Chapter 61
I drop the bag of blood quickly, hide it behind my back even though I know they would have seen me, and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I expect to see Jonathan, back to try again.
But it’s not him.
It’s Baxter. The canvas bag Jonathan had earlier is slung over his shoulder.
He’s holding a drink and his cheeks are pink, and he’s swaying a little.
He pulls the chair from behind Jonathan’s desk, puts it in front of the cage and sits on it, his legs parted.
He smiles. ‘So, Aubrey,’ he slurs, ‘it’s my turn to take a crack.
Are you going to make it easy or hard? I mean, after me comes Riley, and I wouldn’t want to deal with him if I were you . . .’ He gives a little chuckle.
His eyes move to the bag of blood, now empty.
‘Well, now that you’ve drunk that,’ he says, ‘we get to move on to phase two.’
‘What’s phase two?’
He reaches into the bag and pulls out a syringe.
I squint at it under the lights, trying to make sense of things.
‘What are you going to do with that?’ I ask.
‘I just need a little sample,’ he says.
‘What for?’ My voice cracks.
‘Just trying to figure out what makes you tick, that’s all.’
‘And then you’ll let me go?’
‘Of course we will,’ he says. But his heart speeds up when he says it.
He’s lying. It’s beating so fast he might as well have just said: ‘No, we’re going to take your blood and then we’re going to kill you.
In the worst way we can.’ And now I’m thinking about Jonathan and his heart beating faster so many times, wondering how often I should have noticed that he was lying too.
How blinded I was by everything I wanted to see.
I look at the syringe, and . . . soon we will have a problem.
He won’t find a vein in my arm no matter how hard he looks.
If he really, really wants my blood, how else will he get it?
Now I’m thinking of Felix’s head, dripping blood, the night he died.
I can’t have Baxter get my blood that way.
I need to keep him talking while I figure out what to do.
‘What are you going to do with my blood?’ I ask.
‘Does it matter?’
I nod. ‘If you want me to let you get close enough to take it, I want to know what you’re going to do with it.’
‘Make shit,’ he says, with a gleeful laugh.
My gaze shifts to Jonathan’s desk behind him. To the Eternex Enterprises business plan.
‘Is that what your app is for?’ I ask.
He smiles, or smirks rather, like he’s pleased with himself. ‘Nah, that was all lies, we had to tell you something. Our business is so much more visionary than some app. So much smarter than the plebs on that vampire hunting site.’
I know I’m probably still too weak to hypnotise him, but I’m desperate, and I did feed a little .
. . maybe it could work? It has in the past, with just bagged blood.
And what else do I have? So, I meet his eyes and in a velvety voice, I ask, ‘Is that where you met the others?’ I’m testing it out, I can’t go straight to telling him to let me out of the cage.
I watch his eyes, needing them to glaze over.
But he’s entirely unaffected.
‘Sort of.’ He shrugs. ‘Liv, me and Jonathan knew each other from business school. We met Riley on the site and he was sick of all the red tape, keen to break off with us and form our own group.’
I nod, like that’s really interesting, as Riley’s comment under that post about the IRL meet-up for Kenny comes flooding back.
@Riley: Sorry I couldn’t make it.
And now that makes perfect sense. Of course he didn’t turn up to the meet-up to tell them what he knew. They needed everyone else to give up, so they could get to me first.
‘Well, what are you going to make?’ I ask in honeyed tones, my eyes boring into him, trying again. Work. Work. Please work. I just need some sign that he’s mesmerised. Then I can get him to let me out.
‘Face cream, longevity elixirs, maybe even pheromones for perfume—you do smell good—or like . . . a better version of Viagra.’ Then his face gets serious, like he’s just remembered he’s a proper business person with a proper business plan, not some arsehole with a woman in a cage.
‘I mean, regenerative medicine is the way of the future. First there was PRP then polynucleotides and then . . .. you. We just need to be the first to market.’
A flash of Olivia’s Instagram profile and Former Forbes 30 Under 30. I bet she wrote that business plan.
‘But,’ Baxter continues, ‘we need to see what’s going on with you on a molecular level before we can figure out the exact details.’ He lifts the syringe.
That explains why they needed me to feed. They wanted my blood to behave in the way it should. It wouldn’t work if I was hungry—and they couldn’t exactly offer me a human sacrifice.
But my hypnotism isn’t working at all. I struggle to think, but I have to think—my life depends on it. Now Rupert’s words come floating back: Humans are dead easy to manipulate . . . You just pretend they’re the most special person you’ve ever met.
‘But what then?’ I ask, trying to sound genuinely interested. ‘So, you figure it out, you give everyone eternal life, or eternal youth or whatever, then . . . they won’t need you anymore.’
‘We’re not dumb, Aubrey,’ he snaps, swaying a bit.
And this is good. A bit tipsy is good. ‘We’ve thought of that.
They’ll have to drink it every single day, buy more and more and more, and we can inflate the shit out of it.
If that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll set up an OnlyFans with you, who knows?
But we have options. World is our oyster.
And you’ll always be young and hot. Maybe I’ll have a go at you next time. ’
Horror moves through me. Surely they wouldn’t do that.
‘Yeah, great idea,’ I say, sarcasm leaking into my voice.
He looks at me in this awful way and then says, ‘You want to see the videos we already have?’ Then he pulls out his phone.
My head pulses. ‘What?’
He taps on his phone, then turns it so I can see the screen.
There I am. With Jonathan. I’m naked and straddling him and we’re moving slowly, our hands clasped.
I get a flash of his face, what it felt like to have him inside me.
Then he looks over towards the camera. The angle is the same as the video Jonathan showed me earlier.
That picture frame.
And it hits me: it was always recording. Even when he wasn’t sure I was a vampire.
Even while we were having sex.
Was Baxter watching?
The heat in my solar plexus is wild now, it’s rising to my throat. My ears roar and my vision tunnels and I can see Baxter’s pulse, tapping on his neck. And I’m no longer interested in him letting me out. No. Now I have another plan.
I need him to come closer . . .
‘What do I have to do?’ I ask. All innocence.
‘Give me just a little blood. For now.’
‘Okay,’ I say sweetly. ‘I just want to go home, so if that’s what it takes . . .’ I need to seem hesitant, but I can smell the rum pulsing from his skin. I can feel my gums tingling.
‘Come here,’ he says, and I stumble forward, to the edge of the cage, like I’m still just as weak as I was before the bag of blood.
I scan him. I sense everything. The slightly greying stubble on his chin, his quickening heartbeat, his shallow breath, a small bulge in his front pants pocket—is that a key? —and then another bulge beside it.
‘Put your arm through the bars,’ he says.
I do what he says. As he comes towards me, watching me, I look down at his lips, then up to his eyes.
He clenches his jaw as he assesses my arm without touching it, just out of reach.
I glance down at his pants, and the bulge is even bigger now.
Good. What with the booze and the erection, he’s vulnerable.
Just like I was. All those times they must have videoed me having sex.
All those times they planned to capture me.
All those times they pretended to be Sally.
I imagine them sitting around a laptop, gleefully tapping in credit card details, buying this fucking cage.
‘My veins can be tricky to find,’ I say, my voice like smoke and honey. He’s squinting down at my arm.
‘Tricky to find’ is an understatement.
Impossible would be a better word for it.
‘It can help to tie something around the area above the elbow,’ I say. Helpful. ‘Let me show you.’
He nods and looks around, then goes over to the dumbbells near Jonathan’s closet and reaches for a stretch band.
He brings it over and fastens it around my arm, but he remains just out of reach. ‘Stay still,’ he warns me, ice in his voice.
I nod. ‘There’s one,’ I say, motioning to a phantom vein as my fangs pop out.
He leans in towards my arm to get a better look. ‘Where?’
‘There,’ I say.
He leans in and grabs onto my wrist.
I grab back.
My vision blanches, and white-hot rage shoots through me as I pull his arm through the bars and, in full sight of the nanny cam, I bite.
Hard.
Because if they want my blood, if they want to kill me, let them do it while I’m well fed.
I hear him yelp and his blood tastes acidic, but I drink anyway.
I drink and drink and drink. Soon, that glitter is back.
That levity. My vision snaps to high definition, and he sinks heavy to the ground, so I sink with him.
And then he’s limp, and drained, and his heart has stopped beating, so I let go.
I look over to the picture frame, my breath quick. The others will have been watching, so I have no time, I need to get out of here. Fuck getting the key.
I reach for two bars and with every ounce of my new strength, I pull them apart.
I manage to make just enough space to climb through.
I step over Baxter’s body—pale and not moving—then turn off those grow lights. I leave him there. I choose darkness.
I choose me.
Then I wipe his blood from my mouth, take my earring from the desk and put it in my pocket, and walk right out of that door . . . I need to deal with Jonathan.