Chapter 1
The rain came down softly, pattering lightly against her hoodie. Elena loved the rain; the smell, the feel of it running down her face, the freedom it drew from her soul. Laughing, she twirled around and lifted her face up to the starry, inky black sky and let the water tickle her skin as she stood out on the wet road. The streets were empty, lit only by a few streetlights and the moon, so Elena didn't have to worry about anyone coming past and seeing her as she danced at inhuman speeds, her laughs drifting through the air.
She should've heard his heartbeat, a steady rhythm in the alleyway, but the only thing she heard was her laugh. She should've seen the figure move out from the shadows, but all she saw was the earth spinning past. She should've been more careful, but she wasn't.
And then Elena was burning.
A plunge of a syringe into her neck, her scream into night, and vervain-fuelled fire licked at her veins and coursed through her bloodstream. It ignited every comprehensible thing up in flames and left only raw pain to consume her. Elena stumbled and turned to claw blindly at her attacker, fangs elongating and veins popping in anger and pain.
"What did you... Do to me?!" She gasped and then was taken over by fear and anger, pouncing on the hooded figure and breaking bones as she tore through their neck. Elena drank mercilessly, deliberately ripping open an artery and letting it spurt out like some sort of grotesque fountain before the fire in her body flared up and she pulled away with a groan to slump on the ground. She was unconscious before she hit the concrete.
At the sight of the vampire girl fall along with their comrade, men peeled away from the shadows and slipped into the night, two grabbing their fallen hunter and the others the girl. They had seen the display play out like a sick horror movie, the spray of blood so thick that you could taste it on your tongue like a bad special effect, and the screams of vampire and hunter mingling together to create a soundtrack so chilling you had to block your ears. But of course, what had just happened had nothing in comparison with where they were taking the vampire girl. Tonight's events may have been a horror movie, but Augustine was hell on Earth.
XxxX
Whether by a miracle or a curse, Elena stumbled into consciousness and cracked open her eyes with a groan. Her entire body was throbbing, her tongue felt like a dry heap of lead in her mouth and her eyes watered, but all of that seemed to fade away when she saw where she was.
She was in what looked like an operating room, with a menacing array of tools on a metal table and white curtains splattered with blood sectioning off the area she was in. Groaning, Elena tried to get up, but binds cut into her wrist and ankles, and she looked down to see herself strapped to a table in only in her bra and panties. Panic flooded her body, and Elena struggled against the binds, praying desperately that it was just a nightmare.
"Oh god, what kind of messed up place is this?" She whispered, tears leaking down her face when she couldn't get out of the binds. Closing her eyes and trying to calm down, Elena lay her head back against the table, and jerked at the straps again.
"It's no use, 21052. The straps are reinforced to withstand vampire strength, like everything else in this institution." Elena's eyes flashed open at the cold voice, and a man in a white lab coat turned to face her. He was sickening; blood-splattered and grinning manically, his eyes stroking her half-naked body in a way that made her wish more than anything that she had her clothes. Elena gagged in disgust and hissed at him, her eyes going red, veins popping and fangs glinting. "What are you going to do to me at this institution? Why are you calling me 21052? And why am I strapped naked to a table you sick bastard?!"
The man just laughed, a cruel sound that made Elena flinch. "Oh, a feisty one! And I believe that out of the two of us, I am hardly the 'sick bastard'. I was very disappointed when I heard you had torn the throat out of one of my best hunters. We'll have to make sure that never happens again, won't we?" He shook his head, and Elena's stomach dropped at his words, the blood draining from her face and guilt clenching her heart.
"Oh my god, I killed that man..." She whispered, the truth smashing her in the face. "Oh my god I killed someone!" Elena screamed, tears pouring down her face, her breath coming out in heaving gasps. "No, no, no..." Whimpering, Elena struggled at her bonds. "You have to let me out! I have to save him, feed him my blood!" The man just glared, anger ablaze in his cold eyes. "Do not pretend to care whether the hunter died or not! Your kind are all the same, killing with no remorse and toying with humanity. You are a monster!" He screamed, spittle flying from his mouth and eyes manic with malice. Elena vamped and hissed back reflexively.
"You're the monster! Get away from me!" She snapped, then regretted it instantly. The man's eyes went dark, and he walked over to the table to pick up a knife and dip it in a bottle of a bubbling substance that looked suspiciously like vervain.
"My name is not 'monster', it is Dr. Whitmore, and you, 21052, are a part of an institution for the Augustine society that runs experiments on vampires like yourself, who we number to keep track of." Dr Whitmore walked over and turned the blade around in his hands, a pool of fear growing in Elena's belly with every passing second. "Experiments that will eventually help the human race. See, you vampires have exceptional healing abilities, and I plan on finding out how they work." He trailed the knife over her quivering stomach, leaving a trail of charred skin in its wake, and she bit her lip to stop her whimpering. "And to do that, I need you... exposed, to a certain extent. So I can operate." And with that he plunged the knife into her chest.
White hot pain slithered along the contours of Elena's very being, sending the world up in an inferno for an infinitesimal infinity. Her scream, a sound so animalistic and so heartbreakingly raw, were orchestrated by her tiny body writhing under the knife. Elena arched her back up off the table and clenched her fists with a shattered gasp as the blade skewered her organs, subconsciously trying to escape from the knifethat waseating away her body from the inside out. She was at the precipice, and that feeling alone was enough to make her want to turn it all off. It was only the thought of Jeremy, Jenna and Ric that kept her going. She would make it through this for them.
Dr Whitmore smirked, and turned to write something in his notebook while the half-naked, bloodstained girl on the table whimpered and gasped. "Patient reacts negatively to vervain on knife. Would a larger dosage produce same results of screaming, or result in unconsciousness?" He muttered. Elena sobbed at that. What did she do to deserve this kind of torture?
Dr Whitmore then turned around and yanked out the blade, leaving her with tears streaming down her face and a thin coat of sweat. Elena looked down to see her skin only very slowly knitting the ugly wound closed, the healing process no doubt screwed up after all the vervain in her system. Dr Whitmore tutted at this. "Well, it looks like we'll have to test how long it takes for the healing process to stop." He gripped the knife again, holding it over the wound. Elena glared at him, her face infused with every last sliver of hatred, pain and rage she had, and spat in his face. "Go to hell, you-." She started, then was cut off by her scream of agony as the blade dug into her gut till only the hilt protruded from her stomach.
Dr Whitmore twisted the knife violently and Elena's cries of pain tore through her throat till it was raw. "Please, I'm sorry," she sobbed. "No more! I can't! I can't..." But Dr Whitmore just stood by, watching with that ice cold smile that seemed etched indelibly onto his face. "You'll do well to remember never to disrespect me here, 21052. And I can make that punishment last every day for the rest of your life. Which, I'd imagine, will be an extremely long one."
Moaning in pain, Elena closed her eyes. This couldn't be happening, no one could be this twisted that they tortured people every day... But the shred of hope that no one could be this cruel, that this was all just a bad dream, was demolished when another knife was plunged into her stomach to rip it apart.
XxxX
After he was done with her, Elena was clothed in her hoodie and jeans then dragged bloody, exhausted and aching down a dingy corridor. Smears of blood from past victims marked the way, leading somewhere and going nowhere in an endless repetition. Cells lined the walls, littered with countless jagged initials and hundreds upon hundreds of tally marks. Some had been carved into the concrete, others smudged in a dark substance that made Elena's fangs ache.
Panic arose in her when she saw the heavy bars and grimy cells. She had done some bad things in her life; killed innocents, stole and threatened. But was she that disgusting and irredeemable that she deserved to be tortured and kept prisoner? Elena didn't believe that.
Tugging weakly on the arm of the guard who was dragging her, she looked deep into his eyes and focussed her whole attention on him. "You're not going to put me in a cell, you're going to take me out of here right now." Elena said, trying to compel him. But he just laughed and jerked roughly on her arm, reopening a large gash that wept red. "Nice try, but you can't compel me. I drink and wear vervain, everyone in this institution does. There's no escape." And they continued down the corridor, Elena smearing a new trail of blood the whole way.