Vengeance (The Captive Series, Book 6) by Erica Stevens Page B

stretching out before her. She knew this cave well, but she couldn’t get her feet to move forward. She turned to take in the shadows behind her. She could go back to town. Maybe someone else would succeed in escaping. Maybe someone else would be able to do something, maybe someone else had already gotten out. There was no guarantee of that though, no way to know for certain, and what if they failed to reach someone, but she could somehow make it?
    She continued to stare back the way she’d come, if she continued forward there was a possibility she’d never see her home, her friends, or the children again. If she didn’t go, there was a bigger possibility they would all end up strapped to a pole and set on fire.
    That reminder caused her to turn away from her hometown. There was no way to know what would happen when they discovered her missing, but she did know none of them would walk away from this if she stayed here and did nothing. Gathering the waning dregs of her courage and without looking back, she slipped further into the caves.

CHAPTER 8
    William couldn’t tear his gaze away from the shining blood colored eyes looking back at him. He’d been in The Barrens; he’d seen what happened to vampires who weren’t able to feed. Seen how ravenous, mindless and monstrous they could become. These creatures fell somewhere between the hairless, almost slug-like creatures, who’d run free in the dry and desolate Barrens, and a normal vampire.
    The eyes of the vampires across from him shone like rubies in the light playing over them. Their chapped and colorless lips skimmed back to reveal their fangs. They hissed excitedly when they spotted him standing on the bottom step. Pale hands wrapped around the bars of the cells holding them back; most of those hands had no nails attached to them. The nails on the ones who did still have them made him wince when they scraped against the bars.
    Dried blood and torn skin hung from the end of some of the ragged fingers. It took him a minute to realize some of the scraping against the bars wasn’t only from fingernails. It was also due to the bones protruding from the tips of the shredded fingers. Some of them yanked at the bars, others sniffed the air like a dog trying to catch the scent. His scent.
    Most of them no longer had eyebrows, and they were all in various stages of hair loss on their heads. Some still had almost all of their hair, others had bald patches showing through, and the rest had glistening, pale scalps.
    He’d tried not to think about those creatures in The Barrens since they’d left there, but staring at these things across from him, he now recalled how their skin had been almost strangely translucent. The lack of a blood supply seemed to have drained them of the blood that had once been in their body. He kept expecting to see inside their skulls to their brains.
    To the left of the two cells, he spotted another, smaller cage. The gleaming metal of the bars, and the sawdust on the floor let him know this cage had been hastily assembled after the others. He lifted the lantern higher to chase away the shadows lurking in the corners of the basement and obscuring the cage. Everything within him revolted at the sight that greeted him.
    A silent scream resonated in his head as he stared at the small, lifeless bodies sprawled across the bottom of the cage. Children, dozens of them.
    He didn’t move closer to the bodies; he had no desire to see any more of them, or to learn how they had died. It hadn’t been by natural causes if they’d been locked away in this basement. He assumed their fragile, young bodies hadn’t been able to withstand the starvation, but he had no intention of confirming it.
    He almost turned away and walked back upstairs, but his conscience tugged at him. These were not the vampires of The Barrens; they hadn’t been put here because they’d been sentenced for a crime. If they’d been put here as a form of punishment, he couldn’t imagine