Page 1 of The Monster and the Last Blood Match

Chapter One

“Number four hundred and ninety-two.”

Reyna stared down at the crisp piece of paper she had been clutching the last three hours. She blinked in surprise and recognition: 4-9-2.

“That’s me.”

She raised her hand in the air. It was about time. She hadn’t expected to be waiting here so long. Reyna stumbled to her feet, stretching out her sore muscles and stuffing her shaking hands into her worn-out jeans. She headed across the room to a woman standing at the front of the stark white hospital ward. The administrator had long blond hair that was straight to her shoulders and a white uniform that matched her surroundings. The only bit of color was the bloodred symbol on the pocket of her shirt—Visage.

The largest company in the world. It employed more people than anyone else in recorded history. Visage primarily specialized in what they called body employment services. It was just a fancy term for blood escorts. Whatever people wanted to call them—blood escort or bodily employment—they were still the main job for people desperate to get by in this terrible economy.

And Reyna was about to become one of them.

“Four-nine-two?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Reyna said, embarrassed that her voice shook. She still couldn’t believe this was her life, that she was about to do this. Brian and Drew were going to kill her.

The woman ignored her discomfort.

“Right this way, four-nine-two.” Her voice was flat and lifeless.

“It’s Reyna,” she told the lady curtly.

She had a name. She wasn’t just some number.

The woman nodded minutely. Her big brown eyes stared through Reyna. She clearly didn’t care what Reyna’s name was. This was a job, and she was following orders. No more. No less. It was as much as Reyna had come to expect from everyone in this godforsaken place.

“Follow me,” the woman said.

Reyna sighed and did as instructed. There was no point in fighting it. She had made up her mind to go through with the Visage testing. She’d snuck away without telling her brothers and applied. She had no degree and no job. All that did was force her brothers to take extra shifts to cover her. She needed to do something to put food on the table. She couldn’t stand the sight of them wasting their lives away toiling in the factories, when she could be doing something to help their situation.

No, she was here of her own free will. If poverty and near-starvation could be considered part of her free will.

Not that that mattered to the administrator. Or likely to anyone at Visage. They didn’t care who she was. She was just another subject in the system.

Since Visage had unveiled its plan to employ humans as blood donors for vampires ten years earlier, thousands had gone through testing. It had been a most fortuitous circumstance—for them, at least. Millions of people out of jobs in one fell swoop, and then out of the gloom and doom came a knight on a white horse to save them all.

An end to the fear of what lurked in the darkness.

An end to being hunted for their blood.

An end to the economic struggles entirely—so long as you gave up the very thing they had hunted humans for.

Ten years later and not much had really changed. The majority of people still lived below the poverty line, and now the populace was more tied to Visage than ever. But Reyna couldn’t change that any more than she could quell the fear building in her stomach at the thought of becoming another mindless drone for the conglomerate.

Reyna fidgeted at the sight of the big white door looming ahead. The door that sealed her fate to Visage.Can I really do this? Do I even have a choice?

Unaware of or at least unconcerned with Reyna’s fear, the administrator pushed the door open. Reyna swallowed hard. She could just make out the long stark white corridor beyond the door. Once she was through that door, there was no turning back.

But if there were another choice, then she would have already found it. Visage was the only option, the absolute last option.

Just the way they liked it.

“Are you ready, 492?” the woman snapped. At least there wassomekind of reaction.

Reyna bit back a snide retort. “Yes.”

Reyna walked through the door, and the admin escorted her down the long white corridor studded with white doors and past starkly dressed administrators standing like ducks in a row. They took a right, and the admin stopped in front of one of the plain white doors. She removed an identification card from her pocket with her name and picture on it and swiped it over a glass screen by the handle.

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