presentation.”
She’s off again a moment later, making a beeline toward the vampire man assigned to watch the new male tributes. I shoot a quick glance in Nathan’s direction, glancing at him from beneath my eyelashes.
He looks stunned, staring at the table in front of him as if it might hold the answers to all of his many, many questions. I have to find a way to talk to him. He needs to know how to act and what to expect. He needs to know that his contract is over, null and void, the second I find a way out of this place, and he needs to be ready to run.
“Here you are, my pretties,” a high, autumn-wind voice says. A vampire waitress pulls up to our table with a cartful of fruit. With super-human speed, she whips plates around the table, one to each of us. I poke at a grape suspiciously, and she laughs.
“Oh dear, do you really think we’d poison our own tributes? No, love, this is good, hearty food. A bit sweet—we do like our desserts too, you know. Eat up.”
She disappears as quickly as she arrived, feeding the other female tributes before darting over to the male tributes’ tables. It’s hard to hear it all from this distance, but it sounds like she gives them a similar speech to the one she gave us, and Nathan turns a little green around the gills.
I can relate. Knowing that you’re being fed only to be eaten is enough to kill your appetite forever.
Winona doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. She’s eating seductively, making eyes at some of the vampires—mostly the ones sitting nearest the high table—as she wraps her lips around her fingers to suck off the juice from the fruits.
I guess I have to admire the girl’s ambition, but I can’t say I understand it.
“Oh, these are the best berries I’ve ever had!” Chelsea’s eyes light up, and she stuffs a berry in her mouth with no seductive artistry whatsoever. Winona spares a moment to wrinkle her nose in Chelsea’s direction, then goes back to her hunt. Chelsea pays no attention to her. She’s living in the moment, dissociating from the horrors around her in favor of relishing tidbits of misleading goodness. Like a sheep mowing the lawn on its way to the slaughter.
I’m torn between pity at her misfortune and fury at her stupidity. I stare at my fruit, wondering if it’s the strain of the long as fuck day or some kind of spell that makes it look so appealing. And here I thought my appetite was dead. But there are predatory eyes watching me, watching all of us, checking the ingredients we fill our bodies with. I refuse to touch the plate.
In time, it’s cleared away, replaced with a fragrant salad topped with some kind of fried meat and crumbles of fried and battered onions. My stomach growls audibly.
Fuck it. Maybe just a nibble. If I don’t eat, it’ll make me weak, and I’ll regret it eventually.
But before I can reach my fork, a vampire sweeps silently up to the table. All the girls go still, as if collectively holding their breath.
“So nice to see you again, Elise,” the man says in a voice like honeyed butter. “Come. I’ve missed your taste.”
The girl who informed us all of the complexities of the vampire bond looks up blank-faced at the vampire, then allows him to take her hand and lead her from the table. She strolls casually beside him, her body betraying nothing of what’s going on in her mind, and he takes her back to his table. The vampires sitting around it make welcoming noises to her, but she doesn’t respond to any of them. She looks almost robotic, disinterested and detached. Worth emulating, perhaps.
My stomach curdles as the vampire laps at the pulse in her throat, then sinks his teeth into her. Her hard gaze softens a little, her hand reaching up to caress the back of his neck as he drinks from her. My skin prickles from nape to toes.
I expected her to remain stiff and disinterested throughout the feed, but she touches him like a lover.
Snatching up my fork, I turn away from the sight. I already got inexplicably turned on once tonight watching a vampire feed, and if it happens again, I think I might actually lose my fucking mind.
I’m still keeping half an eye on Nathan as I eat a few bites of the food in front