Chapter 4

Getting down to the doctors' rooms was simple, as I now knew what time they were all in the cafeteria to drink every other day, and not in their rooms. I gulped the sweet blood quickly, then pretended to go up to my room, walking on tiptoe. Easy, so far.

It was amazing how clear my mind could be when I was doing something dangerous. I'd never had this feeling before; blood racing and my face growing hot. But I was able to stay concentrated as I turned the corners and used a small mirror I had broken off the glass of the mirror in the bathroom to look around corners, to make sure no one was coming. It helped a lot. Lucky for me, the first door I entered was where the ninja was being kept.

He was laying on the bed, staring up at the cieling with his knees bent at ninety degree angles. He was wearing simple black sweatpants and a worn, black t shirt. At the end of his pants protruded the ankles of hairy legs. He looked very muscular, with subtly bronze skin. His eyes were open and not blinking. As I shut the door behind me silently, I wondered how long we had before the prison van came. Would we be gone by then?

Every step my bare feet made on the ground, and every swish of my yellow dress around my knees seemed extremely loud and destructive to my plan. But even louder was the creak that the old springs in the mattress made as I sat down next to the ninja and crossed my legs. He continued to stare at the cieling.

being isolated and treated cruelly, the senses, dialogue, vampire life, mystery

"Tell me everything." I whispered, barely a sound escaping my pink lips as I leaned in close to him. I swallowed as his dark, brown eyes turned slowly to look at me. My long, dark brown hair shaded my face and my heart was pounding somewhere in my throat. The ninja sits up abruptly and smiles widely, like a frog would do at the sight of a large, juicy fly. He stared at me as intensely as my Keeper and Landry did the day before, but I wasn't surprised and nervous, as I had been then. I was drawn in, as he began to talk to me for the longest amount of time anyone had ever before wasted words on me.

"My name is Andrew Mansoor. I used to be a bodyguard for Landry, but I got sick of his ruthless tactics and cruel punishments," I could tell he'd spoken these same words many times. "I knew he'd been enslaving many people, and he captured a lot of nameless street rats. 'No one will remember them', he said. He used them for his experiments, and then he placed them in his army. You are not one of those street rats."

"How do you know I'm not a street rat?" I asked before I could stop myself. I didn't know my past, and neither did this man. Neither of us were as nervous as we should be. Our eyes were locked directly on each other's and our breathing was steady.

"Why do you have the entire prison to yourself?" A smug grin crept across his freckled features. I could tell Andrew spent a lot of time in the sun. Or maybe just in the streets, where the sun happened to be shining down upon him and his coffee colored hair, ondulating and turning shades of light brown near his forehead.

"I don't know," I finally admitted, closing a little of the already small space between us. "I've always lived here, as long as I can remember. Why do you care?" I didn't ask this to be rude, I genuinely did not understand how he could care enough about getting me away from Landry that he would risk his own freedom for it.

"I help rescue people like you. And then I help them find their past and if they want, they can join the movement against Landry. You intrigued me, the way that they have isolated you. Especially since you don't even have a parasite. You must be someone important," His eyebrows were scrunched up together, and he was leaning towards me, as though I were a puzzle he couldn't figure out.

"Do you want to see Devadas?" Andrew placed the tip of his pointer finger on my tense hand and smiled at me. I couldn't help but smile back. Of course I wanted to see more than the square of Devadas visible from my window to which I was accostomed.

"Is it really unsafe for me to stay here?" I asked softly, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," he answered immediately, sitting up straighter. I copied his movements. "They're planning something big with you. I don't know what, but it'll be better for you and all of Devadas if you escape."

I was ready to leave. I didn't want to be imprisoned anymore, not allowed out of this dark hole. Especially after what Keeper did last night...If I could really go and explore the city of Devadas with this stranger, then what was I losing? I wasn't leaving anything important behind me.

"How are we going to escape?"

"I thought you could answer that, actually." He burped and ignored my grimace as he stood and stretched. He stared at me while I was deep in thought.

"Well..." I began. "we could sneak out from here and go to the training area and then--What?" I asked, slightly offended. Andrew was shaking his head before I finished my sentence.

"Too long of a trip, too many possibilities to get caught, and we don't know where to go from there. That place is in the middle of a huge forest, it took me forever to find it in the first place so I could spy on your training session."

"Well, then I guess we'll just have to wait 'till they let us on our merry way, no questions asked, and we can skip off into the sunset," I flashed a sarcastic smile at him, but he didn't laugh or return the smile. What a grump, I thought to myself.

I sighed as he thought, one hand rubbing his chin. I stood up and walked to the window, where I let the cool, night breeze play on my face, holding my head up with my hands on both sides of my face. I stretched my hands out of the window, and suddenly, an idea occured...

"Andrew!" I whispered excitedly, but he'd become tense. Then I heard it too. Heavy footsteps and loud, victorious voices were fillng the hallway. The prison guards were coming to take him.

"Andrew!" I hissed again, tugging at his arm. He whipped his head around at me and I, growing exasperated with his unusually slow reaction time, indicated to him to give me a lift up to the high window. We were both starved enough that we could fit through it.

I pushed myself with all effort out of the window, landed on a thin ledge, then grabbed Andrew's hands as the muffled footsteps stopped and a guard beyond the door let out a satisfied chuckle. Andrew's hands were sweaty and they slipped from my grasp. "Come on!" he said a little too loudly, and I tried to pull him up again They were putting the key in and we were seconds away from being caught. I gave a final heave and pulled his body up, his foot just flicking past the window when the door banged opened and the shouts began.

Luckily we were only on the first floor. We jumped down from the ledge, I might've sprained my ankle. I don't know. All I know is that we're running, my breath was catching in my chest and burning my throat and I did not know how far we were ahead of the guards or if they'd seen me with Andrew or not. We ran, we jumped and we rolled. We dived behind buildings and jumped across fences. I picked up speed and passed Andrew, loving the thrill even though we were being chased, and ecstatic to see Devadas, the city I'd grown up in, for the first time.

Reviews

[snopadelic]

I'm loving this and now gutted that there's no chapters after this ;( The tension you create between the two characters is evident and wonderfully done. I like Andrew as a character already, a little bit sarcastic, a bit myserious and with your description i can see him in my mind. I'm hoping you will carry on with writing this cos i really got into this now.