For weeks, the woman kept the same daily routine. Wearing similar brown frocks that covered her from neck to ankles, with different collars for each day, the woman would bring Hadley food – breakfast, lunch, or dinner – then carry the box filled with magazines into the room and wax poetic about the days when humans ruled after Hadley had eaten.

Hadley will never be able to pinpoint exactly when it happened.

Despite Hadley's initial reticence, over time the woman's stories became a source of awe and intrigue and fascination and Hadley couldn't get enough of it. All her life, Hadley had considered Aunt Zee the paragon of knowledge about everything beyond the Compound walls, but the information she was gleaning from Mrs. Smith and her magazines made everything Aunt Zee told her about the outside world pale in comparison. Like comparing a mug of tepid salty water on a hot summer's day to an ice-cold glass of fresh watermelon juice. What Hadley was learning from the woman was flipping everything she had ever believed about the world, and she wasn't sure what to do about it!

But surely, something had to be done!

Hadley didn't like Mrs. Smith – there was just something about the woman that made Hadley incredibly uncomfortable. However, it was difficult to imagine the woman was making up everything she was telling Hadley, especially when the magazines and the books and the photographs the woman had amassed supported everything she said. Even if only half of the information was true, it was enough to rock Hadley's sense of identity and cause her to question her place in the world!

At the Compound, they were taught from birth that Vampires ruled the world and always had. They were taught that the vampires had once commissioned humans to create the UV Shield, but a group of human rebels had tried to sabotage the launch. The rebels failed, and the Shield was successfully launched. That attempted act of sabotage was what they were taught in the Compound to be the Human Error. Taught that this is what led to the UV Wars and the death of hundreds of thousands of humans and thus the need for vampires to create the Compounds to protect those who survived.

The Wildlings had a different teaching. Aunt Zee explained that, according to Wildling history, the UV Shield was an invention that both the Vampires and the humans wanted. It would allow the vampires to move freely across the earth and it would save the world from the harmful effects of the sun. But not all humans were agreeable to its launch. Those who were against it began the war that came to be known as the UV Wars. They brought the end of the world, and their fate was imprisonment in blood warehouses and Compounds. The Wildlings were spared from imprisonment for working with the vampires to stop the rogue humans, thus given the freedom to live in the forests without interference.

Hadley had chosen to believe the Wildling theory because it pitted humans and vampires as equals, unlike the history taught to the Compound. But now, both theories were shattered by history's retelling by Mrs. Smith and her reading materials that put humans at the top from the very beginning. The magazines, the books, the photographs all pointed to one thing – humans ruled the world once, without vampires in the picture at all, and they ruled it for a long time. For far much longer than the vampires. It was a realisation that shook Hadley to the core.

How was this knowledge lost in the mere span of two centuries?

How could it all be lost?

"You see it, don't you?" Mrs. Smith asked when Hadley went silent after another one of her retellings about the past.

"Humans ruled the world," Hadley whispered, putting down the book she was holding. "But how? Vampires are much more powerful than we could ever be."

"Their power is an illusion," Mrs. Smith explained. "It's fully dependent on us. Without our blood, vampires are nothing."

Hadley listened, enraptured. A feeling in her chest deepened and took on new power with every revelation. A pain. Vampires had robbed humanity of everything. Had stolen humanity's history. Humanity's identity!

"Therein lies our power, Hadley. You understand, don't you?" Mrs. Smith said.

"If we control our blood," Hadley replied. "We control the vampires."

Mrs. Smith grinned. "Exactly!"

Hadley could barely hold back her blooming anger against the vampires. This intense, deep, true hatred of vampires for taking everything away from humans. Humans ruled the world once and they deserved to rule it again.

It was all clear.

It had to be done.

It was the human imperative to unseat the vampires.

Dethrone them.

Push them back into the shadows, where they belonged.

Make them afraid of humans again.

Humans would take back their power.

She would take back her power!

But how?

"Why are you telling me any of this? Why spend days discussing this with me?" Hadley snapped. "Even if any of it is true, that was the past! The vampires are in power now. There's nothing we can do to change that."

Mrs. Smith smiled.

"That's where you're wrong," the woman said. "With your help, Hadley Fisher, we can make this all right. We can make it as it was."

Hadley struggled to hide her surprise.

"Hello Hadley Fisher."

That was how Trisca had greeted her the day they met. Hadley's heart hammered her ribcage. Did Mrs. Smith work with Trisca? Was the woman pretending to be against vampires while secretly being in bed with them, which in Trisca's case was likely literal. One more memory ran through Hadley's mind – her mother's words.

'The Physical Arts Instructor tells me that you were knocked off the leader board. She won't tell anyone else, but she informed me that you let that girl you like, Jamila, win. You are stupidly naïve and childish Hadley, and one day someone will realise this about you and play you like a fiddle, like the fool you are.'

Hadley stayed quiet, her mind churning.

She would have to be more careful with Mrs. Smith.

She wouldn't play the fool!

Mrs. Smith cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at Hadley.

Mrs. Smith said. She smiled. Hadley blanched inwardly at the eerie smile. "Oh! There is so much I have to teach you!"

With that, she picked up the box of magazines and walked out of the room as she always did at the stroke of midnight, leaving Hadley alone to her wuthering thoughts.

*

Hadley privately ushered in Conception Day two weeks after her arrival at Mrs. Smith's. Sure, she was stuck in a room with a shock collar on her neck, but it was this world that she longed to share with her daughter. If Mrs. Smith was even half right, then this cabin would forever be remembered as the origin of the human insurgence against the vampires. The start of a world where humans held their rightful place as the rulers. It still surprised Hadley to know that she could help bring about that world. That she had the power to bring together humans from the Compounds and the Wildlings, although she was still hazy on the 'how'.

Mrs. Smith said that the first step into this New World was to join her in learning "The Craft".

The Craft was something Mrs. Smith talked about often, but never really elaborated on. She only said that it was how she studied vampire weaknesses to make sure that, when they led the human army that would inevitably oust vampires from global governance, they would know exactly how to ensure a sustained human victory. Hadley craved to know more. Craved to learn The Craft. She would often share her desire to join the woman in her practice, but Mrs. Smith continued to ask for her patience.

For five weeks, Hadley's mind was a sponge, absorbing everything that she could about human history and the legacy that was taken away from them, learnt to appreciate her heritage, and helped Mrs. Smith draw up different plans to infiltrate the Compounds while Mrs. Smith discussed how to convince the Wildlings to join in as well. Together, they would bring about a revolution unlike any other and drive all humans into the stratosphere of global governance and leadership, where they belonged.

The vampires wouldn't know what hit them!

It was after these five weeks that Mrs. Smith finally said the words that Hadley had been desperately waiting for.

"I think it's time, Hadley," Mrs. Smith said, smiling proudly as she stood at the bedroom door.

Hadley scratched an itch under her shock collar and smiled widely.

"The Craft?" Hadley's voice was shrill, eager and hopeful.

"Yes." Mrs. Smith replied with a little chuckle.

Hadley smoothed out her brown frock – a gift from Mrs. Smith that closely resembled the ones she usually wore – then slipped on a pair of soft, shin high, hand crafted, moccasin boots that matched the ankle length dress. She walked to the door and froze. For five weeks. Hadley had called the paisley green room her home. It was where she'd learnt about her new purpose. It was where she'd celebrated Conception Day and was now pregnant with her daughter. It would forever be a special place in her life. The space where she had grown more than she could have ever imagined.

But the time had come to play her part in changing the world. Time to learn The Craft.

Her spine tingled and palms were drenched in sweat at the first step she took out the door.

Everything was going to be different now.

She hoped she was ready.

That the world was ready.

The hallway rug had been patched up numerous times but was still neat. The wallpaper was floral red with yellow accents. It wasn't pretty, but Hadley didn't comment on it. Dim yellow bulbs stuck out from the walls, lighting their path to the staircase.

"What is that?!" Hadley screeched, halting at the top of the staircase that led to ground floor of the two-storey house.

Mrs. Smith walked past her chuckling.

"That's one of our guests," Mrs. Smith said. "A special specimen of The Craft."

Mrs. Smith walked up to the vampire frozen in the corner halfway up the staircase. There was no mistaking that it was a vampire – or had once been. The vampire's eye sockets were stuffed with what looked like a loose ball of wood shavings with red streaks in it. He wore a threadbare, yet perfectly pressed black suit, a black button-down shirt, and a black necktie. His feet were bare and as alabaster white as his face and hands, hands that were posed as if he was adjusting his left shirt cuff. Mrs. Smith brushed imaginary dust off the statuesque vampire's shoulder.

Hadley stumbled back when the vampire's fingers twitched.

"Is he... alive?!" Hadley stuttered.

Mrs. Smith shrugged. "It's dormant, but technically yes. It can hear and probably smell you, hence the fingers moving, but don't worry, it won't hurt you. I severed its spine after it starved and put rods through its bones to shape it like I wanted. Some impulses jump through, but it's been frozen like this for five decades. Doesn't he look suave?"

Doubt had pulsed through Hadley when she'd first stepped out of her room. She wasn't sure she was ready to be the one to help lead this revolution as she was supposed to be. Those doubts streaked through her once more on that stairway, like large fissures in clay soil during an exceptionally hot and dry summer. But before she could lose her nerve, she hastily sealed them all with the truths she now held on to as a compass to her destiny.

Vampires are evil beings.

They deserve no sympathy.

Humans are the true proprietors of the earth.

"Come now, dearie," Mrs. Smith's cheery voice evoked intense dissonance. "I have a wonderful surprise waiting for you in the workshop! You'll absolutely love it!"

Hadley did not, in fact, absolutely love the surprise waiting for her in the workshop.

Before they even got to the workshop, they had to squeeze through a narrow path between dozens upon dozens of vampire bodies that filled Mrs. Smith's house. Some of the vampires were posed as if they were dancing, others eating or drinking tea at the coffee table, while others chatted in a corner. And in one corner of what Mrs. Smith ironically called the "living room" was an unsorted and uncared for pile of vampire bodies upon bodies, dozens of them on top of each other like discarded machine parts that would be attended to later. The whole house was crammed with bodies of the undead, none of them with eyes in their skulls.

Hadley soon found out where the eyes went. And not just the eyes. The living room extended to a small dining area and a kitchenette and further into another section on the far end, which Mrs. Smith dubbed "the workshop". In the workshop were three walls with large shelves that held numerous sealed glass jars – big, medium, and small. Many of the smaller jars held up to six pairs of vampire eyes, cleanly cut out of their sockets and floating in cloudy liquid. The other jars held body organs floating in the same cloudy liquid, from livers, stomachs and kidneys to hearts, the latter of which were prominently and exclusively displayed on their own wall.

And in the middle of the workshop, on a heavily modified hospital bed was a live vampire. Blood intravenously dripped into the vampire's veins from a bag. The skin of the vampire's throat was open like flaps of a book. The same woodwool that filled the empty eye sockets of the other vampires was shoved into the space that once held her vocal cords. The vampire was naked from the waist up. Hadley's eyes climbed back up to the vampire's face. The vampire's head was strapped to the bed, allowing for minimal movement, but it still strained to look at her.

One blue eye and one green eye sought out Hadley's own, both sets widening in horror upon seeing her.

Ruqwik.

Hadley couldn't breathe through the wave of emotions that slammed against her.

Two months apart hadn't seemed that long, but seeing Ruq again made it feel like eternity. The blond hair, the mismatched eyes, the oval face with the square jaw. The memories! The phantom feeling of her fangs that always simmered at the back of Hadley's mind, but now flared, demanding attention. And that kiss. That darn kiss! Hadley's heart twisted at the memory, both at how simple everything had seemed back then and at how much had passed between them in that one kiss, drawing them closer than she could have ever imagined.

"I told you you'd love your surprise!" Mrs. Smithyelled with glee, clearly misreading the look on Hadley's face. "I saw youfight with her in the forest. I couldn't help but start without you, but I onlytook out her vocal cords to keep her silent. There's so much left to do! We'llhave so much fun finally working together on The Craft, Hadley!"

Vampires are evil beings. They deserve no sympathy. Humans are the true proprietors of the earth.

Hadley repeated the mantra in her mind.

They deserve no sympathy!

But the words were bowled over by others. Bulldozed by dozens of memories swirling around her mind. One of the memories rushed to the fore.

Ruq pulling the vampire dog off her that last day they were together after the bloody cave.

"I didn't kill them, but I was too late to save them."

Hadley had believed her.

But vampires are evil beings.

Evil beings.

No sympathy!

Hadley's mind played back another memory. An image of the children running up to Ruqwik. The little ones were happy. Bombarding her with questions. And there was how she played with Drew, always humouring the little boy and his dog.

Vampires are evil beings. They deserve no sympathy. Humans are the true proprietors of the earth.

More memories squashed her mantra.

"My mind is bound to yours?"

"It's more the other way around. Mine bound to yours."

Humans are the true proprietors of the earth.

Vampires. Are. Evil!

Evil!

No sympathy!

"Are you listening to me, Hadley?"

The woman's words were a splash of ice-cold water on Hadley's face, pulling her from her thoughts. Hadley slowly looked up from Ruq's blue and green eyes and into Mrs. Smith's brown ones. The woman was handing her a blood-soaked scalpel over Ruqwik's torso. The skin of the vampire's torso, from her sternum to her pelvis, was now open, cut in a Y shape and held apart by clamps connected to the modified bed, garishly revealing her organs in all its gore.

Hadley stared stupidly at the blade in Mrs. Smith's hand.

"Go on, Hadley," Mrs. Smith said. "Cut out her stomach. It has the most magical liquid inside. Exposed to the air, it glows golden for a fraction of a second before turning into black tar! A real special treat. Here. Go on. Do it."

"No."

The word was out of Hadley's mouth before she'd even thought of speaking.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"What did you just say?" Mrs. Smith's voice was low. Guttural.

Hadley's mind had finally caught up and she decided she stood by the word.

"I said, 'No'."

Mrs. Smith lowered the scalpel back to the tray next to the gurney. She did it slowly, her hand trembling ever so slightly, clearly holding back.

"Hadley, are you saying that you are a vampire sympathiser?"

Hadley swallowed. "I'm not. I believe in the cause. I just don't think that this is how we achieve it."

Mrs. Smith balled her fists, her head down. She was fully shaking now. She grabbed the edge of the tray and shoved it hard, smashing it against the workshop's wall! Tools rained to the floor, the scalpel skidding over and stopping next to Mrs. Smith's left foot.

"You think I do this for fun?" she asked, pointing at Ruqwik.

Hadley stayed silent, her heart racing.

Mrs. Smith grabbed the scalpel.

"Remember that right shoulder?" she asked, almost pleasantly. "Your mangled leg?"

She sliced Ruqwik's arm with the scalpel, then brought the blade to her lips, slowly licking off the vampire's blood.

"That tonic you've indulged in for weeks?" she continued, moving closer to Hadley. "The one that healed you? Gave you the best night's sleep of your life every night for the last five weeks?"

Hadley's took a step back, desperate to escape the impending revelation, despite being fully aware of how pointless it was to try because the truth had been scurrying around the back of her mind from that first day she'd woken up fully healed in that paisley green room.

"It's her blood, Hadley!" Mrs. Smith proclaimed. She pointed towards the living room. "It's all their blood! That is how we destroy them. How we win. It's not just about controlling their access to our blood – we will also use their own blood against them. We will cut them down at the knees! We will take them apart and use their own power to beat them to submission! Spilling their blood... drinking it... that is our way to victory, Hadley. Look at me! I have lived for hundreds of years, lived several lifetimes yet stayed human. This is how you and I will survive to lead all humans to their rightful place and leave only when the work is done even if it takes centuries. Like my parents and their parents before them! All the Familiars!"

Despair clutched at Hadley.

She didn't know what the woman meant when she referred to 'Familiars', but it scared her.

"This is The Craft, Hadley." She finally said. "And you will learn to love it."

Not a suggestion. Not an opinion.

A thinly veiled threat.

"You can't force me to do this." Hadley said, rubbing her sweaty palms against her brown frock, while trying to keep her panic contained and her voice steady.

"Do you know what happened to the last person who rejected my offer? It was a Wildling. She stood right where you are." Mrs. Smith said, her voice eerily calm. "My fault really. I should have known. When it comes down to it, all Wildlings are weak, bootlicking vampire sympathisers."

Hadley stayed silent.

"You've probably noticed that, while I do have my little veggie garden, I don't have any livestock that I could break down into steaks..." Mrs. Smith let the statement hang.

Hadley went green as thoughts of five weeks of trays of meat from Mrs. Smith played through her mind.

Mrs. Smith laughed maniacally.

"I didn't feed her to you! I'm not a monster!" she said, still laughing at Hadley's obvious discomfort. "But she was a great addition to the garden. A much more effective fertilizer compared to burying a fish head under the tomatoes! This is by far my best tomato season. The fruits even brought in the wild boars. I trapped one. That's what you've been enjoying for the last few weeks."

The woman was still chuckling.

Hadley balled her fists.

"You're mistaken if you thought I'd find any of this funny, Mrs. Smith." Hadley spat.

Mrs. Smith's voice went back to being cold and guttural.

"You're mistaken if you thought any of this was a choice, Hadley."

Hadley's neck muscles suddenly contracted, spasming and snapping her head towards her right shoulder as an excruciating pulse zinged through her body. The pain lasted a few seconds, but it pushed Hadley back, causing her to crash into the dining table behind her. She reached for the shock collar.

"Don't you dare touch it!"

Hadley's hand froze, her breath coming in as short gasps.

"You can zap me as much as you want," Hadley said. "I still won't do this!"

Ruqwik struggled against her restraints in the background, but she was strapped down too tightly. Mrs. Smith ignored her.

"I knew you were different from the first time I saw you, Hadley Fisher," Mrs. Smith drawled. "But again, this isn't a choice or a request. This is your destiny!"

There it was again.

Hadley Fisher.

It definitely had nothing to do with her ability to catch fish.

Mrs. Smith lunged at Hadley, grabbed her open afro, and dragged her across the room to a recessed door. All the while, Hadley endured a continuously pulsating shock from the collar. Its intensity was much lower than before, but it was all she could do to keep herself upright, the ache in her tensed neck muscles close to debilitating. Through the recessed door were steps that led to a dank, dimly lit basement. Mrs. Smith stopped them at the end of the flight of stairs, pushing Hadley further into the room.

"Jamila!"

Hadley rushed to the cage, pressing her face against the bars, reaching her arm inside as far as she could in a futile attempt to reach her lover. At seeing Hadley, Jamila's eyes went round, and she slowly rocked her head in millimetres, back and forth against the constraints that harshly strapped her head to the far end of the cage wall. There were two intravenous bags connected to Jamila, one above her head on her right side and the other below her arm to her left. The one on the right dripped a clear liquid into her arm while her blood slowly leaked into the other bag. The same type of blood bag as the one that slowly dripped blood into Ruqwik's arm at the workshop upstairs.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

Jamila's head was forced backwards by tight constraints, her face towards the ceiling. A tube ran from a funnel at the top of the cage, into her mouth and down her throat, presumably to her stomach. Her body was strapped tightly onto a chair with a hole on the seat that opened into a bucket beneath her naked bottom.

The basement's smell was eyewatering.

"She's pretty drugged up. No gag reflex. She can barely feel anything from the neck, down." Mrs. Smith announced, seemingly proud. "I make sure she eats, and with her blood, she makes sure your vampire friend upstairs doesn't kill us all. And now, she'll also make sure you do exactly as I want, or I get some new fertiliser for my potatoes and find a Wildling to replace her with. Win, win, win."

Hadley's insides collapsed, the air forced from her lungs by hopeless despair.

Mrs Smith walked over to a wall and rattled chains against the wall. "Disobey me again, Hadley, and I will chain you to the wall to watch her suffer."

Hadley barely heard her. Her eyes were still glued to Jamila.

Five weeks! That's how long the three of them had been in this house, with Jamila and Ruqwik under constant torture.

She hadn't been aware and yet, Hadley drowned in guilt.

*

"Eat your dinner. And make sure you finish the wine." Mrs. Smith instructed.

They were back in the open-plan room that connected the living room, dining room and workshop where Ruqwik lay with her exposed torso on the gurney. The iron scent of the vampire's blood cut through Hadley, making her nauseous. A juicy wild boar steak, luscious, mashed potatoes with a beet swirled through and snap pea pods, with golden brown gravy on the side. Next to the plate was an untouched glass of the tonic Hadley had been drinking for weeks. Mrs. Smith had always called it wine, but Hadley now knew what it really was.

"I'm not hungry," Hadley replied.

"That wasn't a request. Eat. And finish that wine," the woman said, with a stern edge to her voice. "In a few years you'll only need the wine. Nothing more. Like me."

"I'm not drinking her blood." Hadley said. She'd been drinking Ruqwik's blood for weeks! Who knew what that had done to her unborn child?! Hadley wouldn't cower under Mrs. Smith's bullying. If the woman had wanted Hadley dead, she would have been dead.

Hadley clenched her teeth and grabbed to the sides of her seat, seizing through another shock of the collar. Mrs. Smith let it go on longer than she ever had before, thankfully stopping just before it broke Hadley. With her head still bowed, Hadley reached for the collar but stopped when she felt Mrs. Smith's gaze burning through her skull. She slowly lowered her hand.

"I like you, Hadley," the woman said, her voice strained as she tried to make it sound pleasant. "Don't make me kill you. You brought me such a wonderful gift."

Hadley looked up to see Mrs. Smith turn to face Ruqwik. The woman fixed the vampire with an unnerving gaze before turning back to face Hadley.

"That day in the forest, I thought I was delirious," Mrs. Smith continued. "I recognised you immediately, of course. Your eyes undeniably make you a Fisher, a surprise that I still haven't gotten over. But I couldn't believe it when I saw her. The vampire who'd haunted my nightmares for more than a lifetime. Ruqwik!"

Hadley listened, enraptured, once more taken by Mrs. Smith's extraordinary way of talking about vampires and humans.

"So, you see Hadley, finding you was my destiny because it also led me to her. A sign that I'm on the right path." Mrs. Smith stated. She became serious. "You will be my apprentice. You will learn The Craft. And when I have had my vengeance on this vampire, together, we will lead the human revolution against all vampires. Now, eat your food. Drink your wine. Don't aggravate me."

Hadley took a moment to look at the vampire strapped to the gurney.

"I'll eat, but I won't drink her blood," Hadley said, standing her ground despite the electro-shock consequence that followed this declaration, as she knew it would.

Mrs. Smith sighed after she let go of the shock collar button. Hadley was panting, holding on to the table's edges to keep herself from falling apart.

"You should keep thinking of it as a tonic, Hadley. One that keeps you healthy for The Craft," the woman said, her saccharine sweet voice contradicting the frustration in her eyes. "Look at me. I haven't fallen ill a single day in a hundred and seventy years. All it takes is just a few drops of vampire blood a day. Less if it's from a powerful one like her. She'll last us years."

Hadley tried to process the ridiculous words. The oldest humans she'd ever seen were the forty-five-year-old Elders at the Compound. That humans could become almost two centuries old and stay human was beyond impossible to believe. Although, looking around the room at the statuesque living vampire dolls and Ruqwik struggling against the gurney's straps with skin flaps open like a book to display her torso, Hadley questioned if Mrs. Smith really was still human.

"The wine hides the blood's taste," Mrs. Smith continued. "You can't even tell it's there. And it's not nearly enough vampire blood to turn you into one of them."

Hadley's eyes went wide in horror. She didn't know what the turning ritual involved, but the prospect of accidentally being turned into a vampire sent a trill of terror through her. She was about to protest some more, but Mrs. Smith cut her off.

"And before you say no, again, remember what's in my basement."

Hadley froze.

"She seems so lovely. Those golden eyes..." the woman continued. Then she pointed eerily to the living room filled with the taxidermized vampires with empty eye sockets filled with wood wool. "I'm sure you wouldn't like for her to join our guests here. My friends always love new company. Or, perhaps, she could be the one to bring the next herd of wild boar to my tiny garden. Go ahead. Disobey me. And when you're done, and you realise you've failed, I'll let you choose which fate you prefer for her."

Hadley stayed silent, her mind seething with malevolent thoughts.

She reached for the wine glass and downed its contents.

"Happy?" Hadley asked, licking her lips before indignantly banging the glass back onto the table.

Mrs. Smith smiled as she looked at the empty wine glass. "Yes, Hadley, that makes me very happy. Now, let's get back to our new specimen. It's going to be the best addition to my collection."

They walked up to the gurney, Hadley cooperating only under the threat of more harm coming to Jamila. She watched as Mrs. Smith expertly cut out Ruqwik's spleen. The woman was extraordinarily precise, performing better than any of the surgical robots at the Compound could ever dream of. Through it all, Ruqwik squirmed and let out soundless screams that were more haunting than if Hadley could hear her.

"I like to start with the parts that I know they can live without," Mrs. Smith was explaining as she placed the spleen into a jar halfway filled with a green tinged liquid and admired it for a while. "That way I can keep working on them for much longer."

Hadley gagged, racing to a sink in the corner to retch until she was dry heaving.

"Don't worry dearie, you'll get used to it," the woman said in a sing song voice. "Now, come here so that we can conclude today's lesson."

Hadley stayed where she was, her back towards them, her body trembling as she tried to catch her breath. She was trying not to cry. Not to break. She was a Medic. It wasn't the gore that made her heave. Now, more than ever, she would have to keep the secret of her pregnancy. Had to protect her daughter. And she had to save Jamila, who had also gone through Conception Day and was pregnant too. Mrs. Smith could never know!

This place wasn't the refuge Hadley had hoped for.

They had to escape!

"I said," Mrs. Smith suddenly huffed, a menacing edge to her voice. Hadley fell to the ground, wracked by violent shakes from the shock collar. When she stopped, Mrs. Smith continued speaking in that threatening tone. "Come here so that we can conclude today's lesson."

This couldn't be the same woman who had brought her food and regaled her with truths about the stolen human legacy.

Hadley took a deep breath, turned around, and walked back to the gurney. Mrs. Smith ordered Hadley to hand her a spleen shaped polyester ball expertly stuffed with taxidermy wool that was soaked in what Hadley assumed was dead blood. Mrs. Smith plugged the space she'd created after taking out the spleen with the woodwool. The woman then retrieved the jar with Ruq's spleen floating inside, while pointing at the other organs in the vampire's torso.

"Do you see how all of her organs have a pronounced blue tinge yet are perfectly formed?" the woman asked Hadley in a voice filled with fascination. "This body has never produced its own haemoglobin. Do you know what that means, Hadley?"

Hadley pinned her with a stoic, steely gaze, remaining silent. She abhorred Mrs. Smith – more and more with every new second in her presence – but Hadley couldn't dispel her own intrinsic curiosity and eagerness for the stories the woman shared. For better or for worse, Mrs. Smith had with her knowledge that Hadley craved. Answers to questions she hadn't even thought to ask. A unique lens into the world over generations. Generations that Mrs. Smith had lived through by consuming vampire blood. Just as she did with Aunt Zee and her experience as a Wildling, Hadley couldn't help desperately needing to know everything Mrs. Smith knew about the world!

"I asked," the woman said, reaching for the shock collar remote. "Do you know what that means, Hadley?"

Hadley shook her head, genuinely interested.

"I didn't hear you, dearie," Mrs. Smith said, pulsing a quick shock through Hadley.

"No, I don't know what that means." Hadley said, the words strained as they moved through clenched teeth.

"It means that this specimen was born a vampire," Mrs. Smith said, triumphantly.

The revelation caught Hadley off-guard.

"Born a vampire?" Hadley repeated in a whisper. "How is that even possible?"

She hated herself for wanting to hear more. Much more. Everything. Hated herself because her curiosity only encouraged Mrs. Smith. Made the woman think that Hadley actually wanted to be here. Hadley cringed when she looked up at the woman.

Mrs. Smith's eyes lit up at hearing Hadley's questions.