Page 67 of A Dream of Stars and Curses

And now, she has me.

My eyes dart around the room searching for an escape route, but I don’t see anything that would help me. Stairs along the left wall lead up to, I’m guessing, the rest of the house, but I doubt they’re unlocked and waiting for me to go home. There’s only one small window, and it’s too tiny to light the whole room properly, let alone for me to squeeze through. The smallest strip of sunlight filters in and throws thin shadows around everything. Not that there is much that could throw a shadow: There’s just a workbench along the left wall and a few gardening tools like a bucket, a spade...

My heart skips a painful beat. Is Chiara going to bury me in her garden? It’s hard to imagine her trimming the roses. I walk up to the workbench. The surface is stained a dark reddish brown. There are all kinds of mean-looking tools on there. I don’t recognise any of them, though they all look like torture tools to me. Best I can do is name a few as knives.

My knees go weak, and I fall back against the wall. Was this always her plan? Maybe I shouldn’t have talked back at her during the party, but I wasn’t just going to stand there and let her insult me. I hold my hand out in front of me. It’s shaking. My whole body feels too weak to do anything, let alone get up, dash upstairs, and run. I don’t even know where I am. The small window doesn’t give much away, and I don’t know how long I was out. Could Chiara have used vampire magic to keep me passed out? For all I know it’s been days.

But it couldn’t be. Kate was about to come over. She’ll have noticed I’m gone, and she’ll have called Bonnie and Leverett by now. Bonnie might not have picked up if she was too angry with me, but Leverett would have come. Not wanting to be in a relationship with me doesn’t mean he won’t help when I’ve been kidnapped. Maybe Kate saw Chiara carry me out of the house? I’ve seen Leverett turn into fog and fly through a room several times, and I bet Chiara can do the same thing. Would she be able to carry me like that, though? I could be miles away from home, and it might only have taken her a few minutes to get here. She probably hasn’t left a note, so...

I gulp. I can’t count on Kate or L—

My phone. I frantically search my pockets for it, my heart missing another beat out of relief this time. But I panic again when I don’t find it. Chiara must have taken it off me. Damn it! There goes that idea.

I walk around the room, inspecting every wall for a secret tunnel or something equally helpful, but of course, I find fuck all. There’s no way I’m getting out of this basement unless Chiara lets me out or someone rescues me.

I sigh in temporary defeat and look around again. The walls may not have turned up anything useful, but there must be something in here I can use. There are all those tools on the table. They must be good for more than removing fingernails or— Fuck, I don’t want to think about it. Not when there’s a chance Chiara will use them on me in a minute. She’s faster than I am, and stronger. I can’t convince her to let me go. Not sure what options that leaves me.

I shrink back when a key turns in the door. There’s nowhere to hide. My survival instinct tells me to fight back and/or grovel for my life, but I’ve already established that the former is highly unlikely, and I refuse to beg Chiara for anything, least of all to not hurt me. If she was a reasonable woman, she probably wouldn’t have kidnapped me.

Is it possible that the boggart influenced her actions, too? Maybe, but even if it did, Leverett said she’s kept humans as playthings for centuries. Her hatred for us far outlives anything the boggart has been up to in my house; though if its influence did somehow find her, I doubt she was difficult to convince. She was already halfway there when she threatened me in Anton’s private library. Unless that was the boggart, too? But I’d only just met her, and from everything I’ve heard, it was right in character for her, so probably not. Some people are just assholes.

Since there’s no way for me to fight back and no chance in hell I’ll plead with her, I straighten my back and square my shoulders. If this bitch wants to break me, she can take her best stab at me.

Though I won’t tell her that.

The door opens. I stare Chiara down with an inner strength I don’t actually have but fake well, or so I hope. She smiles with every step she takes down. She locked the door behind her again—so she’s happy for me to move freely down here, but she won’t give me any false hopes in case I reach the door. Does that mean I could actually reach it? I can’t deny what seeing the door shut again does to me, though. Chiara didn’t have to say anything for my heart to drop. That door is my only way out of here, and she won’t even let me try.

My eyes sting, but I blink the tears away and straighten my back again—it had slumped sometime after I made eye contact with her. It’s too early for a mental breakdown. I’m worried that if I start crying now, I won’t be able to stop, because it dawns on me how hopeless this situation is. Chiara herself reminded me during Anton’s party how pathetic we humans are compared to vampires. Even if I did manage to get out of this basement, she’d catch me long before I reached the front door. I can kick and scratch at her all I want, but I bet she kicks harder, and I know her claws are an awful lot sharper than my trimmed nails. Whatever happens next, I’m entirely at her mercy, and I hate how little I can do about that. I don’t want to give up, definitely not so soon after waking up, but I’m not deluded. I don’t have a chance.

Unless...

Would a hit to her head do anything? Maybe, if she gets close enough...

And then she’s right in front of me. I see her eyes and grin for only a second, nose so close it’s almost touching mine, before she slams me into the wall. It knocks the air out of me. One arm got trapped behind me, and while I didn’t hear or feel a crack, it hurts. Chiara holds me up by my neck with one hand, my feet just slightly dangling off the ground. Her free hand strokes my cheek as she makes soft cooing noises. It’s disturbing as fuck.

‘Did that hurt, little human?’ she purrs.

Who knew a voice could be so smooth yet so cold at the same time? I won’t tell her that she scares the life out of me, but I probably don’t need to. She can smell it.

I put all my anger into my glare. At least, I hope my fear looks like anger. I’d rather surrender to hating her and putting every ounce of that hatred into every word than break down and start crying in front of her.

Chiara chuckles. ‘So headstrong! I will enjoy breaking you.’

I freeze when one nail traces my neck.

I’ve never even been in a normal fight before—the kind where people throw insults around, maybe fists or kicks or whatever—and if I had, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I doubt insults will do the trick, and I can’t get a punch in, being pinned to the wall as I am, but I try to kick out. I get her a few times, too, but she seems perfectly unbothered. I didn’t think it would do anything. I just know I need to hurt her before she hurts me.

Her nail slowly cuts into my neck. All of me goes still, too afraid that I’ll bleed out if I wriggle even a fraction. How deep is it? It doesn’t hurt much. Because my body hasn’t quite registered it yet, because it’s going into shock, or because it’s not actually that deep? I doubt it’s the last one.

And then the pain does hit me. A hot, searing sensation just below my ear. Warm blood trickles down my neck, weirdly soft against the pain. It doesn’t feel like much, but the violation of it, the wrongness of my blood on my neck, has me unable to move. If Chiara wanted to kill me right now, there’d be nothing I could do about it. Fortunately, I don’t think she’ll kill me yet, not until she’s tortured me for a while.

Chiara brings her face to my neck. I tense when her tongue touches my skin to lick it up.

She chuckles against me. ‘Did he ever tell you how delicious you are? Surprisingly sweet. And here I thought a pathetic thing like you would be bitter.’

She pulls away just enough to look me in the eyes. Her lips are stained red.

Then her smile vanishes in half a second, and she slams me against the wall again.

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