It seemed to take forever before the alarms sounded. Miranda had been seated on the floor, her back to the wall, arms draped over bent knees. Her eyes had been closed for twenty minutes straight, her chin tucked low. Indigo wanted to provide some measure of comfort or encouragement, but she’d decided that simply allowing the young woman some space and time would be the best approach.
As soon as the first alarm sounded, she knew she’d made the right choice. Miranda’s head whipped up, her neck twisting painfully as she looked toward the door. In the hallway just outside the shrill tenor of a waling alarm blared. It was an abrupt buzzing chirp which resonated throughout the quiet interior of the room they’d been locked inside.
Indigo bolted to her feet and Sammy followed close behind, the two of them huddled toward the front door and listened to the sounds of growing chaos from outside. Voices rose above the din, a frantic chorus of shouts and barked commands, thudding footfalls hammering the floor of the hallway just outside the door. Indigo could feel as the floor trembled beneath her feet with the impact of the charging horde of combat booted soldiers.
“It worked,” she gasped, wheeling around to look at Miranda, who remained huddled, knees bent. “Holy shit, it worked.”
“Now it’s up to you.” Sammy tensed and took an almost involuntary step backwards, sensing what was to come.
“Don’t be nervous.” Indigo murmured, unsure if Sammy should actually follow her advice.
“You’ll have to forgive me, but the last time you turned into one of those— things— you beat the crap out of me and stole something important from Gus’s office.”
“Oh, right. That.” The sinister machinations of Davit Sivaslian wove their way throughout ever element of their lives it seemed. He’d sired Indigo— turned her into the half-blood vampire that she was. He’d controlled her, forced her to steal a magical weapon from Gus and in the process, she’d beaten the snot out of Sammy to get to it.
“I’d like to say I have more control over myself now,” she murmured, facing the door, her fists clenched.
“But?”
“But— that might be stretching the truth a bit.”
“A lie, you mean?”
“Such a strong word.” She lowered her chin, pressing her forehead against the door, her elbow bent sharp fist closed against its metal hide. Her entire body tensed as she pressed her teeth together, willing the rage to come. She felt heat swirling in her chest, a hungry beast banging at the cage of her ribs— but her ribs kept it contained.
“Come on, Indigo,” Sammy urged. Voices continued out in the corridor, but some were fading as boot falls grew further away. Somewhere in the distance, the snapping chatter of gunfire carried. “Miranda’s friends won’t distract them for long. We need to get out.”
“I’m trying.” Indigo spoke through clenched teeth. She could feel the blood racing, acid in her veins, but the monster would not release itself. For every hammer blow against her ribcage, it felt as though the creature was drawing back, deeper into the abyss of her center. She drew her head back and smashed it against the door, hissing in anger, a spark of pain roaring across her temples.
But nothing came. The door held fast— her monster kept itself locked within. Miranda eased her head up, looking at the other woman through glistening eyes.
“What are you doing?” Miranda looked on the verge of terrified.
“Indigo—” Sammy said again, reaching toward her. She swatted his hand away.
“I can’t.”
“You have to. We can’t let Gus do this alone.”
“I know that! Dammit, I know that. I just—” she closed her fingers so tightly, veins bulged on the back of her pale hand. Sammy’s eyes fixed on those veins, Indigo could see him focus on them, as if a tiny light had sparked in his mind. He drew back and ran toward the bathroom as Indigo took her closed fist and drilled it into the metal surface of the door, wincing as her knuckles blistered in pain.
“Indigo?” Miranda used the wall to help her stand on shaking legs, reaching toward her friend. “What are you trying to do? You can’t knock that door down with your bare hands.”
Indigo’s chin lowered, her left hand propping her up against the door. Voices still carried somewhere within the compound outside the walls of their makeshift cell.
“There are things,” Indigo said quietly, “things I haven’t told you.”
From within the bathroom there was a sudden sharp crash, an explosion of broken glass and Indigo turned toward the sound. She remembered the simple slat of a mirror, hung above a metal sink. Nothing extravagant, just pure function.
“Sammy? Are you all right?”
Sammy stepped from the bathroom, the left sleeve of his shirt pulled up near his elbow, exposing a length of his forearm. In his right hand, he held a shard of broken glass, evidently from the mirror he’d shattered.
“Don’t.” Indigo shook her head firmly, as realization settled in. “Sammy if you do that, I’m not sure—”
Sammy raked the jagged edge of the shard of glass down his arm, careful to avoid nicking a critical artery. A dark, ragged line formed in his flesh, trailing the glass, his mouth pressed tight into a pained grimace. Crimson blood oozed from the wound, trailing its way down the bulge of his muscular forearm, running in thin streams toward his wrist.
Indigo felt water in her mouth— her tongue slipping free, dragging over her lips. The caged beast pressed itself against her ribs, coiling fingers around the bars, easing closer and closer to the surface.
“It’s right here, Indigo,” Sammy said and held out his arm. “It’s for you.”
Indigo’s breath was coming thick and heavy, the metallic scent of blood filling every empty space in the room and in her mind.
“S—Sammy,” she gasped, but could feel the words coming slow and raspy, her rows of shifting teeth making it difficult to speak. Her forehead knitted taut with bunched muscle, a sudden rush of energy spilling up from deep in her core. Claws ripped free of her fingertips, drawing sharp and barbed, her knuckles twisting into talons. Her gums split, fangs thrusting loose, forcing aside the blunt ivory of her normal teeth. The world itself seemed to smear into a crimson hue, the pumping pulse of Sammy’s blood-filled heart thick in her ears.
“Indigo?” Miranda gasped from behind her, the voice hidden beyond a curtain of craving.
“It’s here.” Sammy held out his arm. “I’m here.”
And then, Indigo was moving, surging forward as if riding the wind, lifting Sammy and driving him hard into the wall behind him. She closed her clawed fingers around his left wrist and pinned it up against the wall, her eyes focused on the streams of blood which oozed from the wound in his flesh.
“Indigo!” Miranda screeched, a shrill howl of fear and out of the corner of her eye, the creature who had once been Indigo saw her flatten against the wall, eyeing her in terror.
Hunger. Thirst. Sustenance.
“That’s right, Indigo, that’s what we want.” Sammy tried to sound firm, but she heard the tremor in his voice. “I know you’re in there,” he continued. “The door, okay? We need you to break down that door.” Indigo drew her face closer to Sammy’s bloodied arm, a pink tongue extending, touching his flesh, taking in the copper taste of blood.
“Indigo!” he all but screamed. His voice was like a lighthouse— a beacon within the fog of the creature’s rage and craving. She dipped her bared fangs closer to his arm, opened her mouth, and almost felt the heat of his blood.
“Indigo!”
She halted, turning and fixing him with her stare. His face was masked in a blood-red craving, but deep within, she recognized it. It was someone she knew— someone she liked. Someone she owed.
“I see you in there,” Sammy whispered, his own teeth clenched as the muscles in his arm tensed, pinned to the wall at his back. “I can feel you in there.”
She breathed through flared nostrils, her jaw ached with the desire to sink her fangs into the meaty flesh.
“The door,” he said. “We need to open the door. We need to help Gus.”
Her fingers coiled around his fragile wrist and she could feel the bones compressing within, her fingers tightening, twisting. Sammy continued staring at her without recoiling. He stood firm ground, held his place and looked directly into her feral eyes.
“The door,” he repeated. “Gus needs us.”
Gus. The name rang true. It was something she knew. Slowly, her fingers drew apart, releasing the pressure on the man’s thick limb. She stepped away, lowering him to the ground, allowing him to draw his arm toward his chest, to try and rub the pain away.
“The door,” he said again and extended a trembling finger toward the metal barrier. Indigo turned toward it and Miranda immediately withdrew, sliding along the wall, looking at her in unfiltered petrification.
“It’s okay,” Sammy said, holding out a hand, but Miranda showed no signs of believing him. Indigo made her way to the door. She flattened her fingers against its metal surface and pressed as her other hand closed into a fist.
Gus. Gus needs us.
She drew back, her body moving all at once, a glorious unison of desire, power, and purpose. For everything she hated about the beast she’d become, there was something to be said for the alignment in primal force and human desires. For the ability to set your conscious mind to something— and then execute it. She twisted and hammered her fist forward, a feral howl snaking from bared fangs. Bone struck metal and the metal buckled, a sudden dent forming, hinges bursting as the steel plate ripped free of its moorings. The bent metal flew across the hallway running outside the makeshift cell and drove into the far wall before it clattered noisily onto the floor.
They were free.
“Stop!”
Indigo twisted right as an operative in tactical gear sprinted forward, weapon raised.
“I don’t know how you got in here, but—”
Indigo didn’t give him time to finish. She leaped to the left as he fired his rifle, the three round burst missing her cleanly. Scattering up and along the left hand wall, she pushed off into an armless cartwheel over the shooter’s head, landing on the other side of him in a low crouch. She drove a fist into his side, lifting him from his feet and slamming him against the wall. Sheet rock splintered under the impact and he dropped to the floor amidst a drift of broken plaster.
She crouched over him, her tongue touching her lips as she focused her attention on the exposed nape of his neck.
“No time for that,” Sammy barked, barging from the room they’d been held in. He moved toward the fallen guard and slipped a pistol free from his holster, then slung the M4 carbine over his shoulder. A moment later, Sammy had liberated the fallen operative of his tactical vest, sliding it down over his own torso, fastening a series of straps around each ribcage.
“Miranda, we need to move!”
The woman poked her head out from the door, looking warily at Indigo.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
She shook her head, not taking another step forward.
“You spent weeks letting vampires feed on you— what are you afraid of?”
“She— she’s— different.”
“Not that different.”
“I— I am me.” Indigo struggled to form the words, but managed. “Still me.”
Miranda remained frozen as boot falls echoed throughout another adjoining hallway.
“Either you come with us now, or we’re leaving without you, and we’d rather not leave without you.”
“Your friends,” Indigo said. “Are my friends.” She gestured clumsily toward herself, then back at Miranda. “We are— all friends.”
Miranda still looked dubious, but she stepped warily out into the hallway. Voices cried out from a nearby corridor as Sammy swept forward and gestured wildly.
“Come on. We need to go! We need to go now!”
Finally, Miranda seemed to understand the urgency of the situation and the three of them hurried down the hallway and toward the nearest exit.