Protected By Vampires

Chapter 17

    By the time we walked through the front doors of the building the fogginess in my brain had disappeared. I was also surprised to find that all the pain from the injuries that the police officer inflicted was also gone. In fact, I don’t think I have ever felt better. 

    Sam put his hand on the small of my back and guided me through the doors, which opened into a long hallway, closed doors breaking up the floral wallpaper every 20 steps or so. Vince followed us silently, but I could feel his eyes on me the whole way. At the end of the very long hall Sam stopped and pulled his keys out of his pocket.

    This door opened to a staircase that appeared to spiral down. The walls were no longer covered by wallpaper, but were bricks instead. It wasn’t well lit, and it looked like what I had always imagined a staircase in a dungeon to be like. I almost expected to see torches on the way down. 

    Following Sam we descended the twisting steps. I opened my mouth to ask how far down the stairs led when they finally ended and opened up into a small hall. There were three doors, one plain wooden door on the left and right, and directly in front of us was a larger door that seemed to be made of steel. It lacked a door handle, but it did have an access panel on the wall to the right.

    Sam hit a series of buttons then placed his hand on a scanner that appeared on the screen.  The door silently slid open revealing yet another hallway that seemed to go on forever. Just how big was this place anyway? 

    Finally after passing a dozen or so closed doors, the hallway ended in a room that looked like a library. The walls were lined with wooden shelves that held thousands of books. The room was decorated with several oversized dark green couches and matching chairs. I imagined myself curled up on one of the chairs, absorbed in one of the books off the shelves while sipping hot chocolate. I could almost feel the warmth in my stomach from my favorite drink. 

    I was so distracted by all the books I almost didn’t see the three people sitting around a table in the corner. Two men and one woman surrounded the table,  one man had his back to us but the other two were staring at us like we had just interrupted an important meeting. Sam and Vince were walking their way and I hurried to catch up as fast as my waddling would allow. 

“What is she doing here?” The woman asked, standing up. 

  I recognized her, she was the woman who was at Sam’s apartment, the one I had borrowed the lighter from.  The black dress she was wearing was skin tight and short, not leaving much to the imagination. I tried to remember what her name was, but my brain came up with nothing. From the look on her face I could tell that she wasn’t happy to see me. 

The man whose back had been turned to me stayed sitting but turned around. I wasn’t too surprised to see that it was Mark. He didn’t say anything, but he was also unhappy that I was there.

“She was attacked by one of Travis’s guard dogs. I brought her here because it’s time she knows what’s going on.” Sam answered.

 “She looks fine to me.” the woman said as her eyes swept over me.

“Sam gave her his blood. She wasn’t even conscious when we found her.” Vince said.

“What?!” I yelled at Sam. I thought the blood taste was from my own wounds. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would you make me drink your blood? Do you have some kind of sick fetish I should know about?” I suddenly felt sick.

“This is exactly why you should have waited until we all agreed she was ready, Sam. She’s clearly not ready.” Mark said.

“Ready for what? What are you talking about?” I was scared and my voice shook. I hated sounding weak in front of them.