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  My stomach lurched when I saw who they’d shoved into the chair. His chest was still covered in marks from the last time they’d done this to him, and the look of silent resignation in Ben’s eyes crushed me completely.

  General Edwards entered the room a few seconds later, and I edged closer to the door to hear what he was saying.

  “—think you’re special don’t you? Well I guess you didn’t learn your lesson after last time. I guess what you need is a reminder.” Edwards turned to his men and smiled. “Feel like getting your hands dirty boys?”

  The guards cheered and stepped in to dip their fists into a small tub of what looked like garlic paste. One by one, they took turns punching Ben everywhere but his face. The blows themselves seemed painful enough, but the fiery red lesions left behind from the garlic looked agonizingly painful.

  This was more than I could stand, so I turned away from the window and hurried through the kitchen area to get as far away from it as I could. I was in such a hurry to get away that I almost ran headlong into one of the guards coming back from the fridge with a beer in his hand.

  “Doctor Hastings,” he said. “I’m surprised to see you here this late.”

  “Yes, I had some paperwork to do. I was just leaving.”

  “Since you’re here, maybe you want to have a little fun with us?”

  “I heard the noise,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm and disinterested as possible. “Do you guys do this kind of thing every Friday?”

  “Friday, Saturday, Tuesday.” He took a long pull from his beer. “Whenever the General is in a mood for it really. You should try it. There’s no better way to let go of the stress of babysitting these fanger fucks.”

  “Yeah, maybe some other time,” I lied. I wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as I could. There was nothing I could do for Ben with General Edwards watching, and if I stepped in to speak for Ben, I was only likely to draw even more punishment for him.

  “Suit yourself. I’m going to get back in there to get a few shots in before they take this bastard back to his cell.”

  I practically ran to security, my body shaking as I signed out for the day. I was so disgusted by what I’d seen that I barely made it to my car before bending over and throwing up in the weeds next to the parking lot. The taste of bile stayed with me through the drive home, and I couldn’t get rid of it no matter what I drank or how long I brushed my teeth.

  *

  The image of Ben being beaten and tortured wouldn’t leave me as I tossed and turned in bed. I must have fallen asleep eventually though, because I fell into another vivid dream so real I could have sworn I’d been transported from my bed to the glass prison cells of Facility 47.

  The difference between the real general population holding area of the Facility and the place I walked in that dream was the complete and utter lack of prisoners. Glass boxes stretched out in every direction, and no matter how far I walked, I couldn’t reach a wall or exit. For what felt like hours, I walked in one direction, then another, never seeing anything but the claustrophobic cells trailing off into the gloom.

  After a while, I saw a light shining down from the ceiling in one area of the prison floor. It was like a spotlight of sorts, and it appeared to be concentrated on one particular cell. I ran towards it, and wasn’t surprised to see Ben sitting there. He was completely alone, sitting on a stool in the middle of his glass-walled cage, hunched forward with his head in his hands so I couldn’t see his eyes.

  I circled around the cell looking for a door. There was no break in the solid glass structure, no way of getting him out. I beat on the glass and yelled for him to look at me, but either he couldn’t hear me or he was trying to pretend that I wasn’t even there.

  When he finally lifted his head to look me in the eye, I saw that a single blood red tear had fallen from his eye and streaked down his face. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t move. He just sat there staring deep into my soul as the blood tear rolled slowly down his cheek, falling and falling, but never seeming to go anywhere.

  An alarm sounded somewhere in the prison, and red lights flashed from everywhere at once. A thick cloud of pale yellow gas filled the air inside Ben’s cell, and I watched helplessly as it swallowed him up completely. I pounded on the glass and cried his name again and again, but no sound penetrated those walls, and nothing could be seen from within the dense gassy fog.

  I sank to my knees and choked back tears. It couldn’t end like this. Ben was too good of a person to fall at the hands of General Edwards and his pathetic crew of power-tripping guards. What they were doing to these vampires was inhuman, and the fact that they treated it as a bit of fun and games was the worst thing of all. The vampires they tortured hadn’t done anything to warrant that kind of treatment. Ben hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

  I realized that these vampires were being treated this way just for being what they were. This was just like how many black people used to be treated just for having different color skin. The fact that it was legal did not make it OK in my view. What Hitler did was “legal” at the time after all.

  A hand slammed into the glass from inside the cell and jolted me awake. Gasping for air and half wrapped in my sweat-soaked sheets, I bolted upright and tried to reassure myself that I was actually in my own bedroom and not in the holding area of the Facility.

  Laying back down, I stared at the ceiling and tried to shake the image of the last thing I’d seen. It had been Ben’s hand that I’d watched clawing at the glass from within the cloud of allium gas, and his hand had been covered in thick dark blood. He’d left streaks of it on the glass where he was clawing at his cage trying to escape, and I knew I couldn’t let that happen to him.

  He’d die in his attempt to escape if I didn’t help him, and I realized I couldn’t stand by and watch him destroy his life any longer.

  *

  Ben was unable to hide his confusion when he was brought to my office instead of Linda’s for his weekly dose of whiteblood. I’d made some excuse about juggling inmates between our schedules to keep them from getting to familiar with either of us and trying to use that to exert their influence on us over time. While the General and the guards had bought the explanation, Linda saw through it, I’m sure.

  Seeming unsure of what to say, Ben merely took his seat in the injection chair and leaned back with a look of resignation in his eyes. I could tell a part of him wanted to plead with me for help, but the rest of him was too proud and stubborn to allow him to do so.

  I swabbed his skin like I always did, and then slipped the needle into his vein. I pushed down on the plunger and watched as Ben’s pupils dilated drastically. His jaw clenched and his lips snarled back. The razor sharp fangs that normally stayed tucked away during whiteblood injections shot out before my eyes, and for a second I thought he might lunge for my neck.

  “What are you giving me?” he growled.

  I looked at the door and finished injecting the last of my gift into his bloodstream.

  “It’s my blood,” I told him.

  “Why?” he asked, shaking his head in confusion. “Why do this for me?”

  “You don’t belong here,” I told him. “Neither does your father. I don’t want you to do die in this place, and if you stay here that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

  “Thank you, Jen. I owe you a debt greater than I fear I’ll ever be able to repay.”

  I wheeled my chair backwards and looked away from him. I wanted him to wrap me up in his arms and tell me he’d take me away with him, but I knew that wasn’t how this worked. Instead of saying a proper goodbye, I just shrugged my shoulders and pretended to write on his chart while he walked out the door without saying another word.

  My eyes burned and hot tears flowed freely the second I was left alone in that cold sterile injection room. I hated this place and everything it stood for. There was no way I wanted to be a part of this anymore, and I went into my office and sat down at my computer to type out a letter
of resignation.

  I made it all the way to sitting there with my mouse cursor hovering over the print button before I closed the document and deleted the file. As much as I wanted out of this place, I realized that it would look suspicious if I were to leave so close to the breakout I knew was inevitable. The entire security system at Facility 47 hinged on one key thing, and that was the whiteblood. Not only had I given Ben time for the synthetic ability-crippling blood substitute to wear off, but I’d supercharged his recovery with a healthy dose of my own blood.

  If anyone ever found out, it would be worse then the loss of my career. I’d be thrown in a deep dark prison of my own for aiding a vampire convict in his escape. They’d lock me up in the human equivalent of the very place I wanted to get away from.

  Chapter9

  If the high state of alert and tripling of guards at the entrance to the Facility wasn’t enough of a sign that something major had happened the night before, the whispers and murmurings of those gathered for General Edwards’s emergency meeting made it quite clear to me that Ben had made his escape attempt. We listened as the General explained the situation, and I tried to keep my expression neutral as he recapped what information they’d been able to gather.

  “This is the first time anything like this has happened in the history of the Facility,” said Edwards. “The CCTV footage reveals that one inmate Benjamin Gold used his ability to levitate in order to escape with two other inmates through a weakness he exploited in the ceiling of the enclosed exercise area. By charming the guards, they’d been able to stow away in the room after the prisoners were returned to their cells, and they made their escape as evening count was taking place. By the time it was noticed that they were missing, it was too late.”

  “Who were the other two prisoners?” asked a guard from near the front of the room.

  “George Silver and Trevor King.”

  The room exploded into conversation when people heard that the so-called Mad Vamp Trevor King had been one of the escapees. It was bad enough that any of the prisoners had escaped, but to have the oldest and most vicious of them loose in the wild was too awful to even contemplate.

  My stomach turned and I fought the urge to run to the bathroom to throw up. It couldn’t be possible that Ben would take someone like Trevor King with him. He’d only talked about taking his father away from this place, and it didn’t make sense that King would be a part of his plans. Had he conned me this whole time? Had he fooled me into thinking he was good when he wasn't?

  Linda shot a meaningful glance in my direction and I shrugged and shook my head. She didn’t say it, but I could tell what she was implying, and it wasn’t good for either of us.

  “Settle down people,” shouted the General. “All available resources are being put towards locating these missing vampires, and a full investigation will be made into how something like this could have happened. We will be conducting interviews with everyone who’s had a shift in the last week, and the Facility will be locked down until everyone has been processed. I’m sorry to say it, but that means none of you leave the building until we’ve had a chance to talk to you.”

  Grumblings of displeasure swept through those in attendance. With all of the guards and staff on duty, plus those who’d just come in for the mandatory meeting, they’d be conducting interviews well into the night. Some of us might not even make it home until the next day.

  Linda pushed her way through the crowd to try to speak to me, but before she could get close, two men in military fatigues stepped in front of me.

  “Jennifer Hastings?” asked one of them.

  I nodded.

  “Come with us please. We’d like you to answer a few questions”

  For over an hour, they grilled me on every aspect of my interactions with Ben. They wanted to know about how he acted during his whiteblood injections, whether or not he’d been a compliant inmate, and if he’d ever tried to use any of his influence on me. The conversation stayed on his actions and my interpretations and recollections of his motivations, and began to relax. It began to feel as though they didn’t suspect either Linda or I of any wrongdoing, and that I might actually get through this without having to lie about my actions.

  I was completely wrong of course. Where the first hour had been focused entirely on Ben, the next hour turned into a detailed probing of me and my actions. They asked me a series of questions about my job and how I felt about the mission of Facility 47 and its employees before jumping tracks and asking me if I’d found Ben Gold attractive in any way.

  Sticking to the truth as much as possible was the only way to keep myself from getting trapped in a web of lies, but there was only so much I could say without revealing the true nature of my relationship with him. The interrogators wanted to know about the schedule changes and why I’d switched Ben back and forth between Linda and myself so many times. They even asked me if I’d known that Gold wasn’t even Ben’s last name, and that he was actually related to George Silver. Something they had only just worked out for themselves.

  By the end of it, I’d lied so many times I thought for sure I’d never make it out of there without being led out in handcuffs. I thought my deceit had been so transparent that they’d played me right into their hands, and that I’d given myself away by not answering their questions the way I should have. I was so sure that I was to be arrested, that I simply sat there and blinked in confusion when they opened the door and said I could leave.

  I walked to my office and saw that they still had a batch of inmates coming through for injections. Of course, I realized, they couldn’t dare skip even a day of the cycle, especially at a time like this.

  Changes had been made to the process, and a guard now accompanied each prisoner into the injection room. They stood by with taser in hand and watched the needle go into the inmate’s arm.

  So conspicuous was the presence of the new guard detail that it was impossible for me to get even a second alone with Linda when we passed in the hallway. I wanted desperately to talk to her before they pulled her in for questioning, but there was no way I could get to her before I saw the military men take her away.

  By the time I got home, I wanted nothing more than to crawl under a blanket in front of the TV with a bottle of wine and a bad movie. One of the great things about working in a top secret government facility, is that there wasn’t even the slightest mention of the breakout on any of the news stations. To the outside world, vampires were just a thing of myth and legend, and Facility 47 was a bland corporate building on a large chunk of land in the middle of nowhere at the edge of Florida’s massive expanse of swampland. No one knew about the underground prison, and there was nothing that could happen for the government to change that.

  I clicked through the channels until I found a ridiculous romantic comedy about a girl who worked in a traveling carnival and couldn’t find love in any of the towns they breezed through, and I put the remote down on the table and tried to forget about my day. The movie was ridiculously over the top and the acting was horrible, but somewhere around the halfway mark of my bottle of pinot noir, I was able to relax enough to actually laugh when the main character slipped and fell on a pile of elephant crap while trying to impress a guy who’d come to her booth and asked her to walk around the fair with him.

  It was nice to think about little problems like this instead of the gigantic ones that had smothered my own life. I thought about talking to General Edwards about taking a few months off. In light of the situation, I might be able to convince him that I needed a break from the pressure of working in such a dangerous environment. I could always play the angle of worrying that the other inmates might get ideas and try to escape by taking me hostage. I wouldn’t be much use to anyone if I was too afraid to do my job.

  A loud bang startled me as I was leaning forward to refill my wine glass, and I spilled dark red wine all over the table where it pooled and dripped onto the carpet. When the men in SWAT gear rushed into the room and pointed their
guns at me, yelling for me to show my hands and get down on the ground, I could think of nothing but how the wine looked like blood dripping onto the carpet next to my face while an agent handcuffed me and explained the charges being laid against me.

  Epilogue

  The Atlantic Ocean, off the Florida Coast

  A cool sea breeze ruffled my hair as the sail boat sped towards the Bermuda shore. My father and I had already been aboard for a night and a day, and as the sun sank over the horizon behind us, I looked out at the pink and purple tinged clouds, and couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, that we’d actually managed to escape.

  “How about a beer, son?”

  “Thanks, dad,” I said with a smile.

  The beer would not have the same effect it would have on humans but it was more of a token gesture. A father and son thing. There were so many moments I’d missed out on over the years, and I owed all of this to Jen. If only there’d been a way to bring her along. I couldn’t ask that of her. Not after asking so much already.

  “That was one hell of a plan,” he said, cracking the lids off two bottles and handing one to me. “I’m proud of you for pulling it off without a hitch.”

  The alcohol had little effect on my system, what with my vampire healing abilities metabolizing it so quickly, but it was the symbolism behind it that made my head swim with happiness. We were free from that horrible place. I’d hardly spent any time there at all, but for my father, this was the first time he was out of the Facility in almost three decades.

  The beer turned sour in my mouth before I had a chance to swallow it. Darkness clouded my vision and a new reality coalesced before my eyes. I hovered in the corner of a room, high near the ceiling and looking down on a woman in a cell. She hugged her knees to her chest and cried softly, tears streaking down her dark-skinned cheeks.