Kaden stumbled as the guards pushed him down the long corridor, filled with barred doors and reaching hands. They did not let him regain his footing and they continued to drag him toward the door at the end of the hall. That door had no bars because it was solid metal with only a slit to allow food through. It looked like solitary confinement.
Kaden knew his life was forfeit the moment he'd been captured. That was the punishment for betraying one's own kind and conspiring with the vampires. He knew that, so he chose not to think of his own short future. Instead, he thought of Neve. He hoped that she was all right, that she'd escaped. In all the madness that day, it wasn't hard to think that she had.
Their community on the coast was fairly self-sufficient. Still, things like metal were rare outside the "civilized" east. Kaden had made the executive decision to go east for supplies. Refugees from Europe were being pushed further and further west, after all, and it wasn't unheard of for them to return east for supplies. Kaden wasn't legally a refugee, having illegally come into the country from the wilds of Asia, but there were too many refugees now to have accurate records. He figured he could get by without any government scrutiny.
Still, Neve was worried. She'd brave the sunlight, which made her ill, to meet him during his usually solitary walks along the beach. He'd stood in the shallow water as she begged him not to go. It wasn't a realistic request because they needed those supplies. In the years before the war with the vampires, California had been a wonderful place to live but now it was a wasteland, abandoned because it was too easily accessible by the vampire infested lands of Asia. The only way to survive was to rely on the east.
Neve's solution had been to go with Kaden. It only made the mission more difficult. There was too much security against vampires in the east. Neve believed herself to be old and wily, too good to be caught by those stupid humans.
They made it to St. Louis with no troubles, but the things they needed were not so easily obtained as they would have liked. They had to spend a week in the city while they waited for the items they requested to be ordered from further east. Every day had dragged on painfully.
Neve was amazed by the technology the humans wielded, technology the vampires had forsaken. She was especially taken with the sleek black cars that slipped down the streets. She wanted one for herself, even though they weren't practical for the west.
Despite Kaden's worrying all week, it wasn't until they were leaving the city that they were caught. They were leaving at sunset for fear that Neve's weakness in the sunlight would be a sign of her vampirism. The patrols were increased at sunset for that very reason.
The trooper who pulled their car over had been a relaxed fellow. A cigarette hung from his lip. Cigarettes were supposed to be illegal but they always found a way to get them, especially those in the army. He joked with Kaden as he asked for their papers. Kaden couldn't remember the joke anymore.
When Kaden couldn't produce his papers, the trooper had asked them to exit the vehicle and gave them the routine test for vampirism. Neve had failed the test. Kaden had desperately tried to create a diversion so that Neve could flee. It had eventually taken four men to hold him down. What happened to Neve, he didn't see.
Kaden had been brought before a judge as soon as he'd calmed. He didn't remember much about the judge apart from the fact that his so-called "staff of justice" looked more like a wand from some ancient fantasy story.
He'd been convicted, of course. He had no defense for what he'd done. Now, he was being led to solitary confinement, where he would wait until they decided to kill him.
They reached the end of the corridor and the door was opened. Kaden was tossed roughly inside. The door was slammed shut behind him with a final clang. He sat in the darkness, still shackled. The only sound was his breathing, which sounded loud in his ears. He looked around, but there was nothing to see in the pitch black.
…Except for a pair of glowing, red eyes.
