A Shade of Vampire 31: A Twist of Fates Read Online Free PDF Page A

chair, I was fed up of trying to understand my father’s mind. As logical and rational as he could make himself out to be, it was still a jumbled puzzle.
    All I knew was that, even if I assumed the best in him—that he had Earth’s best interests at heart—his way of going about this “greater good” was something I simply couldn’t agree with.
    Despite what he’d said about The Shade and its leaders, I was sure that they had a long-term vision in mind. And it was theirs I wanted to align myself with, if I ever got out of this damn room.
    My skin beneath the straps felt red raw after hours of trying to break my bonds. I had no idea what this material was made of, but it was clearly constructed with supernaturals in mind.
    I quit yelling after the first hour or so, because my throat became hoarse. I had no idea how long ago I had last had a drink of water—heck, how long ago I’d left the lab. It was as though time stood still in this room. There was no clock. Nothing but blank walls. It terrified me to think that days could have slipped away.
    God. I’ve got to get out of here.
    I cannot go the way of my mother.
    The only thing I had to comfort myself with was the fact that my father had not killed me yet. If he truly wanted to eliminate me as a threat, surely, that would be the first thing he’d do. Why would he prolong my demise? My father was a man of quick decisions. He should’ve made up his mind by now.
    But, assuming he still wanted me alive, why exactly was he keeping me in this room?
    I glanced around the four corners of the ceiling, eyeing the tiny black dots fixed in the center of each. Cameras, of course.
    Maybe my father was watching me at this very moment. The thought chilled me. Maybe he, or whoever he’d put in charge of monitoring me, was waiting for me to do something. Calm down? Sleep?
    Since my father had ceased communication with me, I had tried everything else in this room but closing my eyes. So as much as I wanted to keep them wide open, I let them settle and let my head loll gradually. Maybe now at least, if they thought I had drifted off into one of my deep slumbers, someone might feel generous enough to come in and place a bottle of water by my feet. I might be tougher and steadier than a regular human, and be able to survive longer periods without seeing to basic bodily functions, but I still felt the urge to drink. The pain of deprivation was still there.
    I imagined the hands of a clock ticking on the backs of my eyelids. Maybe ten minutes passed, then twenty and then half an hour, before, finally, the clicking of the door disrupted the maddening silence.
    I still dared not open my eyes. I tried to keep my body relaxed, as relaxed as it could be in this rigid chair. I focused on deepening my breathing.
    With a dull thud, something was placed on the floor by my right foot. Still, I kept my eyelids glued. I was afraid that the moment I opened them, whoever had ventured inside would leave.
    I tried to detect who it was by scent, but this person had no particular odor—at least not one that I could place—which led me to the conclusion that it likely wasn’t my father. He always wore a distinctive cologne.
    The footsteps moved back a couple of feet and stopped again. I heard another click—not the click of the door. It was too soft for that. It was like the click of… a camera? It clicked again, and again, and then a fourth time, before I could no longer keep my eyes closed. Who on earth would come in here to take pictures of me?
    The moment I opened my eyes, the clicking stopped and I found myself staring up at a man I didn’t even recognize—a lanky ginger-haired man. The harsh white lighting made him look gaunt, pale, almost like a ghost. He wore a black uniform, clearly an IBSI employee.
    “What are you doing?” escaped my lips.
    He stowed the camera in his pocket and darted out of the room. The door closed with a chilling click.
    What the…
    I glanced down at the object