“Okay, see you in a bit,” I reply, leaning forward and kissing her cheek.
“Don’t jump Arlo until I get there! I wanna be there when I’m proven right!” she shouts over her shoulder as she walks away. Bitch. My cheeks are still red as I glance around, seeing no one in the parking lot. I laugh as I climb into Soph’s car, pushing a bag of gym clothes into the passenger seat and closing the door behind me. After doing my seat belt up and, most importantly, putting the heated seats on, I head straight towards the beach. I’m thankful there is no traffic around at this time of day. By the time I park in the beach car park, I’m half an hour late, and I know Austin is going to be mad.
Thank god it is our birthday.
Climbing out of my car with my bag, I lock up as I hear the distant music of the party and smell a bonfire mixed in with the smell of the sea. Austin knows me well, this is the perfect party for me, considering the beach is my favourite place in the world. There is something so calming about looking at the sea, watching the waves wash in and out across the sand. Even when there is a storm, there is always the peace right after. The sea is my happy place, it always has been since I was a kid. It’s the only place I feel myself and safe. That’s why when I’m older, I’m buying a house as close to the sea as I possibly can get.
The rickety wooden steps eventually give out to just sand, and I slip off my heels, sinking my toes into the soft damp sand.
“Goldilocks, goldilocks, are you lost?”
I spin around to find the man who spoke, but there is no one here, just the sounds of the party and the waves of the sea.
“Dance for me, goldilocks. Spin and spin and spin until your head comes right off.”
I turn around again and search everywhere, not hearing or seeing anyone as my heart starts pounding in my chest.
Run, Ria.
Hearing my brother’s voice in my head like he is right next to me, I take off down the beach path, rushing towards the party where I know I will be safe. I drop my heels and bag so I can run faster, and just as I see the party, the crowd of shadows around the bonfire in the far distance, I breathe out a sigh of relief.
Then hands wrap around my waist and a hand grabs my throat, arching my neck to the side with a jolt that takes my breath away. Something sharp suddenly bites into my neck, digging in deep, and I scream when I realise it’s teeth. I don’t stop screaming, the pain indescribable, even as I go into shock and almost numb to what is happening to me. The world becomes fuzzy, and my screams fade into cries as my legs go out from under me. The man biting me, holding me, holds me up by my waist, and the world begins to spin.
“Don’t kill her!” I hear another man shout. “That’s enough!”
The man holding me seems to grumble into my neck, seconds before his teeth leave my neck, and he spins me around, grabbing my chin. Even as I black out, I hear his words and see my blood dripping down his chin as the last thing I can focus on.
“Yes, my masters will love you. You taste like heaven.”
Chapter Three
“Wake up before you fall over!” a girl’s voice drags into my mind, and I groggily blink my eyes open, feeling a sharp pain in my neck as I breathe in the smell of saltwater, sweat and the metallic tang of blood. It’s freezing cold and damp all around me, and with only my small pink dress on and no shoes, my toes feel close to falling off. My lips are dry, but my wet, cold clothes cause me to start shaking almost immediately. My hand shoots to my neck where the pain is, only for me to realise I have iron cuffs wrapped around my wrists, with a chain going through the holes, connecting me to the floor and stopping me from lifting my hands above my waist. Fear renders me silent as I search around the room, seeing other faces in the darkness but not being able to make out much about them. The same girl who woke me up speaks again. “Don’t scream, no one comes, and if they do, it’s those men who took us, and they aren’t nice. They just bite.”
Every vivid memory of the beach comes back to haunt me. The screams, the pain in my neck, and the overwhelming sense of fear that crawled into my system like a drug.
“Where are we? What the hell is that thing that attacked me?” I question, wriggling on the wooden crate I’m sitting up on, my back plastered to the side of a curved wooden wall. The room seems to slightly rock, I notice, in the silence that follows as the girl doesn’t answer me back. I don’t hear anything outside this room, but the smell of saltwater and the rocking movement suggests we are on a ship or boat. I wonder how long. “Please answer.”
“I was at a party on a beach, invited by some other friends even though I don’t go to many parties...,” she starts, her voice ringing with fear. That was my party, the one I never got to. Oh my god. My parents must be going mad with worry, and Austin? Was Austin taken? “The men...no, monsters, attacked the party and killed so many of my friends as I tried to run. One caught me and bit my neck, and I passed out. I woke up here the same as you but a few hours earlier. There was another girl in with us, but she wouldn’t stop screaming, and one of the monsters came in here… He bit her neck and dragged her out.”
They killed everyone at the party bar a few. What if they only kept women?
They might have killed Austin. The thought lingers in my mind like an unwanted visitor, repeating itself again and again until I can’t breathe with pure panic. If the girl with me notices my panic, she doesn’t say anything, just leans back and looks up at the small bits of light shining through the planks of wood on the ceiling. Austin. My twin brother. He might be gone. And Sophie? What if she got to the party when it was still being attacked? Did they take her? Or kill her too? No. I can’t think like that. If they took me, they might have taken them, and then there is a chance we will all survive wherever we are going to.
I’m going to make sure of it. Clearly, these monsters who took me live on blood, and mine seems to have delighted the guy who bit me. I bet they won’t expect their food to bite back. Wherever they take us, there must be a way out, and then I only need to find a normal person and scream for help.
I straighten in my seat, yawning a little, and my breaths come out like puffs of smoke. “They must be vampires. You know from movies and books? I mean, who else would drink blood?”
“The blood-sucking did kinda give that hint,” the girl replies with a small laugh that soon dies away into pity for our situations. “I didn’t even read paranormal books, I much prefer contemporary. Now this?”
We both stare at each other, the fear and horror of the situation hitting home. I did read paranormal and fantasy books because I prefer the escape from reality that contemporary doesn’t usually give me. But I didn’t expect to be right smack in the middle of one of the many books I read. I wonder what these vamps are like. Are they the bad guys in the books? The monsters?
Does that make me a captive? My heart starts pounding as I begin to panic, and I suck in air, trying to think of anything else other than where I am.
“Tell me something before I freak out,” I ask her, my hands starting to shake. These vamps could kill us, or even worse, torture us. They might only collect young women for reasons I can’t even imagine. Oh my god, vampires are real. They are real, and I’ve been kidnapped by them, bitten by them, and I’m likely never to go home. Never see my parents again.