Page 8 of Fight for Us

The world around me fades to nothing.

3

THEO

The Captive

It’s too quiet. The kind of muted silence that presses against my ears as though I’m under water, feeling like I’ve sunk too deep into something I can’t swim out of. Sometimes I think I hear breathing. Not mine. A breath that is softer and slower, right beside me, but when I move, there’s nothing there. When I speak, the echo comes back too fast, as if the room’s smaller than it should be. Like it’s closing in.

I press my palms to the floor just to feel something and I swear I feel it shift. The ground is pulsing, as if there is something alive just under the surface. It’s not. I know it’s not, but my hands won’t stop shaking. The dark isn’t a lack of light, it feels like a presence, as if there is something watching me, waiting. I tell myself it’s nothing, but the thought loops in my mind, making me paranoid.

What if there’s something in here with me?

A whisper brushes the side of my neck. I flinch so hard my shoulder slams into the wall. I reach out, clawing at empty air. As usual, there’s nothing. No one is here. Why does it feel like there is?

A hysterical laugh tears from my throat.

I keep feeling things that aren’t there. A touch on my face.

Fingers wrapping around my ankle. A voice, soft, coaxing, saying my name in a way that makes me feel like it’s trying to pull me into a place I shouldn’t be. I tell myself it’s memory, trickery, the mind folding in on itself because I’m trapped down here in solitude. But what if it’s not all just in my head? What if someone is here?

It must be what they’re injecting me with. It’s making me go crazy. They don’t need to break my body. I try to sleep but I don’t know if I ever do. I dream while I’m awake. I see faces that flicker in the dark, just long enough to hope, then they’re gone again. I can’t tell if I’m losing time, or if time’s losing me. What if this is all I am now? What if the world outside has already moved on, and I’m just … here? Forever. What if no one can find me?

The worst part isn’t the fear or loneliness of it all. It’s the doubt.

After what could be hours or days, a loud creak fills the room and I jerk out of my trance-like state, stumbling to my feet and leaning heavily on the bars of my cell. Two men appear, dressed in their masks. Light filters through the room, and I’m quick to adjust to it, my eyes raking over the men, attempting to distinguish anything somewhat familiar about them.

‘What are you planning to do with me?’ I ask, my voice lacking any sort of emotion as I eye them, their footsteps loud and clumsy, making me wonder what sort of training these men may have had, since they don’t strike me as the trained type of guards who could take me down if I were to escape.

I’m not myself. My usual strength is depleted, as though there is a slow leak that is draining me.

‘Keep your mouth shut, demon,’ one of the men hisses, his voice muffled by the mask.

Unrecognisable, just like the others. Four of them. Humans, I believe, which makes me even more curious. Who is behind this? Who do they work for? Surely there is someone pulling their strings.

One of the men approaches me, and I tense, ready to lunge at him. His finger pulls the trigger of something he aims right at my face – some sort of device I have never seen before – and it launches at me. A cloud of dust splashes across my face and I suck in a breath of surprise. Whatever the chemical is, it invades me almost violently, knocking me off my feet. My back hits the ground as the world tips. My throat burns, my eyes itch, and every inhale feels as though a knife is stabbing me in the lung.

I vaguely hear the sound of the cell opening, and heavy footsteps moving toward me. A rubber-gloved hand reaches for my arm, and I’m powerless to stop him from pulling it toward him. The prick of the needle tip feels like ice as he injects some sort of dark liquid into my arm. My body becomes lifeless, and he drops my arm.

‘Not so powerful now, eh?’ one of the men snickers, and I can practically hear him smirking. The mask may cloud him in anonymity, but I can picture what kind of cockish sneer would be twisted onto his lips.

‘Big, bad vampire,’ another chortles. ‘Doesn’t seem so dangerous to me.’

Anger swirls in my gut, and my fingers twitch with the urge to snap their fucking necks. This is the kind of reaction they want from me, and boy would I love to deliver on that, but whatever they’ve done to me has made me immobile.

Laughing among each other, they turn, exiting the room, leaving behind nothing but pain and darkness in their wake.

The ground is hard beneath me.

Pushing to my feet, I run my fingers along the grooves in the wall. There are deep claw marks etched by someone or something before me. I wonder if they died here.

The air is thick with the taste of magic. I feel weak, as if there are enchantments surrounding me, keeping me docile. Or maybe it’s whatever they inject me with. It’s not only making me feel physically weak, but mentally, too. Like my past has come back to haunt me and I no longer have the mental shields to keep the memories out.

I’ve fed when I didn’t have to. I’ve scared people just to feel in control. Not always, but enough to know I’ve been careless and inconsiderate. I had the option to take an approach like Hunter did, but I didn’t. I enjoyed the power. It was so much fun, when I didn’t have anything of the sort as a human.

Then there’s a scream.

I wince at the sharpness of it. It cuts through the silence, echoing hauntingly around the cavern. My fingers dig into the floor. My ears strain, hoping to hear anything that could provide me with any knowledge of what is going on behind the locked door.