Page 8 of A Whisper in the Dark

It’s one of the eeriest, most disturbing sounds I have ever heard. I’ve never experienced it with my own ears, but even captured on recordings, the weeping makes my blood run cold.

“He assigned me to a sector where I’m most likely to die, didn’t he?” I ask in a low voice.

Raphael says nothing, which again, is an answer in itself.At least there won’t be a body for Father to hang on the wall, I think as I stare out the window.

For the first time, Mei Lien speaks. Her tone is heavy with reluctance, and I remember again that moment between her and Gabriela. “There’s a boardinghouse near here,” she says, ignoring Raphael’s intense stare. “I don’t know the name of it, but it’s run by someone called Ada. She might have a room.”

I try to thank her, but my throat shudders with pain, yet another poorly-timed reminder that I haven’t fed. The monster within me rears its head, singing like the call of a water nymph.Drain these humans. Drain them dry and take the car.

The thought makes my heart race and my gums throb. I can’t. Surely, if I tried to run, the famously unforgiving Vampire King would send troops after me, resulting in a punishment far worse than anything I could face at this boardinghouse of Mei Lien’s. I shove the voice away and lick my gums in an attempt to lessen the ache.

The brakes squeal as the car comes to a complete stop. Just then, a tinny voice speaks from Raphael’s earpiece—my heart is beating too loud to make out the words. Frowning, he turns his head away to listen. Taking advantage of his distraction, I look toward the front seat. Alexei is watching in the rearview mirror.

“Please don’t leave me here,” I whisper, knowing even as I say it there’s nothing he can do.

He averts his gaze, his mouth pressing into a thin line. “I’m sorry,dócha.”

Finished with his conversation, Raphael is looking at me now, his mouth a thin line of tension. “A lot of people are sorry today,” is all I say to Alexei, my voice faint. A numb sensation creeps through me.

Cold air fills the car as Raphael gets out. He holds the door open, a silent but effective way of saying that it’s time. Choking back a sob, I force myself to slide across the seat and get to my feet.

The rain immediately comes for me, sinking greedily into my clothes and along my skin. I stand there, searching for the strength to let go of the car. Raphael’s lavender gaze meets mine. “Good luck,” he says quietly. The same words my mother had said to me last night.

“Th-thanks,” I rasp. There’s a sound stuck in my throat, something halfway between a sob and a scream. As I try to swallow it, again and again, I step back so Raphael can finally close the door. He climbs in and does exactly that.

No one in the car looks back as Alexei guides them away from the curb.

After a brief hesitation, the vehicle picks up speed, its tires crunching over a shattered bottle in the street. Though I try not to, I can’t stop myself from watching my last tie to the mansion—to my family and a life I didn’t get to have—drive away. The taillights vanish around a corner a few moments later, leaving me drenched, terrified, and alone.

I look around. Oldbel looks back, with broken windows for eyes and a trash-littered street as an unsmiling mouth. The ache at the back of my throat returns.Feed. Feed. Feed.Within seconds, it becomes more. It feels like there’s something clawing at me from the inside. I need blood, and soon if I want to survive the next few hours.

“Welcome home,” I whisper, shivering.

Chapter Three

The swell of voices and the tangy, sweet scent of human blood assails my senses, making my temples pound in tune with the throbbing in my gums.

I stare up at the boardinghouse I’ve been searching for all night. To my consternation, I discovered that nothing in Oldbel is marked, whether by street signs or house numbers, and no one would give me directions. Each person I came in contact with took one startled look at my face and fled. While it’s common knowledge that my kind isn’t exactly liked around here, Wardthorpe, or Midtown, I suspect the city has already learned of my disastrous Awakening.

This resulted in hours spent wandering down quiet roads. The moon isn’t always good company—my thoughts were crowded with memories of this night. Beatrix’s averted gaze as she handed me the mirror, the bottomless darkness in the Vampire King’s eyes as he stared into mine, the wisps of my mother’s dark hair as she turned away in that shadowed hallway, Gabriela retreating in the rain.

Now it’s 4:30 in the morning and the sun will be rising soon.

The building’s exterior is made of old wood and well on its way to rotting off. The handful of shingles left on the roof are covered in moss. Even from the street, I can smell all the humans inside. There’s at least half a dozen of them. Then there’s the house next door, which carries the familiar scents of an opium den. This is the place I’ve been trying so hard to find? This is where Gabriela thought I would find refuge? A bitter breath of laughter escapes me, fogging the cold air in front of me.

I could’ve gone to a hotel, of course, so long as I kept my eyes lowered. I’d subtly counted the money during my journey, and apparently the amount I grabbed earlier was just under three thousand dollars. Pocket change for a royal vampire.

A frown pulls down my mouth as it occurs to me… now that I’m not a member of the family, now that everything I know is forfeit, does taking the money make me a thief? Without it, though, I don’t stand a chance, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. New Ve isn’t kind to the homeless and the destitute. Bodies that aren’t mounted on the wall are simply burned.

I imagine it—one of the workers from the undertaker sector finding me and hauling my corpse into one of those eerie black vehicles. They’re completely square, move without a sound, and don’t appear to have any windows. Every time I saw one as a child, Gabriela refused to answer my questions. Instead, she averted her gaze and made the sign of a cross over herself.

The mental image makes my insides quiver. But the part that frightens me most, I think, is that those workers wouldn’t just be removing my body—they’d be taking away all of it. Every part that forms Charlotte Travesty. The flesh, the mind, the memory. I would be nothing but a story, and even that would eventually fade into the echoes of days past.

It would be as if I’d never been born.

Okay, done with that.I refocus on the boardinghouse and wonder what I’m about to walk into. What if a vampire hunter dwells within those walls? What if there’s a rebel living here, and they recognize me as a Travesty?

Gabriela must’ve had a reason for sending me to this place.

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