“…said to remain here,” said a man sitting in the largest leather armchair centrally placed in the spacious foyer. The sour taste of bitter memories had her stomach churning even as saliva pooled in the back of her mouth. Oh, he was definitely one of the ones she would kill, this vampire with his superior sneer.
“You expect me to sit and wait patiently like a lamb for the slaughter!” replied another, presumably the vampire descending the stair. She recognized him now too. His voice at least, and decided he was a fit companion for the impending bloodbath.
She began edging down the stairs, far enough back from the edge to be hidden in shadow, but not so far that she couldn’t keep an eye on her quarry. There were almost a dozen of them there, but only the man in the armchair and the man she followed down seemed to be close enough in status to quarrel.
The vampire sitting in the armchair pulled back his lip, revealing fangs that he had to have forcefully elongated. “Are you so weak that you fear a handful of part-bloods?” he addressed the latecomer.
“Not weak. Wise. Though it’s not the part-bloods I fear, but who comes with them.” He stopped before the vampire Gabby presumed held the higher rank based on the uncomfortable silence that surrounded them. Cowards, all of them. Cowardly enough to torture and abuse, but only when the victim in question was tied up and already weakened.
Kill them. Kill them all.
“Who?”
The other vampire smiled, folding his hands. “Roland.”
Gabby tripped, her hands grabbing for the banister. Somehow she managed to grasp the grime-covered oak without making any noise but for her thudding heart…surely they could hear her heart.
That name. It meant something…
Unloved. Unwanted. Evil…Monster.
She sucked in air, trying to fill the hole that had opened in her chest with great gulps of air. Why the name would cause her such pain, she couldn’t fathom, but it was there, drilling through her like her insides were a cavity that needed to be eradicated.
<< He abandoned you…remember?>>
That’s right. That was right. He left her. Abandoning her to the type of monsters who gathered on the marble below her now.
“Cyrus said nothing about Roland being with the part-bloods.”
“Because Cyrus knows how to pander to your ego, you fool. And saying the name of your executioner might even make you balk.”
Gabby didn’t see him move from his chair. One second he was there, the next he was across the room pinning the other vampire to the wall by the throat so that his feet dangled well above the floor.
“Don’t call me a fool,” Armchair sneered, the violence of his action centering her enough that she was able to resume her progress down the stairs. The situation was so intense no one noticed her, even though she’d stopped trying to hide her approach. She made it all the way down, her hand resting on the finial before a single one of the vampires in the room looked over at her.
<<Because you’re nothing to them. A toy. A slave. But not a threat.>>
Bull. Shit. She could make them hurt as much as they’d hurt her. If not for the fact she was too damn impatient.
“Gabriella?” a vampire from across the room asked, his eyes wide as he stared at her. His clothing was coated in dried blood. The scent? Her own.
And what do you know…he’d just volunteered to die first.
Gabby leapt across the room.
Annie woke to the adrenaline-pumping sound of a dying scream. She stumbled out of bed, her legs collapsing beneath her, sending her smacking onto the floor. Pain hit her, firing across every nerve in her body and stealing her breath. For long precious moments she lay there silently gasping for air, her hands clawing desperately at the damp carpet.
It was the second scream that seemed to open the block on her windpipe. Another surge of adrenaline doing for her what she could not do herself. She had to get up. Had to figure out what was going on.
Where was she?
Don’t know.
What happened?
You don’t want to know.
She believed that and decided she’d worry about those things later. Right now she needed to make sure that if the danger out there crossed her threshold, she’d be able to do something about it.
Panting against the pain, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. She cringed at the sticky dampness of the rug beneath her, her nostrils quivering at the strange scent. What was that…blood?
Sickened, she scooted back onto her knees, her hand clutching for the nearby nightstand. Using the heavy oak antique for support, she dragged herself up, first one leg, then the other, until she was sure they could hold her.
More precious seconds slipped past as she waited for her vision to clear, the dark edges that had funneled down around her sight eventually receding. The room was dimly lit, only the gas-powered lamp on the nightstand next to her seemed to be working. Even so, she could tell that it was a large room, though apparently sparsely furnished with only the nightstand and the dim outline of the bed behind her.
She looked down at the nightstand, her brow bunching as she spotted the surgical tray precariously balanced on the back corner. Sutures, clamps, needles…a scalpel. She picked up the scalpel, careful to avoid the bloodstained blade. Why would this be here?
Don’t look. You don’t want to look.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her fingers against one pulsing point of pain across her torso, her fingers trembling as she followed the stitched cut across her body. Had she been in some sort of accident? Had her dad…
Her breath came in great gasps as she forced herself to glance behind her and take in the bloodstained bed, her hand rising shakily to touch her throbbing face.
Long, jagged welts, buckled up with stitches.
A noise much like a keen rose in her throat as snapshots of remembered consciousness, nightmares really, filtered across the mental block in her mind. A block she must have put in place to protect herself. Her knees collapsed under the weight of the horrific images. Only the bed, that vile, disgusting bed, saved her from completely falling as she caught it on the way down.
Ryan…the bites on his neck. He used a Taser on her and then…then…
Get it together, Annie. You need to move. Get out. No one is going to save you but you.
Her entire body trembling, she forced herself to make her way toward the end of the bed, pausing to pant when she finally reached the footboard. It had been a long time since the last scream; maybe the danger was past, maybe…
The door creaked. Annie’s grip tightened on the scalpel, even as she leaned heavily on the corner post. A figure stood in the doorframe, barely taller than a child but obviously a woman, her curves caressed by the hall’s shadows, her long hair hanging in matted locks around her model-worthy face.
“Gabby? Oh, God, Gabby, thank God…” Annie took a stumbling step forward, her legs trembling beneath her weight, then stumbled to a stop, reaching back for the bed once more. Gabby was in no state to help her. Like Annie, the only thing Gabby wore was the evidence of her own abuses. Half-healed wounds, yellowed blotches upon her gray skin, and her eyes…
Annie shifted back just as Gabby took a step forward, her crimson gaze fixed firmly on Annie. Annie sobbed, shaking her head in denial. She’d only seen Gabby lost to a killing craze once before and had hoped to never see the results again. But there was no escape from this room, and nowhere to hide.
“No…Gabby, no, it’s me,” she tried, even as she twisted to keep the scalpel in her hand hidden.
“You’re one of them,” Gabby said, her voice cold, mechanical as if reciting something from rote.