
“Funny you should tell the difference,” Oz said, the corners of his lips turning upwards. “When they brought Mikael to you, they made sure that everything matched. They made no mistakes.”
“I don’t know, something just felt… off,” Isabel said. And she knew it was true. She had grown so attached to Oz, that a part of her felt like she couldn’t survive without him. And then it came to her; Gavin had made a huge mistake by leaving them together. “We can make each other strong,” Isabel said, leaning in close to Oz. “We can feed on each other.”
“But if they catch us, it’ll be a disaster,” he said. Isabel opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Suddenly, they heard voices coming from upstairs. “Quick, go back to your cell,” Oz whispered.
Isabel bounced back to her feet, retreating to the tiny box that was her cell. She crouched down on the floor and pretended to be asleep. “Let go of me, God!” she heard a voice say. She cocked her head to the side and listened. The voice sounded familiar. In the distance she could hear footsteps, interrupted briefly by the sounds of people whispering. “Can you just let go of me?” the voice said again. Isabel shook her head, immediately recognizing the voice as Aden’s. She remembered the last time she saw him, how weak he looked and how distraught. Something must’ve happened.
“Lock him up in there,” Analise said, appearing in the doorway. Gavin dragged Aden into the cell next to Isabel. He flashed her a smirk before he pushed him inside, his body slamming against the wall. “Gavin, did you lock her in the cell last night?” Analise whispered, nodding to Isabel.
You think I don’t hear you, bitch?
“I did,” Gavin lied. Isabel wondered what was going on inside his head. In any case, she knew he couldn’t stop thinking about their night together. She fixated her eyes on him as he went about the place. Suddenly, he turned to look at her, and when his gaze met hers, his lips slightly parted, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Gavin, I think we need to go,” Analise said, her hand coming over his shoulder. Gavin flinched. He could feel her fingers tightening around his skin, and she rolled her eyes, taking them off Isabel and turning to look at her again. “What are you doing?” Analise whispered. “Don’t let her control you, you’re letting her control you!”
Gavin nodded, following Analise back upstairs. It took a lot of time and effort to bend him, but she knew she was getting there. She turned over to look at Aden, who was sweating profusely. “What did they do to you?” she asked,
clicking her fingers together so he would look at her.
“I let them know I was on to them,” he said, his right eye slightly twitching. “Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Yeah,” Isabel said. “It is pretty stupid.” There was a pause. Aden’s eyes were bloodshot and his voice was groggy, like he had been crying for hours. “What did you find out?” Isabel asked, slamming the iron bars with the back of her hand so Aden doesn’t fall asleep.
“Well, for starters, my roommate went missing,” he said. “I looked everywhere for her, and then I overheard Analise talking over the phone. It was all in French, but I concluded that they shipped her off somewhere.”
“Like where?” Isabel asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
“The other mansion.”
“There’s another mansion?” she asked again. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that… there’s somewhere else, somewhere they’re keeping the rebels,” Aden said, his voice boiling down to a whisper.
“Why are they keeping you here, then?” Isabel asked, tilting her head sideways.
“Because there are people worse than us, there are bigger threats,” he said.
“And what are they threatening to do?”
“They’re plotting something at the other mansion,” Aden said. “And we’re going to find out what that is, very, very soon.”
“Are you in contact with the people in there?” Isabel asked, holding onto the iron bars while she stared at him.
Aden nodded and then looked at her. His eyes darted back and forth, as if checking to see if anyone was listening, and then he got closer to her, trying to fit his head as far between the bars as he could. “They send me letters,” he hissed.
Isabel looked around and everyone else was asleep. She wondered how much time they had left until they dropped dead. The very thought of something happening to Oz horrified her, but she knew that, if she was going to pull them all out of this mess, she couldn’t rely on just him. She had to work with what she had. “What do they tell you in these letters, can I know?” she asked.
Aden looked left and right, and then he stuffed his hand into his pockets. He pulled out a folded piece of paper, and then he handed it over to Isabel through the metal bars. She reached out and grabbed it, keeping an eye on the door. “Come on, unfold it,” Aden hissed. Isabel sighed and spread it out in front of her, and then she realized it was a map. “Wait, what is this?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
“It’s a map of how to get to the mansion,” Aden said, his lips curving to a smile. “The succubi sent it so we know exactly how to reach them,” he continued.
“And those people at the mansion, are they all succubi?” Isabel asked.
“Some are succubi, some are angels, some are rebel vampires,” Aden replied, a serious look on his face. “We can’t have intruders, intruders like Gavin and Mikael,” he said.
Isabel nodded. Suddenly, she saw shadows dancing on the wall. “What the fuck is this?” she heard Analise say right before she appeared at the doorway. Her eyes went straight to Isabel, who had the map spread out in front of her. Isabel felt her heart drop . Analise barged to her cell, swinging it open and snatching the map from Isabel’s hands. She read it carefully, her eyes going up and down the squiggly lines, and then she scrunched it up in her hand and held so tightly onto it that her knuckles turned white. “Answer me,” she hissed, her eyes darting from Isabel, to Aden, and then to Isabel again.
“I gave it to her,” Aden said. “It’s mine.”
Analise diverted her gaze to Aden, who stared back at her challengingly. “That’s it, you need to go,” she said. “Gavin, guards!” Suddenly, Isabel could hear the sound of feet scurrying down the stairs again, and then she saw Gavin, who squeezed past Analise and ambushed Aden in his cell. The guards, whom Isabel had never seen before, cornered Aden, and it seemed to her like they had swallowed him up, because he disappeared. “Aden, Aden!” Isabel yelled, getting up and rushing to the door. She could feel herself go crazy at the sight of him being carried away, kicking and screaming. She knew he was never coming back, that the only way she could see him again was to go over there herself. Were they taking him to the other mansion? What sorts of sick things do they do to the people in there? Isabel could feel her stomach churn just thinking about it. But she knew she had to do something. Ava and Oz rose to their feet and protested at the gates, but nobody blinked an eye. Isabel yelled for Aden, but it was too late. They had already taken him away. She sank down to her knees, feeling around for the map in the darkness of the cells. But Analise had already taken it away. Stupid, this is all stupid! Aden shouldn’t have taken that thing out in the first place. Now Isabel was never going to find out where they took him.
“Fuck, how are we going to get to him now?” she asked, turning to look at Oz. He looked surprisingly lively for a person who had been starving for days. He looked out into the distance, like he was thinking about something, something troubling.
“We’re going to join him and the rebels at the other mansion,” he said knowingly.
“And how are we going to do that?” Isabel asked, her eyebrows furrowed. For some reason, she always trusted what Oz had to say. The real Oz, anyway.
“This place isn’t fit for us anymore, it’s filling up with vampires and shape shifters, we need to get on the other side,” he said, ignoring Isabel’s question.
“How can we reach them?” she asked. “Aden said they sent him letters?”
“They did,” Oz said. “But it’s too risky.”
“Do you think Aden will reach out to us from over there?” she asked.
“Maybe, it all depends on security,” he replied. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
CHAPTER 11
The days dragged on. Isabel stretched out her arm in front of her and all she saw was a streak of white extending out into the darkness of the cell. She was getting just as weak as the rest of them. She looked over at Oz and he was chugging down some water from a rusty can. He set it down next to him and stared at her with glassy eyes. “This is taking too long,” he said.
“What is?” Isabel asked, blinking repeatedly as Oz’s face swam in and out of focus. “Are they going to bring you any food?” she said, her eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly, a beam of light slashed in through the doorway and Gavin stepped inside with a tray full of food. Isabel squirmed to the front of her cell, holding onto the iron bars as Gavin lay down the food in front of them. He diverted his gaze to Isabel and clenched his jaw. She stared at him as his eyes darted from her, to the bread, and then back at her again. She nodded to him, and then he rose to his feet and walked away. “What in the world?” she mumbled, toying around with the bread. She took it apart but there was nothing, and then she grabbed the other loaf and took it apart as well. “Oz, Oz, take a look at this!” she whispered.
“What, what is that?” he asked, his eyes fixated on the piece of paper.
“It’s a letter,” Isabel hissed. She checked to see if anyone was still there and then unfolded it, her eyes going up and down the lines of writing.
Dearest Isabel,
This is to let you know that I’ve crossed over to the other side safely. This letter isn’t meant to be read by anyone except Oz, Ava and yourself. Gavin has agreed to cooperate with me to deliver this letter to you… only because you have charmed him. Believe in yourself, Isabel! You have just as much power to control him as he does you, if not more. The enemy are nothing but fools! If only they had the slightest idea what kind of chaos is brewing in the other mansion, if only! Locking us all up in one condensed space without much security or surveillance isn’t the best idea, now, is it? I just want you to know that I’m well, and that soon you’ll be joining us, all of you.
Yours Truly,
Aden
Isabel looked up from the letter and averted her gaze to Oz. The corners of her lips curved to a smile. It all made sense now. She was glad to hear that Aden was okay, even more glad that he has some sor
t of plan. Aden seemed so sure of himself, and Isabel had to admit, it made her nervous. What kind of war was brewing in the other mansion? And has it already begun? How does Isabel fit into all of this? She had so many questions that were left unanswered, and it was all up to her to decide which path to take. “It’s from Aden,” Isabel mouthed.
“Can I read it?” Oz asked, reaching his hand out to her.
“Not right now,” she said, crumpling it up and stuffing it into her pocket. She cocked her head towards the door, just as Analise came marching in with a smile on her face.
“Hello,” she said. “How are my little succubi and angels doing today?” she asked with a smug look on her face.
“Bitch, don’t talk to us like that, we’re onto you! We’re onto you!” Ava snarled.
“Guards,” Analise yelled, cocking her head towards Ava. “Take her to solitary confinement, that bitch needs to learn her lesson,” she said. Isabel opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She watched as the guards took Ava away. Why did she have to do that? Does being trapped in a dark cell for weeks on end do that to a person?
