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“No. It’s fine,” she said, sitting up.
“Are you hungry? I can come back.”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m hungry.”
And she was. Her stomach growled in anticipation.
Her Captor lay the tray down on the end of the bed. A small jug half full of rich, red liquid and a glass.
“I’m sorry it’s not much,” her Captor said. “The delivery is late. I just need you to be patient.”
Patient. Oh yes, the girl thought. She was good at that.
She nodded, opening her mouth to reply when her Captor’s attention suddenly shifted, face creasing into a frown. The girl followed her Captor’s gaze.
On the floor, near the window, lay a small piece of plaster. She must have missed it when she tidied up earlier. Her Captor walked toward the debris.
The girl tensed, mind whirring. If her Captor found out that she had been planning to escape, there would be consequences, and her chance would be gone forever. She couldn’t let that happen. Her eyes flicked to the stairs at the far end of the room. The door was open at the top. She could see a spill of light. Could she make it, if she ran? She was fast, but was she fast enough? Her Captor always made sure they had the means to debilitate her. And what if she reached the upper floor only to find the doors locked?
She needed to make a decision. But time spent here, captive, had left her unused to making choices; impotent, frightened, complicit in her imprisonment.
Her Captor neared the window and bent down. The girl half rose from the bed…and then, from above them, came a thump, thump at the front door.
Her Captor looked up. “The delivery. I have to go.”
“Okay.”
A smile. “I love you.”
“I know.”
The girl waited until she heard the basement door shut and the key turn. Then she leaped from the bed and ran over to the piece of plaster. Tiny. No more than a large crumb. But it could have ended everything. She debated for a few seconds and then she hurried to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. There. Gone.
She collapsed back on the bed. Her stomach rumbled. She poured herself a glass and gulped it down, wrinkling her nose. It was sustenance, but it was rough and poor. She yearned for the taste of something real, something richer.
She pushed the jug away.
Then she rolled up her sleeve. The skin here was shiny. Healed many times. And each, she promised herself, would be her last.
But not today.
She bent her face and placed her mouth over the soft flesh. Then she bit down hard and let the sweet warm fluid fill her mouth.
16
The Roadhouse Grill was even quieter this evening. No one propped up the bar and only a couple of tables were occupied. That suited Barbara just fine. She was tired and she needed some space to think.
The ring that Tucker had found was preying on her mind. Could the same individual be responsible for both boys’ murders? And if so, did it change anything? The long gap and the nature of Marcus’s killing (and that damn video) still all pointed to someone from the Colony.
She sighed and reached for her beer. Part of her felt she needed a clear head to try and work through all of this. Part of her craved the taste of something cold and wheaty to relax the knots in her shoulders and mind.
We all have our vices. Her mom’s had been food. Cooking was a way to suppress her anxieties and placate her husband. When the homemade meat loaf and apple pie could no longer suppress his rage and discontent, she began to eat instead of cook: ice cream from the tub, whole boxes of cookies, raw dough and jelly. Debilitated by her own weight, she was unable to see how food had become her jailer rather than comforter.
Her dad’s jailer had been bourbon and bigotry. Usually mixed together with a dash of violence for good measure. A small, sinewy man, the yin to her mother’s yang, he burned his energy in fury and hatred. Jews, blacks, whores, leftist liberal scum, homos and, of course, vampyrs. In her father’s eyes, they were all the source of his poverty, ill health, lack of money and discontent. And of course, he managed to wrap it all up in a righteous religious zeal that justified his bile.
Barbara recognized the symbols of hate—Klan hoods, swastikas, Helsing tattoos, vampyr teeth, stakes—because she had grown up around them. Indoctrinated from an early age about the enemy and how good, white, God-fearing families like theirs had to stand up against those who wanted to take away their land, their livelihoods, their very souls. Maybe she had even believed it when she was young.
And then she had met Mercy.
