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They took , down in an elevator to a sterile white room, with a bed, and a chair, and little else I was led inside, full of questions How could they help me? What was this experimental cure that could return me to humanity?

I turned to askon me Noin that door, and locks aplenty I heard the locks turning, and a feeling of dread welled up inside ainst it, but it didn&039;t give at all And it should have It should have I was strong, stronger than any locks they could make I knew that

Ah, but that ht , he said, to prepare ain And it had to be that that had taken away th

And noas here, locked in this room A prisoner, for all practical purposes And I recalled the voice of o with that stranger

God, had I hout that first night, and it seemed endless And then finally the door opened, and a kindly, white-haired woman of tiny stature smiled at me

"Hello," she said "My na care of you while you&039;re here" Taking care of ed in relief I hadn&039;t made a mistake after all They would truly help me here

"Why ahtens me"

"Oh, dear, they really should have explained" Dr Rose ca the door behind her "There are others here, others like you People we&039;re only trying to help" She shook her head, clicking her tongue

"But some of themwell, they can be quite monstrous, you know They&039;d attack anyone, even one of their own kind"

I believed that readily I&039;d fallen victim to one of them, and I had no doubt that they were all just as beastly Just as horrible as I had started to become now that I was one of them

"The locks are to keep them out, dear, not to keep you in For your own protection, honestly Sohed hard, my relief palpable

"Now, if you&039;ll just hop up onto the table," she said, sain"

I obeyed hurriedly The woman eyed my dirty habit, shook her head, and pulled a hypoder will I have to be here?" I asked

"Well, it ht be weeks, to be honest The process involves several steps, you know But you needn&039;t worry We&039;ll take better care of you than your own mother would You&039;ll see" The needle&039;s tip sank into my arm, and in a few seconds, my world became dark and murky I drifted into unconsciousness

When I woke, I wore a white hospital gown I had been bathed, and my hair had been washed and brushed I felt oddly violated I wondered what sort of procedure the kindly old doctor had perfor

Eventually,lass of scarlet liquid and left without a word Not a word As if I were an inanimate object or a pet to be fed I drank the cold stale sustenance he&039;d provided, but it lacked the invigorating war That war my body as I fed at the throat of that beautiful man who&039;d offered to help me

But I didn&039;t want that warmth I didn&039;t want to prey on the innocent I wanted to be ain, to have my old life back And so I drank, and I prayed it would not be long I&039;d have to remain in this place

Hilary Garner listened to Rose Sversky&039;s report, and tried to keep a semblance of clinical detachment on her face She wasn&039;t certain she succeeded But she tried

"We&039;ve successfully harvested and fertilized a single egg froo off without a hitch, and if it doesn&039;t take, I&039;et another shot We may have to have another subject or two before we achieve success" Fuller nodded, his narrow-eyed gaze slipping to Hilary&039;s face every so often, as if he atching for so A slip She kept her expressionlessThere was nothing she could do, anyway

"Schedule the iet this experirandmotherly smile "Irony always amazes me, Mr Fuller, but this tiin"

Fuller&039;s brows rose high "You&039;re kidding me"

"No Other than that odd state of affairs, she reoing to becoive us any trouble"

"Don&039;t get too coive us plenty of trouble once she realizes she&039;s pregnant And she&039;ll have to realize it, sooner or later"

"Yes, well, she will if the implantation is successful"

Fuller nodded "Best prepare one of the ures it out, she&039;ll fight us every step of the way" He shook his head "A freaking virgin birth Wasn&039;t she so like that," Sversky said with a chuckle "Will wonders never cease?" Fuller replied He leaned back in his chair and began filling his pipe

I was slowly going insane Stir-crazy would be the closest term I had no books No television No radio I was allowed to bathe nightly And ht to me by soft-spoken, even respectful individuals dressed in white Frolasses, not warm bodies, I fed And the sustenance was diluted Thin and cold, and I began to suspect, laced with so here, I&039;d never once felt that odd surge of vath that I&039;d felt before

I should have known, I suppose I should have seen the signs The heavily veiled disgust in the eyes of those caregivers The glances they exchanged When I objected to any of the conditions I lived under, I was told that they&039;d never be able to help ain, unless I cooperated with them So I did

And oh, that was so foolish! So incredibly foolish

I had no idea why they would want to do what they did to s could I concoct a reason But it soon became apparent

Months had passed before I understood as happening Truly understood it My belly began to swell, and more than that I could sense a life force within rowing, inside me I was, I realized, stunned, with child

And as that knowledge ca at it But no one came to tell me why they&039;d done this to me No one caht painting the earth, slowly stealing my consciousness And this time, when I woke, I was in a far different place

I was sealed in a dark, coffinlike box Panic took a firainst the lid withuntil I was hoarse

At last, the cover was lifted I flew fro men I kicked and shouted I asked them pleaded with them to tell me why they&039;d done this, what their intentions were But to no avail I was injected with the fa, returned to the pathetically weak state I spent all o I slu up, eyelids heavy, and warily exaone noas in a dungeonlike cell, with barely any light One of the men pulled me to my feet, and ushered me close to the rear wall, while another clamped shackles around my wrists, and then my ankles I was chained, chained to the cold stone wall at lass of the detestable liquid was pressed into h to enable lass, and shookmy chin in defiance "I won&039;t drink I&039;d rather die than go on living in this prison! Let o!"

One of the men chuckled, and shook his head "If you don&039;t feed, you&039;ll lose your baby You don&039;t want to starve your own baby, do you?"

I sed hard, tears flooding my eyes so that the men swam before me I couldn&039;t do that, couldn&039;t starve my own child, and they knew it They knew it

Oh, God, what had I done? What had I done to deserve this particular hell? Only then did I fully understand what a grave erly, I hadI could scarcely believe it was true They saw me as a creature A laboratory rat, and I was, from then on, treated as such

I drank, because I had little choice, and so I lived Lived on their drugged liquid, kept too weak to break ht I remained chained to the cell walls But the days were far worse For each dawn, as soon as the day sleep overtook me, my vile captors took me down from my wall and sealed me inside that coffinlike box More often than not, dusk would fall, and I would awaken still trapped in that tiny ceus I&039;d claw and kick and cry, and I&039;d hear the ood and ready It seeer tried to conceal the disgust in their eyes I was treated as an animal For the sake of the child I carried, they continued to provide me with sustenance, and warmth, and sanitary conditions For the sake of the child I knew that And I knew, too, with a growing sense of terror, that what becaiven birth, was co else in those longI&039;d ever known As the child grew ineventually, I spoke to it Wrappedto it, in a voice that surprised e and purity I&039;d always loved to sing, but I&039;d never found such joy in doing so with ht I els And as the time passed, I came to realize that I loved the baby I carried She-and for some reason, I was certain, even then, that she was fe soul I spoke to in all that time She was a part ofin me Never in ined that I would have a child But now, I could not i one This one, whom they would try to take fro

They would try to take her

And I would die before I would allow that to happen

Every once in a while, Hilary slipped down to the maxi woman they held there And once, very late in the experi thatThe purest,she&039;d ever heard in her life

She crept closer to the cell, and peered through the lass And she saw her Pale and thin, except for her protruding belly Her nah to DPI she was called by a nu and lustrous, and she had huge violet eyes Their color no less than stunning, even through the tears that spilled slowly from their purplish depths

She sat on the floor of her cell, chains dangling fro belly, and rocked slowly back and forth, and she sang "Aht tears to Hilary&039;s eyes

And then she stopped singing all at once, and lifted her head She stared right into Hilary&039;s eyes frolass And Hilary was unable to look away She was so sad, so frightened and so utterly alone It was horrible what this organization was doing to her Horrible

And if I try to help, she thought, they&039;ll kill me They&039;ll kill me I&039;ll disappear, just like Tamara

But the story went that Tarapevine, all those years ago she&039;d become one of the to help Could it be true? Could Taht away and looked back at the woman in the cell But the plea was still there, in those violet eyes And Hilary knew that she had to help She had to try She had to

She closed her eyes, and turned away And the singing began again, filling the entire sublevel with beauty And as she passed other cells where other captives languished in despair, she saw the in the beauty of that song

Hilary ran froer to shut out that sad, sad voice But even after the doors slid closed, she kept hearing it Ringing in herher to act

It was difficult walking into Fuller&039;s office for the staff ht Harder than ever to keep her mask in place But she had to She ht

Until Rose Sversky&039;s dire predictions filled the room, at least "We can&039;t take it C-section," she said

"They bleed like hemophiliacs The et the child, and then we&039;d lose the more smelly tobacco into that rank pipe of his as Hilary took rapid notes

Stiles cleared his throat "Sir, you know that kind feels pain as if it were ive a damn," Fuller said

Rose&039;s eyes h they were, were not quite as heartless as Fuller They saw the undead as aniony

"She&039;ll need to be tranquilized," Rose said "With her preternatural strength, if she pushes, she could crush the child We&039;ll give her the drug, a far higher dosage than the daily one Enough to render her semiconscious before we induce labor"

"And what happens to the baby?" Hilary whispered

Again they all looked at her, but they were over being surprised at her ever-increasing interruptions

"The baby will be our most prized research subject," Fuller explained "Ms Garner, this is a first A one of a kind Will it be born a vampire, or ato learn more from this creature thanMs Garner?"

It showed in her face That sick feeling that et out of here fast before she lost control and broke into tears in front of all of them She schooled her features, stood up slowly "I&039;m sorry, but you&039;ll have to excuse , Ms Garner?" Fuller&039;s voice was full of speculation, and the look in his eyes was deadly as she glanced back at him

"Yes," she told him "The flu, I think"

"It had better be"

It was a haze of pain and horror and fear The first drug they gave ht on the pain I couldn&039;t think I couldn&039;t see the walls I passed as they wheeled , strapped to a stretcher, into an elevator and up They took me to a room with masked, white-coated people and machines and equipment of all kinds And those ical gloves

They spoke, but I didn&039;t knohat they were saying, so dazed was I by the pain I hurt, I only knew that I thought my body would tear itself in half, and I screamed I know I screaer with excite doe&039;s eyes, who ht be different I&039;d seen her before, the woht I had ever seen She looked as horrified froical ht Horrified, because I could barely move, could barely think

And all I could feel was pain And I kneas helpless to fight them Helpless to protect my child

Utterlyhelpless

She stood beside my head, the one with the kindness in her eyes She stroked , but I could see the pity in her eyes when they met mine And then there was relief, so swift and sudden I nearly floated off the table with it Doe Eyes turned her head, looking down at the men and woman who stood at the foot of the table on which I lay I followed that gaze, looking where she did And I saw randmother held her-a pink, wrinkled blur in her arms

A blur that squirmed and kicked and had jet-black hair stuck to her head