“Here. Drink this,” Melinda instructs, handing me a goblet of liquid that looks positively rancid. It’s chunky, and gray, and teaming with bubbles. “Now, now. We made a deal. I don’t hurt your friends, but you have to come with me and do what I say.”
“I never agreed to do what you say,” I tell her.
She gives me a smile that doesn’t meet her dark, dead eyes. Her face is one that looks like her skin has been rolled out and stretched over the bones of her face one too many times. It’s tight and unnatural. Her flesh is so pale that it’s almost translucent.
“Drink the fucking liquid, Lydia. Or I’ll send in my witches to slit your friend’s throats, understand?”
I look down into the cup and try to steady myself. Whatever she has planned can’t be good. There are no other scare actors around, but the sun has fully set. There’s a gnawing in my gut that tells me if my guys were alright then they’d already be here. I’m on my own, and I don’t have a choice. For my friends, I’ll take the hit.
I raise the cup to my lips and swallow down every last drop of the chalk-like substance. With a wheeze the cup drops from my hands and rolls on the ground. Melinda stops it with her pointed black boot and watches with pure glee on her ghastly face as I sway and cough.
“We’re going to have you lay down now, in the center of this circle here, and you’ll feel much better soon. And by much better, I mean you won’t be feeling anything at all,” she says with a smile. My legs wobble and I collapse. She sighs and snaps her fingers at her lackeys. They drag my body by the wrists and place me into position.
My vision begins to black out around the edges, but I feel a hot prick of something digging into the flesh of my wrists. I turn my head to look at what’s happening, and I see Melinda bent over, knife in hand, slicing my wrist wide open. Blood comes seeping out of me and my vision falters even further. My breathing becomes shallow, but I can hear a chant start up. I can’t understand the words, but it sounds pretty.
My lashes flutter closed, and I see Melinda come in and out of focus. Her wretched face is the last thing I see before everything goes dark.
Chapter 25
Maverick
My voice is hoarse from how long I’ve been screaming for someone, anyone to come and free us. They must have done some kind of muffling spell over the area because any vampire worth his salt would have heard me by now.
We’re so fucked, and time is running out.
My mind is ablaze with all the possibilities this witch plans to do to Lydia, and it’s tearing me up inside. No matter how much I yank on my chains, they don’t fucking budge. All it does is dig into my flesh and I’m struggling hard. Whatever they did to us when they captured us, stops us from using our monster abilities, so any kind of healing I could have hoped for is gone. I ache in places I haven’t felt in centuries.
“Where the hell are we now?” I hear and snap my head up and see two of Lydia’s friends stumble into the room.
“Holy shit!” The one with pigtails and red frames yells out seeing the three of us chained up.
“Can you get us out of here?” I ask. “There should be a key on the wall.”
“Why should we let you out of there,” the other one asks, glaring her eyes at me. “You could be wanting to hurt us like the rest of them out there. McKenzie, let’s go.”
“No, please, wait. Your friend, Lydia, she’s in danger. Please. Let us out of here so we can help her.”
They both still.
“You know Lydia?” The one called McKenzie asks, pushing her glasses up on her nose. The tip of her nose looks like she’s been crying.
“We do. Is she hurt?”
“I-I don’t know. They took her.”
“Who took her?” Jack asks.
“A bunch of women. One of them had silver hair and called herself, Melinda.”
“Fuck, we’re too late,” Hendricks says.
“Maybe not,” McKenzie says, going over to the wall that holds the keys.
“Kenz! What are you doing? They could be just as bad as those things out there!”
“Don’t you want to help Lydia?” She asks. “Please, trust me. I have a feeling that if we let them go, they’ll be able to help us, Iris. Trust me.”
Iris’s eyes bounce between McKenzie’s for a moment and whatever she sees has her dropping her shoulders in surrender. “Okay,” she says and then McKenzie unlocks the bars, and comes over unlocking each of our chains one by one.
