My eyes open slowly, and I blink a bunch of times, seeing the gray wall in front of me. I smell Dylan's blood on the air, and as I sit up, I see him laying behind some bars of a cage on the other side of the room. Dylan lays still on the floor of the cage, and when I crawl over to him, I see the blood caked in his hair and the dirt and blood on his torn, gray sweater and jeans. He doesn't react to me as I touch his face gently, trying to get him to wake up.
"Dylan," I say softly. "Can you hear me? Dylan?"
He slowly comes around, looking up at me with his sleepy eyes. "Autumn."
His already deep voice is even deeper somehow when he is first awake in the morning and he slowly sits up, wincing in pain. Immediately, I am trying to figure out where we are, and where Elekai is. She had to be the one who brought us here. But why? Why did she want me and Dylan so bad?
I look around, searching for any signs of how to get out of here. I crawl over to the door of the cell Dylan is held in and I see that he has been hurt badly. I look at him, and see the most painful look on his face.
"I'm gonna get you out of there," I say.
He shakes his head. "No. Don't worry about me."
"Sorry, but I am worrying about you."
He glares at me.
"What? I can't worry about my best friend bleeding out on the floor?"
Dylan shakes his head. "I am not bleeding out on the floor, Autumn."
"Yeah, you kinda are," I say flatly.
Suddenly, the door opens and Elekai comes into the room, followed by two huge men that are dressed in green scrubs. The men grab hold of either of my arms and pulls me towards the door.
"What? No!" Dylan exclaims. He jumps up, hissing in pain as he does, and pressing his face against the bars of the cage. "Don't take her! Take me, not her!"
The men laugh.
"We want her," says Elekai. "Not you right now."
"Heal him!" I shout as they pull me towards the door. "Give him some blood, he's thirsty!"
They don't do anything to help him. They just drag me down to the labs in the back of the building (or where I think it is) and hook me up to some machines. I look around the room we're in, and see a two-way mirror on the opposite wall.
There are several different machines all around me, and I see a woman in a formal gown, with purple fabric lined with gold. She stands in front of me, and smiles.
"You love him," she says. She has long, auburn hair and dark brown eyes. Her hair is tied up in a braid piled on her head. "That vampire boy bleeding to death in the cell. He is the most important thing to you, girl. Don't lie to me, I know that you are in love."
"What of it?" I snap.
She smiles. "I wonder what would happen if you lost him."
I snarl at her, lunging forward to try and claw at her face or punch her or something, but she has the guards restrain me so I can't. I struggle against them, and she chuckles.
"You're a fighter, I see. So you have one night. One last night with him. Tomorrow morning, we will feed your vampire boy to the demons that are so desperately craving vampire blood."
"You're a monster," I say.
She laughs. "Watch it, girl. Or I will make you be the one to end his life."