Tested

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Once I was laid on the floor again, surrounded by heartbeats, I opened my eyes to slits. The room was dark and dank, somewhere underground. Cages filled with women and girls of all ages lined the walls.

Jessica?” someone whispered when the cage door slammed behind me and the vampire walked away.

I blinked a couple of times and looked in the direction of the voice. Five girls sat on the floor of the cage I had been trapped inside, but I recognised the one who had spoken. “Beth?”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Dace,” I said bitterly.

“He’s alive?”

“He brought us here, Beth. Sold us. What’s going on? What is this place?”

“They’ll make us fight,” a dark-eyed girl in the back of the cage said. “For their amusement.” Her voice was full of anger.

“They want us to fight vampires?” I asked.

“Not just them,” she said.

“I told you,” Beth said. “I told you they’re all the same. Humans need to wipe out that trash for good.”

“Says the girl in the cage,” the angry one replied.

I ran my hands through my hair. “My dad’s going to get himself killed when he finds out I’m gone.”

“Are my parents looking for me?” Beth asked.

“They’re gone,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where.”

“Dace… I can’t believe this. I bet he’s not human. He’s probably some kind of… some kind of…”

I shook my head. “He’s human.”

The stench of blood and urine filled the air. It was hard to get a handle on how many people were there in the darkness. Most of them were silent, but the occasional sob echoed off the walls.

“He can’t be.”

“He is,” I said firmly.

She shook her head, a scornful look on her face. “How would you know?”

I sighed heavily. “Because I’m not, Beth. I’m not human.”

It took her about two seconds to process that before she launched herself at me.

The angry girl pinned Beth to the floor before she could reach me. “Are you fucking stupid? She could be stronger than us. She’ll be fighting by our side. I want to survive, even if you don’t.”

Beth burst into sobs, a high wailing sound that pierced my ears.

“Oh, shut her up!” a woman yelled from the other end of the room.

The angry girl slapped Beth’s face then gripped her chin. “Quiet. You remember what happened to Cathy. She cried, and they dragged her out of here. You were too scared to cry after you heard her screams. Do you remember?”

Beth nodded, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

“Then shut up and save yourself.” She took her hand away, and Beth covered her face.

The girl turned to me. “I’m Pria, and I intend to live through this shithole.”

The other girls avoided my eyes. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Me, too,” I said. “Why is everyone so quiet in here?”

“The ones in the other cages were let out,” she whispered. “Then they came back, but none of them will talk about what happened. But one woman did the first day. She said they had to fight while people watched. Well, not people, but… you know.”