Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Juno?” My voice carries and echoes back to me.
The walls beside me change to bars. Cells line the walls, most of them with open doors. Some with skeletons. A true dungeon. Why is Juno in here?
“Juno!” I call again.
“Here.” A hand reaches out between the bars farther down the hall.
I run. My sister. Juno. She’s alive. Everything inside me soars, floating above the fear and the pain. I’m flying. She’s here.
Skidding to a stop in front of her cell, I see her. It only takes a moment—not even that—and I know.
“Finally come to see your big sister?” Her hand is still extended beyond the bars, her nails now terminating in thick, sharp points. Claws.
I stare, taking in her smooth brown skin. Her left eye is gone, nothing there but a smooth socket. Her other is the warm brown shade I remember. It’s her, but not her. Her hair flows in black curls, only a few strands of gray still mixed in. Wearing a loose gray t-shirt and lounge pants, she seems completely at ease. My sister, but not.
I can only look at her. My fervent hope come to life as a nightmare. My sister is alive. My sister is a vampire.
“You never did have a way with words, did you?” She pulls her hand back through the bars. “That was my gift.”
“How?” The question comes out strangled, as if my throat didn’t want to let it go.
“Valen told me you didn’t know I was here. I thought he was mistaken, that you were far too clever not to realize he had me stashed away.” She sighs and walks backward with a slight limp, then sits on her cot and crosses her legs at the knee. Spine straight as always, posture impeccable, poise without effort. My sister. But not. “But I suppose I overestimated you.”
Vertigo threatening to topple me, I grip the bars. “You were dead.”
“Was I?” She shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t remember much of it. I mean, I remember the White House.” She wrinkles her nose. “Theo. Yes, I remember him quite well. But when Valen turned me …” She looks up as if racking her brain. “I don’t even know how it happened. I woke up here, and this is where I’ve stayed.” She grits her teeth, her fangs pressing against her bottom lip. “A prisoner. I’m the president of the United fucking States!” she hisses.
“Valen turned you?”
“Yes. Though I don’t know if it’s much of an improvement.” She vaguely points at her face. “The eye was already ruined, so he says, and my back too broken to mend completely. But I suppose I’m still alive. In a way.” She scoots farther back and leans against the wall. “You really didn’t know I was here?”
“No!” I crumple, my knees giving out as I sink to the floor. “I didn’t know.” So many emotions tumble through me. Relief, shock, and surprisingly, anger. Not a slight irritation, a growing bubble of red-hot rage. It’s as if the box I kept it tucked away in has ruptured, the guts oozing and spreading.
Her head turns quickly, the movement almost mechanical. “Someone’s following you.”
“Shit!” I forgot about Carlotta the minute I saw Juno.
“There’s some sort of blood magic or woowoo spell work on the walls. Valen said it would keep you out. So who else is coming to this reunion party?”
“It’s another vampire. A Tantun.”
“You should come in here with me. You’ll be safe.” Juno is at the bars immediately, her one eye focused on me, the pupil dilated. “Unlock the door.”
“I don’t have the key.”
“It has to be here somewhere.” She juts her chin toward the other cells. “Just look.”
I scramble up and stare at the black mass down the hall. No Carlotta. Not yet, anyway.
“Better hurry,” Juno’s voice is almost amused.
I search her face, looking for my sister somewhere underneath. I don’t find her. “You’re not you anymore.”
She gives a grim chuckle. “Neither are you.”
I back away down the hall, keeping the black hole in my field of vision while I search for any sign of a key. The only light is a single sconce above Juno’s cell, and it fades quickly with each step I take away from it.
Peeking into cell after cell, I find tattered clothes, some moldy books, and bones. Lots of bones. No key, though. By the time I’m at the farthest limit of the light, Juno hisses. “She’s coming through. Hurry!”
I test the door of the cell I’m in, swinging it shut and trying to lock it. Nothing. It needs a key. I’m defenseless with nowhere to hide. “There’s no key.”
“There has to be!” she says, irritation lacing her words. “Find it!”
“It’s too late.” Leaving the cell, I walk back to Juno, my gaze drawn to her, to the woman I used to put every ounce of my faith in. What is she now? And what am I?