Chained - Zara Novak Page 0,6

few scant minutes my hope had ignited and burned itself. I sank down the stone wall across from the door and hugged my legs into my chest. Was this really my life?

No way out. Nothing you can do. How do you get out of here? How do you win?

Vincent obviously wasn’t stupid. He had left nothing to chance. I couldn’t get out of here, even with all the time in the world.

But then an idea came to me. Escape wasn’t my only option. I had another. I could fight my way out. Was that a stupid idea? Maybe, but it was also one of the only options I had left. My vampire captor had already demonstrated his inhuman strength and speed, so I had little chance of overpowering him.

I didn’t have to win the fight though, I just had to stun him, I just had to give myself a head start.

I could do this.

Looking around the empty stone room, I realized there was only one object inside that could help me attack my captor. I walked across the cold stone floor and pulled the torch from the wall. It was iron with open flames coming from the top. The torch was light enough to swing through the air, but also hard enough to do some damage.

And then I heard footsteps coming down the hall. It was hard to say how long I had been alone, ten minutes at the most probably, but probably enough time for my captor to have fed and returned. My heart racing in my chest, I tucked myself in next to the door, ready to strike as he walked in.

I heard the key click in the lock and then the door opened. My captor stepped inside. I lifted the torch up and jumped forward, swinging my weapon down through the air.

Chapter 2

Rachel

The torch swung down and connected with my captor, exploding in a shower of sparks and flame. Flames roared all around me and the air turned to fire. The vampire let out a startled shout and then he seemed to… vanish?

I couldn’t explain it. One second he was there and the next he had disappeared in a plume of black smoke that quickly dissipated on the air. I stood momentarily with the torch still in my hands, my breath racing from the assault. The vampire was gone.

The door was still open.

Without waiting a second I dropped the torch, burst out the door and started running down the corridor. I only had a vague sense which direction we had come from, but I couldn’t find much sense in heading that way. I took turns at random, flying down staircases and running down corridors with my own intuition guiding me. I would find another exit. I would escape this castle and run into the mountains.

As I ran it occurred to me that I had probably been lucky to make it this far. I was bolting around corners with little consideration that someone else might be standing there. I didn’t know if Vincent Cartello had many staff in this castle, I assumed he did, yet so far, I hadn’t seen another soul.

I carried on that way for at least another five minutes, sinking deeper into the labyrinth of gothic stone and iron work. In that time, I didn’t see another soul, and neither did I get the impression my captor was chasing me.

That was good. I must have lost him at least.

The old dark castle played tricks on my mind though. Torches flickered before I ran past them. Shadows seemed to creep over walls when no one was there. I put it down to my own fear and adrenaline. This setting was eerie enough to make anyone imagine things, the fact that I was running for my life only further exacerbated my imagination.

There was no sight of an exit at all in those few minutes. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t come across any identifiable markers while running. Every tunnel and staircase looked the same. With each new turn or story, I felt like I wasn’t escaping the castle, I was only running deeper into it. The haunted stone hallways really were a maze.

But then I found something.

A library.

Two large doors opened into a grand gothic library. Candelabras hung from a vaulted fresco ceiling. Shafts of silver moonlight poured in through arched windows, painting dusty black bookshelves and thousands of leather-bound books with radiant silver light. There was a fireplace, though it wasn’t currently lit, several couches