Tangled

142 Lisa: Chained

The sound of water dripping is the first thing to break through the darkness of my mind.

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

It’s an erratic rhythm that leaves me uncomfortable.

The voices come next, soft, sibilant whispers. Evil. Whoever they are, they’d be the villains in any story.

Eventually, I realize the darkness is really just pain. Pain that throbs and aches in half my face. But why?

Vampires.

That’s why.

My eyes fly open when I finally remember, and I struggle to sit up, blinking into the darkness.

I can’t see anything.

Are my eyes open?

My hands won’t reach my face, yanking against

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142 Lisa: Chained

something cold and hard around my wrists.

Manacles?

Swiping my hands around, I can feel the heavy, rusted chains holding me down, bolted to the floor.

Fuck.

This is…

Really not good.

Ava. Is Ava here?

but

erratic plink, plink–plink of something dripping.

the voices

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

coiling around my heart and squeezing with a mania of isolation and fear. I try to move

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142 Usa Chained

scream, the sound raw and

sears through my arms, but I don’t care. I have to get out. I have to find Ava.

trickling down my forearms. Sobs wrack my body, each one tearing out of my throat. It’s useless. The chains hold fast,

me. I can barely stand, the shackles

Plink. Plink–plink.

try to force my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Shapes slowly emerge from the inky blackness. Rough stone walls, a small window high above my

in a cell.

A fucking cell..

142 Lika Chained

I’m chained up in some vampire’s dungeon like a gothic romance heroine. Except there’s no dashing hero coming to save me. No

1. am.

Plink–plink–plink.

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want to scream again, to rage against the unfairness of

no magic or super strength hidden deep

Humans are weak and helpless against the supernatural.

I hate this.

hated how he was always around. Hated his

that he was here to tell

take his smugness over this any

can he possibly find

142 143 Chalice)

know where I am?

I let them fall,

of Ava, of her fierce determination and unwavering loyalty. She won’t give up on me. She’ll tear this world apart to

really go up

don’t know anything about this world.

is that I’m scared. I’m so fucking

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

head, driving out every other thought. It’s maddening, the irregularity of it. I want

enough to taste blood and focus on the pain. It

342 LISA Chamed

Ava will find me. That Lucas and the

believe that. Because the alternative is too terrifying to

imagine his arms around me, his voice in my ear telling me it’s going to

just a moment, I almost believe

Plink.

fills my mind and I

while ago was his weird breeding kink and the biting. Of how he wasn’t great at foreplay. Of the slightly–better–than mediocre sex and then the aphrodisiac that had elevated it to