The Vampire Games: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance (11 page)

T
he Game approached
.

I had no time for fear or regret.

It felt as though the moments between the one when my lips touched Phillip’s and the one when the guards arrived to take me away were nothing. Barely more than a wisp of smoke.

My mind buzzed with the haze of his kiss. My lips still tingled.

Fated
.

What would it feel like to meet the man I was destined to spend eternity with? Was it such a magical thing that I would instantly know?

And when I had seen Phillip outside my school…those
feelings
. Had I known that we were meant to be? Was it possible we really were Fated?

Or was that delusion?

I couldn’t begin to process what had happened when my body was bathed in the red-hot light of fear. I’d gone into fight-or-flight mode, but I didn’t want to fight, and flight wasn’t an option. All that remained was freezing. My body had gone rigid. My mind was filled with white light.

Clocks ticked, time passed, and the guards arrived to take me to the Coliseum.

We walked down the halls together. Those bland, dimly lit halls, bathed in crimson light.

Despite the presence of Dawn Hold guards, I felt very much alone.

I wasn’t alone once I approached the lobby where I would wait for the fight.

There was a figure waiting inside. A vampire who blocked my entrance into the room.

Alisyn.

I shouldn’t have felt so relieved to see her after that betrayal, yet knots of tension immediately vanished from my spine.

Throwing my shoulders back, I faced her with my chin lifted in defiance. “This isn’t the first time you’ve surprised me,” I said. “Want to draw out my death a little longer?”

For a vampire, she looked weirdly anxious. “Can I speak with you? Alone?”

“I don’t know.” I really didn’t. The guards had already stepped into the small room, and I wasn’t sure how they’d react if I refused to follow them.

Plus, I wasn’t sure if I should trust Alisyn.

I considered it for a moment. I didn’t think she gained anything by killing me in the hallway, and as much as I’d hated our fight, she hadn’t killed me in the Coliseum. Maybe it was a bad idea to trust her enough to talk, but whatever, I was beyond caring about it at this point.

“Go ahead,” said one of the guards. It was the one who’d given me Rodrigo’s name before the last fight. His face had become familiar enough that I almost dared to think of it as friendly. “Take two minutes. What’s two minutes when you’re about to die?” He laughed, and I took back my thoughts about how he might have been friendly.

I stepped aside, let Alisyn into the hallway, and waited for the door to close behind her. We were separated from the guards.

For two minutes, anyway.

“I want to help you,” Alisyn said, rolling up her sleeve. “You need a boost for the fight, and I’ll give it to you.”

“How?” I asked.

She pulled out a knife and drew it across the soft flesh of her inner arm. Her blood was as red as a human’s.

I flinched, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of how little she reacted to the knife or if it was because of the exposed vampire blood. “Seriously?”

“It won’t Create you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “It’ll only give you extra strength for a while. Hopefully long enough to get you through the fight.”

“How can I trust you?”

Alisyn shrugged. “This is the best apology I can give.”

“Besides actually saying you’re sorry.”

She met my gaze. “I’m sorry, Bianka. I hate that I violated your trust, even if I hadn’t been given a choice. I hate that we were put in a position to be enemies when I’d hoped we could be friends. And I
hate
being a vampire.”

It wasn’t the apology that moved me, in the end. It was the thought that she could have broken my neck easily in practice. That she could have killed me in the Coliseum. It was remembering her lack of judgment when we met and she’d learned, without a doubt, that I had wanted to escape.

I’d forgiven Alisyn long before she tried to apologize.

I bent my head to her arm, and I wrapped my lips around the wound.

Drinking a substantial amount of blood should have made me want to puke. Instead, it brought everything into sharp relief. The hall spun around me for one dizzying instant, then leaped to clarity again.

I could see every tiny pore of the concrete.

The fine hairs on Alisyn’s brown skin.

The crisscrossing fibers of my uniform.

It was as though my eyes had been turned to well-focused microscopes. More than that, it was as though shadows didn’t exist. The dim red light was as bright as a warm afternoon day.

Was that how vampires saw everything?

Alisyn looked, somehow, softer and prettier when I raised my head from her arm, brushing the excess away from my lips. “Wow,” I said.

She smiled. “Go, Bianka. Win. And then
escape
.”

M
y odds
of survival felt drastically improved once I sipped Alisyn’s blood.

At least, they did until I walked into the arena.

The Coliseum looked completely different than when I’d last been in there. It was brighter and sharper, just as the hallway had been. I could more easily pick out the faces of the audience. And the sand underfoot looked reflective, almost sparkling—aside from the tint of old blood stains.

I’d never noticed those stains before.

My stomach clenched hard, and I thought I might vomit.

I didn’t dare allow that to happen. Alisyn’s blood hadn’t just made my vision better. I felt stronger and more graceful as I approached the center of the Coliseum, and I didn’t want to lose that slight advantage.

I made it to the center and squared my shoulders, waiting for the reveal of my opponent.

Human or vampire? With such an important fight, I was certain my challenger would be worthy, either way.

Nobody emerged from the other door. The vampires kept cheering. They were excited—even more excited than last time.

I lifted a hand to wave.

Louder shouting. Screaming.

It was like they were waiting to meet a celebrity.

After a few moments, the lock on the opposite door clicked.

“And our second competitor,” the announcer said. “He’s new as Prince Phillip’s fighter and twice as brutal. His Sponsor is…Lord Hector!”

When the door opened, I noticed the colors first. The colors were the same that Hector had been wearing at the ball, dark reds minus the blacks that Alisyn had been wearing as part of her costume.

The second thing I noticed was that the posture seemed familiar. I knew this man.

And then his face.

How could I not recognize Marc, after all?

My mind whirred, probably faster than it would have without Alisyn’s blood. Honestly, at human speeds, it’s likely I would have stopped thinking at all.

Marc.

They wanted me to fight Marc. The boy I had been captured trying to rescue.

No wonder the vampires were so excited.

Those sadists
.

I studied him with my improved vision: his choppy hair, his golden skin, his determined stride. I could make out faint bruises from Phillip’s attack where I hadn’t been able to see them before. Worse, I could see other signs of abuse. Marc had been having a rough time during his training. Rougher than I’d realized.

That wasn’t all that I saw.

I also saw his resolve.

Marc was surprised to see me, but he still wanted to win.

“We can’t do this,” I told him when he took position at the center. “There’s no way to win.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Don’t you see? I can’t kill you. But if I don’t, they’ll either keep you in the Games forever or slaughter you after the fight.” My throat was tight, eyes stinging. I could barely hear myself speak over the audience. “You’ll never get out.”

“What if you lose?” Marc asked in a soft whisper.

My spine tensed. “I can’t lose. I have to win. I have to get out.”

“The only way out of this place is to die,” he said. He extended his hand. Shaking his hand would active the gloves and start the fight.

I didn’t shake.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

His head hung, face falling. “I would never hurt you, Bianka. But I can’t stay here. I can’t be trapped. I am not going back to that cell, Bianka.”

“Cell?”

“What, do you think Hector gave me a house like yours?” He smiled, obviously without being amused. “Unless I’m training you or fighting, I’m with all his other slaves in a line of cages. And one by one, I watch them empty as the slaves all die in the Games.”

How had I been so naive? Of course Phillip would give me a nice place, and of course Hector would treat everyone he had like they were nothing.
Worse
than nothing.

“I can’t lose, Marc.” My voice shook a little.

He stuck his hand out. “Neither can I.”

I took his hand, and my glove buzzed as we shook.

We turned, and the crowd started counting. Ten paces. We had to take ten paces.

What will I do?

I couldn’t win, and I couldn’t lose.

There was no other option.

No way to beat the Games.

But Alisyn’s blood had given me clarity that went beyond visual acuity and physical strength. As the vampires counted toward my death—mine, or Marc’s—I felt calm surety come over me.

There
was
another option. One other thing I could do to end the fight.

The crowd reached ten.

I sank to my knees when the crowd called out the number one. I hung my head and crossed my arms over it.

Just like Alisyn had shown me in training.

“I officially withdraw from the Games!” I yelled it at the top of my lungs.

There was a pause, along with stunned silence. It didn’t take long for the boos to follow, though. They were half-hearted, like the crowd was so disgusted by my act that they didn’t want to go to the effort to call me out about it.

“Bianka,” Marc said in a hushed tone. “
No
.”

He knew what I’d done.

I was volunteering to be Harvested.

My wrists were grabbed by my ceremonial guards—not so ceremonial anymore—and they pulled me to my feet and twisted my arms behind my back. I could see Marc on the other side of the Coliseum, blocked by his own guards, screaming for me with his hand outstretched.

I tried to smile comfortingly at him. I’m not sure it worked.

T
he guards took
me to the Harvesting Platform.

It was a place I’d never planned to return—at least, not without an army at my back—and it turned my stomach to see all the people sedated and hanging, just as they had been before.

More than that, it steeled my resolve.

I couldn’t be Fated to be with Phillip, because being Fated meant being a vampire. And this was what it took to be a vampire.

Pure evil.

This was the ugly reality that Phillip was so ready to ignore. This was the foundation of vampire society in the caves, and there was no way that I could be part of it.

I wasn’t ready to give up, though. Just because I walked nicely between the guards didn’t mean that I was going to let them take me onto the platform and drain my blood dry.

Not a chance.

I was waiting for a sign to break free, some moment where attentions were elsewhere. My whole body hummed with the power of Alisyn’s blood. I had ended the fight so quickly that I was still hopped up on her strength. Combined with the fighting skills I had developed during my training, I thought I might be able to take the Harvestmen.

At the very least, I had to try.

A crowd had gathered around the platform, waiting for me to arrive. When I saw them, I knew that I wasn’t going to simply be hung up on the wall with all the other people. I wouldn’t be drained slowly, my blood savored. They wanted to get a show out of me. If I wouldn’t perform in the Games, then they would still make my death into entertainment.

I wondered how entertained they would be once I broke free.

The Harvestmen yanked me onto the platform. They didn’t have to pull hard. I still wasn’t fighting. I needed the vantage point of elevation, allowing me to see over the heads of the vampires who were watching. Hundreds of them.

Oddly, I recognized a couple. Alisyn was in the back. And the glassblower from Dawn Hold was in the front, wringing her hands, eyes filled with tears.

A vampire, crying for me?

I forced myself to look away, stretching my gaze across the expanse of the cave. My heart skipped a beat when I realized that there was a car parked not far from the crowd. It was the same vehicle that had taken me from the surface a lifetime ago.

Exactly the kind of thing I would need in order to escape.

The crowd parted. Lord Hector strode through the center aisle, accompanied by others from Shadow Keep. They seemed to carry the darkness with them. They wore it like cloaks.

For the first time, he looked
mad
.

“Do you know how much money she lost me?” he muttered to someone at his side. His voice rang out in my skull. I could probably only hear his whispers because of Alisyn’s blood. “I’m going to make sure they take a very long time draining her, and that she feels every single moment.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I muttered.

One of the Harvestmen elbowed me. “Don’t talk, blood bag.”

“Don’t touch me, blood sucker,” I spat, baring my teeth at him.

He recoiled.

I guess they weren’t used to their food fighting back.

Antagonizing him was a bad idea, though. They gripped my arms harder.

I’d have to get them to release me.

Before I could make a plan, another figure pushed through the crowd, shoving his way toward Lord Hector. That was a mistake—Phillip knew just as well as I did that he couldn’t stand up to Hector physically. Not without drinking human blood.

Hector barred Phillip with an arm.

“Stand down,” Hector said.

“That’s my Candidate!” Phillip snarled. My heart skipped another beat at the way he said “my” Candidate, just like the way it had skipped when he’d told me we were Fated.

Hector heard the snarl, too. And he liked it. His lips curved into a smile. “She chose this path. She didn’t choose you.”

I met Phillip’s gaze, his eyes wide and desperate. The whole of vampire society was watching us. They would see the way that we were looking at each other, and they would know that their prince didn’t feel the way he was meant to feel. That I was more than just his Candidate or his blood bag.

Even the Harvestmen were watching.

Phillip mouthed my name.

Bianka
.

I smiled at him.

And that’s when I struck.

It’s funny what the element of surprise can do. Everyone was so busy staring at us, at the scene that we were making, that nobody was braced for an act of desperation. Certainly not from someone with strength augmented by vampire blood.

Alisyn came through on all counts. She had taught me how to use my body deliberately, to let the desperation fuel instead of guide.

And her blood made me stronger than I’d ever hoped.

I shoved the guards, and they went
flying
.

Lord Hector whirled at the sound of their screams, forgetting about Phillip. He launched himself toward the platform. Other Harvestmen reached me first, and I threw one of them off because he was surprised enough that he wasn’t standing solidly on both feet. The other tried to grab me, but I avoided him by swinging under the railing along the edge of the platform.

The whole crowd erupted in screams. Maybe it was just me hoping, but I thought I could even hear some soft cries from the people swinging above my head. It was probably just delusion. They were all too drugged to know that someone—a human like them—was breaking free.

“Candidate!” Hector roared.

He was going to be on me within seconds if I didn’t get out of reach.

I leaped to the floor, and vampires scattered, trying to escape a Candidate who was too strong to be human.

Hector didn’t reach me. I only glimpsed him grappling with Phillip through the screaming crowd.

She chose this path
, Hector had said.

He was right.

The boost of speed Alisyn’s blood gave me wasn’t quite to full-blooded vampire level. Maybe it was close to Phillip’s non-drinking level. But it was enough.

I was fast now. So very fast.

I found myself laughing as I ran. It was definitely a nervous laugh, expelling the desperation I couldn’t entirely use. I must have sounded insane to the vampires. Maybe even sinister.

When one of the spectators tried to grab me, I shoved another vampire into him hard enough that both went to the floor. And no other spectators attempted to catch me.

I jumped into the Harvestmen’s car and locked all the doors. It smelled like blood inside. I wondered if it had smelled like that last time too.

Bodies slammed into the windows. Harvestmen trying to stop me.

They were too slow.

I laughed even harder as I started up the car and tore out of the chamber, heading the same way I came. Hands gripped the door handles for only a moment. I swerved hard, sending vampires flying.

Within moments, they had all fallen away.

The route out of the cave was long and dark—so dark that I wouldn’t have known where to go if not for the stripes on the floor. I centered the vehicle on the stripe and gunned it.

In the rearview mirror, I saw more vampires racing to catch me. A few were almost catching up. The speedometer told me they must have been going forty miles per hour. Scary speed, all things considered.

Yet still not fast enough to catch me now.

They didn’t need to catch me, though. They had another way of stopping me.

I glimpsed the lights of the surface tunnel, which was fading rapidly. The doors were sliding shut. They looked like steel several inches thick, surely too thick for me to punch through them.

I floored it. The cautious person who had obeyed all traffic signs when my parents had let me take an old clunker around our city was nowhere to be found. She
couldn’t
be around.

The SUV slid through the doors an instant before they shut. Steel scraped against my rear bumper.

The last thing I caught sight of before the door shut in my wake was a single vampire running after me, neither guard nor Hector. I couldn’t entirely tell who it was, but I was willing to bet all the gold spent to buy me in auction that it was Phillip—my owner, my prince, trying one last time to save me from myself.

My laughter turned into tears as I shot up the hallway.

I’d left Phillip behind.

Shouldn’t I have been sadder about leaving Marc?

Time was meaningless as I roared up the tunnel, alone in the car, shaking with adrenaline.

Hours passed. Entire days.

And then I reached the surface.

I could see the sky.

Tears streamed down my cheeks anew. I was going to go home. I was going to warn everyone I knew about what was coming.

And we, the last of free humanity, were going to fight the vampires.