Free Turned (Book 1 in the Vampire Journals) by Morgan Rice by Morgan Rice Page A

tired. She couldn’t fathom what was happening to her body. Whatever it was, she loved it.
    Her good mood dimmed as she approached her apartment door. Her heart began to pound, as she wondered if her Mom would be home. How would she react?
    But as she reached for the doorknob, she was surprised to see that the door was already open, slightly ajar. Her foreboding increased. Why would it be open?
    Caitlin walked tentatively into the apartment, the wood creaking beneath her feet. She slowly stepped through the foyer and into the living room.
    As she entered she turned her head—and suddenly raised her hands to her mouth in shock. A horrible wave of nausea hit her. She turned and vomited.
    It was her Mom. Lying there, slumped against the floor, eyes open. Dead. Her mother. Dead. But how?
    Blood oozed from her neck, and collected in a small puddle on the floor. There was no way she could have done it to herself. She had been killed. Murdered. But how? By who? As much as she hated her Mom, she never would have wanted her to end up like this.
    The blood was still fresh, and Caitlin suddenly realized that it must have just happened. The ajar door. Had someone broken in?
    She suddenly wheeled, looking all around her, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Was someone else in the apartment?
    As if to answer her silent question, at that very moment, three people, dressed head to toe in black, appeared from the other room. They walked nonchalantly into the living room, heading right for Caitlin. Three men. It was hard to tell how old they were—they looked ageless—maybe, late 20s. They were all well-built. Muscular. Not an ounce of fat on them. Well groomed. And very, very pale.
    One of them stepped forward.
    Caitlin took a step back in fear. A new sense was coming over her, a feeling of dread. She didn’t understand how, but she could sense this person’s energy. And it was very, very bad.
    “So,” the leader said, in a dark, sinister voice. “The chicken comes home to roost.”
    “Who are you?” Caitlin asked, backing up. She scanned the room for a weapon of some sort. Maybe a pipe, or a bat. She started thinking of exit points. The window behind her. Did it lead to a fire escape?
    “Precisely the question we wanted to ask of you,” the leader said. “Your human friend had no answers,” he said, gesturing at her Mom’s body. “Hopefully, you will.”
    Human ? What was this person talking about?
    Caitlin took several more steps back. She didn’t have much room left to go. She was almost flush against the wall. She remembered now: the window behind her did lead to a fire escape. She remembered sitting on it, her first day in the apartment. It was rusted. And rickety. But it seemed to work.
    “That was quite a feed at Carnegie Hall,” he said. The three of them slowly approached her, each taking a step forward. “Very dramatic.”
    Caitlin scanned her memories desperately.
    Feed? Try as she could, she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
    “Why intermission?” he asked. “What was the message you were trying to send?”
    She was against the wall, and had nowhere left to go. They took another step closer. She felt certain they would kill her if she did not tell them what they wanted.
    She thought as hard as she could. Message? Intermission? She recalled roaming the halls, the carpeted hallways, going room to room. Searching. Yes, it was coming back to her. There was an open door. A dressing room. A man inside. He had looked up at her. There had been fear in his eyes. And then…
    “You were in our territory,” he said, “and you know the rules. You are going to have to answer for this.”
    They took another step closer.
    Crash.
    At just that moment, the apartment’s front door shattered open, and several uniformed policeman rushed inside, guns drawn.
    “Freeze, motherfucker!” a cop screamed.
    The three wheeled and stared at the cops.
    They then, slowly, walked towards them, completely