Page 28 of Sergi
I fell backas the male bruiser shoved his way out the door, glaring at me as if I were the one who’d interrupted his torture session. The eerie yellow glow in his eyes made his scowl all the more menacing. The interrogation must not be going well, and while that piqued my interest, I was more curious about the special project.
I couldn’t see him helping in the labs. He appeared to be nothing more than a bruiser with no finesse when it came to interrogation. Not that I was an expert, but I’d seen my uncle use masterful techniques that delved into a prisoner’s psyche, which provided faster results and typically less mess than torture.
The guard strode into the room, and I pushed the hulking vampire from my thoughts. I picked up a bucket of water and rags but stopped when I stepped through the doorway. The guard squatted in front of a cooler I hadn’t noticed before. They must have brought it this morning.
I stepped closer, my eyes glued to the cooler as the guard opened it. Several vials of blood lay in soft padding. He selected two and, in no particular hurry, strolled to the vampire. He stuffed one vial in his shirt pocket and popped the top off the other. Lifting the prisoner’s head by his hair, the guard pouredthe blood into his mouth, and the vampire drank what had to be nothing but a morsel to him. His tongue darted out to capture every drop. The motion was repeated with the second vial.
The prisoner had been eager, not caring what the guard thought of him. The meager amount of blood couldn’t possibly sustain him, but it might heal his wounds. I shuddered. All it did was give the bruiser a new canvas of skin to carve into.
Once the empty vials were dropped into the cooler, the guard turned to me.
“You’ll need to clean the prisoner and the room. Be quick about it. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to take you back to the lab.”
They wanted me to clean the prisoner? I gulped and glanced down at the bucket, the rags clenched in my fists, and a light sheen of sweat glistened on my arms. I straightened as my wolf paced. He was pinned to the wall like a moth in a display case. I could do this.
There wasn’t much blood on the floor, and I quickly cleaned it so I wouldn’t stomp around in it. Once that was completed, and I’d emptied the trash and replaced the mug of water, barely ten minutes had passed.
The cooler sat next to the trash can. I glanced at the open door and listened. All quiet. Unable to stop my curiosity, I squatted and opened the cooler. It was empty except for a six-pack of vials, and after today, two were empty. I picked up one of the used ones. The label identified it as H-12 followed by a date. The blood was three days old, if I trusted the calendar in the guards’ breakroom.
Did the H mean human? It made sense. Vampires could drink shifter blood, but they got little for the effort—a brief spark of energy but no usable nutrients. Several humans worked in the lab area and probably other areas as well. Were these vials from the staff, or did they bring it in from someplace else?
I’d procrastinated long enough. Best to get it done. I replaced the vial and shut the lid. The bucket had already been emptied, so I added water and grabbed a clean rag.
I shuffled to within a foot of the prisoner. His head hung motionless. I dipped the rag, and my first thought was to just quickly rub the dried blood off. Until I lifted the rag, eager to be finished, and pressed it to his shoulder.
I couldn’t do it.
The first time I’d been cut, it left an indelible mark. With three deep cuts that, even after a couple shifts, required several sutures, and a throbbing pain that lasted for days, it was a memory that never left, never got old. These wounds were fresh, raw, and sensitive.
I couldn’t make him feel worse.
I didn’t know this vampire. Why should I care?
But I did. And I couldn’t explain why.
I held the rag over the cut until the crusty, dried blood softened, then I gently brushed it away. A few of the wounds began to bleed, and I applied extra pressure, waiting for his vampiric blood to close it. I worked until all the wounds were clean. His body was still marred with blood, and, moving gingerly around the wounds, I washed off the last remnants.
His skin was warmer than I expected, and though I kept watch for any eye movement, I tensed in anticipation of him waking. When a couple minutes passed, and he still slept, I traced a finger over the dark tattoos. They were a mass of swirling lines and unknown symbols that made me think tribal, though which culture, I didn’t know. Perhaps they were from some ancient vampiric language. Tattoos were rare on vampires because of their ability to quickly heal, and I was curious how these had remained. It must have been a painful process.
I was so focused on one particular symbol as I repeatedly traced the lines that I stopped paying attention to the vampire. A muscle flexed under my hand, and my gaze flashed to his eyes.
Warm, chestnut-colored eyes stared back at me. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t read them. They weren’t blank, angry, fearful, or pained. And they should be pained.
“Thank you.” His voice was gruff from disuse. If he never spoke to the interrogator, there wasn’t anyone else for him to talk to, and he’d been in this cell for days.
I opened my mouth to respond but wasn’t sure how to. I couldn’t tear myself away from eyes that held me.
The sound of boots on stone snapped me out of the moment. I nodded and then dropped to the floor to clean the last specks of bloody water off the floor. I was lugging the bucket back to the cart when the guard entered the room.
He glanced around, striding by the table, and then to the prisoner. When turned to me, he grunted.
I supposed that meant he couldn’t find anything to complain about.
“Dump the bucket and let’s go. You won’t be getting lunch today since you’re late, and the lab’s team leader is waiting for you.”
When he turned to glance back at the prisoner, I did the same thing, but the vampire’s head hung limply. For some reason, I didn’t think he was asleep, and instead, was listening to every word.
When I enteredLab Two where I’d witnessed the shifter experiments, I stopped. All the cabinet doors and drawers were open. S-272 was pulling out equipment, beakers, jars of whoknew what, and racks of vials, some filled with various colored liquids, most of them empty. They were sorted into various groups on the countertops.
