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CHAPTER ONE
Zoey
I’ve never felt this dark
Not even when I’d been shattered and trapped in the Otherworld and ment Then I’d been broken and battered and well onmyself forever I’d felt dark inside, but the people who loved ht, beautiful beacons of hope, and I’d been able to find strength in their light I’d fought my way out of darkness
This tiht I deserved to stay lost, to remain shattered This time I didn’t deserve to be saved
Detective Marx had takenme in jail with the rest of the crily endless trip fro brown stone sheriff’s depart that he’dto be put in a special holding cell until net released on bail He’d looked back and forth from the road to my reflection in the rearview lance to read his expression
He knew I had no chance for bail
“I don’t need a lawyer,” I’d said “And I don’t want bail”
“Zoey, you’re not thinking straight Give it a little ti to need a lawyer And if you could get out on bail, that would be the best thing for you”
“But it wouldn’t be the best thing for Tulsa No one is going to let a monster loose” My voice had sounded flat and e over and over and over
“You’re not a monster,” Marx had said
“Did you see those two men I killed?”
He’d glanced at ain and nodded I could see that his lips had pressed into a line, like he was trying to keep hi For some reason his eyes were still kind I couldn’t meet them
Looking out the , I’d said, “Then you knohat I a vampyre—it’s all the sa to happen to me”
He’d quit talking to lad
A black iron fence surrounded the sheriff’s depart lot, and Marx drove to a rear entrance where he had to wait to be identified before a ate opened Then he stopped and led , busy room that was sectioned off with cubical dividers When alked in, cops were talking and phones were ringing As soon as they saas Marx andstopped and the gawking started
I stared straight ahead at a spot on the wall and concentrated on not letting the screa on inside me come out
We had to walk all the way through the rooh a door that led to one of those rooms that look like the ones you see on Law & Order: SVU where awesouys
It had given me a jolt to realize that what I had done had uys
There was a door at the far end of the room that led to a little hallway Marx turned left He’d paused to swipe his ID card, and a massively thick steel door opened On the other side of the door, the hall dead-ended in just a few feet There was another ht, which was open The bottoh bars started Thick, black bars That here Detective Marx stopped I glanced inside The roo, and my eyes skittered away from the horrible place to find Marx’s familiar face
“With the power you have, I iine you could break out of here” He’d spoken quietly, as if he thought so to us
“I left the Seer Stone at the House of Night That’s what gave me the power to kill those two men”
“So you didn’t kill them by yourself?”
“I got ave me a boost Detective Marx, it was h and sure of one all soft and shaky
“Can you break out of here, Zoey?”
“I honestly don’t know, but I pro to try” I’d drawn a deep breath and let it out in a rush, telling hi here, and no matter what happens to me, I deserve it”
“Well, I promise you that no one can bother you here You’ll be safe,” he’d said kindly “Ito happen to you, it won’t be because a lynch ot to you”
“Thank you” My voice had broken, but I’d gotten the words out
He took off my handcuffs
I hadn’t been able to move
“You have to go in the cell now”
I’d made my feet move When I was inside, I turned, and just before he closed the door I’d said, “I don’t want to see anyone, especially not anyone froht”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes”
“You understand what you’re saying, don’t you?” he said
I’d nodded “I knohat happens to a fledgling who isn’t around vampyres”
“So basically, you’re sentencing yourself”
He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but I’d answered hi responsibility for my actions”
He’d hesitated, and it see else he wanted to say, but Marx had ended up shrugging, sighing, and saying, “Okay, then Good luck, Zoey I’m sorry that it has come to this”
The door closed as if sealing a coffin
There was no , no outside light except for what peeked in from the hallway between the bars on the door At the end of the cell there was a bed—a thinhard attached to the wall There was an alu out of the middle of a parallel wall, not far from the bed It didn’t have any lid The floor was black concrete The walls were gray The blanket on the bed was gray Feeling like I was in a waking nightmare, I walked to the bed
Six steps That’s how long the cell was Six steps
I went to the side wall and walked across the cell Five steps It was five steps across
I’d been right If you didn’t count the distance to the ceiling, I was locked in a tomb the size of a coffin
I sat on the bed, drew ed them My body shook and shook and shook