“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“Rizo wants to do some...testing. So, you’re not getting blood for a while.”
“That’s dangerous.” I needed blood, so I didn’t lose my mind and do something that I couldn’t come back from, like go after one of the humans we kept employed here.
“You’ll be fine.”
His lack of care made me want to lash out at him, but I know it won't do any good. “You’re in here today. Hope you’re ready for the show.”
I don’t even want to know what the show is. Ajax is cruel, and whatever he’s alluding to can’t be good. The double doors open for him, and we walk inside. This area is abuzz with activity today, and I wonder what’s happening. “Ready to see what your assignment is today?”
Not really.
He doesn’t wait for a response from me. “Forty-nine.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” I ask.
“Not yet, but it will.” He leads me over to one of the glass enclosures, and my eyes light on the forty-nine on the door. A bad feeling starts in the pit of my stomach. Ajax stops at the door. “Forty-nine is your responsibility today. If he hurts someone, that’s on you. Kills someone? Also, on you. Maims someone—”
“Let me guess,” I interrupt. “It’s on me.”
“You’re so brilliant,” he says with sarcasm.
“Isn’t he just going to stay in that...state?”
He smiles coldly. “Not today. We’re running tests.”
I watch him stride away. I already know this is going to be a disaster. I cautiously open the door to number forty-nine's room and breathe a sigh of relief when I see he’s still in that resting state. I allow myself to actually take in the details of this guy. He’s younger than I thought, and I hate that. I may be looking at this guy, but I’m seeing Brandon, Ava’s brother, in my mind. He'd been taken in by the vampires and turned into one of these killing machines. Her brother was human, though, and the only successful human turn I knew of. I hated that the vampires were doing this. They were unstoppable. I knew because I’d seen what they could do as I sat in the screen monitoring room. And now, I was stuck watching one.
My breath catches in my lungs when the guy’s eyes open suddenly. Red eyes fix on me, and I can literally feel his anger. I don’t know what makes them so angry and aggressive. Maybe it’s the injustice of it all; I can understand that. He suddenly jerks upright, and I take a step back. “Easy,” I say in a low voice. Suddenly, he’s coming after me. I manage to get out of the door ahead of him. I’m not sure how good an idea it is because now, he’s out in the open. I turn back. He’s standing still, his head cocked in a very fear-inducing way. “Easy,” I try again. “I’m notgoing to hurt you; we’re just doing some tests.” From the way he doesn’t react, I wonder if he can even hear me. Suddenly, before I can react, he charges me, picks me up, and throws me across the room. I fly into one of the glass enclosures, shattering the glass on one side. I land inside the glass enclosure and cough and try to catch my breath as I brush the glass off. I hear yelling and am back on my feet and out the door. I notice on my way out that this room still has a body in the bed. When I make it out of the enclosure, I look for the guy who threw me. I grit my teeth and run across the room when I see he has two humans backed up against the wall. I don’t know what he plans on doing to them, but I don’t intend to stick around and find out. “Hey, Big Guy!” I shout as I run towards him. “This way!” He turns away from the humans to face me. “That’s good.” Knowing Ajax’s somewhere nearby, I shout, “What is he supposed to be doing?”
“Exactly what he’s doing,” Ajax calls back.
The guy picks up a cart with cleaning supplies and throws it across the room, sending pieces flying everywhere. I try to stay near him but not close enough to end up dying. When he enters the room of another guy just like him, Ajax yells at me. “Get him out of there.”
“Would it hurt you to say please?” I mutter under my breath. I approach the guy carefully. “Come on out. You don’t want to be in here.” He doesn’t respond, and I try again more forcefully. “Come on out; you can’t be in here.” He turns suddenly, and I suck in a breath because his eyes aren’t red. They flicker to maybe a brown for just a moment before they flicker back. When they’re red, he stares down at me in rage. He tries to hit me, and I duck out of his way. But he turns back to the bed, and I don’t move any closer. I watch him, wondering. “Do you know this guy?” I ask quietly. I look down at the guy in the bed and then look back at the guy who threatened me with bodily harm and suck in a breath. They have to be related somehow.Brothers,cousins, something.For just a moment, I see beneath the surface of the dangerous super soldier and remember that he didn’t ask for any of this. He's just as much a victim as any of us who have been taken by the vampires. I forget myself for a moment. “I can help you, maybe. Can you understand what I’m saying?” He turns towards me, and I don’t move away from him when those red eyes flicker to brown for a moment. “Maybe we can help each other. I want out of here, too. And—”
Suddenly, his eyes change abruptly to red. He moves too fast to track, picks me up, and throws me bodily out of the room. I groan and stare up at the ceiling, but I don’t get a chance to recover because he’s on top of me a moment later. I barely get my head out of the way before a giant hand smashes down right where I just was. “A little help here?” I call out to Ajax. There’s no response. I roll out from under him and jump to my feet. But he’s on his feet a moment later as well. I wonder at what my chances of outrunning him are.
Chapter Forty
Sherese
Before I can decide, he grabs me and throws me again. “I’m getting really tired of getting thrown. Isn’t there anything else in your playbook?” I yell as I push myself back to my feet. I blame my slow speed on the lack of blood I’ve had. I should be faster and stronger than this, but I’m just not. He comes at me again, and I spin away from him. I try to take his legs out from under him, but he’s just too strong. He grabs my wrist and bends it, squeezing it. I gasp and cry out as the bones in my wrist break. And then, just like that, he releases my wrist, drops to his knees, and falls forward. Ajax stands where the vamp/shifter just went down, holding a syringe and grinning.
“That went really well. Thanks.” He turns away and calls several vampires to come help him drag the guy back to his room. I stand to my feet, holding my shattered wrist to my chest. I know it will heal in several hours, but right now, it’s pretty unbearable. I start towards the exit. “Where are you going?” he calls out after me.
I turn around, keeping any sign of pain off my face. I won’t allow him to see it. “Back to my room.”
“It’s your turn in the screen room.” He nods his head that way, and I stare at him. Surely, he wouldn’t be cruel enough to go make me sit on duty with a shattered wrist, but one look at his face shows me that he is. I walk over to the screen room and step inside, taking the open seat. Neither of them says anything, not that I expected them to. Vampires tended to stay to themselves and look after number one. They weren’t packs like the wolves. They didn’t look after their own or have families. They certainlydidn’t care if someone was hurt. If you wanted to survive here, you pulled your own weight, looked after number one, and didn’t do anything to make Rizo or Ajax upset. I used to live by those rules. Now, I wondered why it even mattered.
The hours drag as I sit behind the desk watching the screens. By the time I’m done, I’m so over Ajax. It hadn’t been good for me to sit there in pain with nothing to do except think about how much I hated him. I’ve always had a hard time with him. I asked Rizo once why he even allowed a wolf here. His answer was very interesting. He explained that as a wolf, Ajax doesn’t get burned by the sun, and he doesn’t have ever-present fangs. So, he blends into the human world much easier than a vampire does. Basically, he can do all of Rizo’s dirty work.
I make my way to the exit, hoping he won’t have another job for me. As luck would have it, I make it all the way back to my room without seeing him. I breathe a sigh of relief and close the door behind me.
The next morning comes too quickly. I’m irritated and on edge. My wrist is mostly healed; it’s just achy now. But my stomach is empty, and my gums ache. And I'm so thirsty. The day passes in a blur. I can’t focus on anything but my growing thirst and the ache in my stomach. And yet, when I stop by the blood room, it’s as if Ajax were waiting for me. “Move along, Sherese.”
