Blood Lust Read online

  The urge to let her anger at the situation consume me had been strong. Incensed as she was, there was no filter, and as I was tugged toward the elevator, I felt it all; her rage followed closely by her desperation. The fear of losing me ran deep down into her soul.

  I stared at the concrete wall in front of me, a lump in my throat as I tried not to think of her, of home, of Jade and Cami, and our life. I worried about the tests, tormenting myself with gruesome scenarios where the truth I was a hybrid because I shared Scarlett’s blood would be revealed. This terrified me more, because it would mean death for us both.

  I took a deep breath, blowing it out over dry lips and trying to curtail the panic that was threatening to take over.

  The air got to me the most, deep inside the underground bunker; it was thick, stale, the smell of rust and chemicals permeating it to the point that breathing felt hard. It had been months since I was last in the bunker, months since the endless days, maybe weeks spent in my concrete cell waiting for Scarlett to find me, but I remembered. I was so naïve then. I knew nothing of Vires, little of the vampires and less about the Government. I tried to console myself with the fact that this time I was far more informed, though I wasn’t sure it would be enough to save me.

  I felt like at any moment I might choke, run out of air, yet I kept on breathing and the moment never came.

  The steel door to the small room opened, and a man dressed in the uniform of the bunker guards walked toward me without a word. Taking my arm, he hoisted me from my position on the floor to my feet. I let myself be moved, trying to ignore the hammering of my heart. My mind cycled rapidly through things, places, and people. Anything to focus on to be anywhere but here, though every one of them was too painful to think of, when I wasn’t sure if I was about to lose them.

  I chastised myself for that line of thinking, following easily as I was towed along, having already learned it was best not to resist.

  We stopped at another door. Fingers blurred over a keypad, too fast for my eyes to follow, and then we were stepping inside.

  The sight that greeted me was jarring. A long workbench was lined with machines of various sizes, pipettes and beakers, and what I recognized from my high school science lab as a centrifuge, all laid out and ready for use.

  A woman approached, nodding politely to the guard who released me with a shove, seemingly transferring me to her custody.

  “This way, please.”

  Her tone was polite but firm. She reminded me of the busy school nurse at Jaffrey High whom I had spent so much time avoiding during my school career.

  I followed as she led, her black flats and white lab coat making her look very professional. She took me to the back of the laboratory and gestured for me to take a seat on one side of a desk, before she sunk down on the other. I could tell from the movement, too graceful, too lithe, that she was a vampire.

  “Rayne Kennedy?”

  I nodded, watching fascinated as her fingers moved over the touch screen of a tablet computer, faster than was humanly possible. Somewhere in the back of my mind, behind the anxiety, the fear, I wondered where they got this kind of technology.

  “Have you ever been bitten by a vampire, Rayne?”

  She asked the question in a monotone, clearly reading from a script. Despite that, I had to take a deep breath to calm myself enough to answer, to lie.

  “No, ma’am.” Politeness seemed appropriate. She had treated me with respect and I hoped it might foster some kindness in her later, for whatever tests had to be performed on me.

  “Do you have vampire abilities, speed, strength, enhanced vision, hearing?”

  She trailed off and I shook my head.

  “Do you crave blood?”

  My mind wandered without my permission to Scarlett’s bleeding wrist in my mouth, the satisfaction, the gratification, the headiness of it. I cleared my throat.

  “No, ma’am.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing as hard as I thought I was.

  The tests were mundane in comparison to what I had imagined, in comparison to the last time I was here and one of the hooded Government members had decided to find out if I had vampire reflexes by striking me, leaving the scar that still lived on my cheek.

  A male scientist joined us, and I tried feebly to catch a ball thrown so fast my eyes couldn’t even see it. I also tried to move out of the way quick enough to avoid being hit by it. Again, I failed.

  I was a little bruised but mostly okay, though the next test worried me more than the others had. The vampires brought out a steel box, placed it on the table we sat around, and opened it to reveal a silver block. The female scientist asked me if I could touch the metal, a pair of thick gloves already encasing her own hands and arms. I figured it was silver, surprised to learn the myth was true.

  Tentatively I reached forward and pressed the pad of my index finger to its surface, holding it there. I waited a few long seconds for it to hurt. It didn’t. I thought the metal ought to feel cool, but it was warm against my skin.

  “Any burning, irritation, pain?”

  I shook my head at the bespectacled woman, deciding the less I told them about myself the less they could use against me, or Scarlett.

  “Pick up the block, please.”

  I did so, holding it in the palm of my hand. The longer it was in contact with my skin it seemed to warm more. After what felt like thirty seconds or so, it felt hot, and I started to worry she was going to make me hold it for so long it would burn.

  “Put it back in the case.”

  Forcing myself not to sigh in relief, I did, setting my warm hand against the cool steel tabletop and hoping that concluded the testing.

  A flash of pain, anger, darkness, rushed through me and knocked the breath out of me. I leaned forward and clutched the edge of the table until it had passed and I could breathe again, until the urge to tear the lab to pieces and fight my way out of the bunker to find her died. I hoped we were through because I needed to get back to Scarlett. The feedback I had just received left me sick, hot dread coiled in the pit of my stomach.

  I raised my eyes to see the two vampire scientists staring at me expectantly.

  “Sorry, thought I had to sneeze.”

  I wasn’t sure where the excuse had come from, but although they continued to study me, it seemed to satisfy them.

  “Carl will take a blood sample, then we have one more test before you’ll be escorted to the surface, Rayne.”

  I nodded my understanding, struggling to hold my already frayed nerve. Trying to keep the fear off my face, I rolled up the sleeve of the shirt I had on. Thankfully I’d been dressed when they arrived, or I imagined I would be sitting before them in my pajamas.

  I chose the right arm on instinct, eager to hide the scar on my left wrist, where Scarlett drank from me. She had been smart from the beginning, never leaving twin punctures, never using my neck, I hoped it would be enough to save us, but dread was already seeping into me.

  The last time my blood had been tested here the scientist performing the test had faked the result, denying I had been bitten by Scarlett in exchange for me keeping the secret of crimes committed by his son. Scarlett had since killed both the scientist and his son, so while there was no one left to expose us, there was also no one left to lie for us now the test was being repeated.

  I felt a sharp prick as the needle touched the crook of my elbow, and I jumped. The male scientist looked up at me, shaking my arm gently in his cool fingers before he laid it back on the desk.

  “Try to relax, please.”

  I nodded, the macabre scene from the last time I was here playing over and over in my head. The row of six hooded figures sentencing me to death for stealing the antidote which saved Scarlett’s life; the scientist saving my life by revealing I was a hybrid with Delta genes and so should be punished as a vampire; Scarlett ending his with one swift, bloody snap.

  The needle slipped into my vein and I kept my eyes on the wall, on the floor, on the lab equipment humming close b
y, anywhere but on that damning little sliver of metal.

  I both regretted and rejoiced in the fact we had shared blood recently, anxious that somehow it would make the result more likely to confirm Scarlett’s guilt, but glad that if we were about to be caught, we’d been together so intimately one last time.

  I forced myself to get a hold of my thoughts, to swallow down the tears crawling up my throat. It wasn’t over, and until it was, I had to keep my head.

  My arm stung as the needle was removed. I watched him drop my blood onto a small glass slide, much like the one the previous scientist had put his own blood on to cheat the test. My stomach dropped, and I looked away, wanting to hold on for just a little longer to the fragile happiness we had found—me, Scarlett, Jade, even Camilla—before it was all torn asunder by the Vires Government, again.

  “Her blood reacts to the silver, but it’s slight. Probably not enough to cause a full reaction.”

  I whipped my head back around to where the scientists were taking turns hovering over a microscope. Hope shot hot into my chest, and I tried not to cling to it. When they tossed the slide and the vial of my blood into a trash can marked “biochemical waste,” it flared. I was dizzy as relief consumed me. Maybe we were going to be okay; maybe I would make it home.

  They pored over another slide, talking quietly, back and forth between them, though I heard the confirmation that I had in fact stopped aging. Being eighteen forever was a pleasant surprise.

  “The final test is a set of eye drops. Head back, please.”

  God, I hated eye drops! Nerves about what exactly they would do to me twisted my guts. Fear helped me find my courage.

  “What’s in the drops, if you don’t mind my asking, ma’am?”

  The woman paused for a second, before thankfully, she explained.

  “There’s a silly story about holy water causing a reaction among vampires—not true but derived from the fact that water from a specific ocean can be harmful to us. The drops are from that ocean, diluted down greatly. In a vampire’s eyes they would cause a temporary blindness, fifteen minutes maximum.”

  I was pretty sure I couldn’t cheat that test, but I hoped, like the speed and strength, this particular vampire quirk had bypassed me. I tipped my head back as she hovered over me, blinking the first two tries before she was finally able to get one fat droplet into my right eye. I squeezed it closed until the left was done too.

  “Can you see?”

  Blinking away the excess liquid, I nodded, relieved. Everything was still blurry, but the more I rubbed my eyes the more my vision cleared. The liquid that had seeped onto my cheeks and smeared the back of my hands made them itch. I forced myself not to scratch.

  After a quick series of “how many fingers?” I was cleared to go. This time, the guards who came to fetch me, hopefully to take me home, greeted me with the traditional black cotton bag over my face. I guessed the first set hadn’t for fear of Scarlett’s reaction.

  I floated along, bounced between them, stumbling up a flight of stairs and bumping into their bodies, an ever-moving stone prison around me. I breathed a sigh of relief, tasting the freshness of the air as we stepped out of the bunker. It was cool on my cheeks, even through the bag. Pearce Tower was familiar to me: the ding of the elevator, the hushed greeting of the doormen, the smell of the thirteenth floor when we arrived home.

  The fabric was tugged over my head and Scarlett’s hands were on my arms. She was hissing, the sound still strange to me, caught between wanting to kill the men who took me and checking me over. The elevator dinged and, glad the guards were gone, I sagged forward and let her hug me tight.

  We stood there in the foyer for a moment that seemed like forever yet passed in the blink of an eye. Relief finally, truly, settled over me at the realization I was home, and it seemed our secrets were still our own. Her hair was soft on my skin, and her body against mine was cool and so familiar. She was breathing, sharp puffs of air against my cheek. Though she was doing her best to hold her emotions back, I felt her relief at my return, and the fear at what they had found, nipping close at its heels.

  When finally, her grip loosened, I stepped back, reaching out for her arms to steady myself. I blinked hard again, my eyes taking too long to adjust to the bright lights of the hallway. I missed Scarlett’s arms entirely, my fingers grasping at air, but she held me around my biceps, keeping steady on my feet.

  “They didn’t find anything terrible.”

  I blinked hard as I spoke, conscious of the sound of Cami and Jade talking quietly somewhere behind Scarlett. The secret we were blood bound was one we kept from our family as well as the Government and city as a whole.

  Cool fingers were on my face and I tried to stand still, growing increasingly concerned when, blink after blink, my vision didn’t clear.

  “They put some ocean water in my eyes.”

  Scarlett hissed again, and I cut her off.

  “No, no, it’s fine, it was really dilute, and it didn’t affect me to start. I guess it’s just a delayed reaction. I can see, it’s just…blurry.” I left out exactly how blurry.

  “What else did they do to you?”

  Jade was closer now, her hand squeezing mine. I squeezed back, eager to reassure her.

  “Mostly testing my reflexes, testing how my blood reacted to silver, and my eyes with the water.”

  “Did they hurt you again?” Scarlett’s voice was coarse and fraught. I looked at the pale blur I knew was her face, knowing she was remembering the last time my reflexes were tested in the bunker. It had left me with a scar even her blood couldn’t heal.

  “No, nothing like that. Catching a ball, dodging it, that sort of stuff.”

  “Why don’t we get Rayne to bed, or at least the sofa? I’m sure the vision issues will wear off soon, but we may as well sit while we talk. It’s been a long couple of hours.”

  Cami’s voice was closer, and tension hung in the air after she spoke. Scarlett was rigid beneath my hands for a few long seconds before she agreed under her breath. She led me in a direction I could vaguely make out as being toward the living room.

  She tugged me down, guiding me to land on the sofa beside her. I pulled my knees up to my chest and leaned back against the cool familiarity of her body. Her arms closed around me, her lips brushed softly against my ear, as she told me in a quiet voice how worried she was.

  I tried to kiss her lips, catching what felt like the corner of her mouth before someone sat down, yanked my sneakers off my feet, and tossed them to the floor. I knew it had to be Jade. The thought of Camilla touching my shoes was comical.

  “So what else happened?”

  Jade’s voice was soft and patient, careful, and between her tone and the tension in the room, I knew they had all expected the worst. I imagined Scarlett had handled the situation pretty poorly while I was gone, though the air was so fraught it seemed to be more than just that.

  “I went down there, they did the tests…” I tried to look around, searching among the blurs for Camilla. I found her vague outline in the recliner across the room.

  “The only really notable thing was they said for sure I’m not aging.”

  I tried not to sound as pleased as I was by the news. Jade squealed, ecstatic, though it died quickly.

  “That’s wonderful, Rayne, I was worried but… I don’t suppose it matters, you would have stopped soon enough anyway.”

  I internally cringed at the mention of my scheduled turning, unsure how Scarlett would handle the subject on the back of an already rough day. She continued to thread her fingers through the ends of my hair, my back against her front, her other arm around my waist. She clung to me in a way that hammered home how truly scared she had been when I was taken to the bunker, yet her reply still sounded lazy, devoid of the tension I felt from her.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Vampires don’t age, Scarlett.” Jade was almost laughing, I guessed she thought her sister had just spaced out, but Camilla was deadly serious w
hen she spoke.

  “They do if they’re never turned to begin with. Tell me you’re not thinking you can fight this too?”

  Scarlett was quiet behind me. The room was quiet.

  “It’s a death sentence. I don’t see a way to avoid it, unless you know something we don’t, and why? She’s safer, less fragile as one of us, and you can be with her without the constant fear of being found out.”

  There was something careful and slightly distant in Camilla’s voice behind her ever-present abrupt honesty.

  “Safer from whom?” Scarlett’s tone was icy, and my thoughts flitted to Wilfred Pearce, to the hooded vampire Government. They owned me now as a human, as a hybrid, but as a vampire I would be duty bound to do their bidding or die.

  Everyone else must have made the jump too. The room was silent, and Camilla stared at me.

  I blinked, startled then relieved to realize my vision was clearing up.

  I cleared my throat, suddenly shy in the face of breaking the heavy silence we all seemed to have submitted to.

  “I think my eyes are getting better. Hold up some fingers, Cami?”

  Three long slim fingers popped up, followed by two, then five, and each time it was easier to count them. Still smiling from my success, I scooted forward and turned to look at the woman I had ached to see since the elevator doors had closed behind me that morning.

  “What happened?”

  My voice was high, and pitchy with surprise and worry. I shot up to my knees and turned to face Scarlett. I knelt in front of her on the sofa and reached up to touch the dark bruise beneath her left eye.

  “It’s nothing.” Her tone was final, and at any other time I knew she would be avoiding my eyes. Today she stared back at me, and I searched brown and green for any traces of what had happened in my absence, remembering the sudden pain that had stolen my breath for a few seconds in the bunker.

  “Did they come back while I was gone? Did you try to come and get me?”

  I stuttered out the questions one after the other, beyond upset that she was hurt and still trying to fit together the puzzle when half the pieces were missing, withheld by her apparent desire not to share with me.