I never realized before how long forty eight hours really was until I spent it laying cold and hungry on the concrete floor of a cramped little closet in the back of the lab. They've been busy, I've been bored. I keep repeating over and over in my head all of Malcom's advice until the little voice in my head has started to sound like him.

Show strength.

I think that's what I'm doing. No one has bothered with me, and I haven't complained or made a peep. I don't ask for food, and I make no qualms about using the bucket in the corner for its intended purpose. I knew coming in that being a prisoner wasn't going to be glamorous.

Be useful. Find a need and latch on to it. Be of value.

That part is harder to do, considering I'm locked in a closet.

My stomach constricts in another painful bout of hunger pains. I can't remember ever having been so desperate for just a bite of anything. I'd even eat something green at this point if they offered.

Voices rise on the other side of my door and I push up from the floor and sit with my ear against the door. They're fighting again.

"And that is all thanks to you if you'll recall." The man mumbles. "You're the one who traded away our solution to that particular problem."

"Well we need to come up with a new one all the same." Elenora's voice pitches then falls. "Those bloody vampires are becoming more and more unbearable."

"I know." He sighs.

"So what are we doing about it?"

"We?" He laughs to himself. "Are you including me in your plans now? Now that you've ruined the original plan?"

"Don't play with me." Her voice is a low rumble, clearly a threat. "What will we do?"

"A bridge we will cross when we get to it." He says quickly, like he's discussing the latest weather forecast and he's not all that concerned about the rain on Monday.

"My people and I don't work on the fly, Sir." She spits. "We can't take them all on our own, so I hope you have a backup plan. Preferably one that doesn't lead to our ultimate demise. Lucky I found the girl or that might have backfired into all of our faces."

Good, Elenora still thinks I am worth something.

"Speaking of," He mumbles quietly and suddenly I'm tipping forward, my reflexes too slow as he pulls open the door I was leaning on. He reaches a feeble looking hand for me and wraps my forearm with enough strength to make me wince, dragging me up to my feet and passing me over to Elenora. "Tell Defario I'm ready for this one's blood." He sits back into his normal spot in front of the front lab counter. "It will placate him to let him be the one to do it. He's been chomping at the bit to kill something for weeks."

My stomach drops like a sky diver from a plane with cement blocks around their ankles and no parachute.

Elenora looks like she tastes something sour and her grip tightens on me. "Humans weren't a part of the deal." She mutters, clearly displeased.

Yes, fight for me.

"She is just as much one of them as the rest are." The man grumbles, not even looking up at me as he seals my fate. "Look where she came from."

Elenora sighs. "I suppose." She pulls me to follow, but I use every ounce of strength I've got left to pull back.

Think, Rose. Think, Malcom's voice screams inside my head.

"I'm not one of them." I blurt, working hard to sound offended by the accusation. "Being there was nothing more than a burden of my birth. They forced me."

Elenora's glowing eyes find my face but the man is not budging. "She's lying."

I straighten up my sore back and lift my chin. "Whatever you're doing here, I want to help."

He finally looks away from his blood slide to narrow his charcoal eyes at me, clearly still skeptical. Elenora brushes my dirty hair off of my shoulder and tilts her head. "Really?" She purrs. "You don't even know what it is, so how can you pledge your allegiance to what you do not know."

I don't let them see me scrambling.

I just let my gut instinct take over. "I know whatever you're doing, it involves getting rid of the force, and I am all for that."

They both looked intrigued now.

Good, get them on your hook.

Elenora turns slightly to the man. "She's been astraling here." She smiles at him, then back to me. "Why?"

"To learn about you." My body may be slower, but my mind is keeping up.

She slowly steps towards me, holding my face in her hands and she peers into my eyes. "Tell me, my little seer, how do you truly feel about vampires, even your uncle?"

Tell them what they want to hear!

"I hate them." The words taste bitter on my tongue, but if the lie helps me, I can brush the taste out of my mouth when I get home. "and everything they stand for."

I know I've got Elenora now, but the man shakes his head, making my stomach twist again. "She just risked her life to save one of those beasts, take her to Defario."

I step forward. "Saving him was a strategic plan." I tell him. "First of all, he isn't a monster. At least he didn't use to be. He was forced into becoming what he is, and he doesn't kill. He didn't deserve what you're going to do here. Switching places with him also got me here. Where I want to be so that I can help." I look into his beady black eyes. "I'm valuable to you."

"Yes," He nods. "Dead."

I risk another step, my shoulder's square and face twisted in a glare. "No." I shake my head. "Alive." I nod and he leans back in his chair. "I'm a card for you to play, and my blood, my very human blood that has those same gene mutations you're draining vampires for, could be the one you're looking for." I cross my arms, surprising myself at how confident I am right now, possibly seconds from my own death. "I wonder, have you tried using the blood before it's been turned? That could be the missing key."

I'm more than aware that this could be a catch 22. In convincing them to keep me, I might accidentally be right and giving them the answer they're looking for, but I can't help anyone if I'm dead.

Do what you have to do.

And it works, hook line and sinker. "You've just bought yourself a day." He tells me, rubbing his old wrinkled fingers to his chin.

I smile at him. "I only want to be of service to you and your cause." To seal the deal I dip my chin to him and he smiles, pleased.

"See to it that the child is well fed," He directs Elenora. "I'll need her blood strong to begin my experiments."

She looks equally as pleased to not be losing her little pet just yet. "Yes, Sir." She purrs to him, then loops her arm with mine and leads me out into the camp.

I've been to this area before, all the thick woods encase the clearing, a circle of torches surround the blood tub in the center of camp, and there are three buildings hidden carefully into the tree lines. I didn't even notice them in the vision. I keep my eyes down though, not wanting to look suspicious. Also not wanting to catch sight of the death pit that I know is off to the opposite side of the clearing from where we are going.

She brings me to a short sprawling brown building that blends into its surroundings. It's deathly quiet out in the clearing, but as soon as she opens the doors, voices poor forth from inside.

The mess hall is bigger inside than the outside seemed, and the smell makes me feel like I could fly. I follow Elenora down the center of the room. The division is clear. All the table to the left are crowded with bulky men and a few women all wearing black and red uniforms. The Force. While the right side of the room is tables of men and women wearing regular every day clothes. It only takes looking a few in the eyes, watching the way they watch me to know they are just as dangerous as the other side of the room. The Caster Cults.

"So," I whisper, following her closely. "Can you tell me more about what you are doing here?" I keep my voice even, not showing too much interest. "I know you take vampires with blood like mine, my uncle calls them Legacies, but what for?"

She spins quickly, her fire red hair smacking me in the face. "Keep your voice down," she hisses. "Not here, with these...things." She turns her head sharply to the left.

I nod, following her through the line at the front of the mess hall, piling my plate and tray high with as much mush and bread as I could fit. I'm too hungry to care that it looks like this food may have been meant for cats and dogs in a past life. Hunger is stronger than my pride.

I turn with my plate, expecting to go sit with her and her people but she shakes her head and beckons me forward with the twirl of her long pale finger. She leads me back out of the mess hall and I shove some bread in my mouth as we walk out into the cool night again.

I think she's going to make me eat in my closet but I'm wrong again.

Instead she leads me out into the center of the clearing, passing through the circle of torches that surround the old rusty tin tub in the middle. She points down to a stump coming out of the ground and I sit, quickly eating more of the slop before my eyes stray up, finding a woman levitating up over the tub, her blood falling faster. She's fresh.

I know Elenora is watching. She's testing me.

As much as my stomach now protests, I just nod at the sight, then look back down to shovel in some more food.

"We're safe here from the prying ears." She tells me softly. "To answer your question from before. You only need to know that soon, our world will be clean once again. As the gods intended." She smiles up at the crescent moon. "Free from their poison. Their evil. We will rid the world of them."

I fake a smile. "That's good news, but how?" I chomp off a big bite of bread. "I mean even with all of the power you and the other Casters have, surely it isn't enough to kill all of them."

She furrows her thin brows. "Kill?"

I furrow mine in return. "I thought you said..."

"I hate their kind, with all of my being and all my soul stands for, but mass genocide is not something myself or my people could be a part of." The wind pulls through her hair and I realize again how painfully beautiful she is.

I shake my head, confusion showing through. "But you said you'd rid the world of-."

"Of their kind." She nods.

"Yes, but how..." Then it clicks. "You've got the cure." I gasp.

She smiles, reaching out to pat the top of my head like an obedient puppy. "Not yet, but we will soon. Your blood may very well help in that. We haven't ever tried it with a human's blood."

I'm quiet for a minute, and she lets me think in peace.

After a while I still shake my head. "I'm confused though, why would The Force-?"

"Because they are nothing more than a brute force of muscle and no brain, but they serve a purpose for us. We need their muscle and knowledge of the vampire world and its leaders."

I nod, staring down at my empty tray. "I see."

"Do you?" She muses to herself. "A gift like yours could truly benefit me and my people. I do hope that you don't die."

I smile up at her. "Me too." I glance around, being quick about it, catching sight of Defario stomp out of the mess hall. She must notice my discomfort, because she reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry child, the brute can't see us here." She grins. "Part of my charm. You can't see anyone or hear anyone that is inside the circle. It's my little secret. I like to come here and watch and listen to the idiots who have trouble keeping their lips sealed. If they plan to attack us, I need to know when it is coming."

"That's smart." I tell her, seeing how Defario seems to look right at us but then keep going. I look away from him and up at Elenora instead. "The man, the scientist guy. Isn't he one of them? He'd go to such lengths just to be cured?"

She shakes her head slowly, her eyes looking far away. "He hates them probably more than even I can say. For good reason too." She tells me. "This isn't the first time he's fought this battle, and this time, he won't be losing. They have nothing left to take from him."

My eyes flicker to my hands to get out of her gaze. "What do you mean he's fought it before? You mean in a battle?" I hope she'll tell me. I've done enough studying to know most of the important battles over the last thousand years. Maybe she could give me a clue to his identity.

She simply twirls my limp hair around her finger, then lets it slide back down. "I won't tell you anything you don't need to know. Not until I trust you. Which I want to." Her eyes are intense on mine.

She thinks I can help her someway. I know it's the only reason she is telling me anything at all. If I live, she plans to use me. That's fine. I just need to make sure I make it that far.

"How can I prove my allegiance to you?" I ask.

She grins slowly. "You'll have to bleed."

I set my tray aside and stand, meeting her eyes. "I'm ready when you are."

She loops her arm through mine again. "Let's go then, my little seer."

@<>

Come on, guys. Please hurry.