Page 12 of Sergi (Of Blood & Dreams #7)
Chapter Eleven
I fell back as the male bruiser shoved his way out the door, glaring at me as if I were the one who’d interrupted his torture session. The eerie yellow glow in his eyes made his scowl all the more menacing. The interrogation must not be going well, and while that piqued my interest, I was more curious about the special project.
I couldn’t see him helping in the labs. He appeared to be nothing more than a bruiser with no finesse when it came to interrogation. Not that I was an expert, but I’d seen my uncle use masterful techniques that delved into a prisoner’s psyche, which provided faster results and typically less mess than torture.
The guard strode into the room, and I pushed the hulking vampire from my thoughts. I picked up a bucket of water and rags but stopped when I stepped through the doorway. The guard squatted in front of a cooler I hadn’t noticed before. They must have brought it this morning.
I stepped closer, my eyes glued to the cooler as the guard opened it. Several vials of blood lay in soft padding. He selected two and, in no particular hurry, strolled to the vampire. He stuffed one vial in his shirt pocket and popped the top off the other. Lifting the prisoner’s head by his hair, the guard poured the blood into his mouth, and the vampire drank what had to be nothing but a morsel to him. His tongue darted out to capture every drop. The motion was repeated with the second vial.
The prisoner had been eager, not caring what the guard thought of him. The meager amount of blood couldn’t possibly sustain him, but it might heal his wounds. I shuddered. All it did was give the bruiser a new canvas of skin to carve into.
Once the empty vials were dropped into the cooler, the guard turned to me.
“You’ll need to clean the prisoner and the room. Be quick about it. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to take you back to the lab.”
They wanted me to clean the prisoner? I gulped and glanced down at the bucket, the rags clenched in my fists, and a light sheen of sweat glistened on my arms. I straightened as my wolf paced. He was pinned to the wall like a moth in a display case. I could do this.
There wasn’t much blood on the floor, and I quickly cleaned it so I wouldn’t stomp around in it. Once that was completed, and I’d emptied the trash and replaced the mug of water, barely ten minutes had passed.
The cooler sat next to the trash can. I glanced at the open door and listened. All quiet. Unable to stop my curiosity, I squatted and opened the cooler. It was empty except for a six-pack of vials, and after today, two were empty. I picked up one of the used ones. The label identified it as H-12 followed by a date. The blood was three days old, if I trusted the calendar in the guards’ breakroom.
Did the H mean human? It made sense. Vampires could drink shifter blood, but they got little for the effort—a brief spark of energy but no usable nutrients. Several humans worked in the lab area and probably other areas as well. Were these vials from the staff, or did they bring it in from someplace else?
I’d procrastinated long enough. Best to get it done. I replaced the vial and shut the lid. The bucket had already been emptied, so I added water and grabbed a clean rag.
I shuffled to within a foot of the prisoner. His head hung motionless. I dipped the rag, and my first thought was to just quickly rub the dried blood off. Until I lifted the rag, eager to be finished, and pressed it to his shoulder.
I couldn’t do it.
The first time I’d been cut, it left an indelible mark. With three deep cuts that, even after a couple shifts, required several sutures, and a throbbing pain that lasted for days, it was a memory that never left, never got old. These wounds were fresh, raw, and sensitive.
I couldn’t make him feel worse.
I didn’t know this vampire. Why should I care?
But I did. And I couldn’t explain why.
I held the rag over the cut until the crusty, dried blood softened, then I gently brushed it away. A few of the wounds began to bleed, and I applied extra pressure, waiting for his vampiric blood to close it. I worked until all the wounds were clean. His body was still marred with blood, and, moving gingerly around the wounds, I washed off the last remnants.
His skin was warmer than I expected, and though I kept watch for any eye movement, I tensed in anticipation of him waking. When a couple minutes passed, and he still slept, I traced a finger over the dark tattoos. They were a mass of swirling lines and unknown symbols that made me think tribal, though which culture, I didn’t know. Perhaps they were from some ancient vampiric language. Tattoos were rare on vampires because of their ability to quickly heal, and I was curious how these had remained. It must have been a painful process.
I was so focused on one particular symbol as I repeatedly traced the lines that I stopped paying attention to the vampire. A muscle flexed under my hand, and my gaze flashed to his eyes.
Warm, chestnut-colored eyes stared back at me. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t read them. They weren’t blank, angry, fearful, or pained. And they should be pained.
“Thank you.” His voice was gruff from disuse. If he never spoke to the interrogator, there wasn’t anyone else for him to talk to, and he’d been in this cell for days.
I opened my mouth to respond but wasn’t sure how to. I couldn’t tear myself away from eyes that held me.
The sound of boots on stone snapped me out of the moment. I nodded and then dropped to the floor to clean the last specks of bloody water off the floor. I was lugging the bucket back to the cart when the guard entered the room.
He glanced around, striding by the table, and then to the prisoner. When turned to me, he grunted.
I supposed that meant he couldn’t find anything to complain about.
“Dump the bucket and let’s go. You won’t be getting lunch today since you’re late, and the lab’s team leader is waiting for you.”
When he turned to glance back at the prisoner, I did the same thing, but the vampire’s head hung limply. For some reason, I didn’t think he was asleep, and instead, was listening to every word.
When I entered Lab Two where I’d witnessed the shifter experiments, I stopped. All the cabinet doors and drawers were open. S-272 was pulling out equipment, beakers, jars of who knew what, and racks of vials, some filled with various colored liquids, most of them empty. They were sorted into various groups on the countertops.
A female lab assistant rushed over and grabbed my arm like I was a toddler, dragging me to the commercial-sized refrigerator.
“I was expecting you an hour ago.”
Honestly, if they were going to continue assigning me to multiple jobs, they needed better coordination with scheduling. I didn’t bother responding because she would either ignore me or slap me, which wouldn’t have been the first time, and I wasn’t in the mood for either.
For some reason, all I could focus on was the whispered “thank you” from the vampire. After days of torture and limited feedings, I hadn’t expected his skin to be so warm.
“Are you listening to me?”
I glanced up at the female, taking a long whiff and determining she was human. Her throat was so enticing, and my wolf urged me to take a bite. I sighed. I’d have to shift for that delicious snack, then shift back to clean up the blood just before they put a bullet in my head or stuck me in one of their silver cages so they could shoot their experimental serums in me.
It was all I could do to hold in my hysteric laughter. Then S-272 was next to me, and he nodded at the assistant.
“She understands the task.” He held his head down as he always did. His voice wasn’t patronizing but calm and even.
The female stared at S-272, and her lips formed words, but she paused. She glared at me as she nodded. “See that she does, or you’ll be the one punished for her sloppiness.”
The female stormed out, and it wasn’t until then I realized my body was shaking.
“Are you alright?” S-272 kept his head down as he spoke to me. He was always aware of the cameras.
I blew out a breath. “Yeah. It’s been a rough morning.” I followed him as he opened the refrigerator doors that had been left unlocked. “What’s going on?”
“They’re restarting the experiments soon. They want everything cleaned from top to bottom, including all the equipment.”
His words slammed into me like a rollercoaster on its downward trajectory. More experimenting on shifters, killing them without a second thought.
“The vials are labeled with colored dots. Anything with a yellow dot is to be removed and tossed in the red container for hazardous waste removal. Everything else is to be wiped down and pushed toward the back to wait for new vials.”
He turned toward me when I didn’t respond. All I could do was stare at the contents of the refrigeration unit. Dozens of vials. Most appeared to be blood, but others were filled with a variety of colored liquids, similar to those stored in the cabinets, though they must be different if some had to be refrigerated. They were all labeled.
“S-473. Do you understand?”
“My name is Alexandra. Alex. And I understand.”
I stepped forward and took out the first rack of vials. Each rack held ten vials, and these were filled with a thick, purple substance. The labels were marked with a blue dot. I set them on the counter to the right of the fridge and picked up the next one. This one held vials of light green with a yellow dot. I placed them on the counter to the left.
My motions were slow and methodical. And at first, I didn’t hear S-272.
“S-473, are you alright?”
I think I nodded, but wasn’t sure.
“Alex, are you alright?”
I stopped, a rack of dark-orange vials with green dots still in my hands. I glanced over at S-272 with my head lowered like his. “I’ll be okay.”
He pulled out a rack as if he was instructing me on the task. “You don’t look okay. Why were you late?”
I set the rack on the counter to the right and pulled out a rack of blood. I took a moment to check the label. It was marked H-9 with a date and a yellow dot. The date was five days ago.
I set it on the counter to the left. “Did you know they have a vampire prisoner on level three?”
I’d never shared that information with him, but it was possible he might have overheard it from someone else. The assistants tended to talk freely as if we weren’t there. We were nothing to them after all, except a future experiment test case.
“Are you sure?” He sounded surprised.
“I clean his cell every day, and they torture him. They have him strapped to the wall so he can’t move.” My hands shook as I retrieved another rack of blood labeled the same as the previous one. “They made me wash the blood off him today.”
“Is he one of the guards?”
“I don’t think so. It sounds like they captured him outside the building. Another vampire is interrogating him, and he keeps asking who sent him. The prisoner won’t speak. He won’t even give them a name.”
But he had spoken. To me. A shifter. He had to know I was a shifter. Not that he’d said anything of value. At least, nothing that would have been important to the interrogator. But somehow, it had meant something to me. A vampire had thanked a shifter.
I shook my head to dispel the memory. He was probably hoping I’d feel sorry for him and do something foolish like try to help him.
“Are you sure he came from outside the building?”
I gave a light shrug as I pulled out another rack of orange vials with green dots. “That’s what it sounded like. Why?”
“I need to go back to the cabinets. You seem to understand the task.”
I understood. He didn’t want anyone who might be watching the monitors to think we were together longer than we should be.
Only taking a moment to stretch, I glanced up at the cameras. I knew where they were, but I wanted to confirm their position in relation to where I stood and the location of the red hazardous waste tub. The tall container was only a couple feet away and in clear view of the cameras.
After removing all the vials from the fridge, I stepped back. There were twenty-one racks of vials with yellow dots. I grabbed two rags, doubled them up, and cleaned out the shelves in the fridge, mentally reviewing the crazy thoughts pressing on me.
Of the twenty-one racks of vials, twelve of them appeared to contain human blood, if my interpretation of the labels was accurate. If memory served, human blood lasted a few weeks when refrigerated. I wasn’t sure how long it was viable if not stored in a cool environment.
Once the shelves were clean, I laid the rags next to the racks of vials requiring disposal while I put the others back in the fridge, ensuring they were on the correct shelves and pushed to the back as requested.
Then I turned to the vials to be tossed, keeping my back to the camera.
I closed my eyes. This was crazy. It was a huge risk, and the penalty would most likely be lethal.
My uncle might question the actions I was about to take, but I had to know why the vampire was being held prisoner. The hopeful eyes of the shifters chained in their cells haunted me. If the vampire had been caught outside the building, he’d been there for a reason. The lab was too remote for it to have been a hiker who got lost—certainly not a vampire hiker. Then why had he been out there?
I kept my back to the camera as I separated the two rags, leaving each one open on the counter. The first step was to follow the order I’d been given. I removed four of the colored vials from their rack and made a show of dumping them in the waste container. I repeated the action a few more times until half the racks were empty.
The next step was easy enough. I removed nine vials labeled H-9 and placed them on one of the rags. I rolled up the rag, folding it so the vials were wrapped tightly together to prevent breaking, then tucked in the ends.
Another deep breath. This wasn’t crazy. This was insane.
I grabbed a few vials and made three short trips to the waste container until all the racks were empty. Without a glance at the camera, though I seriously wanted to take a peek, I dragged the container toward the counter and to my left. I turned to the right and stuffed the empty rag in the pocket of the lab coat while I stuffed the package of vials in the left. The container should have blocked the camera’s view of my left side, but it was a risk.
There was one blind spot S-272 had pointed out to me the second day we worked together. It was in the same place in both of the larger labs where the experiments took place. I picked up the container, holding it tight against me, and moved toward the hazardous waste receptacles on the other side of the lab.
I slowed as I reached the blind spot, and taking two more steps, I stopped and dropped the container, allowing it to tip on its side. This time I did look for the cameras, and I couldn’t see either one. I pulled the vials out of my pocket and pulled up my shift, stuffing the package under the waistband of my underwear. I gave the box a slight kick, then stumbled into view of the cameras as I picked up the container. It seemed dramatic, but I hoped if anyone had been watching, all they saw was me stumbling over my feet and dropping the waste bin.
Shaking off the nerves, I shoved the container in the receptacle and returned to the area where S-272 worked. If he’d noticed anything, he didn’t mention it. For the next two hours, I moved slowly, occasionally rubbing up against a counter to push the package back in place and managing to complete my tasks within the allotted timeframe. I was cleaning off the last counter when the assistant came in.
“S-473. Come here.”
I jumped, startled. Had they already discovered my theft? My hands shook, and I slowed my breaths in a vain attempt to calm my nerves.
“Now, girl.”
With my hands in my pockets, hoping the package would stay where I put it, I shuffled toward the female.
“I spoke with your morning guard. I didn’t realize they’d assigned you additional tasks without informing us. It’s obvious you’re a bit slower this afternoon, though you did manage to get your tasks completed. However, this won’t do for our new schedules.
“Starting tomorrow, you will no longer be cleaning the guard’s room, though you will be required to clean the cells. That should give you a half hour to eat.” She glanced over at S-272.
“S-272. You will both be working in Lab One tomorrow. The same routine.” She turned and spoke to the two guards who’d stepped up behind her. “Return them to their cells. They can eat there this evening.”
I tossed my lab coat in the bin outside the lab and followed the guard, consciously aware of the package slipping toward my left leg. I scratched while pushing it up, taking the longest walk of my life down the stairs and to my cell.
When the guard opened the door to my cell, he grabbed my arm.
I didn’t move.
“Are you feeling ill? Do you need a healer?”
His question wasn’t out of concern for me. The entire facility was in constant fear of illnesses and contagions from the filthy shifters.
“I’m just tired.” I glanced up at him. Whatever he saw in my expression seemed to put him at ease, and he let me go.
When the door closed and locked behind me, I dropped to the floor and sucked in a huge breath. What the hell was I planning on doing with nine vials of human blood?
The deeper question was one I wasn’t ready to analyze.
Yet it wouldn’t go away. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there.
The vampire’s warm gaze, and his rough words of thanks weren’t enough to put my neck on the line. Yet, I couldn’t come up with a viable reason why he’d been outside the facility, if that was truly where they’d captured him. And I refused to get my hopes up. He had to stay alive long enough to tell me.
Though what made me think a vampire, who’d been strapped to a wall and had little chance of escape, could be of benefit to the shifters, I had no idea. Rather than continue to ponder something I couldn’t answer with the limited information I had, I allowed my wolf to take over and trusted she would protect me for one night.