Blood Lust II: Fragments of a Flame

Chapter XII

When I opened my eyes I saw a bright fluorescent light bulb in my view. I tried to get out of the place I was but there were metal straps holding me down. I turned to my left and right but there was no one in sight and the wedding dress I was once wearing was now gone. I was now wearing a hospital gown as a bag of electrolytes was going in my arm through an IV. 

"Look who is finally awake. It's been about a couple of weeks. You have been in and out of your sleep so much it was hard to even talk to you." Jokavich said with a crazy look in his eyes. It was hard to believe that I was in this exact same predicament again but it was even hard for my mind to convey that it has been a few weeks since I was last awake.

"Where am I?"

"Oh, your back at my headquarters in New York except this time you won't escape. You see I have all of the Argyle Coven captured and because there is no use for them I will eventually kill them but that is after I use them as my lab rats."

"Leave them alone," I demanded.

"You're in no position to demand. The way it works is you give me your blood. I can do my experiments and potentially end this if I wanted to or claim there is just enough blood to require supply and demand to sell it to the highest bidder. You know how capitalism works?"

"You love to hear yourself talk don't you Vich," Artemis said to him as he entered the room. 

"They do say people who talk to themselves are usually brilliant," Jokavich explained.

"Yeah and who exactly are they? The same people who talk to themselves?" Artemis replied as he put on his sunglasses. His eyes must be sensitive to this light I thought. " Anyway, how is our Lia?"

"She seems to be doing better but I have to give her some rest since her blood was sucked up by Mr. Wilde."

"Oh yes, Maddox. He actually is doing well. I guess we now know what her blood does to newborn vampires." Artemis explained to Jokavich as he walked around to examine me. He tilted my head to the left and then to the right. I felt his roughed hands press down on my cheek. I just looked at him with disdain. His eyes glowed a golden color as he saw the vein in my neck throbbing.

"Take a bite." I dared him too.

"Thanks for the offer Lia but my standers are much higher." He told me as he pushed my face to the side and left. 

"Let me go please." I pleaded Jocavich, but he didn't seem to be phased by my begging.

"I did say when we first met you could work with me on this but you had to take the hard way." He told me as he took a syringe and inserted it into my arm. He then took some small vial of blood and took the syringe out. "Why is your blood so special?" He asked himself as he studied it under a microscope.

"Maddox is alive?" I asked him as he wrote somethings down on his clipboard.

"I don't understand you, Lia. First, you are with him, then against him and now he is against you. what is this game you and Mr. Wilde are playing?" He asked me as he measured the bite mark on my neck. "Oh and to answer your question, Yes he is alive. He couldn't stand being the vermin he hated. Every day he had to drink blood or he would suffer internally with pains until he learned to control his thirst. He came back to us willingly after not enduring the thing he hated most. He knew with all our testing down here one of our experiments could work to turn him back. Nothing and no one is alive forever."

"But you didn't turn him."

"Precisely Lia. You save him and in the process led us right to you. Despoina wasn't a very good babysitter. " My hate for Maddox started to grow. He was not only deceitful and jealous but someone who could not be trusted. As the hate for Maddox grew in me he somehow appeared right before my eyes. I didn't know whether to be happy or not. He pointed a gun a Jokavichs head.