Blood Bound

Chapter 7: The proposition

Sophie

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I frowned and was going to retort, but rose cautiously and allowed the vampire to lead me upstairs. Once they reached the last steps that lead into the living room, I blinked in disbelief. It was nothing like I had imagined; Apart from the broken furniture strewn across the living room, everything was spotless. Not a speck of dust could be seen on the remaining chairs, table and bookcases and I was quite surprised to see that everything looked rather normal, at least normal for a huge, hairy vampire.

The body of Martin was on the floor, among the broken wood and glass. Five silver spikes had been impaled on both his feet and hands, and the last one rested tightly upon his heart, dark blood oozing lazily from each wound. His head had been cut off cleanly from his body and his face was in a permanent snarl to indicate that he did not go down without a fight, his rows of shark teeth shone in the ceiling light. He was already starting to decompose. I approached the body, wrinkling my nose to the smell of rotten decay.

"This the usual method of execution?" I asked, looking down at my former captor.

"Only if you betray us or are a threat to us," replied the vampire, regarding the body with general indifference. "Mr. Douglas was careless with his choice of prey and that could have directed the attention of humans towards the rest of us. We could not take that chance so we took care of it."

I turned away from the body and looked the vampire in the eye. "So there's no way of reasoning with you guys? No means of persuasion?"

The vampire met her gaze; there was no sympathy within those steel gray eyes. Just cold, hard logic. "No," he said coldly. "You either obey the rules or you die."

I nodded and again I looked down at the body, particularly at Martin's face. Anger blazed within me and spread throughout my body with such ferocity that I started to tremble. "You bastards," I muttered under my breath. "This was supposed to be my revenge! I was gonna kill that son of a bitch!" I clenched my fists in order to ease the shakes that threatened to overtake my whole body.

The vampire raised his eyebrows again, looking amused. "That's a funny way of saying thanks," he said coolly and scoffed. "He was a big fellow, I doubt you would have been able to handle him on your own as it took six of my people to take him down. And they are trained individuals while you are nothing but a whiny little brat."

I glared at him, but bit back the retort I was going to spit at him. There were still a few soldiers wandering around the house that I saw out of the corner of my eye. Hurting that vampire in any way, be it verbal abuse or just plain spitting at him, would mean nothing but certain death by the hands of a soldier or two. So to relieve my anger and frustration, I raised my right foot and thrust it down hard on Martin's decaying skull. It burst open like an overripe melon, splattering the floor with bones and brain matter.

Again and again, I stomped on his body, feeling a savage pleasure wash over me like a tsunami wave each time my feet made contact with the gooey mess. The vampire had taken a step aside, afraid of getting bloody remains stained on his suit, but he was silent the whole time and allowed my sudden outburst to continue mutilating the corpse. Within minutes, nothing remained of the body except grayish pink puddles of broken bones, blood, innards and brain matter, all mushed up together like a disgusting pile of mashed potatoes. I stood in the middle of it all, panting, forcing myself not to burst into tears. I was NOT about to show my vulnerabilities to the vampire, not yet, not even ever!

"Had enough revenge?" sneered the vampire, gazing down at his pants to check if there were any smears from corpse puddle.

I said nothing, closing my eyes. The anger was still there within me but there was nothing more I could do to him, nothing more that needed to be crushed to bits in order for me to feel completely satisfied. My own pants were covered in the decomposing, rotten body parts and blood, and I felt for the first time since my imprisonment dirty, unclean. I wanted, no, needed to wash myself, to rid myself of the remaining memory of him, of my confinement. "I need a shower," I said mechanically as I turned to the vampire.