"It"s too late for that now."
"But what if they do something to him in the meantime?"
"They won"t harm him."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
Racing forward in the opposite direction from my kidnapped brother was the most painful experience I remembered having. "Where are we going now?" I breathed, tears spilling from my eyes again.
"Back to base."
"Base?"
"You"ll see," Caleb said, impatience beginning to show in his voice. "Enough questions."
I gripped the back of his seat and, wiping away my tears with the back of my sleeve, looked forward through the screen to try to make sense of where we were headed. All I could see was an endless expanse of black ocean.
I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes.
Please, Ben. Be safe. Please.
Then I thought about the mobile phone they had confiscated. Our parents were used to us calling thrice a week. Usually Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If we didn"t call them, they"d get suspicious.
But how on earth will they find us? They"ll contact the adventure company"s office only to find that we checked out long ago.
G.o.dd.a.m.n it. We should have called to tell them about those vampires.
Tears threatened to consume me again, even though there was no point to them. Tears weren"t going to help bring Ben back. Or help our parents find us. I looked up at Caleb.
He"s our only hope.
I still didn"t understand his motivation for helping us, and I couldn"t trust him. But he was the only glimmer of light we had in this darkness.
I sneezed. My clothes were soaking from the rain.
Caleb turned around in his chair to look at me and immediately got up. "Come with me."
I followed him out of the control room, along the pa.s.sageway. We stopped outside a door. He knocked three times.
"Frieda," he called.
The door opened and a tall ebony-skinned vampire nursing a painful-looking gash in her arm appeared in the doorway.
"Do you have anything this girl could change into?"
Her chestnut-brown eyes settled on me and she nodded.
"Yes, I"m sure I can fix her up with something. Come in."
Celeb placed his hand on the small of my back and nudged me inside. Frieda closed the door behind me.
"Let"s see what we"ve got here," she said.
The cabin was tiny-barely large enough for a single bed and a cabinet. She crouched down and pulled open a drawer in the chest in the corner.
The first thing she pulled out was a towel. Then a long cotton nightdress.
"It"s not much, but it"s better than staying in those wet clothes."
She placed both on her bed and left the room for me to change.
I wasn"t sure what to do with my sopping wet pajamas so I just put them in a corner of the room. I dried myself as much as I could with the towel, then pulled the nightdress over my head. I wrapped up my wet hair in the towel to form a turban.
I opened the door to find Frieda waiting outside.
"Thank you," I murmured.
She nodded and was about to shut herself back in the room when I asked, "Could I ask you a few questions?"
"I think it"s best you ask Caleb any questions you have. I don"t know how much you"re allowed to know."
She shut the door and I made my way back to the control room. When I pushed open the door, Caleb turned around and looked me over briefly, then turned back to face the gla.s.s screen.
I sat down in my seat.
"How much longer until we arrive at your "base"?" I asked.
"About three hours."
Chapter 16: Rose.
The submarine slowed to a halt and rose to the surface.
"We"re here," Caleb said.
He stood up and I followed him out of the control room, along the narrow pa.s.sageway, until we reached the ladder leading to the hatch.
He climbed up first, and I followed next, the rest of the vampires lining up behind me.
"Oh," I breathed as soon as I looked around outside.
The sudden cold was the first thing that hit me-it felt like we were in the Arctic. Everything seemed to be covered in snow. We had stopped outside a small port. Behind us in the far distance the rays of the sun beat down against the water, but here they were blocked out due to the same protective charm that The Shade had.
I turned to look in front of me. Caleb had climbed down onto the icy wooden jetty and was looking up at me, hands crossed over his chest.
Shivering, I climbed down after him, almost slipping on Frieda"s long night gown in the process.
When I cast a cursory look around the island, leaving aside that it was covered with snow, it did appear similar to The Shade. There were thick woods-although the trees weren"t nearly as tall here-and I spotted a mountain range in the distance.
"Where do you vampires come from?"
Caleb remained silent, his eyes set forward.
When I repeated my question, he stared at me and said, "The less you know, the safer you"ll be. My priority is to get you and your brother back to your parents. I"ll tell you everything you need to know. Anything else you may ask is irrelevant and I suggest you keep it to yourself."
I wanted to argue back, but the seriousness in his expression chilled me more than the weather.
Once we had crossed the beach, I looked back to get a better look at the vampires who were a part of this coven. I spotted among them some of the men I"d seen that first night I"d met Caleb at the beach party. There were perhaps fifty vampires in total-a mixture of men and women. All of them appeared to be young vampires, around the age of twenty.
Leaving the beach, we veered left toward the foothills of the mountains. And then I saw it looming in the distance. A giant grey stone-walled castle, with half a dozen sharp black-roofed turrets, built up among some of the highest peaks. Just looking at how high up it was made my head dizzy and my knees weak.
Caleb looked down at me.
"It"s a long way up. I"ll have to carry you."
He didn"t wait for my permission. Placing one arm behind my knees and wrapping the other around my waist, he picked me up. Then he began racing up the narrow winding steps leading toward the castle. His speed left me breathless, the cruel wind whipping past my ears. I wrapped my arms around his neck and looked over his shoulder at the other vampires running behind us.
By the time we arrived at the top, about ten minutes later, my whole body was shivering uncontrollably. Caleb looked like he"d just taken a casual stroll in the park, not sprinted up a colossal ice-covered mountain.
He set me down on the ground once we reached the heavy oak doors leading into the castle. He pushed them both open. They swung backward, creaking.
Cautiously, I stepped in after him. We stepped into a giant hall, lit only by burning candles in the corners of the room, their flames licking the shadowy walls. Walking across the black marble floors, we made our way toward a grand staircase.
The place was so spooky I instinctively reached out and gripped Caleb"s hand. He didn"t look down at me, but his arm tensed. Then his hand closed ever so slightly around mine.
We climbed up to the first level-leaving all the vampires behind us to go their separate ways-and continued up winding staircase after winding staircase until we reached what appeared to be the top of one of the turrets.
We stopped outside a black door, engraved with some weird-looking language. Caleb let go of my hand and knocked.
"Annora!" he called. "Open up. It"s Caleb."
The door swung open to reveal a tall, pale black-haired woman with cool grey eyes.
"And what have we here?" she said, looking down at me coldly.
Caleb gripped my arm and pulled me inside.
The room was rectangular, with an oblong table at one end and several silk-covered chaise longues at the other. The velvet curtains had been drawn.
"This," Caleb began as he shut the door behind us, "is the Novak girl. Stellan kidnapped her and her brother."
Stellan. That must be the ginger-haired b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s name.
"So what are you doing with this girl?" Annora said. "I instructed Stellan to bring both twins to his island. I never wanted them here."
"You what?" Caleb"s jaw dropped as he stared at the young woman.
She smiled coldly and walked up to him, running a finger across his cheek. He flinched at her touch, but he didn"t back away.
"Yes, Caleb. I told Stellan to kidnap them."
"Are you insane? Why would you do that?" Caleb fumed. "Our task is difficult enough as it is without-"
"When you told me you"d almost taken this Novak girl that night you went to the beach, it got me thinking..." She looked down at me, wrinkling her nose. "But now"s not the time."
"Christ." Caleb exhaled, lifting a hand to his forehead.
Annora looked him over sternly. "Did you try to ambush Stellan?"
Caleb nodded. "I didn"t think you"d give such an order."
She chuckled and wrapped an arm around Caleb"s waist, while the other hand lifted his chin up to face her. Again, he flinched at her advances, but didn"t step away.
"Do you still have no faith in me, after all this time?"
He scowled. "Whatever your plan is," he said through gritted teeth, "keeping these twins as prisoners is going to cause more mess than it"s worth. We need to return them both immediately."
"No," she said, the smile on her lips fading. "The Novak boy will remain with Stellan. And since you"ve brought the girl here, she may as well remain here under your rule. Come to think of it, it"s probably better that the two aren"t kept together."
Caleb"s jaw twitched. "And what am I to do with her?"
"For now, you can treat her as a guest. Give her her own room. Of course, you"ll need to inform her of what will happen should she try to escape."
"Wait, no. Please." I stepped forward and got down on my knees in front of her. "Please, let us go."
Caleb gripped my arm and pulled me away from her.
"Please!" I shouted, as he dragged me out of the room. "I need to see my brother! At least bring him here, or allow me to go there!"
Caleb slammed the door shut behind us. Once we were outside, he swore and smashed his fists against the stone wall.
I held my breath as I stared at him, tears welling in my eyes again.
"What"s going to happen to my brother?"
"Never try to plead with that witch," he said, inhaling deeply as though trying to reel in his temper. "It will only make her more bent on her course of action."
"She"s a witch?"