SO I HAD THOUGHT THE whole siphoning my blood thing was the worst, scariest thing I’d ever had to go through. Mostly because I had really believed they were going to take all of my blood until I passed out or died.
I soon found out that there was something much worse.
Ryan and Ford had taken me back to my room and tied me up with the thick rope that dangled from the ceiling—the exact same position I’d been stuck in when I first arrived. Only this time there was no Kate to help me down, and I was tired and drunk with blood loss and just absolutely out of ideas. My shoulder was still recovering from being dislocated only hours before, and I screamed when my arm was forced up and tied in place.
The room I had been confined to was impossibly full with four people (or three vampires and a teenage girl) in it. Nameless–guy wheeled in a steel trolley covered in surgical equipment, and I looked away, not caring to imagine what horrific things were potentially about to happen.
“Did you guys raid the props department of Grey’s Anatomy or something?”
Nobody answered me.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking at the huge motherfucking needle Ryan was handing to someone behind me. I had been ignored all the way back to my room, so I wasn’t surprised when nobody answered. But still, I panicked, because I couldn’t see the needle anymore.
I screamed in absolute, horrific, agonizing pain as someone took that fat needle and jammed it into the back of my head. Something that felt like molten lava began to spread out around the base of my neck, up past my ears and right into my skull. Now that they had taken something out, they were putting something in. It felt like acid eating away at my brain.
“What are you doing to me?” I cried out.
“Just try to relax,” Ryan said, in a voice that sounded less kind than his face looked.
“Please,” I begged, hating myself for being weak. “Just tell me what you’re doing!”
“There’s a needle tapped into the base of your skull,” Ryan explained.
“Jesus,” I moaned, “Why?”
I got no answer. Ryan stood in front of me and watched as someone behind me injected three more lots of the burning stuff into the tap in my skull. Each time I screamed.
“Tell us your name,” Ryan asked, in a voice that suggested he had done this many times before.
“Fuck. You.” I replied.
“Go again,” he said to whoever was behind me.
I gasped and held my breath, waiting for the burning pain to pass.
“What’s your name?” Ryan asked again, and dread filled my stomach like cubes of frozen ice. He was prodding me with a knife. A big, sharp hunting knife.
“Mia,” I whispered.
“Louder!” he demanded, pressing the blade against my ribcage.
“Mia Blake!” I yelled at him, choking after the sudden exertion.
“Give her more,” he said tonelessly.
Each time I repeated my name, the needle went back in, and the burning fire spread through my skull and across my veins hotter every time.
“What’s your name?” Ryan asked. I stared at the floor.
“Hey!” he jerked the chains, sending pain shooting through my shoulder. I choked. “I can’t remember,” I wheezed. I had guessed the game we were playing. Had I guessed right?
Ryan frowned. “Are you sure you don’t remember your name?” I nodded, panting despite the cold chill in the room. It must be night time, I thought. I am going to die tonight.
I watched as Ford pushed Ryan aside. In his hand, he held a gun. Ryan—looking rather reluctant—swapped places, and I guessed that it was his turn to play nurse with the needle. Ford pressed the barrel of the gun up under my chin and sneered.
“If you don’t tell me your name, I’m going to find Jared and rip his heart out,” he hissed, squeezing my throat with his free hand.
“Don’t you hurt him!” I spluttered. “Stay away from him!”
“Liar,” he muttered, striking my face with the side of his gun. I felt a crunch as my cheekbone all but shattered, and I momentarily lost vision in my left eye. I’m going to die here, alone.
I don’t want to die.
He tugged on the chains and my shoulder grated painfully. “I didn’t hear that name?” he prompted as metal bit into my flesh.
“Mia,” I gasped, “you motherfucker.”
My anger didn’t faze him in the slightest. On the contrary, it amused him.
“Swearing doesn’t suit you, babe,” he said, and nodded to Ryan. I winced in anticipation as he pushed the plunger again, sending the burning liquid into my veins.
“Mother. Fucker!” I repeated as the stuff coursed through me. The agonizing pain was enough to make me cry, and since I no longer cared about maintaining my pride, I gave in to the desire, scrunching my face up and letting the tears flow.
“Name?”
“Bite me,” I mumbled.
“I would love to bite you,” Ford replied, sounding bored. “But you don’t belong to me, baby. You belong to Caleb.”
I gritted my teeth as another wave of fire and ice entered my veins, and the familiar roaring sound in my head drowned everything else out. A pair of teeth nibbled at my ear, and a voice that sounded like honey whispered to me to let it all go. The suggestion only made me fight harder.
It went on for what seemed like hours. Each time the liquid passed through me, it felt like everything I had ever known was being washed away into nothingness. It was almost as if it would be easier if I just let it all fade away, forgot who I was, become a shadow. But something deep inside my gut clenched each time I felt like letting go, and it wouldn’t let everything fade to gray. I lost count at twenty. Twenty injections and more. I no longer had the energy to say my own name aloud, so I repeated it to myself instead. Mia Blake. Jared Cohen. Evie Montgomery. Blairstown, New Jersey. I was starting to lose touch with reality, but I clung to my memories fiercely. I had heard of drugs that wiped memories before, and I was terrified the painful liquid was eating away at my soul like battery acid on bare flesh.
After what seemed like an eternity, they stopped. I barely registered what was happening, other than the sound of the syringe dropping onto the stainless steel trolley, where it clanged and rolled to a stop. The three vampires spoke in hushed voices.
“Too much?”
“Show the boss.”
“Stubborn bitch.”
I heard a door open, and breathed a sigh of relief at the temporary reprieve. It slammed shut, and I closed my exhausted eyes. But I was not alone.
Ryan stood before me, his smooth face pinched with—worry?
“Please,” I said before I could stop the words. I hated pleading, it made me look even weaker. But I couldn’t take one more shot of the burning stuff. I just couldn’t do it, and he knew it.
He brushed a stray hair from my face, tucking it behind my chewed ear. “What are you?” he mused, and my heart thudded wildly. “Why won’t this work on you? It should have killed you by now.”
“I know you don’t believe me,” he murmured, his brown eyes full of something. Pity? Regret? “But just—just hang in there, okay? It’ll all be over soon.”
Hang in there. Ha.
I felt pressure, a tugging at my wrists, and all of a sudden, I was falling through the air. I cried out as my knees slammed onto the unforgiving floor. I was cold, so cold despite the relatively warm temperature of the room. I crawled over to the pile of blankets Kate had once inhabited, shivering violently. I rummaged through the pile in a stupor, hardly seeing what I was doing, when my fingers closed around something hard and rough. I tentatively pulled and the object came free from the pile of material—a splintered piece of wood, sharpened at one end and possibly broken off the plywood board that covered the window.
A stake.
Excitedly, I felt through the blankets for more weapons. I found one more crudely fashioned stake and a dark green hoodie that might have belonged to Kate. I wrapped the stakes tightly in one of the blankets and clutched it to me as I lay down on the cool limestone floor. I rolled into a ball on my side and touched the back of my neck gingerly, feeling a hard lump where the tap had been. I had no recollection of it being taken out, and for that I was grateful. I closed my wet eyes, unable to stay conscious for even a minute longer.
And this time, when the darkness closed in, I surrendered willingly.