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

unafraid.
    “I said FREEZE!”
    The leader kept walking, and the cop fired. The noise was deafening.
    But, amazingly, the leader didn’t even stop. He smiled even wider, simply reached out his hand, and caught the bullet in midair. Caitlin was shocked to see that he stopped it in mid-air, in his palm. He then held up his hand, slowly made a fist and crushed it. He opened his hand, and the dust slowly poured out onto the floor.
    The cops, too, stared back in shock, mouths open.
    The leader grinned even wider, reached out and grabbed the cop’s shotgun. He yanked it from him, wound up and struck the cop across the face. The cop went flying backwards, knocking over several of his men.
    Caitlin had seen enough.
    Without hesitating, she turned, opened the window and climbed through. She jumped onto the fire escape and raced down the rickety, rusted steps.
    She ran for all she was worth, twisting and turning. The old fire escape probably hadn’t been used in years, and as she rounded a corner, a step gave way. She slipped and screamed, but then caught her balance. The entire fire escape shifted and swayed, but it didn’t give completely.
    She had descended three flights when she heard the noise. She looked up, and saw the three of them jump onto the fire escape. They started descending, impossibly fast. Much faster than her. She increased her pace.
    She reached the first floor, and saw that there was nowhere to go: it was a 15 foot jump down to the sidewalk. She turned her neck, saw that they were coming. She looked back down. No choice. She jumped.
    Caitlin braced herself for the impact, and expected it to be bad. But to her surprise, she landed she landed lithely on her feet, like a cat, with hardly any pain. She took off at a sprint, feeling confident she would leave her pursuers, whoever they were, far behind.
    As she reached the end of the block, surprised by her incredible speed, she looked back, expecting to see them far away on the horizon.
    But she was shocked to see that they were only a few feet behind her. How was that possible?
    Before she could finish the thought, she felt bodies on top of her. They were already tackling her down to the ground.
    Caitlin summoned all of her newfound strength to fight off her attackers. She elbowed one of them, and was pleasantly surprised to see him go flying several feet. Encouraged, she wheeled over and elbowed the other one, and was again happily surprised to see him go flying in the other direction.
    The leader landed squarely on top of her, and began to choke her. He was stronger than the others. She looked up into his large, coal black eyes, and it was like staring into the eyes of a shark. Soulless. It was the look of death.
    Caitlin used all her might, every last ounce of her strength, and managed to roll and throw him off of her. She jumped back to her feet, once again in a sprint.
    But she hadn’t gotten far before she felt herself tackled once again, by the leader. How could he be that fast? She had just thrown him across the alley.
    This time, before she could fight back, she felt knuckles across her cheek, and realized he had just backhanded her. Hard. The world spun. She regained consciousness quickly, and prepared to fight back, when suddenly she saw the two others kneeling beside her, pinning her down. The leader extracted a cloth from his pocket.
    Before she could react, the cloth was over her nose and mouth.
    As she took one last, deep breath, the world spun, turned foggy.
    Before the world turned to complete blackness, she could have sworn she heard a dark voice whisper in her ear: “You are ours, now.”

 
     
Chapter Nine
     
     
    Caitlin woke to complete blackness. She felt a cold, metal pain on her wrists and ankles, and her limbs were sore. She realized she was chained. Standing. Her arms were outstretched, by her sides, and she tried to move them, but they didn’t budge. Neither did her feet. She heard a rattle as she tried, and felt the cold, hard