Chapter 1
The rain pours down like needles against my skin. The sky booms, lightning bolts flash sliver across the cloudy sky. The vampires are screaming, begging me to stop. But I can’t. This is what I’m meant to do.
I pursue them—running down the vacant streets, weaving through rusty cars, my boots kicking up the glass and mud on the road. The vampire I target, a tall one with fleshless skin and bloodless eyes, scurries around a burning barrel and jumps onto the steps that lead to a building of shiny steel. It bolts for the doors, its bare feet shedding skin. Clutching the stake, I charge after it and with a swift launch off the bottom step, I’m airborne, soaring through the darkness. My boot catches against the railing, and just as quick as I caught up to the monster, it vanishes inside the building.
“Dammit!” I crash to the muddy ground, skinning my hands on rocks. I let out a frustrated scream. With each passing day, my strength and fighting skills slip away from me.
“If you’d just take the medicine, then that vampire would be dead by now.” Sylas creeps from the shadows of the cars, dressed head-to-toe in black. His dark eyes light up like coals against the fires burning in the streets. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and his dark hair brushes across his forehead. “Your mortality is your weakness, Kayla.”
Pushing to my feet, I scowl at him. “I’ve told you, I’m not going to do that… yet. I’m not sure if I want to.”
He backs me against the railing and traps me between his arms. “I think you want to, you’re just holding back because of a certain someone.”
“You mean Aiden.” I straighten my shoulders, confident and strong, and look him straight in the eye. “I’m not going to change until I know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Always following Monarch’s orders.” He coils a strand of my long, black hair around his finger. “I thought after everything you’ve learned, you’d have given up on him by now.”
“I’ve learned nothing.” It takes a lot, but I shove him back. “Emmy’s gotten nowhere with my memories.”
He lets out a low laugh and touches his chest where I shoved him. “Always so feisty.”
A shriek pierces the air and our gazes dart to the street. The vampires are crying out in hungry, needing to feed.
“Shouldn’t you be hiding out with the rest of the Day Takers?” I flip the stake in my hand and slide it in the back pocket of my jeans. “Or do you have a death wish?”
He winks at me and backs toward the road. “I was just seeing if you’d made any progress with the whole slaying thing.” His dark eyes wander to the top of the stairs where I lost the vampire. “Looks like I owe Emmy a shot of amortire.”
Amortire is the Day Taker’s “special” medicine. It’s a numbing solution they take to block out their cravings, but honestly I think they use it more for recreational purposes than anything—just like they do with most things.
“You were placing bets on me.” I stomp after him, past the fires, and dip into the shadows of the cars.
“Hey.” He grins through the night, his long legs stretching as he steps gracefully over the dented hood of a small car. “I was betting you’d be kicking ass.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I hop over the hood of a car and slip clumsily onto the ground.
“Take the medicine, Kayla,” he calls out, barely a silhouette anymore. The rain lets up, and the sky calms down. “You’ll never be able to pull anything off if you don’t.”
I stop in the center of the street, listening to the vampires shrieks rattle against the building’s walls as they hide from me—the one and only person they want nothing to do with.
It hasn’t been that long since I left Aiden and the others, but it feels like an eternity. I don’t regret my decision to leave. Not yet, anyway. If it turns out Emmy can’t extract my memories, then I might be kicking my own butt.
I sigh and head down the street. I can’t see Sylas anymore, but I don’t care. I know where I’m going; to a place where I feel just as uncomfortable as I did in The Colony.
I take my time lollygagging along the curb of the street, my boots grazing against the broken pieces of concrete. My hand moves for my knife as I spot a vampire crawling from the shadows, fangs drooling, its skinless fingers clawing at the sidewalk. I pause and take a step back, knocking my hip into a bumper.
“What on earth?” I squint through the dark at two outlines of pale white figures with feathery white hair and flawless skin.
Highers.
Chapter 2
I stand in the middle of the street blinking my eyes over and over again, but the Highers stay. Their pale figures are blinding against the blackness of night. Sharp howls of the vampires’ cries shake the city as they flee for their lives.
But why? Because of the Highers?
The Highers follow after a vampire, exchanging words with each other. I can’t hear what they’re saying. But I want to. I inch forward, ducking low toward the ground, and strain to listen. They look like they’re searching for something—or someone. The taller Higher steps beneath the glow of the fires always burning in the streets and his pale eyes are recognizable.
“Gabrielle,” I breathe.
Gabrielle snatches the vampire by the neck and raises it up to him. The vampire’s legs flail as it struggles to escape. Fangs ascend from Gabrielle’s lips and he tips his head back, his body trembling with desire. His head snaps down and he sinks teeth into the vampire’s decaying flesh. There’s a burning hunger in Gabrielle’s pale eyes, one he’s desperate to get rid of.