before it closed and then she slipped inside.
Thankfully, there were no cameras on this side of the compound. No cameras, no evidence of the horror going on behind closed doors. Lexia felt as if she’d walked into a movie set. The laboratory looked befitting of a horror movie. Jars of unidentifiable objects lined shelves, glass cabinets looked to be filled with all matter of concoctions, but it was the far end of the room that interested Lexia. Four small cells filled the tiny space and three were occupied.
“Help me. Help me,” came a gravelly whisper.
Lexia stopped, peering inside the first cell.
“Blood. I need blood,” it continued.
The vampire was unrecognizable, looking nothing like the ones she’d killed before. Its skin had shriveled; it was nothing more than skin and bone. She wondered how long it would take without blood for a vampire to look this bad. It looked at her, its red cloudy eyes desperate. “Please,” it begged, lifting an unsteady arm toward her.
Lexia swallowed the bile in her throat and opened the door, wasting no more time pitying a creature who fed on blood. Pulling her sword swiftly from its sheath, she levered off its head.
Without a second thought, Lexia closed the cell and moved on. The next prisoner was so badly beaten it resembled nothing more than flesh and blood. Reading its aura confirmed it wasn’t worth rescuing. Whatever had been done to it had either darkened its soul, or it had started out that way. With a swing of her sword, it was dead, and she turned to the last cell.
Inside, huddled a woman, her clothes so torn and ragged, they hardly covered her skinny body. Apart from looking half-starved and one bruise covering her eye and cheek, she seemed relatively fine.
The woman hadn’t noticed Lexia. She was lost in her own world, rocking backward and forward, saying Adam over and over.
Lexia unlocked her cell, but it only made the woman curl into herself, her rocking increasing.
“Hey, I’m here to save you, not hurt you,” Lexia whispered gently, her heart breaking for the woman.
Her rocking slowed as she looked up, her eyes huge and frightened.
“I d-don’t und-derstand. You’re, you’re a hu…” Her words trailed off as if she was too scared to say them.
“A hunter,” Lexia confirmed. Over time, she’d lost her hatred of the word – not all hunters were evil. “But not like the others. Come on, little wolf. If you’d like to get out of here alive, come with me now.” Lexia reached out her hand.
“How’d you know I’m a wolf?” she whispered, staring at her outstretched hand, still unsure if Lexia could be trusted.
Lexia let the power circulating around her body drop, giving way to the blue eyes of the girl she once was. Smiling, she repeated, “Because I’m not like the others.” The woman took her hand, allowing Lexia to pull her up and help her from the cell.
“How are we getting out of here?” she asked, eyes staring at the other two occupants. “That one used to be a shifter.” She trembled, horror in every quiver. “I was next.”
“You are not next.” Lexia shook the hideous images from her mind. She didn’t have the luxury of cracking from fear, of succumbing to the terror. “Follow me and be quiet,” she told her. If the wolf shifter was frightened, she didn’t say anything. She replied with a firm nod, the look on her face one of determination.
Lexia reached out with her mind. Feeling no one nearby, she opened the door. They walked quickly away but soon ran into company. “Damn it,” Lexia muttered, pausing.
“What is it?” the woman hissed.
“Company.” Glancing around, she said, “Quick, in here.”
“How do you know? I can’t…wait, yes, I hear them.”
“Inside now,” Lexia snapped, gesturing toward the door.
They’d entered a laundry room. Lexia grabbed the nearest set of clean clothes to her and thrust them at the woman. “Get dressed.”
Once clear, Lexia carried on through the compound, the shifter wolf following her. Her plan to take her out through the same exit she used in the morning wasn’t the best of escapes. The outside of the compound was heavily guarded during the day, but Lexia could think of no other escape.
They’d almost made it when Lexia sensed her mother’s dark energy coming up from behind.
“Run!” Lexia hissed, taking hold of the woman’s hand and dragging her along.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped, struggling to keep up.
“Someone’s coming.”
“Can’t we hide?” the woman asked, breathing heavily.
“There is only one door unlocked down here.”