The Vampire Games: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

us. And when they find you, this whole creepy underground cult thing is going to get busted wide open.”
    Amusement lingered on his thin lips. He looked over my head to speak to the guards. “Was anyone helping them?”
    “No,” said the guard. “It seems that she broke herself free on her own, somehow. And she came back for this thing.” He nudged Marc.
    Protectiveness surged within me and I tried to stand up. “Don’t touch him!”
    They shoved me back to the floor. My knees struck glossy wood.
    “Hold her upright,” said Lord Hector.
    They lifted me. I thrashed, trying to summon memories of wrestling class again, but to no avail. These men knew I was a fighter, and now they were prepared for me.
    Lord Hector strolled in a circle around me, analyzing my body with clinical detachment. He squeezed my biceps like loaves of bread at a supermarket. “Hmm.”
    “Keep your paws off me,” I hissed.
    He shoved my chin up and pushed my lips back to expose my teeth.
    “Good condition,” he said. “Which one did she come from?”
    He still wasn’t speaking directly to me. I wouldn’t be ignored like that. They had hurt me, they had hurt Marc, and who knew whom else they could have hurt? I wouldn’t take this indignity. “I came from Hidden Oaks!”
    “Sector nine,” said the guard.
    “Nine is one of Dawn Hold’s, isn’t it?” Lord Hector asked. “Did Phillip pick them for Harvest?”
    “No, my lord. It was a random selection.”
    They may as well have been speaking Latin for all I understood them.
    “She’s feisty,” Lord Hector said, but he seemed to have lost interest in me. He sauntered back to his desk and sat down. “Send both of them to the Grinder.”
    A chill rolled over my shoulders. “What’s the Grinder?”
    But now Marc and I were being dragged away.
    I kicked. I fought.
    It didn’t matter.
    We left that warm, comfortable office and were taken to a chilly hallway.
    “I’ll find a way out, Marc,” I whispered to him. Our shoulders bumped together as we were walked down that concrete path into darkness. “I’m going to get us out of here. I just need your help. Okay?”
    “Bianka,” he said, as though my name were the only thing left that he could say.
    I understood how he felt.
    Sanity had fled the both of us.
    Security handed us off to a new group of people. They weren’t men in black suits like the ones that had taken me. They were wearing different uniforms in general, something more like jumpsuits. But they were as impossible to get away from as the men in the suits, and maybe even more impossible, considering I couldn’t move an inch and I wasn’t even chained.
    Everyone in this creepy cave system was so strong.
    “Where are you taking us?” I asked. “What’s happening?”
    One of the jumpsuits sneered at me. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Someone had finally spoken to me. The fact I wasn’t being treated like an animal made my heart skip a beat, even though his words had been so cruel.
    Better to be a hated human than a product .
    “Let me go!” I demanded.
    A hand slapped me in the back of the head hard enough that I staggered.
    “Hey!” Marc protested. He tried to break free, but he had even worse luck with it than I did, considering he kept slumping. The drugs still hadn’t left his system.
    How could they treat us like this? He was too weak. He needed time to recover.
    We weren’t dogs.
    “He’s hurt!” I said. “He needs a doctor!”
    “He’s fine. They don’t send anyone to the Grinder unless they can put on a good show,” the same jumpsuit said. They walked us through a doorway into a new hallway. It was lightless except for a dim red glow. The crimson bulbs reduced everything around me to black and crimson images so stark that it hurt my eyes.
    Another one of the guys in jumpsuits groaned. “Ignore her. It’s not worth it.”
    “Please,” I said again. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening. Something— anything . What’s the