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Once I’d had nearly perfect night vision. That was starting to fade.
“Hang on, Bianca.” Lucas put his arms around me as the truck rumbled into motion. “We’re gonna have to think fast when they open those doors back up.”
“They’ll still outnumber us,” I said. “And they’re taking us to a place where they’ll be more in control than they were here.”
“I know. But we had zero chance out there. We have to hope the next situation is going to work more to our advantage.”
I didn’t see how that was even possible, but I tried to follow Lucas’s example and think like a fighter.
It seemed to take an incredibly long time before we reached our destination—a large, one-story building that had evidently been abandoned for a long time but had been either a health club or a gymnasium. Several of the windows were broken, and graffiti striped the walls. This building was waiting to be torn down, and apparently some vampires had decided to take advantage of the delay. They tugged us out of the back of the truck—four vampires flanking each of us.
“Let’s head to the pool,” Shepherd said. Lucas and I shared a look; I knew he was telling me to look out for anything we might be able to use for weapons or an escape. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to take out that many vampires at once, but we had to remain focused.
The pool area looked even more torn up than the rest. As we walked inside, I could see that was where the vampires had chosen to stay. Beer bottles littered the floor and windowsills, and every corner had become a trash heap. It smelled like cigarettes. In the center of the room was the swimming pool itself, long emptied of water; the abandoned high-dive board stood above, lonely, with a cobweb dangling from the end.
At first I thought nobody else was inside. But then a solitary figure in the corner moved. Somebody in rags had been sleeping in a huddle on the floor, and I’d taken her for another trash heap.
She pushed frowsy pale hair back from her face and looked at us steadily. Even from across the room, I recognized her immediately. Ever since our capture, we’d known who we would be taken to—but that didn’t make her any easier to face.
Lucas whispered, “Charity.”
Chapter Seventeen
CHARITY WALKED CLOSER TO US. HER FAIR CURLS hung loose, making her look even younger than usual. She wore a lacy sleeveless cotton dress that probably used to be white instead of bloodstained and gray. Her feet were bare, her red toenail polish badly chipped. I thought of a small child awoken from its nap, confused and cranky.
“You brought them here,” she said to Shepherd. “You brought them to our home.”
“You wanted to find the girl, right? Well, we got her.” Shepherd grinned. He clearly considered this a job well done, and Charity’s displeasure didn’t even register.
She tugged at her hair and frowned. “You brought the boy, too.”
“That’s right,” Lucas said. “Miss me?”
Charity pulled down the front of her dress far enough for us to see the pink, star-shaped scar above her heart left from when Lucas had staked her during the burning of Evernight. Stakings were the only wounds vampires could receive that left permanent marks. She traced the edge of the star with her little finger. “I think of you every day.”
Great, I thought. She’s obsessed with us both. I stepped between them, so that she and I were only a few feet apart. “What do you want, Charity? Balthazar’s probably left New York by now, so it’s not like I can tell you anything.”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “The best way to find Balthazar is…not to find him. To make him come to me. And how better to do that than by taking something he wants?”
A chill shivered through my body as I realized she was talking about me.
“I don’t want to join your tribe.” I said. My voice sounded clear and didn’t shake—the opposite of how I truly felt.
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” she said.
This was it. There was no way to escape. Lucas and I were outnumbered and surrounded. Charity would turn me into a vampire. Tonight, I would die.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I’d spent most of my life expecting to become a vampire someday. Maybe I’d feel some weird bond to Charity. That often took place between a new vampire and the older one who had brought her over. But I’d still be me. Lucas had already accepted what I was, so we would still love each other. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
But I had wanted to choose. I had wanted to have some say in what I would become, what existence I would lead. I’d wanted to be free—and now I never would be.
“Fine,” I said. I blinked quickly, hoping she wouldn’t see my tears. “I can’t stop you. Just let Lucas go.”
“Bianca,” Lucas pleaded. I couldn’t turn to look at him.
Instead I remained focused on Charity, whose dark eyes widened with disappointment. It was like she wanted me to be happy about becoming a vampire. How could she expect me to feel any other way? How could she not know that I hated her?
“You want to force me to do this? That’ll make you feel strong, convince you that you took something away from Balthazar? Then do it.”
