Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 27

After a thirty-minute ride, they arrived at a group of warehouses that were surrounded by empty lots. They looked much bigger than anything Cecilia had ever seen, and she wasn't sure what to expect.

As she was harshly pushed out of the car and towards a warehouse, she couldn't stop her mind from spinning in a crazy mess of emotions and thoughts. She worried about Tobias more than she thought possible, but at the same time, she wanted to murder Stanton, no matter the consequences.

Once she was pushed inside the warehouse, she was blinded by the whiteness of the whole thing. It had the white marble-like floor and white walls that were so high that it was a challenge for her to judge the dimensions of the room accurately.

There were different sized beams on the ceiling and a vast number of light bulbs that made the space even brighter and more difficult to look at, even with vampire senses.

Space was much bigger than any other warehouses and it was empty of things. There were only humans and vampires in the otherwise empty warehouse.

The group of vampires was surrounding something or someone, and they seemed completely focused on the task at hand, so she didn't worry about them too much.

On the opposite end of the enormous warehouse, there was a large group of humans huddled together in fear.

In the very middle of the room, there were five bodies piled on top of each other blood leaking from them, making a striking contrast with the perfectly white floor.

Some parts of the walls were splashed with fresh blood as the humans tried to escape and were killed. After that, their bodies were dragged to the middle of the warehouse to scare the other humans into obedience.

There was a bloody hand pattern that suggested one of the murdered slid down the wall before he was killed. That one handprint made Cecilia feel sick to her core. It was just a sensation, she wasn't capable of physically being sick.

The vampires were just playing with their food, enjoying the thrill of the chase. The warehouse was big enough for that.

Some humans were silently sobbing, while others tried to hold themselves together. Their screams of terror stopped after they had been warned that it would only hasten their slow and painful death.

The air was permeated with the smell of blood and terror, and it made Cecilia's canines come out without her permission. The aroma was the one irresistible for vampires, but she did her best to stop herself from being overcome by her needs.

Then she felt a different, familiar scent in the air, and she did her best to focus on that calming scent, it was Tobias.

Finally, the vampires that were surrounding him moved aside, and she could see Tobias. He was tied up and beaten up, but she couldn't understand how it was possible to do something like that to a vampire.

Only then did she notices that some other vampires were wearing gloves. It was obvious that the rope he was tied with was soaked in holy water.

"What is happening here? What are you doing to him?" She yelled at Stanton.

Before he had the chance to answer, Tobias raised his head, for the first time noticing her presence. It was clear that even his keen senses were dulled by what they did to him.

Once he raised his eyes, their eyes met across the room, and she could see pain and sorrow in them, but not from the torture. It was much deeper than that.

"You shouldn't have come." He said in a barely audible voice.

"What do you mean? I had to come. It's you. I couldn't just leave you to die." She said.

"You should have." He said as a bloody tear escaped him, and rolled down his bruised cheek.

She could understand that he wanted to protect her, that was what friends did, but she couldn't fully comprehend what about her presence made him so sad.

She didn't have a lot of time to think about it since Stanton pushed her towards the trembling humans. Focused as she was on Tobias, she didn't understand what Stanton wanted from her.

"Come on let's get started! Lunch is served!" Stanton said.

The humans started whimpering even louder, faced with two vampires with eyes that spoke of hunger, death, and despair.

"What are you talking about?" She said, confused.

"You sure are slow. I didn't expect that. Remember what I told you? For you to be able to help Tobias get out of this in one piece, you will have to become me, well more like me." He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You want me to..." She tried to say the words but lost her voice in the middle of the sentence.

"Yes, I want you to drain all these humans. To feed on them, until there is no life left in them. I want you to do it most viciously and painfully possible, and I want you to enjoy it." Stanton said with a sick smile on his pale face.

"I can't do that. No way!" Cecilia said.

"If you don't, you are sentencing Tobias over there to die." He said, his voice calm and patient.

"Don't do it! I am not worth it! "Tobias managed to scream out before the other vampires gagged him.

All the vampires were enjoying the show. The dread of the humans, the pain of the two strange vampires, it made such a delicious mix that they couldn't wait for their feeding time to come.

While she was standing there, trying desperately to find a way out, to save everyone, Stanton approached the group of huddled humans. He grabbed a young woman who seemed frozen with fear and pulled her out of the crowd.

At that moment she seemed to snap out of her stupor, and she started screaming for help desperately trying to get out of Stanton's firm grip. It was a futile struggle that only made the vampires hungrier, but the poor girl didn't know that.

Instead of biting the girl as Cecilia expected, Stanton pulled out a knife and slowly but precisely, cut into the girl's skin just enough for the shallow cut to bleed profusely.

"Here, I picked a perfect one for you. Just the right amount of fear and spice with a dash of horror. Wouldn't you love to try that delicious combination?" He said slowly, in an enticing voice.

Only a second later, Cecilia was next to him grabbing the girl out of his hands and out of his reach. Next thing she knew, she was viciously biting into the girl's soft fear-infused neck.

The scent of fresh, live blood was too much for any newborn vampire to resist, and Stanton was well aware of that. Even some older vampires struggled not to tear into the human, once first blood was spilled. He remembered that one of his lovers could never resist it, she was insatiable.

Stanton felt smug because he would be able to rub in the fact that he didn't force Cecilia to kill, that she did it willingly. Of course, he wasn't planning to mention that he helped sway her choice in the murderous direction. That was the best part of it all for him, the fact that she would believe she did it of her own free volition.

Tobias started struggling against the ropes although the holy water infused ropes burned his skin and pain was more than anyone could have handled. Still, he kept struggling.

He wanted to protect her, the way he failed to protect his loved one, the purpose of his human life. Once again, he has failed. There was far too much holy water on the ropes, he couldn't break free. They made sure of that.

The girl's screams of agony filled the room and all the vampires except one enjoyed the sound, it was like music to their immortal ears.

Tobias couldn't free himself, but his mouth was finally free since other vampires were too preoccupied with the scent of fresh blood to care about him, so he did the only thing that he could think of doing.

"Stop Cecilia! Don't do this! Remember who you are! What you went through trying to protect humans from people like us! Please, my love, stop." He screamed out not realizing what he said.