“What would happen to you if you did?” I asked him, my heart racing in my chest.

“Just like if you ate that flesh over there, you’d be lost to yourself forever. With each mouthful you would become like those other Vampyrus – Phillips and your mother – feeding off humans and creating vampires for the rest of eternity,” he explained. “And if I were to murder you now, pleasure myself – the pleasure would only be short-lived as my father’s curse would only embed itself deeper into my soul.”

“Can the curse be lifted?” I asked him.

“Like your curse, Kiera, it can only be lifted if you beat your cravings for flesh,” he said, “and mine will be lifted when I’ve beaten my cravings to murder and kill.”

“So that’s what all this is about?” I asked him. “You bringing me the chair, the book – being kind to me. It’s your way of redeeming yourself somehow?”

“It’s more than that,” he said, still unable to look at me. “You don’t know how much I want you, Kiera. Of all my victims, none have enticed me as much as you. To be in your presence drives me half crazy – I’ve never taken a half-breed before. The others have all been human. But with you, there is something different and it makes my heart race and fills me with nerves, anger, hatred; but most of all, desire. To be with you is overwhelming and every fibre of my being is screaming at me to take you – ravish you. So if I can fight the cravings that I have for you, then I can beat this – I can stop being a killer.”

Then, looking down at the large, black scab that covered my shin, I said, “But it was you who bit me, right?”

Looking at me he said, “Yes, it was me – but it’s not what you think.”

“So you just bit a lump out of my leg for fun?” I hissed.

“Doctor Hunt got me to do it,” Nik barked at me.

“Doctor Hunt?” I said, not believing what I was hearing.

“It has something to do with a code and that book I brought you,” Nik said.

“I don’t have the book anymore,” I stressed. “Phillips has taken it.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Nik woofed at me.

“But the code is in it!”

“No, its’ not,” Nik said, looking straight into my eyes.

Breaking his stare in case I succumbed to him, I said, “But I remembered Doctor Hunt telling me that he’d hidden the code within the pages of that book.”

“And he did,” Nik said. “But he was convinced that there was a spy amongst you and your friends – a traitor. You had a friend called Murphy, right?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head.

“Doctor Hunt told me that this Murphy and he were friends. Murphy stayed with Hunt at his manor for a while. Hunt told him of his fears, but Murphy wouldn’t believe that one of his friends could be caught up in all of this. Doctor Hunt said that he was close to finding out who it was, when suddenly he was captured and brought here to this zoo, never finding out who the spy was. But he is convinced that there is one amongst you. The book does hold a part of the code – but he made a second copy and hid it somewhere safe.”

“Where is it?” I asked him. “I need to find it.”

“I don’t know,” Nik said.

“Did Hunt tell you who he thought this traitor might be?” I asked him. “And why would he trust you?”

“No he didn’t know who it was,” he said. “And he trusted me because he knew that I was trying to make amends for my previous sins. Doctor Hunt understood how much I wanted to be free of my curse.”

Staring down at my leg, I said, “So what is it that Phillips has planned for me tomorrow?”

“They started to breed the half-breeds in some desolate factory farm a few miles from here. But just as Hunt had planned, they didn’t live very long – the infection from the bite I gave you attacks their immune system and they die, so they abandoned the factory,” Nik said. “Although Phillips and his crew don’t know that the infection was deliberately placed there by Hunt, they’re smart enough to know that it’s the infection in your leg that has destroyed the DNA that they had. So now they know your leg is better they plan to start breeding tomorrow.”

“Breeding?” I said, my heart thumping in time with the jabbing pains in my stomach.

“Phillips is happy that he has the correct code now, so tomorrow they start the breeding process with you and your friends Kayla and Isidor.”

“But what if my leg hadn’t healed?” I asked him.

“They were going to kill you,” he said. “They suspected that once you had died, the infection inside of you would have died too and they would have just taken the sample then.”

“So why didn’t they just kill me weeks ago and just take what they wanted?” I asked Nik.

“Whoever this traitor is – this invisible person without a face - wants you alive for some reason,” he said, then looked away.

“So this invisible man is my protector? My saviour?” I scoffed

“Let’s just say – whoever it is, doesn’t solely have your best interests at heart – but for the time being, you are safe; for the time being, they need you,” Nik barked over his shoulder.

“Need me for what?” I pushed.

Nik slinked back across the cell and stood under the hole. He turned to face me. “I don’t know,” he said, then left my cell.

Chapter Fifteen

Should I have told Nik about my planned escape? I wondered. After all, he said that he was trying to redeem himself. But then again, he was a serial killer who wanted to torture and murder me! Could he really be trusted, when at any moment my ally might become my executioner? No. Even through the pain that clouded my mind, I knew that I had made the right decision in not telling him about my escape. He had spoken about trust, how Hunt had suspected that one of my friends was a traitor, and even though I knew that Murphy suspected the same – I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. I mean, who out of them would do such a thing? And why?

With daybreak not far off, Phillips and Sparky would soon come for me to start their perverse breeding program. Knowing I only had a matter of hours to get free of my cell, find Luke, Kayla and Isidor and then find my way out of the zoo, I lifted the broom above me and forced the head between the gap I’d made between the ceiling and the mesh.

Placing all of my weight on the handle of the broom, I pulled. The wire gave a little but not enough. With one hand above the other, I pulled my way up the length of the handle, but my hands were clammy with fever and I slipped down the broom and landed in a heap on the floor. It was covered with dirt and dust, so I rubbed the palms of my hands across the ground until they were covered in muck. Taking hold of the broom again, I started to haul myself up towards the hole.

This time around, my hands gripped the handle firmly and I managed to heave myself up. Once I was level with the hole, I placed the fingers of my right hand through the mesh, and held onto the edge of the hole with my left. I then began to rip and pull on the wire with all my strength. At first, the wire showed no sign of moving, so I continued to pull at it. I yanked so hard that the wire cut into my fingers and they began to bleed. I looked at the blood, then turned away. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that now, no matter how much my body screamed at me to slide back down the broom handle and eat some of the red stuff in the bowl. Bit by bit, tiny pieces of plaster began to fall away from the edge of the hole and the wire mesh began to loosen some more.

The growling on the other side of the hatch started up again and I knew deep within me that it was responding to the sounds of my breakout. It would only be a matter of minutes before Phillips came bursting through my cell door with Sparky cackling hysterically behind him.

Then a voice from my nightmares whispered in my ears as I remembered Doctor Hunt sitting beside my bed in the facility.

“Someone I could trust,” he said. “Someone I knew who would have the sight to find a way to escape these Vampyrus.”

I closed my eyes and understood the trust and belief that Hunt had placed in me. I couldn’t let him down – I couldn’t let myself down. So in sheer desperation, I began to rip the wire free. Taking hold of it with both hands, I swung from it like a monkey. I pulled at it with all my weight, as my feet swayed above the floor of my cell. My legs swung back and forth in the air, and I kicked out to give myself some momentum. I could feel a warm sensation running down my arms, and in the darkness I could just make out thick streams of blood oozing from between my fingers.

Then suddenly, just when I was about to give up hope – the wire mesh gave way and I fell to the floor. I landed on my back, squeezing the air from lungs. There was a noise from the corridor outside and the owner of the paw on the other side of the hatch released an agonising howl into the night. I got to my feet, doubled up in pain and fought to suck mouthfuls of air back into my lungs.

The broom lay on the floor beside me and I snatched it up. I pushed it through the hole and hooked it in one of the corners. Yanking on it to make sure it was secure, I began to hoist my way back up the broom handle. I didn’t get very far before my hands began to slip again, as the blood continued to pour from my torn fingers. Dropping back to the floor, I hastily wiped my hands against my hospital gown.

Keys jangled in the lock of my cell door. I could hear laughing coming from outside and I could picture Sparky grinning from ear to ear in the dark. Turning my back on the cell door, closing my mind to that insane laughter, I took hold of the broom handle and started to climb. One hand over the other I went, as I shinned my way towards the hole above me with those words of Doctor Hunt whispering in my ears like a weak radio signal.

“– someone I knew who would have the sight to find a way to escape these Vampyrus!”

At the top of the broom handle, I reached out with my right hand and took hold of the edge of the hole. I then let go of the broom with my left hand and pulled myself up. My back scraped against what was left of the wire mesh, and I could feel those black finger-like bones recoil. I bit into my lower lip to stop myself from screaming out in pain.