The Moon's Light

Chapter Two

I must have dozed off for a couple hours. Before I realized it, the sun was on it's way up. But the exhaustion had kept the nightmares away so I felt okay. I rolled out of bed and straightened up the covers after a moments hesitation. More to give myself something to do. Then I sat down on the edge and zoned for a bit.

Katty came in and insisted I have breakfast, probably since I had refused dinner. I resisted out of principle and was a little surprised when she left. Then I was leaping to my feet in panic when she came back with mush and a kitchen implement to force it down my throat.

I dodged her until she forced me to choose between leaving the room or being caught. I chose the door and gingerly went along as she guided me into a place at the table. I recognized the young woman already there. Katty's sister, I believed. Tabitha? The boy I hadn't seen before.

He introduced himself as Logan and tried to pull me into small talk. I was cold, despite realizing he wasn't a Vampire. I wasn't quite sure how he fit in here since he obviously wasn't around for blood. Katty treated him like her son. And then he said wolf.

A Werewolf child? Living with a Vampire?

He saw the surprise on my face and explained that he was an orphan and had been taken in by Katty. There had to be more to it than that. Wolves and Vampires hated each other. Maybe he was another hostage? Some political trade to keep the opposing species civil? Did Katty or one of her sisters have a child being held by the wolves?

It didn't concern me. Wasn't my problem. My only concern was to stay alive, and keep my friends alive. I choked down as much breakfast as I could stomach and then escaped back to the bedroom at the first opportunity.

I sat on the bed again and zoned. There wasn't much else to pass the time with. But I started to worry when I felt the sickly cold feeling of need. As I had learned, soon after my introduction to the Vampire world, the monsters had ways of binding their humans without a single chain. It was all in their bite.

In exchange for blood, they would give back something that warmed the body and dulled the head, forcing us into a sedated euphoria that took a while to wear off. The stuff was addictive, even if you had been fighting the drugging pull from the very beginning. Which I had.

But that meant that if we didn't get a bite on a regular basis, we would fall into withdrawal. It would start out with a hint of nausea. Then a shivering cold. Finally, the desire to go crawling to the nearest Vampire and beg them for a bite. I had stubbornly refused, preferring to stay locked in my room and suffer, but Katty had found out anyways.

And she had bitten me with little pain and plenty of care. Sort of. She had attempted to ask me what would make it easier. I couldn't give her a clear answer. It resulted in an odd mix of superiority and study that quickly switched to a simple bite. I supposed she figured that the way Sophia usually bit me did absolutely nothing for me, and thus, it was unneeded.

It was after the withdrawal. After Katty had bitten me, taken off the blindfold, and tucked me into bed to rest, that I realized escape would be impossible. I lay there, staring into space as all my hastily constructed possibilities fell to pieces.

It had seemed possible to begin with. Katty left me alone for the most part. There wasn't anything that could be used as a weapon in here, unless I wanted to brandish a toothbrush at her, but I could move just as silently as the Vampires if I wanted. After that, Katty had said all my friends were in the building. I just needed one or two helpful neighbors.

Then we could all get out of here. I didn't care where we went or what we did, but we were going to get away from the Vampires and live as normal humans.