Burning Souls (F.T Sequel)

Twenty-Eight

Julia's POV

I'm falling lower and lower into a dark pit. The ground is coming closer, closer, closer...

I groan when my neck cracks. My eyes snap open and I rest the back of my head against the humid, concrete wall. It was just a dream. To be honest, I'd rather be falling into an endless, black hole than being stuck in this place for another day.

"They'll find you," my inner voice reminds me, but I can't even make my own thoughts sound reassuring. If Emma could just do that head-link-thing that she did with Hunter than maybe I could tell her that I'm stuck here, that Dominic-

The prison-cell, iron gate swings open and a black man steps in, followed by a white woman. I stare at the woman for much too long for my own good, because she abruptly comes to a stop in front of me and slaps me harshly across the face. My head cracks to the side and my cheek throbs with pain. I grit my teeth and spit at her feet, urging my hunter blood's disgust for these creatures to surface. "Nice scar you've got there," I say calmly, nodding at the ugly line marring her otherwise beautiful, young face. The man snarls and moves towards me, but the woman stops him. She whispers something in his ear and he nods curtly, before turning around and walking back out of the cell. Three bare, concrete walls are my only landscape, with the single iron gate cutting off any possible escape plans. My hands and feet are cuffed and chained to a heavy, iron bolt in the wall, and if those bands were taken off right now, I'm sure that I would see four, deep, red gashes around each wrist and ankle. "You're lucky that Dominic and Gabriel have decided to spare you, hunter," she hisses, tugging at one of the chains so that my leg jerks painfully forwards. I narrow my eyes at her, feeling utter disgust and anger from hearing those two names in the same sentence. If only I could warn the others about Dominic-

"But don't get too excited," she continues, completely ignoring my expression that clearly states that I don't give two shits about what she has to say. "You'll end up dead when this is all over anyway." A chill freezes me all over. Watching as my expression morphs from cocky to actually fearful. She laughs cruelly before exiting the tiny cell, slamming the iron gate loudly behind her.

I know that I'm going to die somehow in this messed up world, but did I ever really foresee it happening so soon?

Dominic.

Bile threatens to rise in my throat but I force it down. And the most sickening part is that it isn't even caused by him. It's caused by myself. I allowed myself to go against my own nature and actually harbour blooming feelings for a vampire. And an Elder vampire at that. Talk about a sugar daddy.

Even though Dominic is superficially in his twenties and so, so handsome-

Quit it.

I try the chains again out of habit but they don't give out at all. I sigh and rest my head against the mouldy, cell wall. I'm underground, which probably means that when the Elites knocked me out, they took me directly to the base. And Dominic didn't do anything to stop them.

I'm a hypocrite.

Knowing that affiliating myself with vampires could mean my death, I still curse them now for ending up here. And what's worse, I consider most of them my friends. I'm closer to Emma than to any other hunter, even though I hate all others that aren't a part of the group. So it's true: I'm a hypocrite. The loud banging of the iron gate clashing with the bars of the cell reverberates off the walls and breaks me from my mental chastising. Cue the dramatic entrance of a very satisfied-looking Gabriel. Dressed in a sharp, emerald suit that brings out the cruelty in his green eyes and as clean-shaven as ever, he casually wipes a silk handkerchief over his hands, as if a centuries old Elder vampire can't stand the idea of touching the germs on that pitiful iron.