loud I was afraid everyone in the world would hear it. He stared for what felt like forever while I tried to think of something else to say. The chain rattled as I shifted, and that shook him out of whatever he was thinking.
“Trust me,” he repeated, and was gone in a heartbeat. The door clanged shut, the bolt shot home, and I slumped against the wall.
“I do.” My whisper barely stirred the air. I thought about this for a few minutes, and I found out I was shaking. My hands vibrated like I was holding onto a weed whacker and my legs gave out. I sat down on the shelf-bed with a thump that clicked my teeth together, hard.
I waited for him to come back. But after a little while, I started working on the chain again. I trusted him, sure.
But it would be even better if I was ready to go when the time came.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I got exactly nowhere. When Sergej came back, he had a black-eyed Graves lock my other wrist down with a short chain attached to a wheelchair. Then he edged closer to me, stretching out his hand, and did something—and the cuff on the chain attached to the wall unfolded in complex clockwork. The touch shivered uneasily, and my stomach growled. I felt light-headed but clear.
And thirsty. The bloodhunger scraped at the back of my throat. I could smell it in both of them—the candy-rotting reek of red blood cells dying inside Sergej’s veins and the sweet red fluid in Graves’s.
“Poor little dear, growing weaker.” Sergej retreated to the door. “Hungry, are we? And thirsty too, I’ll wager. But you’re ever so much more tractable this way.”
Just give me an opening, asshole, and I’ll show you “tractable.” I glanced at Graves, but his face was set and pale, and those black holes where his eyes should be were creeptastic. I lowered myself gingerly into the chair and decided not to say anything.
At least now I was chained to a wheelchair instead of a wall. The chain might be durable and the cuff made of something space age, but wheelchairs are pretty fragile when it comes down to it. Things were looking up.
At least, they were looking up until Graves clumsily buckled the leather restraints over my wrists and ankles. The vampire stood and watched, clicking his tongue occasionally when Graves slowed down. Goth Boy was sweating a little, tiny diamond drops of water standing out on his skin. He kept his head down, his hair shaken into his face.
When it was done, Sergej whooshed past and was out in the hall in an eyeblink. Graves grabbed the back of the wheelchair and began pushing. After the dim stone cube, the hall was a glare, and I blinked several times. Hot water swelled in my eyes as they adjusted. The hall sloped up, and the wheelchair squeaked as Graves set off, following Sergej’s soundless steps. But his right hand came down and touched my shoulder. For a second his fingers dug in, a brief squeeze. Then he took it away.
I was shaking again. Sitting down, though, meant I could put my game face on. My left hand squeezed against itself, knotted up into a fist, and the spike of raw blistered pain was welcome. Even though my hand wasn’t healing from the Frisbee hex, I wasn’t going to complain. Not while it gave me a tool I needed to fight off Sergej’s snakelike stare.
The hall went up, and up, and spiraled. The stone gave way to regular walls, but it still felt underground. Dead air and the sense of weight pressing down on you, all over your body, echoes not quite behaving the way they should. Graves was breathing hard, slowing down as he pushed the chair. Sergej didn’t glance back, but he made another one of those clicking sounds, like he was hurrying up a horse or a dog.
Graves sped up a little. I concentrated on breathing, and on not hearing the soughing of blood in his veins. On not feeling the bloodhunger rasp against the back of my throat, my veins drying out like red sand. The emptiness in my middle, worse than hunger.
I’ve been hungry before. I’ve been plenty scared, too. But this . . . this was . . .
The hall ended in a pair of doors. Big dark wooden doors bound with rusting iron, spattered with crusted, metallic-smelling fluids I didn’t want to look at. Sergej reached up, his slim