The Vampire Diaries: A Cage of Burning Light (Kindle Worlds Novella) (5 page)

There was
another room on the other side of the door, one filled with clutter and trash,
the floor covered by a scattering of loose tile and cardboard. Another door lay
on the other side, hopefully leading outside.

Elena bit
her lip. There was still no sign of Wilson,
but the room made her nervous. It looked oppressive, and her imagination could
come up with all sorts of things that might jump out of the hiding places
scattered through the chaos.

How could
she know this room was safe to cross? She had to be reasonable, she reminded
herself. She had enough things to worry about without making it worse by
inventing extra dangers.

Still,
she was afraid, so instead of taking the straight route across the room, Elena
hugged the wall, creeping behind the towering piles of old furniture and
garbage and testing every frightened step as she progressed.

The wall
beside her was dark with grease and old graffiti, broken every 10 feet by
windows that had been boarded up. There was also an emergency door, hidden
behind a couch stood on its end with what looked like part of a tractor engine
leaning against it.

Elena was
wondering if it was best to go out that way and risk there being a functioning
alarm on the emergency exit when she heard something. She heard the distinct
sound of a door at the front of the warehouse opening hard enough to slam
against the wall. Her head snapped in that direction, so afraid that she
couldn’t even inhale, and in an instant she had the blessedly silent emergency
door open and was fleeing into the warm afternoon outside, racing for the safety
of the road that led back to the town.

Damon
stepped into the small warehouse and paused, waiting for the sound he’d just
heard to repeat itself. It sounded like a door, and now he could hear footsteps
hurrying away.

The
century-old predator inside of him kicked in, and he lunged forward with a
snarl, straight toward that sound. He sprinted through the center of the room,
mostly cleared of all but the detritus on the floor; his speed wasn’t enough to
save him as the unsupported surface beneath his feet gave way, and he crashed
into the pit Wilson
had dug below, onto the five foot spikes that stuck up into the air.

Bonnie
found Elena running down the side of the road toward town, a length of heavy
chain wrapped around her arm with the end flapping behind her like a gothic
streamer. She wasn’t running at full vampire speed, but she certainly managed a
clip fast enough that she wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Olympics.

Bonnie
slammed on the brakes, yelling her name out the window, “Elena!” Her friend saw
her and a second later she was pulling open the passenger door and jumping in.
Bonnie hit the gas and spun the car 180 degrees, heading back the way she’d
come with the gas pedal floored before she even consciously thought about it.

“I was
afraid you were dead,” she gasped. “What happened?” Bonnie spared her a look
out of the corner of her eye.

Elena was
a mess, covered in dirt and grease, with her usually immaculate dark hair a
tangled cloud around her face. There was dried blood on her shirt and forehead,
and she carried a length of heavy duty chain that was attached to shackles
enclosing her wrists. Bonnie saw the dried tear stains on her friend’s face and
reached with one hand to take her hand. Elena’s returning grip was almost painful.

“Who did
this to you?” Bonnie asked, more quietly this time.

Elena
shook her head, tangled hair hiding her face as she looked down. “No one … he
was no one. His name’s Wilson.
He captures vampires for their blood, sells it as a cure for people. He does
experiments with the rest.” She managed to lift her head, and Bonnie felt her
heart clench at the pain in Elena’s eyes. “He didn’t care how much he hurt me.”

Bonnie
swallowed and squeezed Elena’s hand before she returned both hands to the
steering wheel. They were already past the edge of town, and she dropped their
speed to something that wouldn’t get them pulled over for reckless driving as
she headed back to the Salvatore Boarding House.

“How did
you get away?” she asked. The next question,
did you kill him,
was one she was afraid to add.

Elena
looked down again. “He locked me in a room with skylights that let sunlight in.
He took my ring. I … I was able to get my ring back, and I just ran.” She
took a deep breath. “We have to stop him from doing this to anyone else.”

Bonnie
nodded. That Elena would think that was a given. “Later. Trust me; none of the
vampires here will let him get away with this. For right now though, let’s just
take care of you.”

Elena
nodded and leaned against the passenger side window with a sigh of relief that
sounded like a thank you to Bonnie’s ears.

Damon
woke up in chains, tied to an uncomfortable metal chair in the middle of a
windowless room where light came from skylights overhead, numerous enough to
form a cage around where he sat. He hurt from the spikes he’d landed on and,
from the feel of it, a heavy infusion of vervain into his bloodstream. He felt
sick and weak, as well as exceptionally pissed off.

His
kidnapper was only a dozen feet away, but Damon didn’t have to bother with
demanding to know what was happening and what the man expected to try and do to
him, because his kidnapper was talking on a cell phone. And even filled with
vervain, Damon was strong enough that he could hear both sides of the conversation.

“The girl
escaped,” the man was saying as Damon raised his head, and the vampire couldn’t
help a grin of triumph at that. Still, he found himself more than a bit
embarrassed to have been caught in a trap she’d managed to get out of.

“What’s wrong with you?”
came the voice
on the other end of the phone. It was male and officious, as well as angry, and
the man’s shoulders tightened and hunched up.
“Wilson,
her blood is worth a lot more than you are!”

“It’s all
right,” Wilson
said. “I promise you, Mr. Jennings. She got away, but I caught another vampire.
A male this time, an older one. You know the males hold more blood anyway. He’s
got to be worth more than she was.”

“Excuse
me,” Damon said. Wilson
gave him a quick glance over his shoulder, but otherwise ignored him.

“Are you sure you can keep hold of this
one?”
Jennings
said. He sounded a lot more in control than he had a few moments ago.

“Of
course. I have him tied up a lot better than I did her, and I’ve pumped him
full of vervain, too.”

Jennings immediately
sounded furious again.
“Vervain? His
blood is useless if he’s on vervain!”

Wilson cringed again, and
Damon smirked. Toadies always got what they deserved.

“I had
to,” Wilson
whined. “I don’t know where the other one went. I don’t know if she’s going to
be coming back. This one came here looking for her; she might try looking for
him. I have to get him out of here and find a new place to set up.”

“So why are you wasting time talking to me?”

Wilson hesitated,
shifting from foot to foot. “Uh …”

“Oh, for the love of … You want me to
bail you out? On top of everything I’m paying you for this?”
Wilson rubbed at his
temples while he listened to the ranting.
“Fine.
I’ll send one of my men with a truck for you both. It’ll be there in an hour.
It’ll take you to my private jet at the airport, but I’m taking the cost of all
of this out of your pay, understood? No more idiocy.”

“Yes,
Sir. Thank you. I appreciate it.” Wilson
brown-nosed until Jennings
hung up, and he slammed the phone down, giving a heavy exhale as he bent his
head and forced his shoulders to relax.

Damon
tested his chains. There was no give to them. “Hey,” he called. Wilson didn’t react, but
Damon was sure he was listening. “Undo these chains now, and I won’t rip your
liver out through your nose and feed it to you.”

Wilson turned around at
that and blinked at Damon as if he was surprised he could speak. He did move
closer, peering at him as if he were some sort of strange animal under glass.

“Don’t
you realize who’s in control here?” he asked. His expression was now bland and
calm, as if he hadn’t just been grovelling to his employer.

In
response, Damon lunged at him. He was weak and chained, without even a third of
his usual strength, but the man jumped away in fright at his glowing eyes and
bared teeth, and Damon settled back in his chair with a grin.

“Oh, I
know, don’t worry.”

Elena
didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to come back to the too old, too dark,
too big expanse that was the Salvatore Boarding House. She was tired, stressed,
sore, and hungry enough that Bonnie smelled better than the best hamburger in
the world.

Bonnie
pulled up in front of the house, turned off the engine and looked at her. “Uh,
I think you need to eat. You’re turning all veiny.” She gestured at Elena’s
eyes.

“Oh, God.”
Elena wanted to tear into Bonnie’s throat, but the idea of turning on her best
friend was so repulsive that she opened the car door instead and nearly threw
herself out, tripping over the chain she was still dragging along in the
process. She ran up the steps to the front door and almost started to cry at
the realization that she’d lost her purse and with it her keys.

Bonnie
was beside her in a moment, fitting her own key into the lock. “It’s okay. It’s
okay, Elena. I promise.” The door opened, and Bonnie ran into the house,
straight for the kitchen.

Damon
preferred to drink human blood. In fact, he refused to drink anything else and
had been teaching her the value of drinking from humans, as well as the ways to
manage it without them either knowing or being harmed by it. Stefan, on the
other hand, was strictly off human blood again after his fall, and he had
different techniques and tricks, all based around the use of animal blood
instead of human. Damon thought he was largely an idiot for it, but he hadn’t
complained about his brother’s attempts to help her, at least not all the time.