Secret Unleashed

When I’d been removed from my cell the previous evening, there were no other rooms between mine and the space I’d been moved to. I was being kept apart from the others. Did he know about our ability to communicate mentally? Had he somehow been blocking any form of psychic communication?

If he’d been studying vampires for thirty years, I found it hard to believe such a juicy tidbit would have escaped his attention, so it wasn’t surprising to think he’d found a way to put a damper on my connection with Holden.

We stopped in front of an unmarked gray door. There was nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of others, no window to show which occupant was held within, yet he knew.

On the wall next to each of the doors was a black square, and The Doctor withdrew a plain white keycard from his jacket pocket and tapped it on the black box. A red light changed to green, and the bolts of the door clicked to signal their release.

“After you, my dear.”

I pulled on the exterior handle, my broken arm protesting the effort, making me wince with pain. Every movement—no matter how small—reverberated through my broken limb, amplifying the pain to new levels.

A hissing sound accompanied the opening of the door, like the air pressure inside the rooms was different. I recalled how warm the hallway air had felt whenever someone would enter my cell, and was greeted with a chilly blast when I stepped inside Holden’s room.

The vampires were being stored at meat-locker temperatures.

The room was dark, with only the light of the hallway helping guide my way. At first I thought I’d been tricked and I was being taken to an empty cell to be starved all over again, until I saw a heap in the corner.

It looked like a sack of laundry, not a man.

The heap twitched and groaned, barely moving, but slowly a head rose from the rest, and I saw his eyes. They’d gone black, any sign of white erased by the madness of hunger, but they were still Holden’s eyes.

“Holden?”

“Ssssss…” His voice was as rough as a cat’s tongue on sandpaper. “Ssseee…”

“It’s me,” I replied, trying to give him a reprieve from his attempt to say my name.

“Ooookkkaaayyy…?”

My lower lip trembled as he shifted into a sitting position. That slight adjustment costing him, he closed his eyes, and since he didn’t breathe he looked dead. Really dead.

He was gaunt, his cheeks sunk in, making his beautiful cheekbones and jaw seem frightfully skeletal. The skin beneath his eyes was taut, giving a frightening glimpse to the lines of his skull where they formed the ridge of his eye sockets. He still had his hair which seemed remarkable, all things considered, but the color had begun to leach away. His clothes hung off him like he was wearing those of a much larger stranger.

His eyelids fluttered open again, and he saw me but was confused. “Seeee…”

“It’s me. I’m here.” I crossed the room in two wide steps, crouching in front of him, using my good hand to touch his face, his arms, his chest, trying to convince myself he was really there.

“You…’kay…?” he asked.

Tears slid down my cheeks, staining his shirt. “No,” I answered, unable to force a kind lie.

His gaze shifted lazily to my arm, but he didn’t react. “Hurt.”

“Yes. I’m hurt. I’m very, very hurt.” I pressed my palm to his cheek. “What has he done to you?” His skin felt so thin I worried it might turn to dust under my fingertips.

“No…food.”

He’d been starved for nine days.

I let out a sigh of relief that gutted me. I was happy. He was starving to death, and I felt good about it. But compared to the things I imagined being done to him, starvation was a slap on the wrist. They’d literally done nothing to him except leave him alone in the dark.

“You?” he wheezed.

“No.” I shook my head and grabbed his hand. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

A tick in his forehead suggested he was trying to frown, but he couldn’t manage the gesture.

“Hurt.”

“We aren’t going to talk about it.” With him in this condition, the rage would just eat him from the inside. His worry had probably done a number on him already, but I tried to put myself in his shoes. If I’d been left alone for nine days, fearing the worst, only to find out the worst couldn’t even begin to cover what had happened to my loved one?

He’d want to kill them. And his inability to make it happen would gnaw away at him until he was an empty husk inside, destroyed by his own hatred and thirst for revenge.

No, I wasn’t going to put that on him.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered, finding new resolve to lie now. It was a lie I wanted very badly to believe. I sat down beside him, the cold, rough floor shocking my bare legs. I pressed my left side against him and squeezed his hand lightly, trying not to accidentally break any of his bones. “It’s going to be okay,” I repeated, wondering if it might sound more believable a second time.

It didn’t.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” The Doctor scolded from the doorway. “We still have two more stops to make before it’s time for your end of the bargain.”

“Feed him.”

“Absolutely out of the question.”

“Feed him or I won’t show you anything.”

This gave The Doctor a moment’s pause. I couldn’t make out his features with the light of the hall behind him, but he seemed to be contemplating my words. “You’re sure you want to ask for favors so soon? I’ve told you we’re not yet done.”

It didn’t matter what he had to show me. I needed to help Holden, and if that meant cashing in whatever chips I had to play here and now, I’d do it.

“Feed him.”

“I want you to remember this, because I think in a few moments time you’ll feel quite foolish.”

I’d regretted a lot of things in my life, but getting Holden food wouldn’t be one of them.

Recalling what The Doctor had told me about blood laced with silver, I added, “No tricks. No experiments. You give him good blood. Untainted blood.”

Through the darkness I saw his smile. “Such a clever girl.”

Minutes later someone entered the room, giving me and Holden a wide berth, and threw a packet of blood at us. Knowing Holden would be unable to open it himself, I raised the packet to my mouth and gnawed through the sturdy plastic with my regular teeth. I needed blood too, and my fangs weren’t reacting the way they ought to when I was hungry.

My stomach growled in protest as I removed the bag from my mouth without drinking and placed it at Holden’s lips. At first it sat, trembling in my awkward left-handed grip, then he licked the opening. Once the first taste of blood hit his tongue, he drank the contents of the bag with greedy ferocity, yanking it from my hands. I’d thought he was done until he tore the plastic open and began to lick the inside of the bag.

Why hadn’t I thought to do that?

It wasn’t enough to fully restore him, not even close, but as the blood coursed through him his face lost its skull-like visage, his eyes became less black, to the point I could see their natural brown again, and he became more like Holden.

A weaker, less robust version of the vampire I knew and loved, but Holden nevertheless.

“What did they do to you?” he asked once his mouth worked properly. “What happened to your arm?”

“We’re running a test on Ms. McQueen at the moment, to see how her unique anatomy adapts to outside influence.”

“He broke my arm to see how long it will take to heal.” I kept my tone flat. I didn’t want to let any of my fear or rage show, so I had to keep a level head. “He knows what I am.”

Holden’s face was mobile enough to register shock. “How is that possible?”

“Peyton,” I said. The Doctor already knew I was on to him, knew I was aware of his connection to the rogue, so I saw no sense in keeping the information quiet now. Besides, Holden already hated Alexandre Peyton.