Page 13 of Cloak of the Vampire
She gave me another sharklike grin. “You didn’t think you would go back there, did you?”
I clenched my hands into fists. “How do you know where I live?” I asked as dread filled my gut. Here was another thing I was forced to give up. Not that the apartment was that important to me, but it’s what it symbolized that mattered: the freedom I would no longer have.
“We have your purse,” she replied dryly. “We found the address there.”
My heartbeat quickened.I threw away the other keys, and I burned those articles, didn’t I? They wouldn’t be able to find anything ... would they?
In one of the forms, I’d signed my new lease with the Rayne League and forfeited my old apartment lease. At the time, I hadn’t thought they would go to my apartment and snoop. It was the last time I was signing any sort of contract without legal advice.
Margarita informed me that the legal department would take care of all the bureaucracy involved and that I should settle into my private room—one of three in the suite—abide by the schedule, and all else would be explained during the Comprehensive Newcomer Three-Month Course that started tomorrow.
“For any questions, don’t hesitate to ask your teacher,” she said, then flicked her fingers. “Dismissed.”
She turned on her heel and left, her red curls bouncing down her back as she strode away.
I was relieved to finally be rid of her.
My new apartment—or rather, suite—was tidy and nice, with a common area full of plush sofas, a TV, a gaming console, and a shelf full of both video and board games. My room was small, with a doublebed, a desk, and a modest walk-in closet. I searched for a restroom but found none; there was only a shower. Didn’t we have to pee?
My hunger also worked differently; even though it’d been almost twelve hours since my last meal at the warehouse, I wasn’t exactly starving. It just felt like mild annoyance. But since night lunch wasn’t until another hour, I went to my room, closed the door, sat on the bed, and for the first time since I woke up after the attack, I let myself trulyfeel.
Buried deep inside, a blinding rage rose to the surface. My nails dug into the sheets of the bed, aching to do something, to claw into anything. My entire body shook uncontrollably as the rage rampaged through my veins, making my blood boil and my head explode.
It had taken everything in me to find my freedom. I’d worked so hard to put the past behind me and live an absolutely ordinary life that made me feel content and comfortable. Then in a matter of moments, all that I’d achieved, everything I’d built from scratch, was ripped out of my hold and thrown away as if my blood, sweat, and tears were all as insignificant as a grain of sand in the Sahara desert.
I knew what being caged and locked meant. I knew what it was like to be thrust into a situation where you had no control over anything, when you didn’t choose to be there, and where you had no way out.
It was why I’d fled my hometown when I was eighteen to find solace in a different city, starting from scratch with only fifty dollars to my name. Why, for the first week of my new, free life, I’d worked all kinds of jobs to scrape enough money together to rent that tiny studio apartment.
And yet I’d been utterly relieved. It was like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I no longer had to watch as horrors unfolded before my eyes and take multiple showers a day as if they would get rid of the filth that was far more than skin deep. I preferred sleeping behind dumpsters for a week straight rather than going back, where all the memories wouldn’t just haunt me but drive me mad, agonizing and suffocating me until I died.
So, yes, my free life was a poor, stinky one, but it wasmine.
And in less than one minute, Ragnor Rayne had stolen it from me.
I’d never before hated someone as much as I did Ragnor Rayne. I wanted to find him, put my hands around his neck, and pull his head clean off. I wanted to see him dead for what he’d done to me. Because it was all starting to sink in—me being a vampire and never again a human—and I detested Ragnor for forcing me into this new life, or rather, this newexistence.
He stole my life, so I would take his. I would kill him with my bare hands the first moment I got the chance. I would teach him a lesson. I would plot, bide my time, and get stronger until I could get my revenge. No one would ever make me feel helpless again.
Fucker’s not the only monster on the premises.
CHAPTER 5
The cafeteria was surprisingly underwhelming.
Located on the top floor of the underground city, it was big enough to seat two hundred people, which was about the number of vampires in the room when I walked in.
The room resembled a modernized crypt, with arches everywhere and a dome made of glass, through which a fake night sky was shown by a projector to give us the sense of being outside. The floor was made of dark, depressing marble, contrasting with the peaceful image of the skies above.
The buffet offered different cuisines—from Italian to Vietnamese—and had a whole stand specifically for eight water jars, only instead of water, they contained the different blood types.
There were long tables, round tables, small tables, and even single tables ready to seat loners. I made a beeline to an empty single table and settled down. As I was eating the spaghetti carbonara and broccoli I picked from the buffet along with a glass of AB negative (its jar seemed to be nearly empty, so I figured it might be the best), I watched the other vampires in the room and made some mental notes.
Most of them looked around my age, but of course that was deceptive if I considered everything I knew so far about vampire anatomy (which, granted, wasn’t a lot). Some, however, were older, in their early to midthirties, but that was the extent of the looks-wise age range.
What really threw me off was that they struck me as normal people and acted accordingly. There were cliques, groups of friends, and couples. Almost no one was sitting alone; it felt like the League was more like any modern high school rather than some sort of a militaristic dictatorship.
I hated it.
