Evol

chapter fifty

Date: Unknown

Brooke.

They drugged me.

It felt strange - when I wasn't out, my head was too dizzy to focus on anything but the moss-infested stone walls of my dark cell, and my limbs felt like they were floating, detached from me.

But that was only some of the time - mostly, I was unconscious on the rickety bed in the corner of the cell. It was never a dreamless, peaceful sleep; my body twitched, and the dreams I had were always haunting and pitched in darkness. . .

I screamed out in them, and when I came around, the thin pillow under my head was always drenched in tears. The dreams were usually flashes of the last thing I remembered in detail - my heated argument with Julian, his blazing brown eyes. Stumbling and coming face-to-face with that vampyre before he knocked me out.

The first time I came around, I noticed the metal bars of my cell and the fact there weren't any windows before anything else - that was the last time my head had been completely clear.

There had been a guard stood in the dim, stone-walled corridor outside, lit by flame sconces on the walls. My instinct had been to attack - and I'd attempted to grab him and slam him into the bars, the way Carter had taught me. But my feral behaviour had only meant being drugged again.

Now nothing was clear; I only existed. I didn't feel, or think, really. Just floated.

They passed food through the bars every so often; mushed gruel. But as time melted away down here, I became unsure whether hours, days or weeks had passed; I lost track of how many meals I'd had.

Even though my thoughts were always scattered, Julian was most of them. And his father - where was he? Was he here?

Where were both of them? After a while, the drugs injected into me stopped the anxiety and pain, and I felt nothing.

Something poked at me now - I stirred out of another dark dream, pinching my eyes shut.

It poked me again. Consciousness came to me quickly - this was the first time someone had woken me up.

Above me, there was a black silhouette, staring down. Everything blurred withoutmy glasses, so I squinted to see.

"Wakey wakey," came the low voice. "Darling?"

He turned slightly, and the light from the corridor lit up his face. I recognised him; the tamed curls, wrinkled brown eyes, the same good looks has his soon, only older.

I felt nothing. "Mr Jones?"

"Oh, call me Satan!" He chuckled. "All my friends do."

"Friends?"

"Can't the devil have friends?" He reached down and wrapped a hand around my wrist, yanking me to my feet. I wobbled slightly; the white gown I'd been changed into came down to my calves, muddied and scraped.

"Would you like to stretch your legs, Darling?" He purred. "You've been cooped down here so long, like an animal! I suppose you are a pet of mine, a very useful one. I like to keep my pets under control, angel, so that's why I've had to keep you locked away. And of course, after your little show of defiance the first time you woke. . ."

I blinked at him through the fog in my mind.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and signalled for the guard to open the cell. His hand fell from my wrist, and beckoned me to follow.

I took in the striking black suit he wore - if it weren't for the flash of fangs in his mouth, he'd look like a normal businessman.

The stone floor was cold under my feet. I followed him through the dimly lit corridor, passing guards standing in the shadows.