Authors: Felicia Jedlicka
“Danato? This is Ethan. There is some kind of vampire outside the house, banging on the windows. … Well, regardless of what it's called, it looks dangerous. … What do you mean don't worry about it?”
Cori reached over and ripped the receiver back from him. “It has a human head in it's claws!” she barked into the phone.
“I know.” Danato responded. “I'm sorry you had to see that, but if it's any consolation, that man was dead before the creature got to him.”
“Oh, yeah, that totally makes me feel better.” She shifted the phone to speak to Ethan. “The severed head guy was dead before that thing got to him.” Ethan frowned and she returned to the phone conversation. “So, I guess there is only one question. Who killed him to begin with?” she shouted into the phone.
“Listen Missy,” Danato said firmly. “I want to answer all your questions, but I don't have time right now. Even if I did, you wouldn't believe me. I need you to just stay put for now. The house is locked for your protection; don’t try to break out just for the sake of flaunting your resistance to this situation. You are safer in that house than anywhere else in this facility.”
“Don’t call me Missy. It makes me sound like a cheerleader,” Cori snapped.
“You certainly are not that,” he mumbled, “but until you tell me your name, I have to call you something, so
Missy
it is. Just stay
inside
, don't open any doors or windows, and ignore him at all costs. His species usually only drinks blood from unconscious bodies, but they are notoriously good at tormenting people. The more you ignore him, the sooner he’ll settle down,” Danato assured her.
“And what if he breaks into the house? Should I leave a voice mail or just write a letter with my own blood?” She heard him take another breath. When he didn't speak, she lowered her voice and spoke again. “You're talking about a creature that only exists in folklore and teen movies, like it's a nuisance pet. What is this place? Where have you brought us?”
“They'll be time to explain all that in the days and weeks to come. I don't want to sound like I am abandoning you,” he said with marshaled sympathy. “But I have much bigger things to deal with than that thing… much bigger. Please, trust what I say. You are safe in that house; safer than anywhere else in this prison.” The phone clicked as he hung up.
She pulled the receiver away and stared at it as if it were directly responsible for Danato’s dismissive conclusion.
“What did he say?” Ethan asked.
She hung up the phone and threw her hands up in frustration. “Don’t open any windows and doors, and ignore the damn thing until it goes away.”
“That’s it?” Ethan wasn’t enthusiastic about the plan either.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t advise sleeping though.” She left the office, no longer concerned with the banging upstairs. The fear she was feeling was only going to grow if she stayed hidden in the office. Sometimes pretending to be brave was just the same as being brave.
“What happens if we sleep?” Ethan called after her.
After an hour of staring at the walls and trying to block out the mocking creature outside, they started to make up games to play. Games that could only be invented by bored, uneasy, sleep-deprived people.
A simple game of chip football became an elaborate food football/baseball game. The fridge provided several chip dips that kicked off the game. The ultimate goal was a full-on field goal attempt from nearly three yards away.
Each play required a new chip. The fouls were cleared by the five-second rule, and “bases loaded” meant you had more chip dip to eat. The final challenge was making the three-yard “kick” without breaking your chip, as per baseball rules, three strikes, and “you’re out.”
Eventually, the thumping outside stopped, the chips ran out, and two dip-covered faces lay on the coffee table, waiting to awaken with sore necks.
The early morning sun had pinked the sky when the front door unlatched and creaked open. Cori grabbed her confiscated paring knife from the coffee table and jumped up before she was awake. She ran to the door ready to attack the vampiric intruder.
Through fogged eyes, she saw Danato and found a new purpose for her attack.
“You son of a bitch!” She lunged at him.
Danato seemed unconcerned about her attack until she raised the knife to stab him. Fortunately for him, her groggy state left her off balance, and her attempt to stab him only nicked her coat.
She wobbled to one side and toppled over right in front of him. He reached out his arms and caught her before she could hit the floor. He grabbed the knife from her hand and checked it before tossing it on the dining room table.
Cori stared up at his bloodshot eyes and unshaven face. “What is this place? Where have you brought us?”
“It's just as I said, a prison.”
“A prison that holds vampires?”
“Search your nightmares, my dear.” He tapped her forehead softly, “Whatever you find in them, is locked up behind those walls.”
Cori frowned at him. “My nightmares aren't as scary as my real life,” she said.
“Don't worry about all that now,” he whispered. “It's time for bed.” With little more effort than lifting a bag of groceries, Danato scooped her and took her upstairs.
Irrationally Cori's mind flashed back to Yvette's lecherous men and their vile indulgences. She turned to look away from him as he carried her up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms.
She felt the bed under her body, as he set her down. She let out a sound that she intended to be a defiant outburst. Instead it was more of a whimper. She clenched her eyes tight; hot tears spilled out over her cheeks. “Please don’t.” Her objection to the approaching assault fell short of vehement and landed on supplicatory. She felt the weight of his body sit on the edge of the bed. She sobbed. “Please, no.”
“Open your eyes, sweetheart.” His hand brushed her hair off her forehead. It was an innocent touch, but it still made her shudder. “Look at me.” His voice could never be soft, but it came close. She opened her eyes. He used the bend in his finger to wipe a few tears away from her cheeks.
“No one is ever going to hurt you like that again.” She didn’t really believe him, but she nodded. “I think you and I have a rough road ahead, but you can be as much of a pain in the ass as you feel necessary, because I will never raise a hand or fist to you, and I will most certainly not…” He paused as if even the word made him uncomfortable. “…rape you. I won’t let anyone else do that either.”
There was something paternal in his declaration. Whether or not it was within his power to keep that promise she wasn’t sure, but his inability to do so wouldn’t have been because of indifference.
He stood to leave, but turned back. “I'll forget about that little knife incident for now.”
She nodded and he left her get some sleep, which came far easier than she expected.
Ethan awoke to stomping footsteps and yelling. He glanced at the flip clock on his bedside table. The numbers read 2:13. He was surprised he had slept so long and so well. The last thing he remembered, from earlier that morning, was Danato carrying him to his bed. He remembered thinking that it had been a good number of years since he had needed someone to carry him to his bed. It had been even longer since he had anyone to actually do it.
He hopped out of bed and went downstairs to investigate the hullabaloo. He found his female cohort in the office having a one-sided argument with the phone. Given the scowl on her face, he surmised that the phone was winning.
Each time she raised an objection he could hear a loud curt response that shut her up. The interruptions fueled her scowl and caused her free hand to fist until the knuckles were white. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, patiently waiting to hear the result of this heated discussion.
“What?” she spat into the phone. Her eyes shot directly at him. “Why?”
Her clenched fist slammed into the desk, followed by the phone. The plastic receiver smacked on the desk, making him jump. He straightened his stance to mask the flinch. She stood up and punched the wall nearest her. To Ethan’s surprise, she actually dented the drywall, exposing a little of the pink insulation behind it. She turned back to him.
“It’s for you,” she said and stormed toward him. He steeled himself for the same punishment the wall took. She moved past him, smacking his shoulder with hers on the way by. Even though it hurt, he was glad he hadn’t offered her a soft shoulder to bully.
He sat on the edge of the desk and picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Ethan,” Danato confirmed on the other end. He sounded relieved. “Good, a rational voice. Missy is having difficulty with the idea of staying at the house today. I would like you to do your best to keep her from ripping apart the house.”
Ethan glanced at the hole in the wall with a grimace. “I'll try.”
“I understand you are both frustrated, but please consider this the calm before the storm. Tomorrow I will be ready to introduce you to the prison. I would have done it today, but given last night, I figured you and I could both use a day to recuperate.”
“What exactly will I be doing here?” Ethan could hear Danato breathing on the other end, but he didn’t say anything. “Hello?”
Danato cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be reticent, but if I gave you the entire list of duties at once, you might become overwhelmed and simply shut down. Allow me to get you acquainted with the work environment before I assign any duties. Your first priority will be education, and then we will get you in shape for guard rotation, so you can start working with the men.”
Ethan looked down at his hands. They didn’t display the callouses of a working man, but they did show scars. One scar he got from broken glass, during his days as a thieving juvenile delinquent. He got a couple of scars from cigarette burns during a short but memorable stint with a less than loving foster father; his interpretation of aversion therapy.
He even had one scar down his left wrist, remnants of his first and last attempt at suicide. The infliction bestowed him with six months of intensive psychological evaluation and the realization that suicide wasn’t for him. Ultimately his therapist summed up his diagnosis as: “Patient is depressed.”
You think?
“I don’t have any choice about this, do I?” Ethan asked warily.
“No,” Danato answered. The blunt response should have bothered Ethan, but it didn’t. At least it was honest.
His life up to this point had not really been his own. Danato was just another person dictating to him about who he should be and what he needed to do. A parole officer or a foster father, at this point it just really didn’t matter.
The difference was Danato had already offered him more respect than his previous judicators had. So, he wasn’t going to let the trifling label of “slave” upset him.
The conversation ended with details about the house and plans for the next day before they hung up.
Ethan searched for “Missy” and found her in the living room sulking on the sofa. He hung back and watched her. She was furiously biting her nails. He wanted to offer her some sympathy for everything she had been through, but he also couldn’t help but think she was directing her anger at the wrong person. If it hadn’t been for this man, she would still be in captivity, or worse.
He wasn’t sure what the future held here, but the cage that was holding him now was warm, stocked with food, and so far hadn’t come with an extra helping of backhands. As far as he was concerned, things were looking up.
“What did he say?” she asked without removing her fingers from her teeth.
“He said I’ll be heading into the prison tomorrow and I should consider today to be recuperative.”
“What about me? When do I get out of this hell hole?”
He glanced at the comfortable surroundings. “Do you really want to go inside that prison?”
She stilled and looked up through the windows of the vaulted ceilings. “What else do you think is in there?” she murmured.
“I don't know, but apparently tomorrow I'm going to find out.”
She looked back at him. The scowl that had hardly left her face since they met, was tinted with curiosity. “How can you be so calm? We’re trapped here. You get that, right?”
“Yeah, I caught on to that. You do recall begging him to take you with him, right?”
She stood up to face him. “That was hardly a decision to be made. Those goons were right down the street. Not to mention the village was being swallowed up by the freaking earth.”
“I know, but you have to admit your future prospects were pretty downtrodden with or without his help.” She opened her mouth to object, but he interrupted her. “You do see that he’s saved us, don’t you?”
Her face blanked and she shook her head. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” She perked a brow. “Doesn’t it bother you to never see your family and friends again?”
“Criminal orphans don’t usually have a lot of friends,” he said, “at least not the type that would be long missed.” Ethan moved into the kitchen to scrounge for breakfast, or lunch.