Her vampire journal.
Caitlin closed her eyes and rested her head on it, and she didn’t know why, but she began to cry. Her cries softly filled the air, blended with the cry of a night bird’s song, and slowly, she lulled herself to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As the convicts crowded in around Scarlet, one of them stepped forward, the largest of the bunch. He towered over the others, and he looked to Scarlet liked he was seven feet tall. He was bald, missing one eye, and was bulging with muscles. He was clearly the leader in here.
He stood in front of the others, then turned and faced them.
“She’s mine,” he announced. “She’s my plaything. Mine to torture as I wish. Do any of you have a problem with that?”
The dozens of faces stopped, and Scarlet could see the fear in their faces. Clearly, no one was willing to challenge him. Clearly, this creep was king of the hill in here. The others slowly slinked away, disappointed but resigned.
The creep turned and reached down and grabbed Scarlet with one hand by the back of her shirt. He picked her up high in the air with a single hand, and inspected her as if she were an insect. He was so powerful, he held her as if he were carrying a fly.
Scarlet wiggled and squirmed, struggling to break free as she was hoisted in the air and as he walked with her, bringing her to a dark, dark corner. She heard Ruth snarl down below, then watched the creep lean over, and kick her hard. Ruth went flying across the room, yelping, and hit a wall.
Scarlet was enraged, and tried harmer to squirm away. But the man’s grip was too strong. She was powerless.
“It’s going to be great fun to torture you,” he said. His voice was so deep, it sounded as if it came from the bowels of the earth. As he carried her, deeper and deeper into the darkest corner of the cell, Scarlet thought: this is what hell feels like.
They finally reached the darkest corner, and the creep set her down. He reached down, ran one hand down her back, down her arms—and then stopped at the clasps on her wrists.
“These won’t do, will they?” he said. “That takes away half the fun.”
He reached out and, with his brute strength, snapped the silver clasps in half, then yanked them off her wrists.
“I want you free when I have my way with you,” he said.
That was his last mistake.
Scarlet suddenly felt overcome by a new energy, sweeping over her. She felt overwhelmed by a strength and a rage so primal, beyond anything she’d ever known, that she hardly knew what to do. As the creep reached for her, this time, she reached up and kicked him hard in the solar plexus. It was a perfect hit.
The creep went flying back with such force that he flew through the air like a missile, all the way across the cell, thirty feet, smashing against the metal bars. It was such a loud noise, it shook the entire cell.
Every prisoner stopped and stared, with looks of disbelief.
Scarlet didn’t hesitate: she sprinted across the room, pouncing. Just as the creep was beginning to rise, she kicked him hard in the face. It knocked him back down to the ground, flat on his back.
But this man was strong. The kick would have rendered any other man unconscious, but he began to get up again.
Now, Scarlet was pissed. She reached down, grabbed him by the shirt, and to the disbelieving stares of all the other prisoners, hoisted him over her head. She spun him around three times, and then hurled him right into the crowd.
As he hit the crowd, he took dozens of prisoners down with him, falling like dominoes. The remaining prisoners stood and stared, looking at Scarlet with fear, as if a demon from hell had just landed inside their cell.
Outside the bars, the guards realized their mistake and rushed to open the bars.
“I told you to put her behind the silver!” one guard yelled to the other.
Scarlet was enraged—and this time, nothing would quench it.
She charged the remaining prisoners. One by one, she punched and elbowed and kicked each one, spreading a wave of destruction throughout the cell. Within seconds, dozens of bodies lay on the floor. They scrambled, on their hands and knees, to get away from her, running over each other. But she wasn’t finished: she grabbed them by the back of their