Each night was a new struggle to keep my eyes open, to keep my chin from lolling down to my chest.
He left me for three days after our introduction before he came back. His arrival in the room made me feel equal parts terrified and elated.
There was a strange hope in seeing the face of another person, even if he was my captor. When he came, the door opened, and with it a sip of air from the outside, a glance of hallway. Signs of freedom. They were tiny embers, but it was all I had to go on.
I wanted to ask him about Holden and Maxime. I had dozens of questions but lacked the ability to ask any of them.
Again the scream of metal on concrete sounded his presence in the room. I raised my eyes, barely able to lift my chin anymore, and gazed up at him. He smiled his cruel smile and folded his hands in his lap, looking pleased as punch to be sitting across from me.
“How are you feeling today, my dear?”
I lolled my head back, smacking my skull hard against the wall. Feeling pain right then was preferable to feeling nothing at all.
“Where…Hol…den?”
“Your vampire lover?” The Doctor leaned back in his chair, balancing one foot on his knee and lacing his fingers together over his belly. “What an unusual choice he was for you to make. ”
Was. Past tense. I closed my eyes, trying to block him out, the familiar ache of uncried tears building behind my eyeballs.
“Alive?” My fingers dug into my thighs, poised to hear the worst-case scenario.
“He is a vampire, dear girl. Of course he’s not alive. By their very definition vampires are dead. Undead. Whatever that means. Undeath, as if something so final could ever be undone. ”
Unable to keep my head
upright, I let it slump down again, my chin pressing hard into my chest.
“You look terribly unwell, I must say. ” He was ignoring my question. A question it had taken all my available energy to verbalize. “Would you like something to drink?” He played the part of a perfect host, asking a dinner party guest if they might want their wine topped off.
I raised my gaze, not able to do much else. I couldn’t feign disinterest with a casual shrug. I couldn’t nod.
“Well?”
“Yes,” I hissed, the word rattling out of my lungs like a cough.
“Yes what?”
Was this guy for fucking real? I squeezed my eyelids shut, imagining I might be able to count to ten and this whole place would vanish. I might wake up in a hotel room in Holden’s arms, discovering this had been another nightmare.
It had to be a nightmare.
“Yes what?” he said more forcefully when I didn’t reply right away.
“Please. ”
“Good girl. ” He snapped his fingers, and a man with scrubs arrived. I couldn’t recall the face of the one who had put the collar on me, so I didn’t know if this was the same man or a new one. It didn’t matter. If I lived long enough to get out, I’d see them all burn.
But for now, I loved this man. I loved him more ardently than I was sure I’d ever loved another human being. My heart sang for him.
He was carrying a plastic bag of donor blood, which he tossed onto my lap before leaving the room. I reached for it, but my arms wouldn’t respond. My brain—still somewhat sharp—shifted all my focus onto the small red bag in my lap, demanding some as-of-yet-unused synapses to fire and give me the push I needed to grab it.
My hand flopped limply beside it, unable to take hold, let alone lift it.
I sobbed.
It was a loud, guttural noise, and I surprised myself to find I still had it in me to make such sounds. I’d thought for sure my lungs had begun to shrivel up.
“Would you like some help?”