Page 131 of Mortal Shift
I nodded. My head was clearing—from the endorphins, at least. Now it was just swimming with anger at the vampires’ callous behavior, and I really didn’t need to be letting that get the best of me, not while Thessalia was still standing by her unmoving brother’s side.
Time to make a quick exit.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with me,” I said, glancing round the room. There were twenty or so people, a mix of men and women, ranging from eighteen to twenty-four, if what Sam told me on the way over here was accurate. The one thing they all had in common—guys and girls—was that they were all strikingly good looking. I guessed the vampires wanting their toys looking pretty, and the thought made my stomach churn.
The room, on the other hand, was bland and utilitarian, and about as far from the feeding den in comfort as it was possible to be. There were no windows, but bright artificial lighting flooded the room from high above. The walls were bare brick and the floor was tiled.
“Easy to clean,” Sam said as he caught me looking at it. I gave him a blank look, and he added, “People are usually bleeding when they come back here.”
I clenched my jaw and forced my eyes to continue their sweep of the room wordlessly. There were chairs and sofas, but they looked hard and uninviting. A table was kept stocked with cold, simple foods, and other than a bookcase set in one corner, there was no source of entertainment—which might not be so bad if there were more than a couple of dozen books. I was pretty sure I could make my way through the whole case in a week.
“Don’t you get bored down here?” I asked him.
“That’s the point. It keeps people willing to go to the feeding dens. Anything to take the edge off the boredom. The view, the food, the books—everything is designed to be uninteresting.”
“What do you want?” a woman asked coldly, from her perch on one of the sofas. “Come slumming to amuse yourself?”
“Celeste, peace,” Sam said. “Like I said, she’s on our side.”
Celeste barked a bitter laugh. “You should know better, Sam. No-one’s on our side.”
“I’m not a vampire,” I said. “And I care about what happens to you. How you got here. I want to hear your stories—and help you, if I can.”
Celeste rolled her eyes and slouched back on the sofa, not bothering to look at me. Guess she wasn’t going to be all that forthcoming, then.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, turning my attention to the others in the room.
Two of the girls shared a look. One, a willowy blonde, spoke up first.
“Three and a half years.”
I blinked, but before I could say anything, the pale, anxious-looking brunette beside her murmured,
“Since January.”
Her eyes darted around nervously, and she added quickly, “Not that I’m ungrateful. I’m glad for the opportunity.”
My stomach churned. Yeah, glad. She sounded it.
“Some of us are, you know,” a guy said from the back of the room where he leaned against one of the walls, running his eye over me. “Glad for the opportunity. Some of us would be dead right now if we weren’t here. Others, like Nikki?” He nodded to the brunette. “Rescued from the streets, where she was drugged up to her eyeballs by her pimp. Some of us know a good thing when we see it.”
I raised my hands in surrender.
“I get it. And I’m not here to screw anything up for anyone, I swear.”
Even so, I couldn’t help but feel like she might have swapped one addiction for another. And I couldn’t help wondering what would happen to her when she left here. Actually, what happened toanyof them once they left here?
“What are your plans, when you leave Darkveil?” I swept my eyes round the room, inviting them all to answer. “What happens when you’ve hit your blood quota?”
“We go back to our lives,” Celeste said with a shrug. “Whatever’s left of them.”
“That’s it? Just go right back to wherever you came from?”
Nikki shivered, and the blonde next to her glared at me.
“No. Some of us have made plans.Someof us were smart enough to make alliances with the vampires here.” She shot a meaningful glance at Celeste as she said it, and Celeste simply rolled her eyes in response.
