Blood and Water (Blood Trilogy)

Chapter 2

Acacia's head was spinning and it took much effort to command her eyelids to open. She sighed and tried to move her arms, but they wouldn't budge. Her head was heavy and her body ached. The only sound that greeted her senses was a high pitched ringing in her head.

"Wh- where am I?" she stuttered. She shook her head and blinked her eyes several times in an attempt to clear her vision. How long had she been there? Hours? She scanned the room, her blurry vision didn't help much, but the least she could do was to look for an exit. The smell of chemicals and metal lingered in the air. She had no idea where she was, where her belongings were or what was going to happen to her, but her instincts told her that she needed to get out of there, and fast. The room was dark and she was sat under a lamp hanging from the ceiling by a chord, and for a moment she could only see the shape of her arms and a few strands of her hair hanging in front of her eyes.

When her eyes finally managed to focus, it seemed that she was being confined to a metal chair by ropes that restricted all movement. She now searched the room not only for an exit but for any tool to unbind her from the chair. The silence was interrupted by the clicking of a lock and the groaning of a metal door ahead. Footsteps echoed through the room as a man in a white coat and glasses, followed by two women dressed in white, entered the room, some more lights flickering on as they entered. The last few people to enter were Gaston and three other men dressed in black with matching sunglasses and tanned skin. Acacia studied the men cautiously and shuddered when she realised that they were all copies of the same person. Acacia quickly searched the room for any other exit, but it was just a plain room with white walls and a few tables that had several test tubes containing chemicals and containers with iron filings. The metal door groaned shut and the lock clicked back into position. Her heart dropped, she now had to figure out how to unlock the door before she could escape.

"Acacia Tarley. Sixteen." The man in the white coat spoke as he approached her. Acacia turned her head to face him. "You have been brought to this very secret location for some testing under the approval of your mother Evonne Tarley." Acacia froze as she recalled what happened before she fell unconscious, her mother had betrayed her. The thought of it still seemed to affect her, but she refused to let it show. Her eyes rolled upwards like bowling balls and studied his face. He had a pointed nose and an oval face with two different coloured eyes; one purple and the other blue. Acacia's eyes narrowed and blinked hard a couple of times to believe what her eyes had told.

"What are you?" she questioned.

"Your mother will arrive shortly." The man replied turning away and noting something down on a piece of paper clipped to his ash coloured clipboard.

"I don't wish to see my mother." Acacia retorted, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the man in glasses as he paced back and forth rapidly scribbling on a piece of paper and murmuring a few sentences to the women in white. "I deserve to know where I am." She demanded after watching the man for a few minutes, she was losing her patience and composure. Acacia wished that they would leave so that she could think of a plan of escape with a peace of mind.

"It's a secret location, difficult to find. Let me rephrase, impossible to find. Don't try to escape, you will never be able to find your way out, and no one is going to come to rescue you, not even your mother." His words pierced her like spears, she clenched her fists and stared at the ground at an attempt to stop the tears from escaping her eyes. "Aw, don't cry, you'll be reunited with your beloved mother soon." He knelt down in front of her to stroke her face. Acacia jerked her face away from his hand in frustration.

"Don't touch me!" Acacia snapped as the metal door clicked and groaned open for a second time allowing a woman in a cape and a blood-red dress with black embroideries around the collar to enter the room. She had grey eyes and dark hair with a pale complexion and thin pink lips; a face Acacia knew well.