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“Do you think he was telling the truth about no one else being allowed to go in there?” Zed asked.
I punched a few buttons in a vain hope the door would magically open. “Maybe he has a card or something to open it.” I jerked my head toward the body.
Zed shot me an annoyed look. I didn’t give two shits about his feelings. He’d killed the guy—he could be the one to search his corpse. Without a word, he turned away to go inspect his pockets.
The pounding on the other door grew louder, as if they’d found a ram of some sort to batter against the metal. Now I knew how it would feel to be trapped inside a steel drum.
“Carmina.” Zed raised his voice to be heard over the rhythmic pounding. “There’s nothing.”
Seconds pounded down in time with the beating. I spun to look at the panel again. I touched the screen with the tip of my finger. Instead of pulling up a digital keypad as I’d expected, it flashed the words, “Place palm in the designated area.”
“Of course,” I said.
“What?” Zed called.
Instead of answering, I walked over, ignoring the sound of the guards trying to get in and the large bulges in the door, and grabbed one of the dead vampire’s hands. “Grab his other hand, but be careful—we need that one.”
Twenty-Two
Bravo
We were in luck. Dusk hung heavy on the horizon, but it wasn’t quite full night, which meant the guard shift change hadn’t happened yet. According to Matri, the human guards were mean, but they were also dumb.
The old lady led the way as the pair of us approached the guard station on the platform. Almost immediately, a guard I recognized from earlier in the week strolled out of his post and crossed his arms. “You aren’t authorized to be here, Matri.”
She hunched her shoulders, really playing up the helpless old lady thing, and shuffled forward. “My assistant was here earlier today to unload the trains and lost her ration card. We need to search the cars she worked in before the train leaves.”
He laughed. “Dumb bitch.”
“Please, she’s new. She didn’t know.”
“What’s in it for me, eh?” He raised a black eyebrow and ran his gaze over my body like an unwanted caress.
I tried to look meek, but it felt about as natural as wearing someone else’s skin. “Please, I’ll do anything.” Matri had told me earlier that ration cards were more important than oxygen to the prisoners. The vampires didn’t ration food for the workers. Instead, they used the system to control how much water prisoners could drink. If you misbehaved, water would be withheld. It was a clever system, since the human body could starve a lot longer than it could go without water. No doubt the asshole I was trying to bargain with had sold out his own species for access to all the fresh, cool water he could store in his belly.
“My shift is over in thirty minutes,” he said. “Meet me behind the station and, if I like what you offer, I’ll let you search the train.”
The train’s whistle blew.
“We don’t have thirty minutes,” Matri said. “By then the train will be long gone. Let her look now and she’ll go with you after.”
It took all my strength not to protest. I knew she was bluffing, but if our plan went wrong I’d have to go through with her promise or risk the guard turning us in.
“Let me have a sample now and you can go search.”
Bile shot up the back of my throat. I started backing away, but Matri’s surprisingly strong hand squeezed my arm.
“Just a taste,” she said.
I realized then that I’d made the mistake of trusting a woman who’d survived by offering up children’s veins to monsters. Of course she’d offer up my body, too, if it meant saving her own neck.
“Come on, then,” the guard said, “give us a kiss.”
“Back behind the building,” Matri said. “If someone sees, we’ll all be punished.”
He nodded and walked around the side of the building farthest from the main entrance. Even though I knew sacrifices had to be made, I hadn’t expected to be the lamb.
Matri shoved me forward.
