One of Them (Vigil #2) Read Free

far easier to manipulate than a hardcore interrogator. On that front, I’d lucked out big time.
    I kept nudging. “Since I don’t know what I am, how am I supposed to articulate to you what my experience was?”
    “Like I said when we first started speaking, I think you do know what you are. If you need me to say it for you, I don’t mind doing it.” The voice paused. “Is that what you’d like from me?”
    “I guess so.” I walked over to the bed and propped my arms on the mattress, to make sure I had steadied myself for whatever it was I was about to be told.
    “Alrighty then,” the voice said. “You have died and been restored to life, your nervous system reanimated. Although I do not approve of such terminology, in the common tongue, you are now a vampire. You require blood to live and you will not do well in direct sunlight. Your aging process has been slowed to the point of imperceptibility, and you are now strong—very strong. It’s that last bit which frightens me the most. I’m aware of what you were before—violent. And I know what you are now—super-human and violent. That’s a volatile mix. And I, for one, do not want to test how angry you actually are. I suspect you are absolutely livid and are only toying with me, feigning this pleasantness. I hope I am wrong about that, because I mean you no harm—but that doesn’t mean I do not understand that you might want to murder me or anyone else with impunity. Terrible things have happened to you, and someone must shoulder the blame.”
    The light from the walls was pulsating.
    “May I ask you a question, doctor?” I said, twitching.
    “I am not a doctor.”
    “Yes, you are.”
    “Okay. But I am not a medical doctor.”
    “It’s no big thing, but—” I felt a freight train of pain tear up and down my spine. I did my best to hold it inside, to keep it from showing. I continued to speak, my voice cracking. “You say I am what I am, yet my teeth are normal. Can you explain to me why my teeth are normal?”
    It was a small question, to see if I could get an answer. The first thing off the top of my head. Anything to distract me from the dwindling spasms.
    “This is not a story, Ms. Kimble. Teeth do not retract willy-nilly. And you don’t need them to ingest blood. It’s nonsense. It is not a real thing.”
    “Drinking blood is not a real thing, either.”
    “Sure it is. In nature, it’s more common than people realize.”
    “Common in what way?”
    “I have answered you, answered you too much,” the voice said. “I would now like you respond to me in kind. You are a well-bred young woman. You understand the concept of quid pro quo.”
    I couldn’t help it. Laughter just exploded out of me. And boy did it feel good. I needed the release more than I had realized. “You say you know everything about me, but I’m not sure you do,” I said, still chuckling. “A lot of dark crap was kept out of my many, many psychological reports. You can chalk that up to the benefits of having an extremely important father.”
    “Grace, I know more about you than you can possibly imagine.”
    “I don’t think that you do, Doc. You said I’m violent, but I am more than that. I’m a major league cunt with psychopathic tendencies. I do what I want, and I get what I want. You—you are going to get jack shit. You can keep speaking to me all nicely, and all you will get out of it is jack shit. You can let me out of here, and it won’t matter—jack shit. I’m an immovable object. And as I wait for my eventual opening, I will sit here and veg the fuck out. Because apparently, I have a pretty long life ahead of me.”
    “This does not have to be confrontational.”
    “Of course, it does. Someone did this to me. For all I know, that someone is you.”
    “Confrontation and immovability can work both ways.”
    “Yeah, I’m shaking. What the hell else are you pricks going to do to me? You’ve taken everything from me and locked me up.”
    “We know