Rye shook his head and sighed; he knew what we were up against. If there were humans down there that could wrangle up dozens of ferals, it would definitely be difficult to infiltrate. Their techniques and coordination were too good to presume that they would be merely ordinary humans. I doubted it. They could be highly-trained black ops soldiers, for all I knew. I was excited and disturbed at the same time. Could it be what I had hoped to find all this time, ever since the epidemic stole my life away? I wished there was more concrete evidence, but I’d take anything, even now, after all this time.

“Me neither.” I slumped in the chair, letting my head roll over to where the small, curled-up lump of my brother lay softly snoring under the blankets. Thank God he was a sound sleeper. I would literally have to shake him awake if I ever needed him to evacuate during the dead of night. I wasn’t that lucky. I don’t think I’d slept through a night in over a year. “So what’s the plan, Rye? Tell me you didn’t waltz over here in the middle of the night without one.” Eyeing him, I could’ve sworn I saw that pale, smooth skin of his flush ever so slightly. It was alarmingly pleasurable to see him shift in his seat.

“Well, the thing is, Blaze doesn’t really have a plan yet. It’s not going well. No one can decide what to do about this group. If we exterminate them….”

“Whoa, wait…exterminate them? No.” I straightened up and gave him a death glare. He shifted again, knowing I didn’t like this suggestion one bit. “Under no circumstances will that be our first plan.” I gritted my teeth, seething but trying to think at the same time. That was their plan? Ridiculous!

“Look, April, it wasn’t my plan. It’s not really even a plan, actually. It was just brought up in case it was something we might have to do. We don’t know what we’re up against—a small band of vigilantes, or scores of humans? Who knows? We have to prepare for the possibility that they might not want to be found. They might be aggressive, for all we know.”

“If they didn’t want to be found, they wouldn’t have come to the surface to lynch mob hordes of feral vampires in the first place.” I threw up my hands in frustration. I knew Blaze’s hive meant well; I understood their objective was to stay alive themselves. But this shouldn’t be just their decision. They weren’t human. Jeremy and I still were. It should never be left up to them. A human factor should always be involved when dealing with them.

Rye’s silence made me glance toward him again. I willed my anger to subside as I took in his calm silhouette. I couldn’t stay angry at him. He was right, it wasn’t his fault. He was third in command, not the leader of the hive. No matter what kind of allies I had found in them, we were still two very different creatures.

“You know I support whatever it is you want to do with this, April. I came here to warn you, though. Blaze thinks that if they are exterminating ferals, we might be next on their list. It could cause an all-out war. Best we leave them be for now.” He paused, but then decided to keep talking. “I didn’t want you to hear it at the hive meeting or from Blaze without warning you first. It would not have been pretty to surprise you in that way. That’s why I came here tonight. I knew you’d want to know.”

He reached over, scooping my small fingers into his strong ones. I felt his semi-warm hands envelope mine. My own looked fragile and delicate. But as I curled the thin fingers inward, I felt their strength—a strength that could wreak havoc on anyone that got in my way. How deceitful it was to look so innocent and yet be so dangerous.

Finding his shiny, steel eyes focused on me, I knew that the same went for him and his kind. Beautiful to a flaw. Super strength and immortality did nothing to hide the monsters within. We all were, one way or the other. Were we all not vampires of one kind or another? Even when their kind of monster was only a thing of fairytales, stories gone awry all over the internet, books galore, paranormal vices to read well into the night until the sun greeted you with another day? Now I could only wish it was not real. Now it was nothing but a continual, nightmarish story that never ended, unrelenting with never any hint of what horrors would come next. Everlasting.

“Thank you,” I whispered back to him, enjoying the warmth of his fingers. I traced the lines on the tops of his hands, feeling every bump, every indention on his perfect porcelain skin. “But if we let them exterminate entire hives of ferals, just like that, without provocation, then we are no better than the monsters.” I cringed at my words, knowing the kind of hypocrite I sounded like.

Rye nodded, but I could tell he didn’t fully agree with me. It disturbed him to hear me talk like that, as though the ferals were real people and the humans, no matter how malicious they may be, were real people too. It was worth it to find them, at least, it was to me. I knew then that I was alone on this. I’d have to seek out the humans on my own. He’d never allow it and neither would Blaze. They might do everything in their power to stop me from ever contacting the others.

In the end, I was alone after all.

Chapter Seven

Secret

Elijah

THE VIEW WAS everything one could hope for. He sat perched at the edge of the rooftop of the Palms Hotel & Casino, letting the soft breeze dance with the overgrown brown locks of his hair. The sun scorched his slightly tanned skin, but his medium-toned coloring kept the sunburns at bay. This was his only getaway, his one reprieve from the claustrophobia of the underground. The horizon was clear of smog, very unlike the skies before, when it was a bustling city. Only shattered rooftops and clouds for company now. He snuck up here whenever he could, which was rare.

It was an outdoor deck, hung high above the city streets and part of an old dance club he used to frequent before the epidemic. It still had an amazing sound system, and he had rigged up a generator to keep the place running. He’d also hooked one to a still-functional elevator. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to walk up and down the stairs to his favorite oasis in the hell that was life now. Nothing compared to the solace he felt up there. Even the few ferals that managed to infiltrate the casino downstairs in his absence didn’t bother him. He exterminated them quickly with an array of traps he had strewn across the casino floor and along the way to the elevator shaft.

He’d frequently find them hanging from one foot, dangling and snapping their dripping jaws at him as he entered. Some traps dragged the ferals to the inner courtyard, where the sun shone brightly through the overhead windows, filling it with light and incinerating the intruders when the sun rose. He kept house here; it was a sanctuary he considered the closest thing to a home that he had at this time. The underground city of Vida was suffocating, and he needed to breathe. No one knew of this place, not even Sarah, his second in command. And definitely not the other ten human hybrids on his specialized security team. He liked it that way.

Elijah had spent the day rigging up solar panels and dozens of large batteries on the roof of the casino. Fuel for the generators would not last forever, and he had to come up with a better solution to sustain his home away from home. It’d taken a while to find enough raw materials to create his energy-producing station, but he had gathered enough to get it going.

He occupied one of the rooms next to the club as his own apartment when he wasn’t underground, and it had every luxury a person would ever need. The ferals didn’t wander this far up, making it an ideal place to live for now, a safe refuge he could run to if he ever needed it.

Jumping up from his perch, he headed over to the bar that sat nestled inside the club. He grabbed a bottle of beer out of the cool refrigerator and popped the top, cursing when he nicked his thumb on the cap’s sharp edges. Sucking on the wound, he reached over to turn on the stereo system. The room filled with the thumping hypnotic tempo of the techno, vibrating the chandelier that twinkled above. The mirror ball spun into life, shooting shining stars all across the room. It was a relief that the club could not be seen from below, but he never lit the dance floor at night.

He bobbed his head softly to the beat, losing his thoughts in the memories, and stared through the windows to gaze upon the desolate blue sky outside. Somewhere out there was something better. If he could figure out how to escape his ties to the city of Vida, he might get there, maybe even see the ocean again. For now, it was the only life he knew, the only place there were others like him. He wasn’t afraid to leave, it was just never the right time, the right situation. He was waiting for something. What it could be was a mystery even to him.

No one left Vida; it was forbidden. The underground human settlement was anything but home to Elijah. He was allowed to leave and scout for hives of crazed vampires or sites to fortify and keep supplied if they had to move. The “zompires” were what he had dubbed the dead. Their absence of humanity and lust for blood was akin to the creatures in the zombies of movies he had watched many times in his “previous life.” Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would be in the middle of a vampire apocalypse. Never had he ever thought it would leave him alive—but changed—after surviving the initial infection. He had not turned into a mindless cannibal, nor had he perished. Though that had not left him certain it was better to have come out alive. It had been nothing but a perpetual curse since then.

He lit a cigarette, sucking in the bitter smoke and letting it seep from his lips and nose, enveloping his face and making his eyes water. He would have to shower once he got back to Vida; the leader Katrina did not allow smoking and would pitch a fit if she knew he spent his days smoking out here. He didn’t care. She could get mad if she wanted. He disliked her with every fiber of his being. He didn’t really know why, he just did. Her strict leadership was overbearing, and she treated him, along with his eleven soldiers, like freaks of nature. Something was off about her, too, and he’d find out sooner or later what it was.

Flicking the stub of the cigarette over the edge of the platform, he watched it plummet through the air until it was no longer visible. He smirked, laughing out loud and throwing his hands up into a stretch. It was amazing to breathe the fresh air and let the hours pass without a thought. He was free for this one moment, and that would hold him over until the next time.

Elijah chugged down the last gulp of cold beer and dangled the bottle from his fingertips, his languid hand hung over the railing, swaying with the breeze. He studied the Rio Casino across the way−brilliant in its dirty red and purple mirrored windows. It had been a fun place to hang out, too. He’d wanted to clear each casino out from the zompire infestations, but knew he’d never be able to do it alone. Eventually it would all fall to inevitable ruin anyway, no matter what he did to help maintain the buildings. Eventually the earth would swallow up the remnants of humanity, taking back what was hers in the first place.

He let go of the bottle, watching it descend into the oblivion below. Running his hand through his messy locks, he retreated and readied himself to return to his underground version of hell on earth.

~~~~~

April

THE SHATTERING OF glass had sent me running into the shadows, propped with my machete and ready to pounce. My heart sat in my throat, pulsating hard and pounding in my ears as I strained to listen for any further sounds. Stillness surrounded me, and my breathing was my only company. It had come from above, of that I was certain. I studied the small mess of glass that now marked the street. The glittering green glass had sprayed out into a circular explosion, sending its shards in every direction. I moved my gaze up into the sky, but nothing but blue and an occasional cloud filled the expanse.

The windows were all pretty intact in the tall Palms Casino. Months of exposure to the elements had left them dingy and streaked. Nothing betrayed itself in the sea of glass, leaving me baffled on where it had come from. I suspected that whoever had dropped it had not seen me. It had not come near my position at all.

I glanced at my goal on The Strip. I had parked at the Gold Coast Casino, an old haunt of my father’s, intent on walking the rest of the way to The Strip down Flamingo. I had jetted across the street since I was going to keep to the southern end of the street this time. It didn’t take long before I was walking to the entrance of the Palms. Its sleek doors looked dusty enough to make me think there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but my gut told me otherwise. Someone was in there. I wanted to know who and why.

I shoved at the doors, only to be met with another set of heavy glass doors. Ferals definitely would find it hard to get into this place with the weight it took to push them open. But it wasn’t impossible. I continued on, holding my weapon in hand, ready for anything that might come tumbling toward me.

Inside, the air hung still and heavy, making the darkness thick, even with the full daylight pouring in from the doors behind me. The absence of windows made the light diminish after a few steps in, and the dark tint lining the glass didn’t help. I grabbed the flashlight off my belt and clicked it on. Sweeping the beam across the premise, I found nothing out of place.

It wasn’t until I bumped into a row of slot machines that a stack of plastic buckets, which had been used in the days of coins, came toppling over across my path. A snap of a rope caught my attention as one of the buckets rolled into its lasso and was sent flying as the rope’s slack pulled itself taut and hung like a noose just above me.

My heart was in my throat once more as I stared wide-eyed at the booby trap dangling before me. It swayed from the momentum, but hung empty. I didn’t dare step further in, suddenly aware of the slurry of traps coming into my view: hidden stakes strapped onto metal poles and endless loops of rope draped across the carpet. It was definitely rigged up, and one false step would send me flying into the air by one leg or get me staked through the heart for sure.