The wagon rode from the afternoon, when the sky was the brightest, until night, when the pitch-black darkness engulfed the sky. Throughout the ride, Arabella remained furious. She had clenched her fingers tight into a ball of fists as she recalled the faces of the people who had known her since she was a baby. They turned their eyes away, ignoring her sister's cry of plea and how the loan shark men had dragged them away.
Everyone made her furious. Her complacent dad only drank and blamed their mother for his misfortune; the villagers believed that she and her sister should be punished as her mother had not only left their father but also stolen someone else's husband, who went missing with her.
Yet most of her anger wasn't directed to the people in the village, most of it was directed to herself.
Squeezing her eyes, Arabella wanted to let out a groan, but she had been hit earlier, and she knew if she was hit again, she was going to lose consciousness and fail to recognize what would happen to her and her sister from now on.
A soft touch landed on her wrist, which had turned bluish-black. When she turned, she found her sister, Ariel, shedding tears from her green eyes. Her brown hair, which was now loose on her shoulder, was wet with mud. "I'm sorry," Lala cried to her shoulders. She looked at her younger sister's hands, and guilt washed over her heart, seeing how Arabella was the only one who had stood up for their situation while she watched from afar, "I'm sorry for being a coward, Bella."
"No.. no, sister, please don't apologize," gone was the anger that was in Bella's heart as quickly as a sigh. She couldn't offer her sister a hug with how her arms were bounded on her back instead of her front, as if those men were all holding a grudge for her rebellious action early on. "It's alright we can find a way to escape from this all..."
"Escape would be a stupid choice," another word came clipped toward the two sisters. When they craned their necks upward at the same time, they found an older woman whose body was slightly plump with a gorgeous face. "You don't know how to accept your fate yet?"
Bella's green eyes roamed around the wagon, realizing that in this entire wagon, not even one of the women was trying to escape. It scared her more when she studied their eyes that seemed to lose all their will and hope of leaving their sudden misfortune.
"Fate? What do you mean?" She gulped her parched throat and felt a taste of her blood.
"We are all now nothing but slaves," responded the woman with a hint of scoff. She was sneering, but Bella felt she was sneering more at herself than she or her sister. "You see, they will now stop in the capital of Versailles, Devon. Once we were there, they would begin to pick and choose each of the girls in this wagon. The prettier girls are sent for the men in to enjoy as their women, while those unlucky are deemed as slaves, and they are forced to entertain the guests with their lust for blood."
Tension filled the wagon the moment the older woman spoke about the future that was going to dawn on them. The other women had cupped their ears as the last thing they needed to hear now was the foretold of their future.
Arabella, however, wasn't going to die without knowing anything, "What do you mean by entertaining the guests for their lust for blood?"
Sighing, a smile flitted on the woman's mouth, "Still don't understand it, girl? As you know now, Devon is filled with vampires, and so are the people in the castle. You're going to be their toy. Some of them will torture you for fun, some will even drink your blood, and there are even unluckier ones who will be kept alive for so long for them to toy with until their spirit breaks."
"You seem to know a lot," Bella spoke up, and the woman's sharp brownish-red eyebrows raised.
"I supposed I am, unlike you all, I once lived in Devon and ran away until these ugly men caught me," the woman answered with a cross of her arms. She had been talking with such cockiness despite knowing the future that was awaiting them, making Bella believe that this woman knew how to avoid the worse. With quick thinking, she realized that as long as she remained watchful and copied the woman's actions, they shouldn't suffer the worst fate of being the vampire's toys.
"What do we do—" A gasp shriveled from Lala's lips as tears had turned her entire face mushy.
The woman eyed Lala for a long time before waving her hand that was still tied by the rope, "You should have no problem. You look gorgeous."
But at that, Ariel only appeared even more devastated. Bella could see this as she knew, unlike her, that her sister is a fatal romantic who believes in fate and things like soulmates. To give up her body and purity to men that she doesn't love was equivalent to crushing her dream.
"Aren't there any other choices than these two? Such as being a servant or a ma—"
"—You can't even read and write, girl, there is nothing you can do. Maids in the castle came from lower rank nobles, and you wouldn't ever fit their bills. Rather, enjoy being the mistress in a famous brothel house and haggle a wealthy man. It isn't as bad as it sounds," responded the woman with a huff. "You don't have to be too concerned about yourself either. You seem to be smart, but you're too brave."
Frowning, Bella asked, "Isn't being brave a great thing to be?"
"Brave is equivalent to cocky. That will be the death of you if you ever meet those red-eyed creatures. You don't know how they enjoy crushing the spirit of arrogant and proud humans like you."
Grappling fear caught Bella's nerves as she pressed her wounded wrist to keep the fear from clouding her mind. Even if she was going to suffer a fate as either a harlot or a vampire toy, she couldn't possibly let her older sister suffer the same fate. She was certain there should be another way to escape this, and although she wasn't too sure how, she wrecked her mind for an answer.
"Bella," cried Lala on her shoulders, "I.. I don't mind whatever will happen to us now as long as— we aren't separated."
Tears caught Bella's eyes. She buried her face on her sister's shoulders, "Nothing bad will happen to you, sister, I won't let it happen." As she whispered those words, she lowered her voice even further, "It seems that older woman knows what to do. As long as we follow her steps, maybe we can find a way to escape all of this."
"Y- You mean to run away?" Horror settled on Lala's eyes as she had seen how those loan sharks didn't hold back when they had slapped Bella across her face.
"If they want to sell us, I doubt they want a scar on our body or kill us," whispered Bella back to her sister to ease her nerves. She then looked around the wagon that was entirely covered by fabric. Studying the fabric, she then found a small tear that was enough to allow her eyes to peek.
Her curiosity begged her to look outside, maybe to remember the road so she could run back here when she had successfully escaped.
There she saw a bit of the men who had kidnapped her.
On the front seat of the wagon was the leader of the loan shark. He had cut an apple with a crack while he led the other wagon that was filled with the other some they had caught. He slid his tongue on the blade and took a bite of the apple when they passed by a road where suddenly his face turned stern.
Bella looked for what made his face turn so terrible and witnessed a group of vampires tossing something that was wrapped neatly with white cotton. Her blood chilled, and a gasp left her mouth when she saw the red splatters all over the once pure white fabric. The vampires had tossed it recklessly, causing Bella to see the hanging feet of humans and for her to realize that what these vampires had tossed were dead humans.
Dressed in a white tunic and bronze armor, the vampires didn't bother to dig a hole or give the dead slaves a proper burial. Instead, they had found a place just far enough from the castle and tossed them away for the wild animals to feed on. Upon hearing their wagon, the vampires' red eyes immediately glared at them, but the loan shark leader and his men made sure to pay no attention to it, even if they were humans themselves. Bella flinched as she saw the vampires seemingly staring straight into her eyes with thirst and a manic grin.
She held to her breaths tensely, her entire mind was only filled with flight response.
"Those must have been the humans who became the vampire's toys from the castle, right? Their wagon has that crescent mark thing that only the royalty would have." She heard the voice come from the one who was driving her wagon.
"I think so. We are getting nearer to the castle's border. It must be a pity being hunted by those vampires. I heard it was the King who suggested the twisted game to keep the vampires from running around thirsty for blood."
"Does it matter?" echoed the loan shark, the lack of concern made Bella understand the painful truth that no one was ever going to save them. "As long as they fetch us a lot of gold and stay away from our life, they will remain a great business partner for us."
"Indeed," laughed his men, but as the loan shark cut off the rest of the apple, a sudden anger overtook him, and he tossed the apple across the ground as it rolled down not too far away from the place where the vampire had discarded the dead human slaves.
"How long is the road?" The loan shark leader then spat out after fixing his golden rings in place.
"Another half a day."
"Good, it's better to toss these girls before one of them falls ill or dies. These wenches can only die after I got paid."
The urge to scream bubbled on Bella's throat. She turned around, her eyes shaking with fear as she knew this wasn't something she could endure while being brave. Her sister had fallen asleep on her shoulders after exhausting all her energy into crying, leaving Bella to soothe her own heart and convince herself that she could be powerful enough to go through this.
But when she recalled the bodies of human slaves that were once the "toys" of the castle, Bella understood that no matter what, she couldn't enter the castle. She should never become a slave and be turned into a toy, as what will await her will be something— even worse than death. There won't be any mercy given to her once she steps into the castle, being nothing but a mouse to be picked and ripped apart by the hungry vampires.
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