Page 54 of Whispers of the Dead

I force my head up. The motion is slow and agonizing. Every movement is like dragging myself through molasses-thick exhaustion.

A dreg I’ve seen a couple of times before stands just beyond the bars at the edge of the dim light that stretches from my skylight. He twirls a small glass vial between his fingers. My heart lurches with a violent mix of hope and dread that crashes over me in a tidal wave.

The dim light catches the vial, and even in my dazed state, I recognize it in an instant.

Insulin.

So close.

Although, in his hands, it might as well be a thousand miles away.

The dreg crouches. His eyes glint with amusement, but his grin stretches slow and cruel. “This is what you need, isn’t it?”

Laughter follows. It’s mocking, sharp and cruel. He’s not alone. “Good one, Barnes. Play with the bitch.”

I hear the footsteps, the sneers, the whispers of the other dregs watching the show. “This little thing,” Barnes continues, holding it up like he’s admiring it, “is the only thing keeping you alive.”

Another vial appears in his other hand. Tears blur my vision and spill down my cheeks.

Please. Don’t do this. The words touch my tongue, but I can’t get my voice to work. All he has to do is pass it through the bars.

He doesn’t need to say it. The power he holds, the gamehe’s playing, it’s written all over his smug, self-satisfied expression. A single motion. A flick of his wrist. That’s all it would take to save me. He holds all the power, and he taunts me with it.

The water I drank wasn’t drugged. I never passed out. This has nothing to do with that. Which means I have to endure every second of this slow, creeping torture. That agony is nothing compared to this moment. Watching him dangle my life between his fingers while he savors my helplessness is a new low, even for him.

I try to glare at him, to summon some semblance of defiance, but my body betrays me. The scowl I manage is too weak to be considered more than a twitch of my lips, but in my mind I’m scowling so hard that it feels like a million daggers going into his spleen.

What a shame. I knew I could only last so long in this apocalypse with this condition. Still, I didn’t expect it to happen like this. I didn’t even get to see their faces first.

Barnes’s grin widens when he tilts his head. “Not feeling chatty today? That’s too bad. I was hoping for some entertainment.”

He stands and twists the vial between his fingers. His gaze locks on me like a hunter toying with wounded prey. A flicker of anger sparks in my chest, but my body is too far gone to act on it.

“So much power in such a small vial,” he muses. Then his grip loosens.

No.

The vial falls and shatters. A strangled whimper escapes me. My heart is too broken to even think about flipping him off or strangling him.

“Whoops.” His lips turn up with a grin to rival the Devil’s.

My low whine is drowned out by the rising threats from the guys. My guys. I try to look for Damon, but of course Ican’t see him. He was right, after all. Barnes doesn’t care as much about keeping me alive as I thought. It’s a shame I won’t get to tell him he was right. He deserves to know before he growls himself to death.

Barnes lifts the second vial to the light. He twirls it with a casualness that should be odd considering the situation, but his smile stretches wide and cruel. “Bet you’re wondering how long you can last without this,” he taunts while watching me sink deeper into the abyss. “I guess we’ll find out. All you have to do is?—”

A sound rips through the corridor. A low, guttural roar. Primal. Animalistic. The air shifts, and a new kind of tension floods the space.

My head lolls toward the noise. My heart pounds weakly in my chest.

Barnes freezes, and his grin falters. “What the hell was that?”

Another roar, louder this time. A heavy metallic crash. The sharp, sickening crunch of bone that punctuates the screams. The groans of rotters outside the walls grow frantic, as though the noise has stirred them into a frenzy.

Barnes is ripped off his feet and tossed into the shadows. The door to my cell slams open and crashes against the wall with a deafening clang. The sound reverberates through the room.

My vision blurs in and out of focus, and I struggle to stay present. Maybe this is a hallucination.

A shadowed figure moves through the open doorway, filling the space with a towering presence.

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