Black Blood

We were all settled into a decent-sized room after the 'lovely tour'. We were unbound, and gags removed. The other three were sat in the center of the room, chatting quietly. I sat with my knees pulled up to my chest on one of the beds.

I wanted it all to be a nightmare. I wanted to close my eyes tightly, and be back home once they were opened again. But I had already done that several times with no success.

Instead of unfulfilled wishes my thoughts circled around what I had imagined earlier. I thought I had seen... fangs. But that wasn't possible. The people who had abducted us were just crazy, possibly cannibals. Or maybe they really thought they were vampires- there were stores out their that sold decent-looking fangs for such things.

"What's your name?" one of the other girls called then, breaking my circling thoughts. I turned to look at her. She was blonde, with mud-coloured eyes. She had said her name was Alice earlier. The name amused me because of her hair colour.

"Chloe," I said, shaking my head and licking my lips. I almost didn't answer. It might have been better to not get attached in any way.

"What do you think is going on here?" Delaney, another blonde, whispered. Her eyes were red from crying, and there were streaks from tears in the dirt on her face. "Why did they pick us?"

They all began whispering to each other again, much louder this time. IT was then I decided that my... companions weren't as rational as I could have hoped. Escaping with those three would be impossible. They were growing more and more panicked by the second.

"Enough!" I said, and they all stopped and looked at me.

I sighed and straightened my legs and posture out, allowing my legs to hang off the edge of the bed. I had all eyes on me. How would I word it in a way that they could understand, without insulting whatever intelligence they did have?

"None of this- this panicking- is going to do us any good," I said. I let my feet touch the ground and placed my palms against the mattress, leaning forward. "If we are to somehow make it out of here alive, we have to remain calm."

"How can we remain calm?" Charlotte, a brunette, asked.

"Yeah? And you heard those guys," Alice added. "If we try to escape it won't end well for us."

"They're going to kill us anyway, with what they've said," I pointed out. "They brought us here as food- or have you forgotten that?"

"She's right, they're going to eat us," Alice cried. The annoying, loud and panicked whispering started again.

I felt alone in a world full of idiots and crazy people. I groaned and pulled my knees back up to my chest, placing my heels on the edge of the mattress. How was I going to break through to them? More than likely I would have to go it alone in escaping. They would probably end up slowing me down anyway, or getting me caught right off the bat.

There was a loud knock at the door. The girls fell silent again and all heads turned to see who was there.

"Lights out, girls," Anthony said. He no longer held his shotgun. A brief thought to kick him in his bits and run crossed my mind. "No more chit chat. We want you up bright and early tomorrow."

He almost turned to leave, and then paused. He lifted a finger up and pointed.

"You, redhead," he said. If I could have folded in on myself and faded from existence then, I would have. "You come with me real quick. Master Ethan would like to meet you."

I stared at him for a moment. He waited patiently at first, and then shifted in annoyance.

"Come. Now," he demanded again.

I shook myself of my stupor and slid off the bed. I looked at the faces of the other girls as I passed them. Each looked at me with expressions that read that they were glad they weren't me in that moment. Dread officially settled in my stomach.

I was the one that was 'picked out special' for this Ethan character after all. Would that mean that I would be first to die?

Anthony shut and bolted the door once I was outside, and then lifted a torch up off the wall. It offered a decent enough amount of light and I could see several feet ahead of us. He offered his arm out to me, and when I didn't take the hint he grew impatient.

"You're meant to place your hand in the bend of my elbow," Anthony said. I muttered an apology and did as he expected.

Most of the walk was quiet. Partly due to me being afraid of what would happen if I did decide to speak, and partly due to the fact that he didn't really seem in the mood for conversation anyway.

Eventually I had to ask.

"When we were told that we're going to be... food," I said. He glanced at me. I took that as a sign to continue. "What- what was meant by that? Are you guys going to chop us up, fry us up, and eat us like that? Or..."

Anthony chuckled low in his throat, and we stopped walking. He turned to look at me, holding the torch closer to his face. It was definitely no trick of the light when I watched his eyes turn from a bright grey to a deep red. Fangs slid down past his lower lip as he grinned.

"No, my dear," he said quietly. "It is not flesh that we eat."