Footsteps. And then a pair of boots stepped in front of me, the glowing end of a poker suddenly inches from my face, blindingly hot. I jerked away as a voice slithered down from the haze above.
“Welcome to my home, old friend. I hope you like it—you’re going to be here for a while, I think. Maybe forever, won’t that be exciting? Oh, but before you say anything, let me first give you your official welcome to hell.”
And the point of the poker was suddenly rammed through my stomach, exploding out my back, the smell of blood and seared flesh misting on the air.
And then the pain began.
*
I JERKED AWAKE WITH A SNARL, lashed out at the unfamiliar shadows above me and toppled out of bed. Hissing, I leaped upright, glaring at my surroundings as the phantom pain of a steel bar through my gut ebbed away into reality.
I relaxed, retracting my fangs. Again with the strange nightmares. Only this one was infinitely more awful than the one before. It had felt so real, as if I was right there, hanging from the ceiling, a white-hot poker jammed through my body. I shuddered, remembering that cold, slithering voice. It seemed familiar, as if I’d heard it before…
“Allison.” A knock came at the door. “You all right? I thought I heard a yell.”
“I’m fine,” I called back, as relief swept in and drowned everything else. He’s still here. He didn’t leave, or cut off my head in my sleep. “I’ll be right out.”
Zeke raised his eyebrows as I opened the door and emerged into the hall, feeling rumpled and tired. “Bad dreams?” he asked, and I glared at him. “I didn’t think vampires had nightmares.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about us,” I muttered, shuffling past him into the kitchen. A candle flickered on the table amid opened cans of beans and empty jerky wrappers. He must’ve discovered a stash of food. “Come on, it’s probably a good idea to check the bandages one more time before we head out.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking,” Zeke admitted, limping as we went into the living room. He definitely looked better this evening; food, rest and painkillers were finally doing their job. “About what you said last night. I want to know more about vampires…from you. The only things I’ve heard are what Jeb has told me.”
I snorted, grabbed the backpack off the floor. “That we’re vicious soulless demons whose only purpose is drinking blood and turning humans into monsters?” I joked, rummaging around for the bandages and gauze.
“Yes,” Zeke answered seriously.
I looked at him, and he shrugged. “You were honest with me last night,” he said. “You didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, what I expected you to say. So, I thought I could…listen to your side of the story. Hear you out, if you wanted to tell it. Why you became a vampire. What made you want to…” He paused.
“Become undead? Drink the blood of the living?” I pulled out the peroxide, the bandages and the gauze, setting them on the floor in front of the couch. “Never have to worry about sunburns again? Well, maybe once more.”
He gave me an exasperated frown. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, too.”
I gestured to the couch, and he sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. I knelt and started unwinding the gauze from his leg. “What do you want to know?”
“How old are you?” Zeke asked. “I mean, how long have you been…a vampire?”
“Not long. A few months, at most.”
“Months?”
He sounded shocked, and I raised my head to meet his gaze. “Yeah. How old did you think I was?”
“Not…months.” He shook his head. “Vampires are immortal, so I thought…maybe…”
“That, what? I’m hundreds of years old?” I smirked at the thought, bending over his leg again. ‘Believe it or not, this is all very new to me, Zeke. I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
“I didn’t know.” Zeke’s voice was soft. “So, you really are just as old as me.” He paused a moment, digesting that fact, then shook his head. “What happened to you?”
I hesitated. I didn’t like discussing or remembering anything about my life before; the past was past—why dwell on something you couldn’t change? Still, Zeke was trying to understand me; I felt I owed him an explanation, at least. The truth.
“I didn’t lie when I said I was born in a vampire city,” I began, focused on my task so I didn’t have to look at him. “My mother and I…we lived in a small house in one of the sectors. She was Registered, so that meant twice a month she had to go to the clinic to get ‘blooded.’ It was all very civilized—or that’s what the vampires wanted us to believe. No forced feedings, no violent, messy deaths.” I snorted. “Except people still disappeared from the streets all the time. Vampires are hunters. You can never take that out of them—out of us—no matter how civilized things are.”