She stopped by what felt like the door. Silence. She had to be in a larger room if she was surrounded on all sides by bars. "Hello?" Her voice was muffled by the hood, but she strained to hear an echo, gain some sense of the room's dimensions. Nothing. Louder this time, "Hello?"
"Quiet," came a voice. Male, nasal, young. Selah turned toward the speaker. He had sounded nervous, annoyed.
"Hello? My name's Selah. Who are you?"
She heard whoever it was shift in what sounded like a cheap metal chair. "I said quiet."
"Is there any way you can take this hood off? I'm having trouble breathing." That and the inside was once again slick with her breath's condensation.
"Are you kidding me? You think I'd just open your door and take off your hood because you asked me to?"
"Maybe you've got a heart," said Selah, hope sinking. "I'm a seventeen-year-old girl. What do you guys think I can do in here?"
"A seventeen-year-old girl, sure." He was trying for a tough, cynical tone, and not quite succeeding. "That's why you're in a max security cell, 'cause you're
just a girl
."
"I am. Jesus, what did they tell you I was?"
"Look, I said be quiet. Can you do that for me? You keep talking, I'm going to have to do something to shut you up."
"Sure. I'll be quiet. Just tell me what they told you."
Silence. She strained to listen. No light came through the hood's fabric, none at all. Was he going to ignore her? She opened her mouth to ask again when he spoke. "They said you're a vampire, the one that killed Colonel Caldwell." He sounded almost sullen.
"Well, it's daytime. So I can't be a vampire. Right?"
"I don't know. They said maybe you're a new kind." He sounded even more sullen.
"A new kind of vampire? That can walk around in the daylight?"
"Whatever. Not my problem. Just shut it. For real now."
"Fine. Fine." Selah moved away from the door and took a few faltering steps into what she thought was the center of the cell. She sat down awkwardly. Waited a minute, and then asked softly, "How's it going outside?"
"Jeez already, you don't know when to give up, do you?" She stayed quiet. Waited. The silence dragged out, and then she heard the chair squeak again. "It's not good, I'll say that much. People are going crazy. Not that I blame them. We're trying to convince people to turn back, but fat chance there. One World NGO and FEMA are setting up emergency camps outside the city, but hell. What a clusterfuck."
Selah pursed her lips and tried to imagine it. The slums were like a huge wet sponge, and the news of the vampire outbreak would act like a giant fist, squeezing it dry. She closed her eyes and focused on her breath. Inhaled slowly through her nose and then exhaled through her mouth, the sound loud in her ears. When she had judged enough time had passed for her to speak once more, she opened her eyes once more.
"You know if President Lynnfield has said anything? Taken an official position?"
"Yeah. He sure has. Had a big speech a couple of hours ago. Martial law is back in full effect. Congress and the Senate aren't going to be convened after all. It was a pretty good speech. He said we've learned a lot these past five years, and this time we're gonna kick their ass."
"So we're officially at war again?"
"Yeah." His voice grew soft. "Guess so."
"And Miami? We're at war with them too?"
She thought she heard him take a deep breath, but couldn't be sure. "No. It doesn't look like it. Their leader, Plessy? He's come out on our side. Has promised to help the US against the LA vampires. It's... it's pretty weird."
Selah frowned. Pictured Plessy, his pale, soft face, his small lips, his glittering eyes like shards of mica. He had to be so pissed by what had happened. All his work to make vampires acceptable, to create a 'new generation' narrative people would fall for. All thrown under the bus by Louis and his LA vampires. She wanted to laugh. Poor Plessy! All that work.
"People okay with that? Vampires on our side?"
"Fuck, I don't know. I know I'm not, but Lynnfield said we're going to-- Dammit! I told you to shut up. I can't be talking to you like this. Enough, all right? Enough."
She heard him stand up and begin to pace back and forth. She closed her mouth. She'd pushed him as far as she could.
Her thoughts strayed. Enclosed within her tiny hood, her world dark, her breath as loud as the ocean, she waited. Hours passed. She thought of the events that had just recently gone down in LA. Her mind shied from certain memories, obsessed over others. She thought of how Louis had looked the last time she had seen him, how she had battered him to the ground and then thrown him out the window. Was he out there, sleeping, waiting to rise tonight and cause further chaos? Definitely. Chico and Cloud. Where were they? She hoped fervently that they were safe, that they had taken the reporter, Fernanda, and found Ramonito and left town already.
Theo. Out there like Louis, asleep while the sun scrawled its fiery path across the sky. Heartless now, his soul torn apart. She remembered his furious gaze, his raw hunger, the burning hatred that had compelled him to try to kill her at the very last. Selah shuddered. If Plessy was on the side of the US, then Miami was probably still an orderly place. Which meant Mama B and General Adams--
She stiffened. Mama B had to have told General Adams by now that she was turning herself over to the military. The General had hidden himself away in Miami as a form of penance, but he still had clout. He knew what her blood could do. The potential it carried. He'd be reaching out already, fighting to find her, to get her freed. That was what she had to latch onto. Even now, he was probably making phone calls from his office in Miami. She took a slow, steady breath and nodded. They were going to come for her. They were.
Eventually, fatigue overcame her. She tried lying down, but couldn't get comfortable with her arms tied behind her back. Instead, she finally scooted back against the bars and leaned against them. Her head sank and she drifted off into uneasy sleep.
Selah awoke as her cell door clanged open. She jerked her head up, trying to see what was going on, but of course couldn't. Footsteps marched up to her, hands slipped under her arms and lifted her to her feet.
"Hey! What's going on? What's happening?"
They didn't respond. She was marched out of the cell, and then out of the room. Down a series of halls, and then she heard a door slam behind her. She was dumped into a chair again, and the tie around her neck was loosened and the hood yanked off.
Selah took a deep gasp of fresh air. Sweat was smeared across her face, and she blinked several times as the lights blinded her. Squinting, she looked around and saw that she was back in the small interrogation room with leaden walls with McKnight.
Selah stared at the Sergeant, who ignored her completely. Instead, she was reading a tablet, lips pursed, a thin line between her brows. A minute dragged out slowly. She had to bring up the vaccine. She hadn't had time during their first meeting, but that was what counted--that's what McKnight had to understand mattered.
"Selah Brown," said McKnight at last, and flicked her fingers across the tablet, sending the data to the wall to her right. The leaden surface gleamed to life and Selah saw a magnified version of her old driver's license appear on the wall, her sixteen-year-old face looking happily out at nothing. "Seventeen, five-foot-six, 125 lbs. Daughter of Mary Brown, deceased in 2022. Died in a car accident during the first War, death unrelated to vampire activity. Father is Anthony Brown, currently detained for violating censorship laws." Both of her parent's licenses appeared next to hers.
"What?" Selah jolted forward. "Detained? You know where he is?"
McKnight slid her eyes up to Selah, studied her for a moment, and then looked back down at her tablet. Selah sat back, euphoria rushing through her. He was alive! Sweet confirmation, a factual statement. Alive! She'd been right, he was out there--not dead, not killed, not gone forever. She smiled, eyes filling with tears, and looked at the ceiling, thrilled. Then the rest of it sank in. Violation of censorship laws?
The Sergeant flicked her fingers again and a military court order appeared on the wall, replacing her driver's license and those of her parents. "You chose to be deported earlier this year to Miami after your father was arrested, instead of being placed in a foster home, and placed under the custody of your grandmother, Agatha Brown. Citizenship revoked, passport annulled, social security number cancelled." Each of those documents appeared on the wall. Selah blinked, and her happiness abated. Was she in trouble for crossing into the US illegally? She hadn't even considered that angle.
McKnight wiped her hand across the screen and all the documents disappeared. She looked up at Selah again. "You claim to be human."
"Yes. I mean, obviously. Look at my eyes. How could I be awake right now if I wasn't?"
"Hmm," said McKnight, unimpressed. She touched something on her tablet and a video feed appeared on the wall.
Selah stared at it and recognized it immediately. The interior of the Miami Arena. The image was frozen and showed the packed stadium seats, the great cage in the center of the floor, and Cloud on one knee as he looked up at the approaching fighter whose name Selah couldn't remember. The Sergeant pressed something on her tablet, and the feed came to life. The sound of cheering, an announcer's voice excitedly describing the anticipated last blow. Cloud forced himself to rise to his feet, shaking on unsteady legs.
Then. There. Selah watched herself leap impossibly high over the heads of the men around the cage's perimeter to tear open the door and step inside. She was moving too fast to follow, but then the other fighter was down, collapsed against the far wall of the cage, and Selah was helping Cloud, holding him as he leaned down and kissed her.
A knife twisted in her gut and she looked away.
Cloud
.
The Sergeant paused the video feed and set the tablet aside. "Later that night, Sawiskera was killed. The next time you show up is when you killed Colonel Caldwell. We don't need to watch that. So..." She laced her fingers on the table and leaned back. "Completely human? I don't think so."
"I--I can explain. My blood, it's special, it has this unique property that when a vampire drinks it--"
But McKnight cut her off with a wave of her hand. "These are the facts. You demonstrated vampiric abilities in Miami while your eyes were
human
. You appeared in Los Angeles two weeks later and murdered Colonel Caldwell. Then, for reasons I don't claim to understand, you turn yourself in, believing we wouldn't put two and two together."
"No. Listen. Please, just listen to me. There was another vampire here in LA, Arachne. She died last night, I killed her. She killed the Colonel. She looked exactly like me. I came to LA to find a cure for being infected with vampirism in Miami, and last night I found it. I'm cured--I'm totally human now. But there's more, my blood can be used to make a vampire vaccine. Please, you have to believe me."
McKnight stared at her without expression, and then shook her head. "You realize that there's never been a case of being partially 'infected' with vampirism? And while I'm aware there was a vampire called Arachne in LA, your having her die so conveniently last night makes it a little tricky to verify your story."
Selah shook her head. "My blood's really rare. I know it sounds strange, but the vampires told me that people like me only occur every few centuries. Sawiskera tried to do an ancient ritual that would swap my humanity for his vampiric powers and ... you don't believe a word I'm saying."
The Sergeant crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Selah. "Fact one, you have manifested vampiric powers while
human
. Fact two, you appeared in a video feed, murdering Colonel Caldwell. Fact three, your alibi is ridiculous. Fact four--"
"That's not a fact! That's your opinion!" Selah almost rose out of her seat, but controlled herself at the last minute. "At least investigate further! You'll see that I couldn't be Arachne, that I've been in Brooklyn up until a month ago, and then in Miami. I couldn't have been in two places at once."
McKnight stood up. "Investigate further? There's a war going on. Outside these walls, millions are hitting the road with nowhere to go but six feet under. If you think we have either the time or inclination to launch an investigation, you are sadly mistaken. As a citizen of the vampire nation of Miami, you are not even entitled to trial by military court. Instead, you'll be sentenced by my commanding officers." She leaned forward, hands on the table, and stared Selah full in the face. "Did you really think you'd get away with murdering a Colonel?"
"You don't care about the truth, do you?" said Selah. "Call General Adams. In Miami. He'll back me up."
"General Adams?" The Sergeant stopped, halfway to the door. She looked back over her shoulder. "The General that signed the Peace Treaty? He retired. Nobody's spoken to him in years."
"He's alive!" Selah stood and then struggled against the two soldiers as they fought to restrain her. "He's in Miami! I spoke to him! You have to get in touch, he can prove--" Selah doubled over as one of the soldiers rammed the butt of his rifle into her solar plexus. Her entire chest seized up and she gasped, unable to breathe, eyes wide as she stared at the closing door.
It was too late. The Sergeant had already left.
Chapter 3
The night passed slowly. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the setting of the sun did not draw forth Sawiskera's power. Selah didn't feel her eyes change, didn't feel her blood quicken. There was no slow build-up of power, no sense of burgeoning immortality. Just fatigue. Just pain. Just a grim resolution to not give into despair.
Sitting with her back to the bars, she tried to find a comfortable spot, but soon gave up. The soldiers had cinched her hands tightly behind her back and they were already throbbing, swollen once more.
"You there?" It felt strange, questioning the dark. Like throwing pebbles into a well.