Annika Northman: Part Two

Chapter 3: Value

Eric has sent me to my room before. Not often, but enough for me to have learned to expect him not long after. Sometimes he comes to scold me some more, maybe even take something away, but that's not common. It kills me when Eric is unhappy with me, and though I've never told him that plainly, I'm sure he knows it. I think that's why he typically only comes to my room to be certain that I understand what I did wrong and that I know not to do it again. Then it's over. And usually he pats my head or teases me a bit or does something else to let me know he still likes me.

But Eric doesn't come to my room this time. I sit on the floor for the better part of an hour, past what I know is probably dawn. I hug a pillow and sob into it for the first few minutes, because that's the only hope I have of Eric and Pam not hearing if they listen in, though it's a small hope. Then I just watch the door, minute after minute after minute. Dreading it opening, until I realize how close it is to dawn. Then I want it to. Desperately.

But it doesn't.

And I shouldn't be surprised, should I? Eric wanted me out of his sight.

He's never told me to stay out of his sight before.

I change into a giant Fangtasia shirt, my favorite thing to sleep in. Every move I make is slow. I go into my bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face with cold, cold water. Then I turn out my bedroom lights, get into bed. Flip my pillow so I'm not sleeping on the damp side. But there was no point in doing that, because I soon start to cry again.

. . . . .

My tutors come the next night, which is no good for any of us, because I'm miserable about Eric being upset with me and hungry because I didn't want to risk leaving my room and running into him. I know better than to think he wants me to starve, but I don't know how to handle things when he wants me out of his sight. Going hungry feels like a better option than running into him out of my room right now. I know that much.

After my French tutor leaves – with a long, overly-dramatic lecture about my inattention – I curl up on my bed and stare at the wall, running through different, inadequate ways of how to earn Eric's forgiveness, and I've lost track of how long I've been doing that when everything becomes too still. The pulse. The vibrations that run through my room almost every night, the distant rumbling of music – it's stopped. But the clock on my bedside says 1:17 – which is almost three hours before the club closes.

My stomach twists. I roll up and set my feet on the ground, listening, waiting for the music to start again, but it doesn't.

Something's wrong. Eric and Pam are good at what they do. They keep things running smoothly, always. They would never unexpectedly shut down the club on a whim.

I cross the room and press my ear against the door. I stay like that, perfectly still, for two minutes, listening to nothing.

Then I slip into the hallway.

The silence is creepy, which it shouldn't be. I'm in this hallway all the time when the building's mostly empty. But there's something different about it now, something colder. I tiptoe down the hall, passing the open door of Eric's dark, empty office. Towards the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

I can hear talking. A woman's high voice . . . then Eric's low one . . .

I take three more steps, and the words start to make sense. And the first ones I pick up chill me, for no reason more than that the voice saying them is the voice from my vision. The one belonging to the man in the plain black suit. The magister.

". . . the blood is sacred. Wasting it on anything other than procreation is blasphemy."

"Madness," says the woman.