The Vampire's Rival

Scars will always remind you the past is real

"Is my daughter with you?"

Aadya Fisher was still alive? And in the control room? What did that mean for the other humans in the Barn? How did they even...?

"The dogs? What happened to them?" I replied instead. I had to know!

There was silence on the line for a while. I entered the gate's code. Nothing happened but red lights flashing. I entered the code again and got the same reaction.

"I changed the code." Aadya said.

"Aadya, let me in!"

The gate began to slide open. Then it stopped.

"Just you, Ruq."

She had always been stubborn.

I looked at the freelancers behind me and motioned for them to stay. The gate began to slide open again and I walked through. As it slid closed behind me, flashes of memory from that day with Hadley went through my mind. She'd been fearless, worryingly so. And she'd saved my life. Bound me to her. Being in here again was jarring and almost crushed me with emotion. Emotions I had been ignoring for weeks now.

I had to find her!

Had to tell her how I felt.

In the security office, I met with Aadya and a few other women from the Barn. Aadya was dressed in a fur coat. A vampire dog fur coat. She was also missing her left arm from just below the shoulder.

"You didn't answer my question," Aadya said. "Where's my daughter, Ruq?"

"And mine?" this voice belonged to another woman. She walked up from behind Aadya. She was missing an eye and half her face. She too was clad in a vampire dog fur coat. "Where's Jael? Her body wasn't among the dead. And they weren't the only ones. We have witnesses who say they saw you and a few other girls together when the dogs attacked."

"What is this?" I asked, trying to seem annoyed, but poorly hiding how impressed I was. They'd killed two vampire dogs. I focused on Aadya, standing proud as she studied me too.

I could see where Hadley got it from.

"If they're dead, you can tell us," Aadya said. She pointed around them. "We're not strangers to death."

"Right." I replied, keeping my face stoic. The truth was that I didn't know where they were. Well, maybe Jael. She was with Kade. By now they must be at The Caves. But I didn't know where that was. I looked into Aadya's blue eyes and said the only thing I knew for sure. "They're not dead."

The silence hung around us for a long moment before Aadya spoke.

"Okay then." Aadya said, with a finality to the subject that was jarring. "Well, we have a lot of dead women and girls in the Clinic morgue, which is much too small, and several twenty-year-old women wondering why they aren't pregnant yet after Conception Day. You need to replace the dead and bring back the vampire Medics so we can get back to the program."

Aadya was cold. Colder than I remembered. As cold as Hadley was the last time we spoke. Almost exactly the same, in fact. I wondered if I would find the same black hole of emotion in Aadya's mind as it was in Hadley's. I didn't dare reach into Aadya's mind though. I was afraid that if I did find that same abyss, it would try to pull me into its nothingness, the same harrowing experience I'd had in Hadley's mind that last time. And maybe this time I wouldn't make it back.

"Lujeo is dead, Aadya." I informed her. "This is my Enclave now. We don't have to run the Barns like that anymore. You can be free."

Aadya scoffed. "Free? No. We run the Compounds just as they're supposed to run."