This is pointless. She cannot help him. All she is doing is profoundly irritating him.
He needs to get rid of her and go search for his family. He has already wasted too much time here.
He seizes her too swiftly to give her a chance to speak. All he hears is a gasp as his fangs plunge into the delicate skin of her neck.
He feels her pulse galloping in his mouth, and her warm blood tastes so good on his cold tongue that he takes his time savoring it. Her throat bobs against his lips, her relentless voice still fighting to be heard—
“They’re… watching.”
He grudgingly pulls back, her blood dripping down his lip.
“Who is watching?”
“I took… measures,” she says, breathing heavily.
William casts a wide net with his hearing. She deceived him? How is that possible?Is the Legion here?
“What have you done?” he asks with a snarl, shaking her.
“I’ll show you,” she says, her eyes heavy lidded, like she is halfway asleep.
He lets go of her, and she stumbles. Leaning on the table, she reaches for the hand-sized device that she set down when she first entered the space. Then she holds it up to show William.
Their entire encounter unfolds on the small screen, his face and figure in full view—including when he sinks his fangs into her neck. The images only cut out when she picks up the device.
“Do you think me too weak to crush that tiny machine?” he asks her.
“The recording isn’t on this device,” she says, sounding less afraid now. “It’s saved to something called thecloud,and it’s accessible from anywhere. If something happens to me, or if I go missing, an investigation will give detectives access to my files, and this is what they will find. Once the press spreads your image all over the world, you won’t have anywhere to hide from yourLegion.”
William feels a volcanic rage rising up in his chest.
The insolent little mortal dares to blackmail him!
“And now it’s my turn to make demands,” she goes on, having the gall to take a step toward him with blood dribbling down her throat. “Starting with: If you hurt anyone here, this recording goes public.”
His hands are balled into fists at his sides, nearly shaking with rage, yet he is speechless. He cannot believe the human outplayed him.
“I want you to leave this school,” she says, coming even closer.
He keeps utterly still.
If he loosens his control in the slightest, he will snap her neck—and the last thing he needs right now is to do something rash. Being impulsive is what landed him in this situation in the first place, stuck with an uncompellable human whom he cannot trust.
“If you ever come back here,” she warns him, “the whole world will meet William Pride.”
CHAPTER 11lorena
I can feel the bags shadowing my eyes as soon as I wake up in the morning. The skin there is tender, like it might molt.
But I did it.I’m alive. I defeated the vampire.
I was so afraid he—William—would know I was lying about the cloud, since there’s no internet connection here, but he’s clearly clueless.
Hopefully he’s far away by now. My leverage over him is only temporary, until he learns about things like AI and deepfakes, but at least I bought myself enough time to do what’s needed to keep everyone safe.
I’m going to speak to Minaro after class today and tell her about the wardrobe and William.
I’ll say I discovered the room alone and accept whatever consequences necessary, but first she needs to seal off that passage so no one else ever disturbs that darkness. Especially my friends. And then we need to find this mysterious Legion and let them know a vampire is on the loose.
