Chapter 4

• Chapter
• 3:
• Miaka’s
• P.O.V
• “He’s alive.”
• I’d nearly forgotten that he was beside me
• when his voice cut through the rush of blood in my ears. I couldn’t fathom what
• I was seeing in front of my eyes. A lump formed in my throat and I was having
• difficulty breathing past that.
• A boy of about four or five years old was
• inside the room, chained to the wall like a dog. He was left naked just like
• the rest of the captives, face sunken in and dark bags under his eyes. His lips
• had dried blood around them, which led me to believe that he was a vampire.
• Several tubes were linked to his skin which had turned a sickly ash colour.
• Some of the tubes drew out blood from his body that was being collected into
• several jars, while the remaining tubes carried some kind of clear liquid into
• his body. I have no idea what the liquid was, but it was the cause for
• worsening his condition.
• “Hey!” Someone shook my shoulders hard and
• snapped me out of my trance. I was met with eyes of pure violet and blue and
• grey, and it felt like I was finally able to breathe again. “You need to get
• him out of here. They brought him in last night and he was still in a much
• better condition that he is now. Can you help him?” The last words were gritted
• out.
• “Yes.” I finally found my voice. I removed
• his hands from my shoulders and stepped into the room and headed straight for
• the little boy.
• I yanked the collar off the wall, careful
• not to let the spikes pierce his skin and removed the cuffs from his hands and
• legs; then I proceeded to do the same with the tubes. While I was still unhooking
• him from the tubes, the violet eyed man came inside the room and this time he
• was carrying a bag in his hands which he used to shove in all the blood jars as
• well as some of the vials containing the clear liquid. “I don’t know what’s in
• here, but try and get these tested so it can help him recover.”
• Tubes removed, I took off my leather jacket
• and draped it around the little boy’s frame. Young vampires can be very
• dangerous especially when they’re starved but the boy was too drugged to react.
• So I picked him up in my arms and carried him out of the room, the man
• following behind me. “Why are you helping me? You’re one of them.”
• “I’m not one of them, I work for them;
• there’s a difference.” His voice was hard, gritted out through clenched teeth.
• “I don’t support what they’re doing. If I had I wouldn’t have helped you.”
• I felt that there was something he was
• holding back from me, so I turned to face him and looked him in the eye. “But
• now that you have, what do you plan to do next?”
• “I won’t do anything. My shift was already
• over when you attacked so I wasn’t technically here. I only came back because I
• forgot my keys and then…”
• I gave him a stern look, trying to
• determine if he would run while I handed the boy over to Rain or not. But my
• gut told me to trust him. It came as more than a surprise since I didn’t even
• trust my own shadow. Then why did I get the feeling that he could be trusted?
• “Stay
• here. I’ll hand him over to my guard and come back for you.” I told him and
• accepted the bag, slinging it over my shoulder.
• I sped past the slaughter house and went
• towards Rain where she awaited me in the highway. She was equally mortified by
• the sight but I told her to rush to the nearest healing centre as fast as she
• could.
• “But, what about you?” She asked after she
• placed the boy inside the car.
• “I need to burn down the house, wipe all
• evidence. Go before it’s too late!” I urged her to get into the car and drive
• away, only turning around once she was gone.
• He was standing in the middle of the
• warehouse when I returned. He handed me a piece of paper when I came to stand
• in front of him. “What’s this?” I asked, opening the paper to find a phone
• number written in a hasty handwriting.
• “My number.” He said. “I’m Kaleb Takeshi and
• the group I work for is known as The League. I don’t know who all the top
• members are, the person who recruited me was one of them but he died of a heart
• attack a year ago. Since then, all my orders have come in the form of text
• messages from untraceable numbers. I’ll give them to you once I get back to my
• apartment. But wait at least a week to call me.”
• I nodded, agreeing with him and trying to
• stall what I had to do next. Not everyone had been alive when we began the
• rescue and it was a loss I would mourn. We had removed them from the cages and
• unshackled them and their bodies now lay on the ground along with the dead
• guards.
• “Are there security cameras here?” Several
• of my guards had used scanners to investigate this spot before confirming that
• there were none or even if there were, they didn’t transfer images outside the
• building, but it doesn’t hurt to double check things.
• “No. Security cameras could be used against
• us so they were all removed months ago.” He told me before nodding. “It’s time.
• Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine...at least I hope so.”
• “Worry?” I raised an eyebrow at him. Did he
• really think I was worrying about what might happen to him after I left? Did he
• even comprehend just how conceited that sounded?
• I was about to retort to his smug comment
• when I noticed a drop of red on his cheeks. Blood? That wasn’t there before.
• “You have blood on your cheek.” I told him.
• “Blood? Where?” He wiped at his cheeks in
• confusion but only managed to smear the stain. “I think it’s from the boy. Some
• of his wounds were bleeding when we unhooked him.”
• “You smeared it.” I told him, looking at
• the angles of his face. He really was handsome and I didn’t know why I even
• thought that.
• I was the demon king, raised in a court
• filled with exceptionally beautiful men and women. He didn’t come close to the
• beauty around me, but still…there was something about him that just drew me in.
• Before I had realized what I was doing, I
• had raised my hand and pressed my palms against his cheeks, wiping away the
• tiny speck, before I looked up into unflinching violet eyes. Kaleb looked a bit
• startled at first, but as soon as our eyes locked…everything else just faded
• away. The blue and grey swirled in the centre, creating a unique pattern and I
• couldn’t help but get transfixed by them. I pulled my hand back so I could
• create some distance between us but instead, found myself drawing closer inch
• by slow inch.
• What was I doing? Why had I placed my hand
• on his cheek anyway? And why couldn’t I look away from him? And why was my hand
• tingling at the contact?
• “You should go.” I told him as I took a
• hasty step back…before I ended up doing something stupid. “Go before someone
• comes.”
• “Are you sure?” He frowned, looking at me
• with eyes that had the power to captivate me.
• “Yes.”
• With that, I turned towards the warehouse
• without a second glance and watched as flames engulfed the walls, slowly
• burning its way up and soon the entire building was a blazing inferno. This was
• no ordinary fire; it was Hell fire, the fire that is used to punish the evil,
• tainted souls. It took mere minutes to burn down an entire building and soon,
• the sirens of a dozen fire trucks sounded in the air.
• When I turned back to where Kaleb had been
• a few minutes ago, I found the spot empty and the cool night breeze ruffled
• through my hair, whispering the news of his departure. I shouldn’t be searching
• for where he went, but I found myself looking around for him nonetheless.
• With one last glance at the warehouse, I turned
• towards the direction of the healing centre and dashed forward without any backward
• glance.