Page 25 of Cruelly Bitten

“There are more important skills for her to master right now,” Ryder had said. “Like how to fire a gun.”

“I know how to fire a gun,” I’d told him.

“We’ll see,” he’d tossed back.

Which, of course, had led to an evening lesson where I’d proved to him that I knew how to handle a firearm. My aim and precision were no match for his own, but very few were as skilled with weapons as Ryder was.

Still, he’d been impressed enough to allow Damien to continue his “new-age training”—a phrase Ryder had coined in reference to the changing times.

Both of them had done their best to distract me in the months that had followed Cam’s disappearance and my notorious “death.”

Alas, eventually it had become necessary for them to retire to their own areas—far away from me—to protect my location in Majestic Clan.

I’d used a lot of what Damien had taught me to maintain minimal contact with my twin via secret channels, but only sparingly. It’d been too big a risk to talk often.

Still, he’d managed to keep me mostly up to date on the changes throughout the new era of technology. I was nowhere near as knowledgeable as he was, but I knew my way around enough—as evidenced by the screen booting to life before me in admin mode.

I glanced at the doorway again, wondering why Fake Cam hadn’t tried to come in and stop me yet.Maybe his hearing isn’t as good as other vampires’,I thought, shrugging.

Or, like all the others, he didn’t realize what I could do.

Well, you’re about to…I trailed off, my brow pulling down as I tried to access the network.What…?

I leaned forward to better read the details of the error.

No connectionwas essentially what it said.

Did someone leave this here to trick me?I wondered, opening up the control panel to dive into the computer host details. I skimmed through all the operating system jargon, my frown deepening along the way.

Some sort of simulation had been set up on this laptop, one that seemed to be controlled by another console.

I followed the path, typing in command codes in the script to dig deeper into the mainframe, searching for the source.

Only to stumble upon what appeared to be a data dump.No, a server, I corrected myself.A server network. Except it’s all internal and?—

“Oh…” I breathed as an array of screens appeared. It seemed to be a series of live feeds.

And one of them was of me.

On the bed.

In Cam look-alike’s shirt.

With the laptop on my lap.

Shit.

I followed the line of sight to the corner and noted the strange texture in the ceiling. It was uneven everywhere in the room, suggesting we were underground.

Interesting that it wasn’t smooth like the closet-like space I’d woken up in. But apparently this had all been intentional. To what end, I wasn’t sure.

“So you actually put me in a glorified prison and just used the initial bed as a staging area. How inventive,” I told the camera.

No sound came through the computer.

I increased the volume and repeated my statement.

Nothing.