Kody's POV

Each day was worse than the last. It was like I was living with a ticking bomb, but I never knew when it could finally blow up, when Mia's life would finally end. Despite everyone's efforts, we were no closer to finding her than when we started. We were sure, now, that it was in fact due to a vampire, but there was no trail to follow. Both Mia's and the vampire's scent had ended at the edge of the road where they took off in a car. By now, even that was long gone.

We tried to search every building that could match Alice's description, but it could literally be anywhere in the world. The only reason I continued to hunt and remain living was because Alice knew Mia was still alive at least for the time being.

Through her visions, Alice had found out that some vampire was creating many vampires in this strange facility where he could keep them all locked up and separated, so they couldn't kill each other. Surely, they were meant to kill other vampires; there was no other reason to raise such an army. We tried looking for them in the south, but the cloudy weather in Alice's visions didn't match up with anywhere where vampire wars are common.

But when Mia's scent started fading from the house, my car, all the places so important to me, it seemed harder to keep going. Like her scent, humans eventually fade away into oblivion, and that possibility got stronger the longer she was away from me.

With no school to interrupt me, I was constantly searching for her, going further and further away from home each time. My family would help me when they could, but they were still keeping up the pretenses of living in society. Of course, it wasn't their mate that was gone although they all claimed to know what I was going through.

I was currently sitting at home in between one of my searches resting. Vampires didn't need to rest physically, but I needed a break from my heartbreaking efforts. Maybe, if I could think here for a minute, I would figure something out.

"No, no, no," Alice started saying. Instantly, I was at her side waiting for her to share what was going on. It had to be related to Naomi, but obviously it was not good which made me even more nervous.

"They're going to change her," Alice said.

"No, it shouldn't happen like this. She's too young." I collapsed on the spot. I knew she wasn't dead, but this was still horrible. She was only fifteen, and now she had to give up the rest of her life. Hopefully, we'd be reunited, but things would be different now.

Assuming she wasn't killed for whatever purpose this guy was creating vampires for, she at least had a better chance at living than when she was human which filled me with some hope. On the other hand, there could be no good reason that someone would create a bunch of vampires in the way he was. More than ever did I want to find Naomi and destroy whoever was putting her through this torture.

Mia's POV

Half asleep, I vaguely noticed the whooshing noise signaling the opening of my door, but I was too tired to care. Even if I was awake, I doubt I'd care much.

What caused me to jolt awake were two cold hands on me. They tilted my head to the side as I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I noticed the door shutting again before a burning drew my attention away. It felt like my neck was on fire, but when I put my hand against it, all I felt was a warm stickiness. I couldn't hold in my screams as the pain slowly spread throughout my body getting worse and worse. The one coherent thought I could form was that this must have been what the others had gone through. It was the worst pain I could have ever imagined, worse than death - making me wish I was dead.

Time seemed to be endless as my body burned in its own personal hell. I knew this was the end; nobody could survive this. I was finally going to die the same way the others around me had done for these past weeks or months.

I could hear screaming in the background, and with a sliver of thought realized it was me, but everything was in so much pain that I couldn't feel my throat making such noises. The pain consumed me so that I could feel and think of nothing but it.

Eventually, I noticed an absence of pain in my fingers and toes. It was strange. I had become so accustomed to the intense pain that it was like I couldn't feel anything in comparison. For a sliver of a moment, I thought that it was easing up, but I soon realized it was only getting more intense. The worst was yet to be over. While the burning receded slowly from my extremities, it gathered in my core and gained more and more heat.

My heart, unable to take the escalating torture, was beating so impossibly fast that it was vibrating. It finally sputtered with a last couple beats before it went silent. The pain seemed to have left everywhere but my throat as my heart beat ended.

This is what it must feel like to be dead, I thought. It was deathly quiet as I laid completely still. All I could feel was the itching burn in my throat - which felt like I had swallowed glass and a glass blower itself - and the floor beneath me.

I opened my eyes to see what hell looked like because according to all the pain, I must have ended up there. I was surprised, then, to see that I was still in the same room. It looked different now though. Despite still not having any lights, I was able to see much more clearly. There was dust floating in the air and all the smudges I had made on the metal. I stared at my surroundings not quite sure what was going on with me but distracted by it nonetheless.

"Ahh, you're awake." The voice startled me, and I suddenly found myself crouched in the corner growling at nothing. Looking around, I noticed the smallest camera in the upper corner of my room. Next to it was a speaker from which his voice originated. How had I not noticed it before? I studied it for some time while other parts of my brain tried to figure out what this guy wanted from me.

"At long last, you've been freed from the ailments of humanity. It's time for you to enjoy yourself. Walk out of your room," the voice instructed as the door slowly creeped open. It had never seemed so slow before, maybe because I was anxiously waiting to get out.

As soon as it stopped, I rushed out, the fastest I had ever gone. I looked around wondering where to go next. I considered the bathroom, but I didn't feel the need to go.

"Go to your right," the voice continued. I continued on to the room with the cliff, making sure to stay clear of it.

"Now jump down." Was he crazy? I wasn't going to do that. I may have wished earlier to die, but now that I had gotten past that obstacle, I felt perfectly fine. In fact, I felt like I could do anything, certainly not the mentality of someone who would go and kill themselves.

When I refused to move, the voice came back. "Jump on down. I promise you won't get hurt. You've got some special tricks now."

I still didn't budge. There was nothing that would make me go down there. Maybe that weird torture had made me special somehow, but I wasn't going to test it out like that. Instead, I plopped down and sat frozen in place, arms crossed over my chest.

When the guy realized I wasn't going to listen, he sent in some guards. I heard the swooshing of a door below and footsteps. Considering I could usually barely hear the door from my room when I was mere feet away from it, I was a little confused why I could hear it now from all the way up here.

Suddenly, four guards rose up from the cliff and approached me. Scared of what they were going to do to me, I sprinted in the opposite direction and ended up in the bathrooms in the blink of an eye - another strange thing. I had barely thought to move and here I was.

The guard quickly caught up with me and grabbed my arms roughly. I struggled against them and fought a couple of them off before the others restrained me. All four of them each had a hold and dragged me to the dreaded cliff. As if it was just a step in a staircase, they easily hopped down into the abyss. Everything in me was screaming danger as we descended, and my senses were hyperaware as it seemed to take forever. We landed with a soft thud, and they escorted me out as if nothing happened.

"Now, it's time for you to get a snack. Your throat must be burning." The voice had returned, but this time in person. He stood with smug smile on his pale face and burgundy eyes boring into me. His eyes made me reconsider my previous thought of being in hell because he sure looked like the devil to me.

With the reminder of my throat, my thoughts were consumed with it. Thinking about it seemed to make it worse which only made it even harder to ignore. I took a gasp as the pain flooded to the forefront of my mind. A small scent came to my attention which caused me to suddenly lick the source which was on my hand. It tasted better than anything I had ever eaten. When I looked at my hand again, it was perfectly clean. I didn't know what was on it before, but it was gone now sadly. I desperately wanted more of whatever it was.

"It's finally time I introduce myself. I'm Ryder, your new master. I'm sorry it took so long for you to get to this point, but I wanted to make sure there weren't people coming after me for it. My guards were dumb enough to take someone protected like you, but it all worked out in the end. Didn't it?"

I could barely pay attention to what he was saying. Not only did it make no sense, but my throat was all I could think about. When I didn't respond, he said a overly sweet goodbye, waved the guards forward, and left.