The sun splashed onto the floor in blinding rays, and Sang and I squinted our eyes as they adjusted to the light as the back of the plane was opened up slowly. I looked outside and there stood Annabelle, a huge smirk gracing her scarlet lips, a man and woman standing beside her. She snapped her fingers and immediately they rushed inside, and the woman twisted Sang’s arms behind his back and forced him to his feet. The man did the same to me, I refused, at first, until he painfully gripped my right hand, and I had no choice but to obey him.
Before he got behind me, I snuck a quick view of his visage. He was very tall, slim, and had a weathered face that I’d say was about fifty or sixty years. His hair was full on his head and was grey, and his eyes were a steely hue, firm and concentrated on the task at hand. He wore a pair of brown dress pants and lighter shirt which I could see his muscles bulging from. He was fit but rather old, and I wondered if he was a vampire or not.
The man and woman walked Sang and I outside the plane and stopped before Annabelle. She chuckled in delight and went to me, lifted my chin, green eyes staring deeply into my face. I was going to spit at her when she kicked me in the stomach, and I know I would’ve flown back if the man wasn’t holding me still. I coughed and groaned in pain which only made Annabelle’s smile wider, and she approached me again wrapped my hair around her fingers.
“So cute and so beautiful,” she mused. “I can’t wait to get you to the castle, Lily. Oh, what fun we’ll have. Anyway, the man with you is Lord Greyson, but I just call him Grey, and he’s the person in charge of you. The woman by Chester is Rosemary, or Rose, and she’s in charge of Sang. Okay?”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense if I had the woman and Sang had the man?” I tried to sound as innocent as possible.
“To make sense? Honey, there is no ‘sense’ around here. Only organized chaos.”
I muttered, “You bitch.” Sang remained silent.
Annabelle scolded in a babying tone, “No talking back.” She kicked me in the stomach again. Grey struggled to keep his feet on the ground, and I gasped in shock at the amount of strength. It hurt, maybe a little too much, and I could feel the anger building inside me as if a flickering bonfire growing high into the night.
“My Lady, shall we begin our walk to the castle?” Grey asked.
Annabelle replied, “Yeah, you may begin. I’m going to take the car. Tell me when you arrive.” She got into a small black car and spun the tires before speeding off out of sight.
Rose kicked Sang in the back of the knee and said, “Come on. Let’s move.”
I began to walk and surveyed our surroundings. We were on a dirt path encompassed by thick, towering trees which were trimmed at the tops and lead to a castle I could just make out in the distance.
“You will not speak unless told to, understand?” Grey told me straight into my ear. I nodded and kept walking forward, not wanting to deal with all this bullshit right now. I just focused on moving ahead with this strange man behind me who bound my arms together behind my back and breathed in evenly to cool the anger kindling inside.
Sang was completely quiet and even his steps were without sound as he came beside me and continued onward, lips trembling as he noticed the castle looming closer.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, we made it to the front metal gate of the castle that stretched all around the place, wrought with intricate designs of flowers, vines, and dragons. Our captors stood us in front of the enormous arched door, and Grey banged a lion-shaped doorknocker three times. The door rose just a few feet so it wasn’t up all the way, and out stepped Annabelle dressed in a flowing black gown which swept to her feet and hugged her figure in all the right places. It had long sleeves with lace at the ends that spilled over her wrists and a corset-like bodice.
“Hello, my wonderful pets. Come on in, and I’ll introduce you to everyone,” she announced politely.
We were shoved into the castle. It was dimly lit by torches which were hung on each side of the wall as we first went through a narrow but long corridor and then through a great area decorated with huge tapestries of unicorns and mythical creatures, knights, and royal kings and queens. It was lusciously carpeted in red, and in the middle was a silver throne with two winding staircases on each side. We were turned to the right and through a small door which lead outside to a grand garden blooming with rose bushes and all kinds of flowers, bushes, and tiny trees. Standing between the rows of the garden were people—a lot of people—some dressed in modern-day attire while others wore dirty rags and were on their hands and knees beside the regal looking men and women who held an air of importance.
“Welcome, my children, welcome!” Annabelle bellowed over the chattering of the crowd. “I have a special treat for you this evening.” She whispered to Sang and I, “Get on your knees and sit upright.”
We did as instructed, then our hands were bound in chains behind our backs, and I felt like a prisoner being introduced to jail.
Maybe it was.
I struggled against my restraints, but Grey knelt down and uttered in my ear, “Just relax and obey the queen for now. You don’t want to disappoint her as she’s showing you off to everyone, do you? You’ll just be tortured, and I promise it won’t be fun.” His voice was low and self-confident, and I knew that he was probably someone of rank. His name was Lord Greyson, so he did have a status. I wonder what I was to them, these odd people with ones of lower status-below them.
Annabelle brimmed with joy as she pointed to me and yelled, “Here I have Lily, Darius’ new and only turned vampire!” There was clapping and cheering as she yanked on my hair and forced my head up so I could see into the eyes of everyone assembled, and I felt humiliated and ashamed this was happening to me. I might as well have been naked I felt so lowly and degraded with the chains around my hands and the position I was in.
“And here we have the return of one of my favorite subjects, Chester!” She patted Sang on the back and ruffled his hair affectionately as the crowd jeered and clapped again, some people going so far as to whistle and yell words of praise and appreciation.
“It’s not Chester, it’s Sang,” I grumbled, and Grey kicked my hands so hard that I flinched with the unexpected pain.
“Now, you may play with Lily and Chester, but remember, in the end they are mine, so if they displease you, you come straight to me, and I shall discipline them thoroughly.”
Annabelle turned around and ordered, “Take Chester to the bathing room and bring Lily to the blooding room. When you’re finished, bring Chester to me in my quarters and Lily to her new room, understood?”
Both Rose and Grey said in perfect synchronization, “Yes, my queen.”
“Good.” She ruffled Sang’s hair again and walked inside the castle where I lost sight of her. Grey tugged on my chains as if I was a dog, and I got on my feet to follow him when he whipped his head around in anger.
“Don’t follow me on your legs; follow me on your hands and knees.”
“What? Are you kidding?” I fumed.
Sang spoke softly, “Lily, do as he says. You don’t want him to report to the queen, do you? You have no idea what she can do to you. Please listen to me.”
“This is ridiculous! Bullshit! Why should I listen to him?” I yelled at Lord Greyson. He wasn’t my father, for goodness sake.
He replied rather tenderly, “You don’t want to find out what can be done to you in the torture chambers. Please, for your own sake, just listen. Everything will be so much better if you listen.” He unchained my hands from behind my back and instead fastened them around my neck.
I looked into Sang’s sad, crimson eyes and decided that I’d try and listen for now. But if something really ticks me off later, I won’t be afraid to speak my mind.
It was painful to think of how being on all fours would ruin my beige jacket and jeans, probably put a hole in them, and it made me angry I had to get around this way until told otherwise. Sang was in front of me as we went inside the castle and were lead separate ways. I made a kissy face to Sang as he was directed into a dark hallway, and he reciprocated the act. Greyson yanked on the chain and pulled me forward until we came to a small room that was bright with ten torches.
“Why hasn’t she modernized the place? You know, electricity and plumbing and what-not?” I asked him.
His jaw was rigid. “She likes to have things old, because she doesn’t want to remember how old she is. She’s about as old, maybe a bit younger, than your Darius. And there is electricity in some of the rooms. And there is working plumbing, too.”
“Oh.”
I noticed a wide stone chair with a metal table beside it, and Grey told me to stand up and sit down. I did as he said, and he immediately strapped my hands and legs down with thick leather strips and placed a gag inside my mouth. I was going to try and break loose, but I remembered Sang’s words and decided against it.
Grey left and shut the door, leaving me alone and helpless in the tiny room. I could hear the echoes of footsteps outside and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see what was on the table. What were they going to do? Were they going to torture me now?
The footsteps stopped, and in came Annabelle, who quickly shut the door behind her and proceeded in slowly. Her face beamed with happiness as she hummed a song to herself, the same song Sang had hummed on the plane and stared deeply into my eyes until I had to turn my head because they were so fierce and penetrating.
“Welcome, Lily, to the blooding room.” She spread her arms as to take in the whole room with one gesture and then went to the table and picked up a few things.
My eyes widened with fear as I saw what she had, and I wished I were Sang instead of me this moment.
In her hands was a long-ass needle, complete with five small glass vials, a thin rubber cord, and an elastic band. Oh, no. Please don’t use that needle. Anything but a needle. I’d hated those accursed things since I was small because of a very unpleasant experience, and from then on, all hell broke loose when I had to have one stuck in me at the doctor’s. Since being on my own, I’d managed to avoid the evil objects, but now, there was no escaping it. I was bound hopelessly to a chair while Annabelle wrapped the elastic around my arms and tapped the vein inside my elbow.
I screamed into the gag, tied to move my arm away, but it was no use.
“Oh, you don’t like needles?” she asked with pity.
I vigorously shook my head and arm, tears welling in my eyes and trickling down my chin.
Annabelle laughed cruelly. “Oh, then what fun we’ll have!”
As the needle got closer and closer my vision became unfocused and then melded into a blur, and I silently passed out.