My head was on fire. I was so disoriented that it took a moment to realize that I hurt almost everywhere else too. My knee screamed with sharp, stabbing pain when I shifted; it was hot and swollen to the touch. Even though I wasn’t bound; the darkness of my surroundings was so thick that I had the sensation of being all alone in a vast emptiness. My heart pounded harder as I automatically put my hand in my pocket for the little oblong pill; before I remembered it was gone!
I began to hyperventilate, bright stars appearing in my vision against the pure black canvas all around me. I struggled to my knees and put my forehead on the cool stone floor to focus and calm down. I slowly erected my mental shields, picturing them shutting out the darkness and the stars, until I no longer felt blind. I reached out the way Signora Borgia had begun teaching us, visualizing my mind like fingers stretching out in front and around me. As I reached out with my mind I could feel; almost see; the wall ahead of me. Emboldened by my success I crawled forward; dragging my hurt leg behind me until my fingers met cool, dry stone. This stone was cut in blocks; I traced a line of mortar laterally until I found a corner and continued along that wall until I brushed a doorframe with my fingertips.
I used the frame to inch myself into a standing position, grateful that the ceiling was high enough above my head that I couldn’t touch it. Exhaling the breath I’d been unconsciously holding in a heavy sigh of relief, I ran my hands over the door. The door was made of a thick steel frame with wooden slats. I felt air move against my face, and as I slid my hands up the center of the door to the slight breeze, I found a barred window trimmed in the same cold steel as the door itself. I decided if there was a door and a window; then at least I wasn’t in a stone box. I’d found my exit! I sank to the floor with relief as my legs, which were like useless wet noodles; collapsed under me.
I was in trouble obviously; but I wasn’t sealed in a crypt. A crypt wouldn’t have doors with windows; just stone boxes for dead, or undead, bodies. It seemed a ridiculous thing to want, but I half-hoped I’d been stolen by organ thieves. I was barely a student of the Venatores lamiae, but I still knew how to fight a human and win; even injured.
Even I as I dared to let that hope form in my head; logic, and the sheer blackness around me shot me down. I breathed in deeply and reached out with my other senses, trying to get a clue as to where I was despite my blindness. The walls around me were dry, but the air that whispered over my face was musty and damp.
It was impossible to tell the time of day. After finding the corner farthest from the door; I put my back into it and listened for anything approaching through the corridor outside my cell. It was only going to be a matter of time before whomever, whatever, had taken me was going to come back. I had no intention of being caught off-guard again.
In my cell, the darkness and silence felt like an endless night. I couldn’t imagine what perverse creature could find comfort in a life underground. If my captors returned and tried to turn me; I swore to myself that I would force them to kill me.
“Kill or be killed, I guess,” I said to myself, jumping at how loud my voice sounded in the darkness.
“Oh my God, hello?” A young, female voice floated back to me in the darkness. I jumped again, my heart racing. Why hadn’t I considered I wasn’t alone?
“Hello!” I called out. “Who’s out there?”
“I’m Becca. I’m in a dark room, it’s so black in here.” She sounded distant, like she was at the other end of whatever hallway joined our cells.
“Yes, there’s a window in the door of the cell. But it’s so dark. The entire corridor must be sealed off from light.” Silence enshrouded me again, and in a panic, I called out to her, just to hear her voice. “Becca, can you guess how long you’ve been here? Or tell me how you were taken?”
“I was staying at the Fairfield resort in Malibu. I went to a beach party with my friend. A man grabbed her, I screamed, and that’s the last thing I remember before waking up here.”
“Okay, can you move around? Try measuring your room with steps. Find the door.”
“Yes. Okay.”
I stopped talking for a few seconds, trying to stay calm in the heavy silence so she could concentrate. I counted out thirty seconds in my head, then forty, before she screamed.
“Becca! Becca, tell me what happened!”
“Kenzie? Kenzie?” I heard her repeat a name. It sounded like she was crying, but not immediate danger.
“Becca!” I called out again, “What happened. What’s going on?”
“Kenzie isn’t answering.”
“Are you sure it’s your friend?” I thought fast. If they were putting more than one girl in a cell, maybe we were due for more company.
“Yes, she had her hair in a braid.”
“Okay, good. Touch her face. Can you feel her breathing?” I waited.
“Yes, yes, she’s alive!” Becca sobbed, her voice thick with emotion. “Oh, God, Kenzie, wake up!”
“Becca, how long have you been awake?”
“Only since right before I heard you.” I thought for a moment. I must have been taken long before the others, and whatever they’d done to put me out had worn off, but not before they’d come back with Becca and her friend.
“Becca, I’m sure she’ll wake up soon; okay, just stay calm and we’ll figure this out together,” I reassured her, trying to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my own stomach. I’d been awake for at least a couple of hours; but who knew how long the effects would last.
In a panic, I ran my fingers down the line of my neck on both sides, following the carotid artery and jugular veins. I did the same with my arms, checking the veins at my elbows and wrists. I was almost afraid to continue, but I undid my pants and slid them off. I felt over my hips, down my thighs, and down my legs to my ankles. No bite marks; I hadn’t been bitten anywhere on my body.
I started shivering; I had no idea if it was from relief or shock! Tears formed a lump in my throat; I hugged my knees to my chest and rocked while I cried until I could speak again. Becca and I had been silent for a few minutes as she tended to her friend, but I had to know if either of them had been bitten either.
“Hey, Becca, are you still there?”
“Yeah, are you all right?” She paused before continuing. “It’s okay if you’re crying; I was too. I just meant are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. I do need you to do something for me. I need you to check your veins for puncture marks.” I sighed, waiting for the questions that would lead to her telling me I was crazy.
“Do you think the guys that took us injected us with drugs?” It was as good a reason as I could give without sounding like a lunatic, and she was already in a black hole with no idea if her friend was hurt or sick. I was worried a vampire had put her under so deeply that she might never wake up.
“Yeah,” I replied, rubbing my face with my hands. “So, you know, anything like that. It might not even be noticeable, except for a sore spot over a vein, like… like a bruise you don’t remember getting.” I took a shaky breath. “I checked myself, and I didn’t find anything, I just want us all to be sure. Your friend,”
“Mackenzie.”
“Right, Mackenzie. When she wakes up, we’ll have her do the same thing to herself.”
“I’m doing it now.” Stuck in the dark halfway from nowhere I couldn’t see or hear her moving, so I had to take her word for it. Maybe all the time in the dark or the time in the Venatores lamiae had made me paranoid. “The only bruise I have is on my butt. Maybe that’s where they stuck the needle. It’s pretty sore.” I grinned. With no easy access to major arteries or veins, it was unlikely she’d been bitten on her butt. Her voice was as giddy as I felt.
We were stuck in the dark, hungry; I was about to have to pee in a corner. But we were alive, and fang-free; at least for the moment. I felt fresh tears sting my eyelids, but I was okay. Becca was okay and hopefully Mackenzie would be okay. The next step was to figure out how to get free. We had to get word to David and Clay in order for the hunters to come for us.
There was so much I didn’t know yet, so many things that weren’t taught to us until we’d been initiated. So I started with what I did know: the truth and the lore of vampires.