Page 29 of Bitten Vampire

Maybe they will mistake me for a teenager.

Maybe they will ignore me.

If they follow me, they will think I’m escaping—or spying—and I can’t exactly explain what I am, can I? I must not lead them back to House.

“Oi! You!”

Boots thud closer. Voices bark orders. Panic bites. I keep walking.

Don’t run.

Don’t—

“You! Stop!” A hand clamps onmy shoulder.

Instinct shatters into a single command: run!

I bolt. Not towards the safety of home, but away from it—deeper into the night—praying I have not made the worst mistake of my life.

The sector blurs past—lampposts stretch, shopfronts smear, parked cars stand frozen like statues.

I can run, truly run, and I do not tire.

But the guards can run too. They are older, stronger, more experienced. In vampire terms, I’m barely out of the cradle. I sense them gaining yet keep my gaze ahead, unwilling to lose momentum. A sharpzipwhistles over my shoulder; sparks flare.

They are casting at me!

I fling myself around a corner and straight into a trap. A hulking guy with a vicious expression blocks the pavement. When I dodge left, a spell slams into my back. Heat spreads like viscous webbing, pinning my arms and legs together. Great.

“Little shit,” he growls, striding closer.

“Why’d you run? It’s past curfew, too close to dawn,” says the second guard—the one who chased me.

“He’s up to no good.” The first man yanks down my hood. The tug pulls my blonde hair from its ponytail, and it tumbles around my shoulders. “Oh…she’sup to no good.”

They stare.

“Ma’am, what are you doing? You tripped the perimeter wards coming from the Human Sector.”

I press my lips together.

“Silent, eh? We’ll learn everything you’re trying to hide when we speak to your Clan Master.”

“At least she’s not covered in blood,” the big guard sniffs. “Not a speck.”

“She’s a lesser, barely more than a fledgling. She shouldn’t be out alone,” the second adds. He grips my arms, lifts, and I dangle as he marches with me to a van markedBorder Patrol. He opens the back door and bundles me in. No rights are read; clearly, procedures differ here.

I sit, frozen with humiliation, while we drive for about five minutes. When the door finally opens, we are in a brightly lit underground car park. The same guard helps me out and carries me toward a set of steel doors.

Inside is a station much like those in human police dramas—fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, walls painted an uninspired grey, and plastic chairs bolted in neat rows. The air carries a faint tang of bleach and something metallic—old blood, perhaps, or magic.

A single austere desk spans the far wall, and the vampire manning it studies me over a monitor.

I force a half-smile, though I’m terrified. I need to get out of here before I turn human.

The snaring spell dissolves. Another guard seizes my wrist, slamming it onto the counter to expose the underside. “Is this a joke?” he snarls.

“She’s not marked.”