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

“V-vampires?”
    Lisa looked like she felt sad for me. “What, you think they were taking blood for kicks?”
    My mind traveled back to the hidden room with the sunflower. The way that the boy had looked at my bleeding thumb…
    No. He didn’t want to drink my blood.
    He had brought me flowers.
    “They took me from my home,” I said. “They were at my school.”
    “Yeah, that’s how they work.” The woman waved her hands, indicating the pit around us. “You think this would exist if the people who counted didn’t know about it? They take you when you’re young, seventeen or eighteen, and they suck you dry over the years. Our blood keeps them from aging.”
    My mind was whirling.
    Vampires. In my town.
    I had thought we’d be fine if we got out of the mountain. I thought we’d be able to go home, hug our families, go to college.
    But they all knew.
    My parents knew.
    The school knew.
    I’d suspected that had to be the case, but having it confirmed made me queasy.
    Was there anywhere I could be safe?
    Marc’s hand slipped into mine again. He shared his water bottle with me but I only took a sip. I’d had a little something to tide me over while in that bedroom, so he needed it a lot more than I did.
    “We can’t go home,” Marc whispered to me. Desperation aged him a good decade or two. I wondered if I looked as haunted.
    “There’s a way out of this,” I said.
    My mind was still whirling, but I’d quickly shifted gears from shock to planning.
    There were a lot of people in Hidden Oaks. Thousands of us. Even if the vampires were stronger than we were, I suspected we had numbers on our side.
    I needed to learn what my parents knew.
    And we needed to rally to fight back.
    My hand tightened on Marc’s. “We’ll find a way out of this,” I said, firmer than before. I caught his eye. I forced him to look at me. “I promise.”
    “You’re good, Bianka,” he said, “but even you aren’t that good.”
    I started to respond when a part of the wall opened.
    Only two people—vampires, probably—came inside, and I half expected the prisoners in the room to rush them. There were enough of us to overcome that pair. I stood up so that I could fight back.
    But when the vampires walked in, all the humans shrank back. They looked like dogs that had been kicked too many times.
    I still was not a dog.
    Never.
    My hands were shaking again. I clasped them together to stop the trembling.
    The vampires stopped in front of Marc, Lisa, and me. Marc kept staring at the ground like he still wasn’t entirely awake, blinking hard.
    If they took Marc, he wouldn’t have a chance. I prepared myself to fight for him.
    But they grabbed Lisa.
    It surprised me for some reason. She didn’t seem surprised; she threw her elbows in their faces and kicked out with both feet. They just grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her until she cried out.
    “Bad move,” one of them said. “You’ll need everything you can get.”
    “For what?” I asked, leaping forward.
    The other vampire barred me. “Sit down, blood bag.”
    Blood bag? That was the specific kind of product they intended us to be: livestock that held food for the vampires. He’d dared to call me something so undignified.
    I wanted to punch him for it, but I swallowed down my violent urge. Without assistance, numbers weren’t on my side.
    They dragged Lisa out of the pit.
    A screen flickered to life in the wall. It was a TV, very much like the ones in Lord Hector’s office.
    When it turned on, everyone in the pit came to life. They herded nearer to me, clumping as close as they could to get a good view of the television. Not everyone did—Marc, for one, stayed exactly where he was—but there were people brushing my arms and sitting on the mats nearby.
    They looked like they were hunkering down to watch a must-see TV event.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    “Shut up,” one person said beside me. “It’s starting.”
    The screen showed a deep pit ringed