Only Human: Monsters and Men

Chapter 2: June Jackson

I had learned everyone's names fairly quickly. Diane was about 15 and full of spunk; though it was more like attitude really. Her clothes were somewhat gothic in essence. She wore heavy black boots over black skinny jeans. She wore a form fitting t-shirt that was black with 'Metallica' written on it. Her face was caked with make-up—which actually looked pretty good on her. Heavy eyeliner framed her brown eyes, dark blue eye shadow colored her eyelids, and black lip stick painted her lips. Melanie was actually older than I was by one year. She was nicely dressed in a tan skirt that brushed her knees and a simple white shirt with puffed short sleeves and a square neckline. Pink flats covered her feet. There wasn't as much make-up on her as there was on Diane. Melanie had light mascara that framed her green eyes and pink lip gloss that made her lips shimmer. Compared to these two girls I was something scraped out of the trash. The two blonde girls were 8-year-old twins named Felicia and Dot. They both wore yellow summer dresses with a white waistband and a stitched white daisy on the lower left of the skirt. White dress shoes covered the frilly socks on their feet. The only real difference between the two was the color of the bows in their long blonde hair. Felicia's was blue and Dot's was pink.

"When are you going to use it?" Diane huffed.

"Shhh. I'm waiting for the right moment. This is a one chance deal. I most likely won't be able to swipe it twice," I whispered, refusing to actually say the key by name. I glanced around the other cages in our row. They all held three to six girls. I noticed that most of the vampire traffic was at the other end of the row while only a few meandered down here. "Why are they all over there?" I asked.

"That's where the blue and red categorized humans are," Diane said in a 'duh' tone. I gave her a slight glare and turned to Melanie.

"They said I was in the white category. What do the categories mean?" I asked. Melanie nodded and arranged her answer before speaking.

"Vampires prefer certain bloods over others. Apparently, a human who has never been drank from another vampire is said to have sweeter blood, while a human virgin has a richer taste. There are also some vampires who like to be the first to drink from their slaves or the first to. . . Well, you get the idea. So, in the market, humans are separated from what category they fall in. White means the human is a virgin who has never been fed off of by a vampire before. Pink means the human is a virgin, but has been fed from. Red means the human is not a virgin, but has never been fed from before. And lastly, Blue means the human is not a virgin who has been fed from." Melanie explained. How she knew all this, I had no idea.

"But if in theory, the white category is the tastiest or most preferred, why are they all looking at the reds and blues?" I said.

"Well, as you can assume the categories will bare different prices. The white and pink category is substantially more costly than the blue or red category. To be blunt, we're too expensive. Most of the vampires that come this way are just window shopping," Melanie said. This whole thing seemed strange to me. Having a price on my head was odd enough, but noticing that vampires might be longing to purchase me but didn't have the money to do it was odder still.

I searched about trying to think of where I should go from here. Then I noticed it. Right to my left was a regular sized door in the wall. The door was hard to see at first due to its color matching the wall around it. Under the door I could see a small streak of sunlight peeping in. It was a door to the outside! If we could just get out there.

"I think I have a plan. When the coast is clear, we run to that door over there and get out of here," I whispered excitedly.

"Then what?" Melanie whispered. My smile fell as I tried to think of something. We were in the middle of nowhere.