Shades of Scarlet

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The vampires own an apartment at the Upper East side of New York. It is definitely an upgrade from that shady mansion we were staying in before, with a chandelier in the middle the dining room and polished marble flooring. It is smaller, but I prefer it that way—safe and cozy.

Not that being cozy with these four guys is a good thing.

“So this is the plan?” Linda says, “we stay holed up here until god knows when?”

Darien walks up to the windows and draws the curtains. The sun is about to rise. “Until we have to move again.”

“The rogues are starting to become restless, Darien,” the blonde guy says. I don’t know whether he is Cedric or Andrew. “We can cover her scent here but they’ll start to notice soon enough.”

“Then we move,” Darien responds.

His companions don’t appear pleased by his answer. They scowl.

Linda points at me. “Why can’t we just turn her into one of us? Problem solved.” A lump gets stuck in my throat when she suggests her idea.

Darien draws back his lips and for the first time I see his fangs. He snarls at her. “No.” His voice is much lower than just a few moments ago.

“Okay, fine. Chill.” Linda steps back and raises both her hands.

He switches back to his human-like self almost immediately. “I’ll need you to get stocks for all of us. The boring stuff, clothes, soap, food for Juliette--”

“What about blood? Can we feed now?” the brown-haired man says. Feed? What do they mean feed? My imagination is a scary creature. It prompts me to visualize the four of them in the same form as my attacker--what are the last things their victims see before they die?

Darien’s eyes shift to me. “Juliette, go into one of the rooms.”

I’m not going to let him order me around as if I’m a child. If have to stay with these people, I must at least know what they’re capable of and what they truly are. “I don’t want to.”

He frowns, confused. “I don’t want you to listen to this.”

“You have no choice.”

I catch an almost unnoticeable smile curving at the corner of his mouth. It is barely a twitch. “I warned you,” he says, and then redirects his attention to his companions. “As for the blood, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get some from blood banks.” I half expected Darien to take my by the arm and drag me to one of the rooms. I sit still on the couch, not sure whether I’m more surprised by the fact that vampires are discussing about their blood supply right in front of me, or that Darien allowed me to listen to them.

“We need to drink from the vein. If we hold back long enough we’ll crave blood more and then we might attack,” the brown-haired male says, eyeing me when he voices ‘attack’. I suddenly feel like a prey being watched by her predator.

Darien looks at me and sighs. “I understand, Cedric. Once a week. All of you are allowed to feed once a week, but you must control yourself and try not to kill the humans.”

Cedric still isn’t satisfied by Darien’s decree. “The real question is why we can’t feed properly anyway. You never complained about it until we saw Carmen get taken away.”

My heart sinks when he mentions Carmen. It is easier to distract myself from her disappearance with all the events going on, but sometimes I do think about her and it stings.