Page 14 of Crimson Storm

It certainly wasn’t what I’d envisioned when my two best friends and I had decided to leave the vampire stronghold and move to Los Angeles to work for Sadie’s cause.

“Do you think we’ll die in here?” Kelly’s voice sounded very small in the quiet of the basement. Obviously, she was having trouble sleeping too.

Overhead, the muffled sound of some sort of sporting event on the television and occasional footsteps could be heard.

It was creepy to think of the humans up there just carrying on with their lives while we were trapped down here.

“No, we won’t die. We’re going to get out of here,” I assured her.

Heather neither agreed nor argued, which worried me. She’d been quiet the whole time as we’d worked and had fallen asleep already.

“Let’s just try to get some sleep,” I said to Kelly. “I bet we’ll break through that wall soon. If not, and it looks like we’ll be in here several more days, I’ll ask Glenn to bring us some blood bags.”

Surely our captors would have to give us some soon. We were no good to them desiccated—unless they’d taken Shane’s suggestion.

Maybe they really had gone out and procured some replacement vampires who were more willing.

What would they do with us in that case? Just leave us here and pretend we didn’t exist? There was no opportunity to ask because Glenn did not reappear.

“I guess he’s waiting for us to get extra-thirsty,” Kelly said.

Heather, who was not sleeping after all, held a hand against her grumbling stomach. “Too late. I was already there before we were abducted. Now my mouth feels like Palm Springs, and my belly feels like one of the empty caverns back home.”

“I’m actually hallucinating the smell of blood,” Kelly said, sounding thoroughly miserable.

I sniffed the air. “I don’t think you’re hallucinating. I smell it, too.”

The three of us got up and began a search of the dark basement. I feared it would end with a gruesome sprung mousetrap.

Instead, when I got to the area where the scent was strongest, my foot struck a cylindrical object and sent it rolling.

“What was that?” Kelly asked.

I dropped to my knees and patted the floor, searching the shadowed corner. “I found it. It’s one of those metal water bottles. Glenn must have come in and left it while we were asleep.”

“I’m so thirsty I’d settle for water at this point,” Heather said.

But when I removed the bottle’s top, it was apparent it contained blood. Human blood. I held it out toward Heather.

“You drink first. There’s not a lot—maybe half a blood bag—but it’ll help.”

She took the bottle but hesitated before drinking. “Do you think they poisoned it with platinum?”

“Does it matter at this point? We have to drink something, and we can’t get much sicker. The worst that will happen is we’ll be knocked out again and wake up with headaches.”

She nodded and brought the bottle to her lips, drinking thirstily. She handed it back to me, but I gave it to Kelly. “Your turn.”

“You should go first,” she said. “There isn’t that much here, and I might accidentally drink it all. Your control is better than mine.”

Ravenous from spending days without any blood, I didn’t argue.

Swirling the bottle to get a feel for how much was left, I took a few swallows then handed it to Kelly.

“Finish it—and then let’s get back to work on the mortar.”

As we set to work on the wall again, I felt considerably better. My throat was no longer scratchy and hot. The brain fog lifted, and movement came a little easier.

Even Heather seemed to perk up a bit. But the small amount of blood in the bottle didn’t last us long.

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