“Apparently I have to get a crate,” Nate pushed past Rebecca and Verity as they opened the door into the apartment, his voice a displeased growl.
“You are going to regret not staying in the room where I left you,” Jacinta observed from the couch. “Compared to your future, that was luxury and comfort. Cosy,” she sneered.
Verity began to cry and both vampires regarded her with expressions of disdain.
“She is not going to survive,” Jacinta commented to Rebecca, and returned her attention to the book she held. “I give it two days before Nate gets sick of her snivelling and breaks her neck.”
“I am saying a week. He will forget to let her out of the cage, or to feed and water her.”
“It would have been kinder if Elior had lobotomized her and put her on life support.”
Through the window, Verity could see the gargoyles circling the skies. She sank down to her hands and knees and watched them through her tears trying to find the comfort she normally felt from seeing them in the sky.
“I chose wrong,” she used the backs of her hands to dry her cheeks. “I should have gone to the countryside instead of heading to the city.”
“You would have died, raped to death by the winged men,” Rebecca predicted direly. “They do not see us as people. We are things for them to use and abuse.”
“Why are they here?” Verity asked her.
“Because we made too much noise,” Jacinta turned a page. “And drew their attention so they decided to show us the consequences of disturbing them. They call it a cull. They kill off a percentage of the population, terrorize and torture us, disrupt our livelihoods so that when they do leave, we spend the next few generations trying to recover. It keeps us weak, and them strong.”
“How do you know this?”
“Cael is of their people,” Rebecca leaned on the back of the couch. “He knows their tactics.”
“So, we just need to wait until they leave?” Verity felt hope for the first time. “Why does not Elior tell us this in his social media posts?”
Neither vampire responded.
Verity heard the elevator’s bell and after a moment the door opened.
“Time to try out your new home, doggy doggy,” Jacinta smirked.
“Come on,” Nate was gruff. Verity rose to her feet and trailed behind him to the elevator. “Don’t give me trouble, and we will get along fine,” he told her as he selected the button for his floor.
“Why doesn’t Elior tell the people that the winged people will eventually leave?” She asked him.
“Who told you that?” He put his hand over the elevator door whilst he waited for her to proceed him, and then opened the door into his room. A large metal crate had been pushed against the end of the bed.
“Jacinta.”
“Hmm,” his toned was disapproving. “Use the bathroom now. I have to leave.”
She went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and cried as she used it. When she stepped out, he was waiting. “Can I have a pillow and a blanket?” She asked.
He sighed and tossed a pillow from the bed and went to the closet, retrieving a spare blanket from its top shelf. “You are going to be high maintenance, aren’t you? In you go.”
She crawled into the cage and sat on her knees, the top of her head brushing the bars, and watched him close her in. “So why doesn’t Elior tell the people that the winged people will leave?” She repeated for the third time, determined to know the answer.
Nate paused by the door. “Elior believes that it is better for the people not to know. I agree with him.”
“Why?” She whispered. “People could hide, and eventually they will just go home…”
“Until the next time, and the next time. They will always be there, and the ability will always be theirs to return. Whereas if we fight, and fight hard, and show them that we are capable of holding our own against them, they will leave and the next time someone gets the itch to cull some slaves, they will think twice. Elior is looking beyond the moment, to the future. He is a brilliant man.”
He closed the door behind him.
Verity lay on her back. The crate had been designed for a large animal, like a dog. Not a dog, she decided. A wildcat. Something with strength behind it from the thickness of the bars.
From her prone position, she could see the bolts that held the sides together. She rolled onto her hands and knees and pushed her hands through the bars. The top of the screws had wings to make it easier to assemble.
In the dark, these details would not be so obvious, and many of the men in the cages would have had hands too big to fit between the bars. But her hands fit. She began to turn the screws around the edges of the crate, moving around the crate on her hands and knees, her shoulders and arm muscles complaining. There were eight screws on each of the long sides, and four on the back, two on the front due to the door.
She heard the bell of the elevator, and laid down, so that when Nate entered the room, she was just sitting up, as if she had been sleeping in his absence.
He regarded her for a moment, and then took his phone out of his pocket. He typed in a message, and then set it down on the table. From around his waist, he removed a ring of keys, two guns, ammunition, a knife, and some items that she didn’t recognize. He released the front of the armoured jacket he wore, dropping it onto the bed, before heeling out of his boots.
She heard the elevator bell go, and he walked to the door, holding it open whilst the woman vampire who had taken her to shower entered. She sneered as she saw Verity in the cage.
“No better than she deserves,” she declared as she slid a tray of food onto the table.”She left a hell of a mess behind her.”
“Three times a day,” he said to her without inflection.
“As you wish.”
He closed the door behind her. “I am going to shower,” he told Verity. “When I am done, I will release you from the cage. You can eat and use the bathroom.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, closing the bathroom door behind him.
Her limbs were aching from the close quarters of the cage, and she found herself watching the bathroom door hoping that he would be quick. He came out wearing a towel and retrieved a change of underwear and tracksuit pants from a drawer, dressing before he released her from the cage.
She almost fell over as she stood, her body not wanting to unfold, and she ate standing in order to make the most of the ability to do so. He placed his guns into a safe in the closet, locking it. When she had finished her mean, he jerked his head at the bathroom.
She used the toilet and showered and found a toothbrush in plastic wrapping in a drawer, brushing her teeth with relish. When she left the bathroom, he was laid out on the bed waiting.
“I have decided,” he said, standing. “That as Elior has given you to me, you might as well make yourself useful.”
She looked at him blankly, and then realized his meaning and began to shake her head. “No.”
“I am not going to f-k you,” he sneered. “It would not be worth the time. Get to your knees.”
She felt her bottom lip tremble as she understood his intentions. She closed her eyes and knelt.
“Bite me and I will have your teeth removed,” he cautioned her, stepping until she was directly before him. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered it.
He shoved the sweatpants off his hips. “I am sure you know what to do. You want to impress me, girl. How often you get access to the bathroom, food, water, all depends on my goodwill towards you.”
She took him into her mouth.
He groaned. “Oh, I forgot about the heat,” he muttered. “So good.”
His fingers closed in her hair, but he stayed still, forcing her to do the work rather than being the passive partner. She did her best, barely daring to swallow back her drool in case her teeth came into contact with him, and he took it as a bite. Saliva ran down her chin. Please, she thought as her jaw began to ache, just come and get this over with.
“Now,” he grunted as he came, and she gagged as she swallowed it, his hand in her hair giving her no other option. He released her and pulled his sweatpants up. “Go brush your teeth.”
She ran to the bathroom and managed to get over the toilet bowl a moment before she vomited.
He watched from the door as she flushed, and then rinsed her mouth out over the sink before brushing her teeth.
“If you need to wee, go now,” he told her. “It is back into the cage with you.”
He closed the door.
She used the bathroom and washed her hands and face, before brushing her teeth again.
He locked her back into the cage, and got into the bed, turning off the light. “You were pretty terrible,” he commented into the darkness. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she said her tears sliding down her face and her tongue still holding the ghost of his seed.
“That would explain it.”
He didn’t speak again, and she lay awake. He hadn’t closed the curtains, and the night lights of the city cast shadows on the ceiling and walls across which the gargoyles winged in perpetual sentry.