I grabbed her shoulder and twisted her around, wanting to see it happen. This was the best part. She thrashed, her eyes darting everywhere but on me. She pressed a hand to her face, covering her mouth and nose.
“Nuh uh,” I said, grabbing her gloved wrists. She fought me as I forced her arms open.
“Help!” She screamed in a panic. It was almost instant, but I got to watch it happen for a brief moment. My forked tongue slid over a fang as she inhaled, filling her lungs with venom. When black veining crawled down her throat, her eyes finally met mine. I smiled at her.
A sick peace settled over me while her body slid to the floor. I bent down, staring at the corpse.
“By the way, the card reader is hidden,” I whispered to her. “I forgot to mention it.” I plucked the card tangled in her fingers and pushed her over. She flopped on her side, and I slid my fingers over the door’s opening, near the bottom. Part of the seal strip was thicker than the rest.
“They think I don’t know, but when you make a room this antiseptic, it’s hard not to notice inconsistencies.” I stood up and looked down at her, twirling the lanyard in circles as I eyed the body at my feet. My attention returned to the cameras, with the red lights off. Maybe they really were off. Either that, or no one else was here watching. Whatever the case, no one seemed to be coming.
I grabbed her protective outerwear and slipped it on. Then I grabbed the oxygen tank and slung it over my shoulder. The strap broke, and it fell to the ground with a thud.
“Well, that’s annoying,” I said. I was going to have to carry it. The corpse chuckled at me.
“A much smaller inconvenience to dying, I assure you,” she said.
“Eh, maybe,” I said, pulling on the breathing mask and crouching down. I held the card over the special spot, waiting to see if I was right. There was a slight click, and then a puff of air came in. I gripped the handle and tugged. My smile dropped when the door caught. My new corpse was in the way.
Usually, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Throw the corpse in the corner or just keep smacking them with the door over and over hard enough, and they’d move on their own—a bit battered but still just as dead.
However, I’d been slowly deteriorating for weeks under regular oxygen deprivation and prolonged anemia. My arms shook as I shoved her aside just enough to slip into the hall. Iwas panting as I dragged the air tank and closed the door behind me. The detox cycle started in the hall, a quick process of high-powered vents recycling the air as I leaned against the wall, catching my breath.
Finally, I circled the hall and headed towards the elevator. I clicked the button and waited. My eyes closed, and my legs shook. The doors finally opened. My body slumped against the elevator railing. I reached towards the buttons, my finger hovering over the ground floor far above me. The exit.
I swallowed thickly, and I clicked for the floor below mine instead—the very bottom of Supra. Where Damien was likely hiding some awful secret. Might as well.
Escape wasn’t an option for me. I’d made a deal. As long as I never tried to escape, Damien would never hunt or harm them.
Damien had mentioned the cabin. Maybe it was bullshit, but if I closed my eyes, I could see them in that squalid little log cabin with its fuzzy carpet, creaky porch, and forest all around. It would be better if they hadn’t gone back. They needed to do what my sister had done: forget me and move somewhere far away. Not that I think anyone could escape Damien, but distance would help.
Whatever the case, I’d keep protecting them anyway I could. From a distance.
The elevator door opened. The hall in front of me was swallowed in darkness. I dragged myself off, pulling the tank along. When the elevator doors closed, I was sealed in with the darkness. My pupils dilated, and I made out a short hall ending in a door. It was inconspicuous, but I knew how Damien worked. He’d built Verfallen, and at the bottom of Verfallen was a simple locked hall hiding all his big, sinister secrets. Proof of where Zero came from. His mate locked in a tank.
A door at the end of a hall, well below ground, was hiding something Damien wanted no one to know about. This was the heart of Supra, the very depth, the ugly secret at the bottom.
Outlines of dusty, forgotten boxes littered the side of the hall, but the walkway was clear. Someone had been down here. I walked in and opened the door at the end. On the other side, the only thing I could make out was a table with something on top. Something vaguely the size of a person. I waited for whatever or whoever it was to make a sound, but there was nothing. No groan, or plea, no begging, not even breathing. I took a deep breath.
“Hello?” My words slid into the darkness unanswered. My body was shaking with the effort to keep standing. Soon, I was going to need to sit down. I brushed the wall but failed to find a light switch. With a sigh, I went into the shadows towards the table.
“Hello?” I tried again. Ten more feet of shuffling, half blind, I thought I heard something.
“Whose there?” I whispered. The oxygen tank scraped across the floor as I moved forward. That was definitely a person on the table. The tank caught on something and slipped from my fingers. The loud sound of metal hitting stone was like an explosion. I flinched. My heart beat hard in my chest.
The person didn’t move or make a single noise. Chills spread over me. It was the same dread that made me slam Damien’s journal shut before reading what had really happened to him and Levi. Yet, it was like a car crash. I was here, and I couldn’t look away.
I shuffled forward again but swung around in shock when a voice filled the room.
“You’ve wandered far from your room,” Damien said. The sound of a match strike and the flare of fire. Orange light flickered over his features. He looked calm. Right behind me wasthe person on the table. They didn’t move as I faced them. And now I knew it was because they were dead.
I hadn’t killed Levi. If I had, he wouldn’t be decomposing.
“I believe you’ve met my mate,” D'Bolique said. The match went out. Darkness blinded me. Another scratch and hiss of flame. The flickering flame collected in Levi’s gaunt cheeks. He was rotting. Despite my close relationship with corpses, I wasn’t well-versed in decomposition rates. He looked bad. Sunken in all his softest places. The smell was terrible, like dead fish. Something the oxygen mask could only protect me from so much this close.
Damien walked into the room, and the match burned out.
“Why is he here?” I asked. A scratch and then a new flame. Damien stood right beside me, wearing his own oxygen mask over his face and his round, red glasses.
