Nita wasn’t sure how old Zebra-stripes here was. Vampires could live around seven hundred years before their bodies became too frail with age and they died. Based on the amount of white in his hair, Nita decided this one was probably older than a hundred, but less than three.
Arguably, the most dangerous time to be near a vampire. Still strong, but with experience and cunning the young ones lacked.
When the vampire moved, there was no sound. There was something smooth, almost liquid about his motions, as if instead of joints, he had water. He flowed. Almost like a dancer.
It didn’t look natural in the slightest.
Nita didn’t realize she’d started backing away until her shoulders pressed against the wall. She folded her hands in front of her to hide the tremor. Not that anyone in the room cared.
“This is it?” The woman waved at Nita, but her face was turned toward Reyes.
She gave the veiled woman an insincere smile. “Indeed. Would you like a demonstration?”
“Please.”
Kovit came into Nita’s room, and she held her arm out, mute. She’d learned her lesson. She wouldn’t defy Reyes in public again.
Afterward, the woman in the mosquito-net veil turned to Reyes and clapped her hands together. “A superb display.”
One of the older men nodded. “Indeed. I hadn’t quite believed—you know how good video editing can be these days.”
Reyes gave them all a small smile. “Of course. It’s no trouble. Perhaps we can retire to my office and discuss this creature. No one has ever sold anything like this before—it’s completely unique. We haven’t even taken samples yet.”
Pleased murmurs accompanied this.
Suddenly Zebra-stripes the vampire was in front of her cage. Nita hadn’t even seen him move. One second he was beside the woman in the veil, and the next he wasn’t.
“What’s your name?” he asked in English.
Nita blinked. “Me?”
“Yes. You.”
She hesitated, wondering if this was some sort of trick. “Nita.”
His eyes were pale, irises almost fading into the whites. “Nita.”
She didn’t like it when he said her name.
“Tell me, Nita, have you met other people with the same ability as you? A relative? A friend?”
Nita didn’t respond. The only person she knew of with the same ability was her mother. But she certainly wasn’t going to tell him that, even if her mother had betrayed her.
“I’m sorry.” Reyes took a step forward. “If you wish to question the subject, you’ll have to purchase her first.”
Zebra-stripes turned around slowly to face Reyes. It was a deliberate movement, not unlike a horror film, where the head keeps turning until it goes all the way round. Zebra-stripes’ didn’t turn 360 degrees, but Nita was no less creeped out by it.
“How much?” His voice was soft, almost friendly.
Reyes’ smile never faltered. “We can negotiate.”
The other people in the group made noises. They weren’t going to let Nita go to someone else easily.
Zebra-stripes paused, then turned back to Nita in that same slow motion. “Tell me, have you ever met a woman who goes by the name Monica? She may have called herself something else. She’s white, about five foot seven. Last I saw her, she had chin-length black hair with red streaks. She has the same ability you do.”
Nita felt a chill make its slow, deliberate way up her spine, like there was an army of ice ants crawling up her back. Nita’s mother occasionally went by Monica, among other names. And the description fit to a tee. Though really, any description with brightly colored hair and makeup would have. Her mother liked to make herself distinctive, so that when she actually needed to disappear, no one could remember anything about her except her hair color.
Nita’s face must have shown something of recognition, because Zebra-stripes flashed her a smile. “Tell me, what do you know about Monica’s current whereabouts?”
“I’m afraid you’ve been warned.” Reyes nodded to her guards, who each took a step forward. “If you wish to speak to the merchandise, you’ll have to buy it.”
Zebra-stripes moved. One moment he was pressed against the glass of her cage, and the next he was in front of unicorn-bone addict Lorenzo. It was the same as when he’d come to her cage. Nita couldn’t follow his motions.
They were prepared for vampires, though. As Zebra-stripes approached, both guards turned on flashlights that had been hanging in their belts. Under the UV light, Zebra-stripes let a slow hiss out through his teeth and took a step back, into the shadows. Nita had a brief glimpse of the sudden blistering burns that had developed on one side of his face, like melted candle wax. On the other side of the room, Kovit also hissed, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, body rocking with ecstasy. Nita had to look away.
“You were warned.” Reyes linked her fingers together.
Zebra-stripes glanced at the flashlights, still on, though not pointed at him. Nita could almost see him calculating his odds. Then he turned his head and looked toward the hall, clearly thinking of some other factor outside. The sun? Or maybe leaving once he killed everyone.
Zebra-stripes came to a decision. He inclined his head ever so slightly to Reyes and said, “Of course. We can discuss purchase options.”
Reyes held out an arm to indicate the door. “Shall we depart, then?”
Zebra-stripes cast one last look at Nita, clearly wishing to break into her cage and shake some answers out of her. But then he turned away and disappeared down the hall.
Trembling, Nita sank to the floor, feeling like she was sinking deeper and deeper into some quagmire of disaster with every hour.
A vampire was hunting her mother. He’d come all the way out here on the chance that Nita might have some information. His voice, when he spoke of her mother, promised the kind of horrors only a vampire—or maybe Kovit—could deliver.
What had her mother done?
How many of her mother’s sins was Nita going to have to pay for?
Nita wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the grief, the betrayal at her mother grow and morph into something different. How dare she sell Nita? For one mistake? One act of defiance?
Nita had thought her mother loved her. Believed it. Believed no matter what, they were family.
Lies.
Anger flickered in Nita’s soul, hot and all encompassing.
When next we meet, Mom, you better beware. I don’t forgive.
The guards returned to the cell block and took Mirella out. Nita lifted her head and scooted forward. Mirella just looked at them, tired, and didn’t fight. For the first time, Nita wondered if she’d been drugged. Her arms were limp, and her gaze was unfocused.
“What are you doing?” Nita snapped, pressing her hands against the glass.
Lorenzo looked at her, wiping his nose. His pupils were still dilated, but his sweat wasn’t tinsel-like anymore. Dark circles nestled under his eyes. He ignored her and turned to the other guard. “Jorge, can you close the door?”
Blocky Guard—Jorge—left Mirella in Lorenzo’s arms and closed the cage door.
“Where are you taking her?” Nita repeated, pressing her fists against her sides.
“The workroom,” Jorge answered absently.
Nita felt her stomach contents shift. That was where they’d taken her to remove her eye. “She’s going to be cut up again?”
He shook his head. “Nah. But she fought back against Señora Reyes and one of her clients. They even had to put her under to remove her eye. That never goes unpunished.”
“Too true,” Lorenzo whispered, shivering.
“What will her punishment be?” Nita asked.
The guards looked at each other. Lorenzo looked vaguely sick, and he kept rubbing his nose, but it was Jorge who spoke. “Kovit, of course.”
They dragged Mirella off, and Nita remembered Kovit’s delight and excitement at the promise of someone to torture after the customers left. N
ita hadn’t thought it would be Mirella.
A few minutes later, the screaming started.
Fifteen
THE SCREAMING SEEMED to go on forever.
Nita sat curled on her cot, trying to cover her ears, but nothing she did blocked out the noise. The screams were often punctuated by sharper, higher screams or lower, broken sobbing howls. Nita wasn’t sure if Mirella wept that loud or if the sounds were coming in through the ventilation. Sometimes, the screaming would stop for a brief respite, and Nita would hear wretched, choked weeping, interspersed with hiccups that sounded more like cries for help.
Nita thought she might be going mad imagining Mirella thrashing as Kovit—no, Nita didn’t want to think of the specifics of what Kovit might be doing. Bad brain. No.
Sometimes, even if the real-world Mirella stopped screaming, the echo of her cries lingered in Nita’s mind until she couldn’t tell which cries were real and which were just her mind supplying her with memories.
One thing, however, became crystal clear to Nita: Kovit was a monster.
Oh, she’d known that. She’d been scared of him. But knowing and seeing—or hearing, in this case—were two very different things. She’d allowed herself to relax a little around him, even if subconsciously. He’d saved her from being mutilated; he’d played cards with her.
And he was torturing Mirella in the other room.
If Nita hadn’t turned off her pain receptors, that person would have been her.
It wasn’t as hard as Nita thought to reconcile the two images. After all, her mother used to take her to rides on her birthday and chase her around the house spraying her with Cheez Whiz. But her mother also killed people and then sold them.
Sold Nita.
People were never just one thing. Nita had let herself get lulled by the less monstrous side of Kovit, if only a little.
The screams echoing through the building corrected that for her. So did the laughter that accompanied them.
Nita had stalled long enough: it was time to leave, no matter what the cost. She’d been waiting to seize an opportunity, but it was clear to her that she was going to have to make her own.
Nita needed an offensive move. She closed her eyes and focused. She simulated the effects of being struck on different parts of her back and neck, trying to find the spot that would cause her opponent to fall with the least effort. Knocking someone out was notoriously difficult, and how long they stayed out for could be unpredictable. Nita wanted to eliminate as much of the danger as possible, so she practiced on her own body and healed it. What would happen if you hit someone there—would it cause them to collapse, or did you need to do something that would cause permanent damage in order for it to be effective?
Her limbs gained and lost feeling in a repeat pattern as Nita damaged and repaired her spine and head. Soon everything had a strange, tingling feeling to it, like a mild version of the pins-and-needles sensation that came when you got feeling back in a numb limb.
At some point, the sounds changed, as though Mirella’s throat had been damaged from overuse, and the noises she made were closer to scratchy gasps than screams. Each time Nita heard one, she imagined the pressure of the scream ripping the skin of her throat until it bled. That was just what it sounded like.
Nita cried at one point. Not sobs, just sad tears that leaked out of her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.
Nita decided to make a weapon. At first she thought she might be able to make a knife out of the paper from the book—if paper cuts were sharp, could she make something equally sharp, but sturdier?
She couldn’t. Maybe an expert could have figured something out, but Nita was no expert.
Then she tried doing something with the plastic water bottles. It took ages to bend the plastic enough that it snapped so she could rip a good-size hunk out. It was kind of sharp, but not really. And it was bendy and pretty flimsy. Still, if she made the blade super short and held tight to her “handle,” she might be able to get a solid jab in.
Not likely.
Nita examined her blanket. If she twisted it up, she could use it like a noose. But it would be really obvious she was up to no good if she had a twisted roll of strangling blanket in her hand at all times. Ditto to folding the book up in the blanket and fashioning a makeshift mace.
But still, they were options.
Nita closed her eyes and wished she had a scalpel and a dead body. What she wouldn’t give to be in her workroom, taking someone apart piece by piece. She wanted to feel the press of the knife on skin, the weight of the organs in her hands, trace the curvature of the ribs in the gaping chest cavity. She wanted the single-minded clarity that came when she was dissecting, that state where she could forget about everything and only focus on the task at hand.
When Kovit came back with Mirella, Nita was shocked by his changed appearance. He glowed.
Not literally. He wasn’t bioluminescent or anything. But everything about him just seemed to shine. It was like when pregnant women got all those random hormone glands working overtime and they always looked unnaturally beautiful and healthy. Better hair, better skin. Kovit was like that.
The dark circles under his eyes were gone, and the tired lines were smoothed out. His hair, which hadn’t been anything special before, looked like the kind of hair that should be in a shampoo commercial.
Nita realized that Kovit probably hadn’t eaten since before she came. Had he been starving? She had no way to know when his last meal had been. How often did zannies need to eat pain anyway? How much pain did they need—she knew it was a lot, but how much was “a lot”? How did you even quantify something as subjective as levels of pain?
Not that his hunger excused anything. Especially with the clear, maniacal glee he took in hurting people.
Mirella was walking on her own, but Kovit held tight to her arm. She stumbled, favoring one leg. Nita couldn’t see any obvious physical marks on her, and she seemed to have all her body parts, which was a relief.
Nita hoped Mirella would take the opportunity to break away from Kovit. He only had her by one arm, and there wasn’t anyone else there. But one eye was glued to the ground, and the other was leaking blood, and she sagged.
Once she was back in her cell, she curled up underneath her blanket and didn’t move.
“Kovit.”
Nita’s voice was soft, and it came out hoarser than she intended.
He turned to her, and the contented smile on his face fell. His jaw tightened, and his shoulders tensed, as though he expected Nita to challenge him. She could almost see him bristling, ready for a fight.
“Can I have some water?”
He blinked, fists unclenching and hands falling loose to his sides. He hesitated, eyes running over Nita, confused. “Sure.”
While he was gone, she used a piece of broken plastic bottle to wedge her food tray shut. She wiggled and pushed at it, but there was no way the little door was working.
Kovit returned with a water bottle. He tugged on the tray, and when it didn’t open, he kicked at it in frustration. Then he looked to Nita.
She made a show of tugging and pulling from her side, but then raised her hands in defeat. “I think it’s broken.”
Kovit’s brows drew together. “We’ll have to move you to a different cell while we repair it.”
“Oh.”
He moved to leave, and Nita’s heart stuttered. He wasn’t supposed to leave now! That was not part of the plan. “Wait, Kovit!” He turned back and Nita pressed her palms to the glass. “My water.”
Blinking, he looked down at the water bottle in his hand. He examined her cage, his face tight, clearly considering.
Come on, Kovit, I know you want to give me the water. You’re not that type of monster—you won’t deny me. Torture me maybe, but deny me water, no.
He sighed. “Fine. Back of the cage, hands where I can see them.”
Nita did as ordered, dragging her feet in her blanket so it came with her, fighting back her grin.
Nita didn’t even wait until the water bottle was in the air before she moved.
Kicking up the blanket from the ground, Nita threw it in front of her as she powered forward. The blanket half landed over Kovit, obscuring his view and mobility. He flailed, arm reaching to tear it off.
Nita launched herself on top of him, arms wrapping around Kovit and trapping him in the blanket. It looked like a child’s attempt at a ghost costume with a sheet, except someone forgot to cut the eye holes. Nita pumped her body with adrenaline, tightening her bear hug as they both fell.
Kovit hit the ground hard and grunted as Nita landed on top of him. His hands scrabbled to remove the blanket, even though his arms were pinned. Nita heard the swish of a switchblade release mechanism, and her heart rate sped up. He must have had it in his pocket.
Kovit’s head reared out from the blanket, and Nita finally struck.
Swinging her arm around, she clocked him in the temple. He cried out, turning his head away and stretching forward, giving Nita the perfect angle to smash the knuckle of her middle and index fingers into Kovit’s vertebrae. She was glad there were no differences in spinal structure between zannies and other people, because if there were, she would have been screwed.
He went instantly limp, paralyzed. Permanently or temporarily, Nita didn’t know.
Nita stumbled over him, terrified the blow wasn’t strong enough to immobilize him for long. She nearly fell on the ground as her feet caught in the blanket while she launched herself out of the cage. She clawed at the door and slammed it shut, trapping Kovit inside.
Nita stood there for a moment, breathing. Kovit lay in a puddle on the floor, blanket still half covering him. Behind her, Mirella’s face pressed against the glass, eye wide in shock.
Nita had done it.
She was free.
Sixteen
NITA STOOD THERE for a few moments after her escape, just breathing.
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