In The Dark

Charlotte's hand smacked down on the empty space beside her. The undisturbed comforter was cold and empty-more like slate and less like satin-as she sat up and assessed the all-too-quiet room. Thick, velvet drapes to the windows that overlooked the town square had been left open, letting the soft starlight in, creating silver pools on the dusty floor. She sat up in the cold bed, realizing just how void the room was. She realized she was completely alone as she sat up, eyeing very possible corner of the bedroom, clutching the wool blanket under her chin. It was cold in the room. A chill must have crept in through a crack in the window, for she could see puffs of mist form in front of her nose with each nervous breath. Quickly, she reached for her nightdress and pulled it over her head. Vacancy hollowed out her ears as she toed over to the large, glassy pane. Peering to the outside, she found the streets just as empty as the bedroom felt.

This night seemed blacker than usual, the darkness overwhelming her human vision. The town square was motionless, with all of the business doors bolted tight. There was no movement in the street, as far she could tell. It was almost...scary. She never used to view nighttime like this. It used to be easy for her. Day was the thing that had been unfamiliar and scary.

Frowning, she turned on her heel to see a very tall, baleful shadow looming suddenly near the bed. Her heart leapt as a smile spread instantly across her face. She squinted through the thick shadows as she stepped once toward it.

"Valek?" She cocked her head and hugged her arms around herself. Her heart lurched in her chest when the shadow clucked at her, its large head shaking fluidly back and forth as it finally took one step into the light. That was when she realized the figure was not at all who she thought it was.

Charlotte stopped walking when Lusian's slanted, glacier eyes were the gaze that met hers. Immediately, in reaction to him being there, her scar at the left side of her neck began to throb under a dull ache, and she pressed her hand against it. Her throat felt drier than sand, and she struggled to get her next thought out. He must have come for a feeding.

"Th-thirsty?" She choked.

Lusian's cocky, overconfident grin flashed across his smug face again as he stepped steadily closer to her. She froze, eyeing him carefully, his body only inches before hers. The intensity of the way he looked at her forced her gaze to the floor.

A dark chuckle resonated from behind his clenched jaw. "Not really. Though you wish I were, don't you?" He stopped only inches before her and ran a silver claw from the hollow at the center of her collarbone down her middle, withdrawing just before he reached a dangerous place. It made Charlotte shiver. Her pulse in her throat stopped her airflow as her cheeks began to burn.

She frowned. Something wasn't right. "Where is Valek?"

Again, Lusian's only reply was a smug grin and a deep chortle that was so low, Charlotte questioned if she actually heard it at all.

"Won't you tell me?" She fought to say the words as sweetly as possible in spite of her tongue going dry-in spite of her addiction that grew steadily worse with each passing moment she looked the Vampire in the face. In spite of how afraid she was of him. She held her breath, struggling to overcome her mortal limitations and break through the walls into his mind. The scar smoldered under her hand. Where is Valek?

The Vampire reached to her and tucked a stray curl behind her left ear. Her stomach rolled, but not in the good way it did when Valek touched her. This was more a sick, guilty feeling. Lusian disgusted her far beyond anything before. Yet her need still lingered behind the apprehension, behind the hatred, behind the contempt. She was drawn to him, as she was to all the rest of them, perhaps because that was the predatory effect they had on all human beings-to lure them in. His sapphire eyes flashed inches away from her face and she could tell he was listening to her mind.

"Valek's gone," Lusian said simply and widened his stance. He crossed his thick arms across his chest, and though it was only very slight, Charlotte noticed his eyes harden as he said this.

Charlotte frowned. "Is he hunting?"

"No. He left with Sarah just minutes before you woke up."

There was an odd sort of finite feeling to the way Lusian said this. She could tell he was being truthful. What was he talking about? She pressed her lips together as she struggled to tear through her own mind. The recollection of the night before hit her abruptly. How Valek had betrayed her, the cathedral garden and, and their conversation back inside the house.

"He is not to return?" she asked as her heart hammered against her sternum, her pulse wild in her ears. Images from the night before flashed in half-second increments like flash bulbs bursting in her mind. He left. Panic lit up her nerve endings and the room tilted. Nearly choking on her shock, she needed to sit down. The salty water that gathered in her eyes stung the bridge of her nose. She wound her fingers into tight fists at her sides as she fought the nausea away.

Lusian shrugged and turned away from her, his gaze shifting about the room. "Don't know."

"He didn't tell you?"

"Nope. His thoughts were heavily guarded, too, so I suppose it wasn't something he wanted any of us to find out." He turned his glare back on her. "I guess that includes you as well."

"No," she said mostly to herself. "No, he promised he would come back."

"And I am certain he will keep his promise," Lusian said sarcastically, with a sugary, feigned kindness.

It was becoming harder to breathe now. How could he just leave? How could he leave without her? Something glinted in the silver moonlight at the corner of her eye. She shifted her gaze to the headboard, where she saw a mess of metal chains and manacles that had been fixed there with large, silvery bolts, hanging there, like they were waiting for her. The same bindings from Valek's office. The same ones he'd used to lock up that mortal woman for his bizarre experiment. It looked as if they had been torn from the gurney to be fastened there to the bed. Her heart plunged from her throat to her bowels as she looked back at Lusian's disgusting grin again. Something instinctive told her she needed to run.

Charlotte raced out of the bedroom, her bare footsteps thumping down the long, upstairs hallway. The morning light coming through the windows created a harsh, white glow that burned her eyes with the suddenness of it. She plummeted down the staircase and into the study where she found all of the familiar, bloodless faces that had become like fixtures in the house. Every familiar set of blue eyes, every extreme jaw line and set of claws and shiny incisors. All of them-except for one.

Dusana, Jorge, and Sasha gazed back at her from different areas of the room, though she didn't lock eyes long enough with any of them to register what kind of emotion was playing on their faces. The room started to spin with the heavy feeling of Valek's absence. Where had he gone, she asked herself again. She tore through her memory for a clue-an answer that he might have given her along the days leading up to this. The image of him and Sarah hurrying through the town square just the night before. The image of Valek's burning eyes as he'd watched her grapple with the pain just a few nights earlier. As he'd watched Lusian....

She spun to face the threshold where Lusian stood, his massive form blockading it. "You know something! He told you where he was going! I know he did!" she hollered. "Tell me!"

Lusian rolled his eyes. "No, stupid girl."

The rest of them remained silent.

Charlotte's gaze dashed about the room, searching for him again in a frenzied panic as though he might somehow magically appear. He didn't. Valek had to be coming back, she thought. He would never abandon her. Not in a million years. Not with these predators. Never.

She shoved past Lusian and ran around the stairs, through the kitchen, and into Valek's white, sterile office. Empty. Valek's papers were a mess around his desk-the way he'd left them before they had been captured by the Regime months ago. He'd never gone back to his work. Charlotte shuddered when she thought about what was left over in the freezer. The woman.

She looked to the massive burrowing hole in the floor, the one that led to Mr. Třinozka's home in the ground, only to find that the opening had been barred by a makeshift barricade. Various chunks of metal that looked to have been dismantled from parts of the house were mangled and bolted there by inhuman hands. Charlotte collapsed on the floor, gripping the twisted metal, and tried with all of her might to make it budge. "Mr. Třinozka!" she cried. She was in so much trouble. "Mr. Třinozka! Edwin! Can you hear me?"

A familiar face emerged from the dankness of the burrow. The battered appearance of her Spider friend was enough to suck all the air from her lungs. His aviator goggles had been smashed and dented in several places. She could see one massive black eye behind them. One of his arms was in a makeshift quilt sling and his skin carried a sickly sort of blue color.

"Run, Charlotte," he managed to choke out. His voice was garbled, as if his throat had been ravaged. "You are in severe danger...."

Charlotte flew backward from the hole and raced back the way she'd come through the house, tearing open the front door and bolting off the porch and down the walkway to the outside until a very large hand grasped her at the back of her dress.

"Let me go!" she screamed and thrashed.

"There is no use trying to find him, Charlotte." Lusian sighed, as though he had already become bored with the conversation. "Besides, I'm going to need you here with me."

"You've done something! I know you have! He would never just leave me here!" Charlotte screamed and lunged for him, pounding on his chest. "You've done something to him!"

All of a sudden, the ground disappeared from beneath her feet, and she found herself kicking around in mid-air. Lusian was holding her up from the back of her collar as she swung at him, though he easily dodged every punch.

"You're a monster! You've done something! Why would they just leave?"

"I've done nothing!" he yelled into her face.

Her arms went limp, and she was quiet. Silent tears streamed down her face and dripped off the angles of her jaw. She just glared up at him as he continued to hold her there as though she were some stray animal.

"Lusian, drop her!" Dusana ordered from the threshold of the front door.

Lusian snorted, one corner of his mouth twisting up in the most crooked of smiles. "Sure."

Charlotte could see the cogs turning in his head as he studied her for a minute.

Before Charlotte could blink, Lusian had swept her body up so that he was holding her in both of his arms. "There now," he crooned at her. "You're my little doll now."

"Lusian!" Dusana hollered again, but he was already racing up the stairway, though it was nothing but a dizzying brown blur to Charlotte.

In an inhuman second, Lusian made it through Valek's bedroom door. He tossed Charlotte from his arms, though she landed perfectly on the bed, bouncing against the mattress. She looked in the direction of the guttural, gnashing sound of two Vampires fighting. Her pulse pounded as Lusian struggled to lock Valek's doors. Dusana fought him tooth and nail.

"I won't let you do this to her! We made a promise to Valek!" Her claws dug into the wood as her fangs chomped only inches away from his face, animalistic growls emanating from both of them. Of course, Charlotte thought, Abelim. Valek and Sarah had gone to the Dark City to save her. Lusian grabbed at Dusana's chopped, black hair. Charlotte couldn't see Lusian's face, but Dusana's eyes were fierce and black. With a swipe of her claws, she managed to slash a giant wound across Lucian's perfect cheek. Three distinct lines dripped with fresh blood.

Finally, Lusian shoved his foot so hard into Dusana's center, and her body flew backward down the hallway before slamming with a sickening crunch into the wall near the stairs. Bits of ceiling and wood splinters sprayed down around her, and he succeeded in shutting the doors, locking them.

"Women," he grumbled sarcastically.

A bitter mix of bile and fear rose up in the back Charlotte's throat. Valek really was gone. He would never have left her alone and in this sort of danger. Her heart hammered in her ears, and she couldn't control her crying, though she tried her damnedest to fight the tears back, not wanting her vulnerability to show through. Her fists balled up in the material of her dress as she scowled at him as he neared her on the bed. The look in Lusian's thirsty eyes suggested that he was about to do something horrific to her-more horrific than just feeding. She had to fight-to get away so she could run. She had to find Valek, wherever he was.

Lusian swiftly leaned one knee up on the bed and grabbed a fistful of Charlotte's hair, yanking her downward to the mattress. A sharp cry tore from her as she shut her eyes. The low growl rumbled in the back of his throat.

"What's the matter, Lottie, love?" She could hear the grin behind his words, double-toned with thirst and savage instinct. "Finally afraid, are you? Finally afraid of the monsters? It took you long enough."

Lusian began to fasten her wrists tightly in the manacles and then her ankles, locking her flat to the bed. There was no escaping. He tucked the small ring of keys into his jeans pocket and chortled again.

Charlotte could only continue to glare at him, hoping her look alone would cause the monster before her to finally drop dead. She choked on the pain of both her scar and the shame she was experiencing, though she refused to cry any more. She would not show him her weakness. She would overcome this. Whatever his plans were for her, she would grow beyond them.

"What?" He cocked his head to the side, feigning concern. "Do you honestly think I would ever hurt you, my Lottie?"

Charlotte closed her eyes, not wanting the disgusting vision of him reflected in them. "Do not call me that." She wondered if the others, aside from Dusana, were in on Lusian's hostile little takeover. Now that Sarah and Francis and Valek were all gone, no one was left to save her but herself. She would suffer, but she would get out of this alive. After everything she had already gone through, dealing with this was going to be a piece of cake, she told herself. There was no other choice. She had to remain strong.

These thoughts of self-preservation must have distracted her, because suddenly she felt the Vampire's cool claws slide down the side of her leg, felt the skirt of her dress pulled up around her hips. Don't cry, she reminded herself, you cannot cry. Knowing he was privy to these thoughts in her mind, she struggled to quiet them as she glared at him again.

He hushed her quietly as he ran his other set of claws through her hair. Lusian bent so his face hovered directly over her ear.

"Little Lottie was afraid of the dark..." he murmured in a singing tone that sent a shiver up her spine. Wrapping his claws around both of her wrists, he pinned them to the headboard at either side of her head. The manacles nipped her. He ran his tongue from the base of her neck to the flesh just behind her earlobe and she felt the skin of her arms prick with sickening goose bumps.

Charlotte stiffened as one of his hands released hers in order to cradle her face. He opened his mouth and very carefully-almost lovingly-sank his fangs into the flesh of her throat. At first, the intense pain shot from the top of her head to her toes. She didn't cry out. Instead she clenched her jaw, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Her fingers wound into tight fists until the feeling turned into a sort of need and passion-a feeling that was mutual between herself and her parasite. Her scar sang for it. At first, the hard, pinching pressure, and then the feeling of freezing cold underneath the bed of her skin. The chill traveled up the side of her neck and completely numbed the side of her face and down to her shoulder, like pins and needles. A lack of blood. It was almost refreshing now. The rest of her face began to numb as the blood rushed out of it and into Lusian's mouth. He locked to her, his body twitching with the pleasure she now knew they felt from feeding. Her lungs heaved in involuntary, short, silent gasps. As it always did, her pulse swelled in deafening tones in her inner ear-that and his deep, controlled breathing was all she could hear until he finished and pulled away from her.

She kept her hands in tight knots, her mouth closed, as she panted. She glared with all of her rage and fury up at the ceiling.

"There, there, little doll." The Vampire ran a cool finger across her cheek. She jolted away from his touch, the sharp movement of her head making the fresh wound at the side of her neck flare up. She did everything she could not to look at him. Her heartbeat reverberated in her lower stomach. He hadn't taken a lot from her, just enough to make her weak and hazy, though she was at least comforted because her addiction had again been fixed, at least for that moment. He was clever. He knew exactly what he was doing-knew exactly how to control her.

"I saw what Valek did to that poor girl." Lusian soothingly stroked her hair. "The experiment was...inspiring, to say the least."

He forced one of Sarah's chocolate beads into her mouth, gripping her jaw open and pushing it between her lips, holding her like that until she swallowed. So this was how he would torture her, she thought. Take a little. Heal her. Take a little more. He would kill her slowly. If she did not escape, he would make her his own personal pet-keep her alive just for the sake of feeding.

Her gaze remained on the blank space in front of her-the dark room, the dust particles on the silver shafts of light. She could feel his frosted eyes fixed on her face, but she didn't glance once in his direction.

Angered, he gripped her chin and yanked her head front, forcing her to look at him again-to acknowledge him. His mouth was only centimeters away from hers.

"You taste so good, Charlotte," he whispered. "Pure, somehow. It makes me wonder...."

The fear came back and the shame spread in warm pools against her cheeks.

"If you've ever been touched in a different way."

His breath was like snow flurries on her skin. He released her chin and began to drag his claw through the material at the top of her dress, tearing it slowly.

"Please don't," she whispered as tears finally broke from her, though her words came out hard and stoic. She imagined herself cast in granite. Hard. Secure. It was her own way of self-preservation. To suddenly disappear far enough inside of herself until she felt nothing. She anticipated doing just that.

"What's the matter, darling?" His voice was rough and ragged in her ear. "Aren't you strong? Can't you fight your own fight? You're not a girl anymore, Lottie, are you?" His laughter sounded piercingly metallic as he pressed his lips against her ear, continuing until the thin material was split all the way down the front her dress. Her fingers wound in tight knots above her head as her heart hammered deafeningly. She clenched her jaw, wincing, as he pressed his lips firmly against hers. Disappear, she told herself, just disappear.

His cold fingers trailed along her skin, causing goose bumps down the length of her body. She started to shiver, unable to control it. She had the urge again to spit in his face, but he would surely kill her.

He relinquished her lips, only to continue his selfish and deadly kisses down along her neck.

"Please, stop," she murmured again, the tears rolling down her face. "Please."

He didn't listen. It seemed as though her words hadn't even been audible to him at all as he kept advancing. Charlotte, with her eyes shut tight, did exactly as she told herself. She disappeared-not even remaining in the same room with the monster. Instead, her thoughts took her to a distant summer day. She was alone at her waterfall. It was warm. She could feel the heat of the sunlight on her face. Her fingertips skimmed the top of the water's surface.

She wrinkled her nose against the sting of her tears. No, she repeated, disappear. She could hear the birdsong in the trees. It was so peaceful. She was not afraid. She was not hurt or unhappy, alone in her clearing once more. There, no one could touch her.

Abruptly, she felt Lusian move off her, though she refused to open her eyes. She kept her breathing steady and even, swallowing down a new pouring of tears. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She was a stone. She was invisible.

"Do not worry, little doll. Valek will return soon. I'm sure you have figured out that he only wishes to help you." He continued to toy with her. Lusian was a snake. She mentally willed him to continue speaking, however, for there might be a clue in what he was about to say. "He can no longer bear to see you suffer, which is why he left so abruptly." The edges of his claws stroked across her cheek, but she moved her face away.

Charlotte opened her eyes as she stared blankly forward at the space before her. "I know that. Did he tell you where he went?" Charlotte's voice wavered sweetly. If she was nice to him, she might get more information out of him.

She remembered what Valek had done the night before in the garden. She just couldn't remember all that he had told her. Until she could figure out a way to escape, she would have to force herself to hang on to that thought. That Valek was coming back.

"To the Dark City. He wants to find Francis and the elders. They are perhaps the only ones who will ever know how to fix you," Lusian explained as though he were speaking to a five-year-old child. He ran the back of his claw up the side of her rib cage, which made her shudder. "Just know, Charlotte, that if I were Valek...I would have never left you alone with the likes of me. Never."

Lusian feigned a yawn and got up from the bed, an apathetic look suddenly spread across his face. Before he left, he wrapped the chains twice around the bedposts, making it impossible for her to move even an inch. He drew the curtains closed, and turned around with another smirk to her, as if he liked the looks of her bound there. Her pulse sped up in her chest again. Perhaps he wasn't finished with her.

"Don't worry. I'm leaving you...for now." He chuckled darkly. "Don't miss me too much."

He stood there before the bed and watched her watch him. She glared at him with as much rage as she could muster, trying to actually manifest flames to shoot from her eyes, but it was to no avail. She never thought she could hate anyone more. She pulled and stretched and twisted every which way to get the manacles to come loose, but they were clasped so tight, the only thing she ended up doing was cutting the metal deeper into her skin. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see him anymore.

Lusian ensured that every black curtain had been drawn so that no amount of light could creep into the bedroom. That was his strategy, she thought. To keep her weak. To keep her questioning. He preyed on her fear and on the worried thoughts in her mind. The bed dipped as he sat next to her. Though Charlotte did not open her eyes, she could feel him staring at her-studying her. As if he could see right through her.

"I thought you were leaving," she grumbled without looking at him. He didn't answer her. She opened her eyes to glare at him, but found only the empty, quiet darkness before her. Completely alone with herself. She must not have noticed him leave.

Literally, she had asked for this. She lamented what she had done just a few evenings before, begging for more, and when Valek didn't give it to her, she'd gotten it from Lusian. She recalled how much pain Valek's eyes had carried as he watched Lusian feed from her. Perhaps that was why he really left. Perhaps her need had finally carried her too far. Her scar singed a little at the side of her throat as she pictured Valek's face there before her in the darkness. She finally allowed her eyes to well up with fresh tears and recalled her nightmare. So far, the prophecies were fulfilling themselves. She was alone, and Valek was nowhere to be found. Now, she half expected his corpse bride to come into the room and do away with her for good.

A tear seeped from the corner of her eye and dripped down the side of her head into her hairline. The coolness of it trickled in between the strands of her hair. He had done what he said he would never do. He'd left her. He'd promised. More tears rolled.

He promised. She closed her eyes and tried her best to imagine that he was there, that he would burst through the door and do as he always used to do-save her. She didn't feel safe anymore. The lack of his presence was absolutely mind-numbing. It left her so hollow, as though he had taken half of her body with him and left her there to die over and over again. Now she finally knew what it was like to be one of them. To have an addiction. The feeling of death on your lips.

Lusian had chained her up in the same nightclothes Valek left her in. Most of her body was bare. She was freezing, she noted, as she longed to slip underneath the covers.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps thump in the far corner of the room. She stretched her neck to see who was there. The darkness was too thick for her eyes to focus.

"Lusian?" she choked out.

There was no answer. Her heart crawled up into her throat, and she rested her head back on the pillow. It's nothing, she told herself. It was probably just Lusian being a creep, not trusting her to remain in that room alone. Maybe he was sick, or bored enough to stand there and study her. He probably had nothing better to do.

"Child of light." A deep voice rumbled just inches from her ear.

Charlotte would have jumped ten feet into the air if she hadn't been chained there. Her heart slammed in her chest as the oxygen escaped her lungs from utter shock and fear. She did not recognize this voice. What was happening?

"You are safe," it said again.

It was low and velvet. Much deeper than any voice she'd ever heard before. Another Vampire, she noted, recognizing the hypnotic texture to the sound. But who was it? "Wh-who's there?" she stammered.

"That is not your concern right now. The plan is being carried out. All is well," it offered soothingly.

It did nothing to calm her nerves, however. "Can you get me out of here? Can you release me? Where is Valek?"

"In good time," it said, "and beware your line of fate."

A cool brush of air swept across her legs and the presence in the room was gone. On her right hand, there was a dull sort of burning that began through her palm.

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