She was being dragged through the night. The vampire had one arm around her waist and the other around her throat. The city was passing by her in a black blur. Sookie could feel the wind whipping against her face. Was he running? How could he move so fast? Her feet weren't even touching the ground. She felt disoriented and immobilized.
Suddenly, they were in a parking lot behind a dark building, and he was walking again with her dangling like a rag-doll in his grasp. A door in the back of the building opened and he carried her through. Sookie had a moment to think that he might as well have been dragging a toddler, for all the effort it took him. The second they crossed the threshold the door slammed shut behind them and she saw another man standing in the corridor with his back against the door. No, it wasn't another man, it was another vampire. This one had long, straggly black hair and black eyes and he wasn't as tall as the one who had a hold of her.
Abruptly, the one that had her in a vice-grip just let go and she fell to the floor. It was so sudden and unexpected that she didn't have a chance to catch herself before she was in a heap at their feet.
"I'll be in the basement with our guest," the blond one said.
He bent over and wound a hand through her hair, and then he was dragging her down the hall on her back. Sookie cried out in pain. Her throat hurt from where he had choked her and it felt like he was ripping her hair out of her head. She wanted to stand up but she couldn't get her feet under her. She reached up with both hands to grip his wrist, desperately trying to take some of the pressure off her scalp.
They reached the end of the hall and then he was dragging her through another door and down concrete stairs. She could feel the skin on her back and legs being scraped and cut with each and every step they went down. Then they were at the bottom and he pulled her across the floor to a corner of the dark room.
He let go of her hair, but before she could even savor the relief of it, she felt something hard and cold being clamped around her neck. Then her hands were jerked behind her back and she heard the click and snap of metal handcuffs as he shackled her wrists behind her.
"Scream or not as you prefer, the walls are sound-proof" the vampire said.
His voice was so soft and nonchalant that she looked up at him. He was staring down at her with a little smile, almost a smirk, on his face. Then he turned around and walked back up the stairs. Sookie heard the door open, close, and lock.
What was happening? Oh God, why was this happening to her? She looked around the basement room. Where was she? What was this place? The room she was in was dark but not pitch black. There were two dim light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, one on each side of the room. There weren't any windows.
Crouching on her knees, Sookie tried to see in every direction at once. Was there anyone else down here? No, no there couldn't be. If anyone else was down here with her, she would have been able to "hear" them. Or would she? She hadn't "heard" either one of those vampires. How was that possible? She had always been able to hear everyone inside her head. Granted, some people were clearer and louder than others, but she always heard something, whether she wanted to or not. But those two vampires…..there had been only silence.
"You can't hear them because they're not people," she thought to herself.
Her gaze darted wildly around the room. It looked like something out of a medieval horror movie. There were cells with iron bars and chains lined around the walls. And there was equipment down here. Sookie started to shake; she could hear herself making little mewling noises. This room was a torture chamber and it reeked of stale urine and blood. It smelled like someone had died down here. When she was in high school, her world history class had studied the Spanish Inquisition. The things down here looked like the drawings from her textbook.
As best she could, with her hands cuffed behind her back, Sookie curled into a ball and tried to make herself as small as possible. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Please, please make this stop" she prayed. "Please God, make it go away."
The sound of her own breathing was harsh and there was a roaring noise in her ears. She felt her stomach roll with nausea. The room was cold, but she was covered in a thin film of sweat and her heart felt like it was going to pound its way out of her chest. Sookie could feel herself starting to lose control. Just then, the door at the top of the stairs opened and someone began to walk down.
She didn't dare move a muscle. She could hear the footsteps clicking down the stairs and then coming across the floor toward her. Sookie squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and held her breath. The footsteps stopped. And then…..nothing.
Seconds creeped by. Minutes?
"If you don't take a breath, you're going to pass out, Scarlett," a woman's voice said.
Sookie's eyes popped open in surprise. She was eye-level with a pair of high-heeled pink pumps. Turning her head to the side, she looked up to see a beautiful woman in a pink jump-suit with long, honey-blond hair.
"My name's Sookie, not Scarlett," she muttered absurdly.
The vampire woman's mouth kicked up to one side.
"Whatever," she smirked.
It was the exact same smirk that she had seen on the big blond vampire's face when he had told her to scream or not if she wanted.
Sookie didn't understand why, but for some reason she started to feel just a tiny bit better. Her breathing began to normalize and her heart wasn't hammering quite so hard as before. Maybe it was because this vampire was a woman, and just having another woman with her in this horrible room was calming her down. Or perhaps it was because the vampire liked the color pink. How bad could she be if she liked to dress in all pink?
Sookie gave a hysterical little giggle. Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea, she had been kidnapped by vampires! She was in a dungeon torture chamber with a chain around her neck, and she was conversing with a pretty vampire-lady who had a pink ribbon in her hair! She giggled again. The vampire's left eyebrow rose.
"Do yourself a favor, Scarlett, and tell him what he wants to know," the vampire drawled.
"Wha... what?" Sookie mumbled, confused.
The basement door opened again, and he came down the steps. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans, boots, and a Marilyn Manson tee-shirt. He grinned at her.
"Let's chat, shall we?" he said.