Chapter 13
Cassi
"Why did you bring me here?"
"We're asking the questions," the vamp handling her questioning said for the third time.
So far it was all they'd exchanged: Cassi demanding to know why they'd brought her to the high school and were holding her and the vamps asking where she was headed when she was stopped and why she didn't stop when ordered to.
On this round, when he asked, she said, "I wasn't ordered to stop. Nobody said anything to me. They just chased me."
The Vampyren sub-sub-possibly-sub-commander ran a hand over his face and looked like he wished he'd never seen her. "What did you think that meant?"
She didn't have to fake it this time. "What do you think I thought it meant? One of you – " she stumbled over the word people and decided against it – "Fucking vampires starts chasing me and – "
She didn't get any farther because he backhanded her across the face. She tasted blood in her mouth and swallowed convulsively, afraid he'd smell it and come after her. Both hands went up over her face. Was Michael listening? Had anyone followed her? Had they pinpointed where she was yet?
The whole idea of getting caught had seemed too stupid for a while. The Vampyren weren't hiding. They were the victors. The winners don't hide.
Except, this was hidden. Like the tank farms, like the breeding harems, like this school that showed no evidence from the outside of having anything to do with the invaders.
There were a lot of them there. She'd seen ranks of soldiers training in the courtyard as they walked past bulletproof glass. With schools across the country under siege before the invaders ever set foot on the planet, they were probably in one of the safest places yet.
The only safer would be a prison or Air Force One, she thought.
Face aching, she kept her hands over her cheekbones as if she could keep her jaw from exploding.
Angry now, she stood, and when he whirled on her, she leaned toward him, all but daring her questioner to hit her again.
Whoever he was, he was lower level, low rank in whatever their chain of command was.
Otherwise, he'd never have gotten stuck with her.
The violence scared her. Being hit. If she let it stop her, she'd sink down into whatever they wanted and never get up again.
She had a boyfriend she wanted vengeance for, a mother she wanted to find, and she needed somehow to get back to Brecca and make sure she was all right.
So she stood and faced him, staring down the impulse that had clearly risen in him to hit her again. She was young, beautiful and human, and as far as he knew, viable. She was a commodity and she was desperate enough to gamble on him being too far down in the hierarchy to risk hurting her.
Or risk hurting her too badly.
"Nobody likes you here. You have to realize that."
"It doesn't matter," he said, and instead of hitting her, he sat back down behind the desk and indicated she should take her seat again.
Grudgingly she did.
"Let's start over. You were out at night." He didn't make it a question but any human not brain dead would understand it was.
"I have a job at a bar. I missed several nights. Their logical response is to put anyone who's AWOL onto graveyard." That was true, and so was it true that since the aliens came, bars stayed open pretty much round the clock.
He gave her a long look, then stood and circled her, apparently looking at her tattoo. Cassi managed not to roll her eyes. The Vampyrens didn't mark themselves that she'd seen. Apparently for this one, her tattoo meant she might actually be something like a bartender.
In the new world order, they'd created by fucking up the old one, bartender was highly respected. Everyone needed a drink in vampire land.
"And you ran because?"
Oh, hell, they were back to the loop. "Dude," she said and caught the fleeting look of surprise on his face. "I ran because I was chased. Try to imagine the absolute worst thing that you can. Something that you, a Vamp, are actually afraid of."
There was a flicker of dislike cross his face at the casual term for his race, but he nodded as if accepting the fact that there were things that could frighten the Vampyren.
And Cassi stored that one away in her mind, pretty sure the mic got it too. Now all they had to determine was whether something that scared the space vampires was something humans could use or something so much worse they didn't stand a chance.
"You were headed to the bar." He made it a statement.
"I was headed to the bar. The End of the World.
" He gave her a look and she said, "That's the name of it.
I was heading to Fairfax, late for work, and suddenly there's a motorcycle chasing me and then a Jeep.
" She shuddered and it wasn't pretend. Please let them be monitoring.
Please let them have heard. Because the vamps hadn't taken her that far.
The drive had been short. The streets still familiar.
If the resistance wanted to hit a cell of vamps, she'd found them.
She wanted them to get her out, first.
"The bar is?" he asked and she gave him the address and sat back, expecting he'd check up on it.
He didn't. Abruptly he seemed to have had enough. He waved a hand and she stood, instantly, ready to leave. She'd go to the bar, she'd spend a couple days there, she'd get the information out if she could and wait until it was safe to go back if she couldn't.
How does this help me find Mom?
But leaving. That's what mattered. Being released.
She started to say thank you, not even ashamed of how relieved she felt, only trying not to run on her trembling legs.
He turned and looked at her and he looked almost amused at the same time the door behind her opened and the Vampyren soldier who had brought her there entered.
Her head whipped around again and she stared at the commander. Maybe this was just her escort, just seeing her back to the street. Even the Vampyren had some rules. The people they took, usually there was some reason for it, at least now that they'd been on Earth for a year.
He didn't even bother to look at her.
"Take her to the pool," he said.
Her heart stuttered. For an instant she thought they meant to drown her. Then common sense reestablished itself. They'd use her, not drown her, and so the pool might be –
Breeding?
She started to shake and when the one who'd brought her took her arm, she started to thrash, getting in several blows to his face before he caught her flailing arms and subdued her.
"Sir?"
Because the commander had gone back to whatever he'd been doing before they came along and disrupted his night.
He glanced up, clearly impatient. Cassi felt her bruised cheekbone start to throb again. Her teeth were gritting together.
"I've put in a request while you were questioning her."
The commander just waited, not interested, not angry, just waiting.
"It's been approved."
That caused him to bark as short, harsh laugh. "For breeding? This one? You might as well try your luck at one of ours." He looked between them, as if amused at what she was facing, and as close as he was going to get to concerned for one of his men.
Then he shrugged. "Good luck with it."
And he looked back down at his work.
Her guard dragged her through the door which slammed behind them.