Chained - Zara Novak Page 0,23

up against the wall, squinting at the flickering torch light as I rubbed sleep out of my eyes. The torch too looked like it had been replaced. Someone had definitely been in here while I was asleep.

I then noticed something else had been left as well as the water. There was a tablet lying on the ground by the door. I pushed myself up off the floor, wrapped the robe around myself and tried to ignore how cold the stone felt on my feet as I walked over.

I bent over and picked up the tablet. As I did so the screen turned on and took me to some sort of catalog. A small number in the bottom corner told me I was on page two, but the arrows to go back and forward were greyed out. There were nine items on this page, and underneath each of them there was a price and a brief description. My eyes deciphered the information.

Thin bed. 3 points. Pillow. 1 point. Mattress. 10 points.

That was just the top row. There was also a sheet, a mattress cover, a toothbrush, a book, and an option that said ‘food’. There was one final square that said: Rest of catalog. 30 points.

My eyes flicked back and forth over the items, trying to figure out what exactly was going on here. I then noticed another number in the top right of the screen, next to a small gold coin. Something told me that was a balance.

I had 1 point.

“What the ever loving…” I whispered to myself, realizing what I was holding. My captor had pushed a catalog under my door, a chance for me to buy back small pieces of luxury and reclaim a semblance of humanity by earning points.

It didn’t take much to figure out. I would obviously earn points by playing along and following the rules. I had no doubt he would take them away for my transgressions.

The son of a bitch.

I pressed the button at the bottom of the tablet, attempting to exit the catalog so I could see what else was on the device. Nothing happened when I pressed the button, even when I pressed it rapidly or held it down. I tried swiping up from each edge of the screen, convinced I could find something I shouldn’t.

There was nothing.

I turned the device over in my hands. There was no protective case, just the tablet’s black shell. It wasn’t a brand I recognized; the thing was completely alien to me.

My captor had thought of everything.

I spent the next couple of minutes trying to see if I could ‘hack’ the tablet somehow, but nothing was jumping out to me straightaway, I couldn’t even find a way to power the thing off and on. My own frustration made me want to hurl the thing across the room, but I decided against it, Vincent would probably see that as another punishable offence.

After a while I set the thing down in the corner and forgot about it. I went and drank a generous amount of water from the gallon jug that had been left in the corner. I hadn’t intended to drink so much but I must have been thirsty. I don’t think I’d had a proper drink since leaving my apartment.

How long ago was that anyway? By all accounts I knew I hadn’t been missing more than a day, but I already felt like I had been a prisoner here in this castle for a lifetime. I let out a sigh and looked around the empty cell. It was hard to keep track of time in a room with no windows.

It was either getting warmer outside or I was getting more used to the temperature in here.

I then noticed a crack of light coming from around one of the boarded-up windows. It must have been day outside. I was so confused about what time it currently was, sleeping through the night and waking up in the day wasn’t something I had ever done. My parents had always made sure my schedule was full of after school activities or volunteering.

I’d never had time to do the whole hibernating teenager thing.

But here I was now, trapped in a room with no windows, a crack of light the only telltale clue to tell me what time of day it might be. I supposed if I was keeping the company of a vampire now then my activities were going to be a lot more nocturnal. My captor might be impossibly fast