• 𝓜𝓪𝓮 •

I shut the door to my cottage, eyeing the surrounding area carefully. Vampires were silent on their feet, and their ability to appear without a person seeing them coming was disconcerting to say the least. Especially when someone was trying to escape.

It hadn't even been twenty four hours since the kids died, but their bodies had been moved and the floors had been cleaned. It looked as if nothing happened. But my small cottage, which used to house six bodies, suddenly only housed one. And it was so quiet. It was never that quiet. There was always at least someone else there with me. Without them, all I could hear was the echoes of the screams of those sirens all those years ago.

A window opened in the house in front of mine, and an older lady poked her head out. She looked around too, waiting and listening for footsteps or the sound of fabric rustling.

I eyed her warily.

"You're leaving?" She asked it quietly.

I only stared at her. No good would come from telling someone what my plans were. Most of the people who lived in the city were just thankful to be alive.

"Kite will find you, you know," she warned. "You're his favorite. He always says so."

I tamped down the urge to panic. It wouldn't help me escape.

"He'll give up," I said.

She shook her head, then disappeared back into her house, closing and locking her window.

Kite would give up, in time. I was just another blood donor in a multitude of blood donors. I'd given him myself willingly, knowing that Zero was an acquaintance of his. My only stipulation was to make sure Zero left the kids alone.

A lot of good that did.

I turned and walked down the cobblestone pathway, keeping my head up and my eyes forward. Most, if not all, vampires were at the castle at this time of night. Once a month, they held a gathering. I didn't know what they did within those walls, because any human who entered the castle on that night never came back out.

The night air was cool against my skin, hinting at a rough winter ahead. I hadn't packed anything. If I was caught walking around, it would be easier to play it off and say I was just merely going for a walk, rather than them suspecting my escape. Though as I walked, I wished I would have brought at least a jacket to ward off some of the chill.

I couldn't let them find out what I was doing. If I didn't escape today, I'd have to wait another month before I could try again, and I couldn't bear to stay in that cottage anymore. Not with the abandoned toys from the children. Not with their memories lingering in the air.

After the night the vampires appeared, I had nightmares. Either it was about my foster mom's head exploding, the far-away look at the other foster boy's eyes, or the fucking sirens. I developed insomnia, but it was based on fear. After I had the kids in the house with me, the nightmares slowly trickled away by my need to care for them. Now that the kids were gone, I knew eventually those nightmares would come back in full force.

My plan was to get them out as well. Though it was difficult for them to see the vampires as anything other than gods, because that was what they had drilled into their minds. Vampires were their gods. They merely existed to supply blood and bring babies into the world once they became of age, so that those babies would continue supplying them blood.

When a man was brought over to "impregnate" me, I told him that I'd castrate him and feed his balls to the city's dogs if he so much as looked at me funny. He told the guard outside, who told Kite, who merely laughed.

Like Kite was my fucking keeper. I wasn't going to carry someone's child just to give it up to be yet another blood bag for those monsters. Absolutely not. I'd rather hang myself with a rope of thorns.

I cut between two cottages and began running. It was a light jog at first, then a full-on sprint as I neared the one area I knew was never monitored. I'd trained for this. Running. Fighting. Whenever someone asked why I was so keen on running, I told them I liked to keep myself fit. It kept my blood tasting good to the vampires, and in turn made them less likely to kill me. The only fighting I could do was some shit I made up in my head, but I knew with enough force, any move could take someone down if it caught them off guard.

I got to the wall and turned, looking behind me like I'd see vampires chasing after me. I saw nothing though. Nothing but the cottages with their lights turned out, and the castle in the distance. Their lights were on though. Their party would go on well into the night. I'd be long gone before they found me.

I slipped under the almost invisible opening in the wall surrounding our city. I had to get down and army crawl just to get under it.

When I stood, I stared out into lands I didn't recognize. It was too dark to make out anything properly, but all I could see was a giant open space of land before hulking trees erected a forest about a mile away.

I blew out a breath, taking my time. I'd gotten out of the city, making sure to keep as far from the castle as I possibly could, just in case someone thought to alert the guards.

The moment I took a step, the sirens began blaring.

Fear shot down my spine, hearing that screaming siren again. It froze me in my spot, forcing images of exploding heads and death into my head. To blood and gore and the fear that had come over me when I realized just what were taking us from our homes.

"Alert. Human detected leaving city limits. South district, west wing."

The sound of a monotonous female's voice echoed through the air over the sound of the sirens. It was the only thing that pushed me forward and made me break out into a sprint towards the trees.

"Maeve Armani, number six four seven two nine, south district, west wing."

Lights on the outside of the walls shot on, so bright it lit the night like it was day.

I was so fucking close to the trees.

"Alert. Human detected leaving city limits. Maeve Armani, number six four seven two nine, south district, west wing."

No. God, no. I didn't know there were alarms. How the hell did I not know there would be alarms? Had no one ever tried to escape the city in all those seven years?

Against my better judgement, I chanced a look over my shoulder. All I could see were those bright lights, and fuck if they were blinding.

I faced forward again, squinting to see. And I couldn't even allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief when I ran into the forest, because all I could hear was my name and number being called over the speakers to the entire city.

They'd send vampires to find me. I needed to push myself as hard and as fast as I possibly could if I planned to have any sort of chance to make it out of this shit show alive.