With their sense of hearing, I would’ve been shocked if nobody had detected me leaving, not to mention hearing my screaming above ground. Perhaps nobody had paid it any mind because for whatever reason, half-bloods couldn’t pass through the invisible barrier the same way vampires could.
I took a deep breath as I walked back into the elevator. It was clear there was no escaping to bring help from outside. I had no choice but to figure out how to help myself from the inside.
I had this time away from Michael—time I couldn’t help but think would be horribly short-lived—and I had to do what I could to locate my sister and Hassan. I prayed that Michael hadn’t been lying to me when he’d said that my sister was okay.
I descended all the levels of the atrium until I reached the ground level. I had no idea where to even start, but I figured that the ground floor was the logical place. I ran into a rose garden and crouched down among the bushes, barely even breathing as I listened as hard as I could. I was hoping that I’d overhear some snippet of conversation that could give me an idea as to where she could possibly be.
There were a number of conversations going on in the chambers surrounding me. But one in particular caught my attention, perhaps because it seemed to be the closest one to me, only ten feet away. Keeping low against the ground, I crawled through the bushes.
Ouch.
I looked down at my forearm to see a line of blood. I instinctively raised it to my lips and sucked on it, hoping that my saliva would help it clot faster. I almost choked. My blood tasted… horribly bitter. Then I noticed something that made me doubt my eyesight. My wound was beginning to heal before my very eyes. Soon I would never even have guessed that I’d scratched myself in the first place, had it not been for the bloodstains on my skin. I reached up to touch my cheek where Michael had cut me earlier with his claw. The skin felt completely smooth—again, as if there had been no cut in the first place.
This isn’t real.
What other powers does my new body possess?
I tuned in again to the voices surrounding me, particularly the conversation going on ten feet away. It was hard to make out what they were saying, because there were multiple conversations going on at once and the voices blurred into each other.
I moved closer, looking all around me to be sure that there were no vampires, before leaving the rose garden and heading straight for the veranda. I kept close to the wall until I reached the door where the conversation was coming from.
From the sound of it, they were eating and talking at the same time. A delicious smell wafted from the room. Even though my stomach was in knots, it still grumbled. I hadn’t eaten properly since the day of the dig, before Hassan and Lalia had been kidnapped.
I listened for about a minute longer, but when I was unable to pick up on anything interesting, I motioned to move away and continue listening in another part of the atrium. But then the door clicked open and an elderly woman appeared behind it. Her white hair was tied up in a tight bun.
I feared at first that she was a vampire—I still wasn’t sure how to tell the difference when a vampire’s fangs and claws weren’t extended. But as a smile spread across her face, she looked like the friendliest person I’d come across so far in this ghastly place.
“You look lost,” she said. “Are you one of the new recruits?”
I wasn’t sure whether to stay and respond to her, or run. But something about her evoked trust in me, so I nodded. “Yes.”
She stepped back from the door and opened it wider so I could see into the room. There was a crowd of people—if I could call them people—sitting around a long rectangular table. They had plates of food in front of them and were eating away while chatting.
“Are you hungry? Would you like to join us?” the woman asked. “I’m Pamela, by the way. I’m a half-blood too, in case you couldn’t tell.”
Although my stomach could have done with some food, I still didn’t think I had enough of an appetite. But I nodded all the same and let her lead me inside. I was still thinking about Michael lurking around looking for me. Going into this room with these half-bloods might hide me from him a little longer and I could ask them about my sister.
“When did you get here?” Pamela asked.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. A part of me had been avoiding thinking about it, because it only made me feel more desperate about Lalia.
“Just very recently,” I replied, my voice stiff.
“Where were you taken from?” another half-blood asked—a girl who looked no older than thirteen.
“Just from the desert outside,” I replied.