Read Online Night Plague: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller by Rowan Rook - Free Book Online

He remembered that sick, hungry ache. He already had a pretty good idea.
    “Come with me. Dale will explain it all better than I can.” She turned towards the prison gate, its steel bars tall and solid. It opened with little more than a flick of her wrist. He couldn’t help but gape a bit, in spite of himself.
    She shot him a grin. “You could do it too, if you tried. We’re stronger than humans.”
    He blinked. “Wha –?”
    “Come on.” She hurried on without waiting for him.
    He rummaged for whatever scraps of courage he had left and gathered them up. Anger mingled with fear, but he buried the fluttering throb inside his stomach. He had no choice but to do as he was told. First, he was her prey, now he was her puppet.
    But…if he was already dead, then what was the worst that could happen?
     
    ****
     
    The prison’s floor was cold through the soles of Mason’s shoes. It smelled of rust and crawled with sour, metallic tangs. He found himself following closely behind Sorrel, scanning the shapes and silhouettes with stiff steps. Clinging to his killer’s shadow to keep from cowering – what a fantastic irony.
    He couldn’t help taking a better look at her. This girl who’d stolen his life away and now chatted as casually as a close friend. She shared none of his fear, moving with certainty instead of unease. There was something almost masculine – or powerful, at least – about the way she walked, but it wasn’t without a feline sort of grace. Her breasts bobbed with each step, barely peeking through the neck of her black blouse, while her ponytail wagged behind her like a mischievous, twitching tail. Her blue-gray eyes glistened in the dim light and her colorless skin resembled porcelain more than the pale of death. For a dead girl, she actually wasn't...
    She glanced over her shoulder. He jolted back, fresh sweat spawning on his brow. A sharp spike of fear stabbed through him every time she looked at him and erased anything else. He stared at the wall the rest of the way, following her with his ears as much as his eyes.
    That's right. He remembered her thin body shoving him to the floor and shuddered. She wasn't normal. She was dangerous. He couldn't forget that.
    She led him through the lobby and stopped at an already unlocked door. “This is cell block #2 – the one we’re using.”
    What he saw inside sealed his lungs before he could ask what she meant. Steel grating and metal stairs coiled around the thin corridor and divided it into three open stories. There were enough people crammed inside to fill the first floor, and more faces stared down at him from the balconies above. Some hostile or suspicious, some curious, some almost excited.
    He froze when he saw two particular sets of eyes – eyes belonging to a boy with brown hair and another with freckles. The two he’d seen at school. The redhead’s lips curved into a wry smile and a woman with them leaned over the railing. She passed him a wink that wrinkled her freckled cheeks before turning away.
    Sorrel seemed to follow his gaze. “Errol and Steve – our scouts at the high school. Most risers stop attending to their old lives altogether, but every once in a while, we’ll send some vamps to populated areas to look for rogues.”
    Mason blinked at her.
    “We have to be really careful that word of this place and what we are doesn’t get out, so we have a system here. Every time we drain someone, we have to report it to our scouts, and they keep an eye open for the victim to make sure they didn’t rise. If they did, the scouts report it back to the killer, and they have to take care of it. Of course, there is that .2% that rise without a bite. The scouts watch for them, too, but that’s rare. Hell, so are the 1%.” She flashed him a grin. “You’re my first riser, in fact! I’m kind of happy.”
    He stifled a dread-heavy swallow. “How many people have you killed?”
    She put a finger to her chin. “Oh, well, we usually need to