Arthur awoke with a gasp, followed quickly by violent, compulsive coughing. It became obvious what his lungs were trying to expel, as he coughed up blood that spattered across his own torso. Arthur tried gasping for air in between coughs, but something was wrong. He felt like he couldn’t get a full breath, but it didn’t feel like he was choking. Eventually his lungs cleared and he tried to draw in breath again. But again his body wasn’t working right. Air was coming in…but something was wrong, as he blew it back out. In fact, he couldn’t even feel his lungs filling despite how big of a breath he was taking. He tried to sit up to ease the strange sensation, but realized after a few moments of struggle that his wrists were clamped down.

  Looking down, thick iron bands kept his hands and ankles from moving at all. He was strapped to some sort of white medical table and there was a faint ceiling light flickering on the other side of the room. It looked like some sort of surgical room but long abandoned. Dingy and old, with dried blood stains spattered here and there, with neatly cut, square porcelain tiles and big metal drains in the room. Arthur began to panic, trying to struggle again, but he felt so, so weak. Even trying to strain made him exhausted. And his mouth. It felt bone dry, like he hadn’t drank water in a week. He moaned, the dehydration was making him feel delirious. His head was swimming and his vision kept blurring in and out of clarity. He kept trying to figure out where the hell he was and what was happening, and if he was about to have his organs harvested. Then it came back to him. He remembered. He remembered falling. Falling four stories tangled up in thick, heavy tarp, and the very last thing he remembered was blinding pain as he crashed into the ground. His body felt…sore, but, strangely, he didn’t hurt. He just ached.

  “Saint?!” Arthur cried out. There was no response. Arthur craned his neck backwards on the table, barely getting a glimpse of a steel door, shut behind him. He tried to call out again but the words caught in his throat and he coughed a few more times. He felt like an animal. There was no way to clear his head, and his body was practically acting on it’s own, trying to do anything to get free. It was like some sort of visceral compulsion that he couldn’t control. Like raw anger, or lust, but in this case just a need to…eat?

  The door behind him opened and shut with a heavy thunk.

  “What’s happening?” Arthur snarled.

  A person dressed in scrubs and a face mask walked around Arthur. He ignored the question, instead proceeding to examine him by poking and prodding at him with his fingers and some kind of metal tool. He pulled at his skin, his eyelids, and even his gums. Arthur struggled and turned his head aside as the man did so, getting ready to bit his fingers off if he didn’t stop.

  “STOP!” Arthur shouted. In that moment of delirium and combined rage, he felt something well up inside him, if even for just a moment. The man in front of him froze, completely unmoving for a second or two, before withdrawing his hand from Arthur. He chuckled, then finally spoke.

  “You seem to be doing quite well, Arthur,” he said. “Despite the fact you’re withering from hunger.”

  Before Arthur could reply, the door opened again. Heels clicked against the porcelain flooring as a familiar face walked around the table, before standing next to the man on Arthur’s side, looking down on him.

  “..fuck me,” Arthur mumbled.

  The wind was taken out of his sails as Arthur slumped and Persephone smiled down at him. “Indeed, you are fucked. However, you might have noticed we haven’t killed you.”

  Arthur turned his face away. The rage, the fire, the bestial compulsion now fading, leaving only behind a gnawing, raw pit in his stomach. Persephone waited for a response, but Arthur didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of taunting him.

  “How do you feel?” she asked with a grin.

  His eyebrows furrowed, but he kept looking away and refused to respond. Persephone chuckled. He wouldn’t let her toy with him.

  “I imagine right about now you could eat a whole cow.” She was right, but he said nothing. The man next to her said something quietly in her ear, causing an eyebrow to raise. “Hm. Seems like I was right. Maybe you do have some potential after all. But we’ll get to that later. Tell me how you feel,” Persephone said, this time with a more stern tone.

  Arthur turned to face her. She didn’t look malicious, or even angry. She just looked…concerned. That made him feel strange. She wasn’t obviously antagonizing him, as far as he could tell. There was probably no need to. He was stuck here, at their mercy. Arthur closed his eyes.

  “I feel awful. My head is swimming. Where is Saint? What the hell is going on, how am I…how am I alive?” Arthur asked with a sense of foreboding.

  “That’s to be expected,” she replied, ignoring his questions. “Here,” Persephone said, motioning to the man in scrubs. He nodded, then took out a tiny key and slowly unlocked both of the restraints around Arthur’s wrists. Arthur’s immediate instinct was to lunge at one or both of them, but he knew that probably wouldn’t get him far. Plus, he simply didn’t have the strength right now. Instead, he feebly pushed himself up. Again, his body felt fine for the most part. There was still a deep ache, but he was…alive.

  He patted himself on the ribs and chest, amazed that nothing was obviously broken, or outright destroyed. His physical state seemed fine, aside from the splitting headache. Maybe he’d misremembered what happened. There’s no way he could’ve survived that fall. Maybe they shot him and he passed out from the shock. But he definitely would be feeling that right now, and there was no bullet wound. As he continued to inspect himself, he realized Persephone was holding something out for him. It was a water bottle filled up with some kind of juice, it seemed like. Arthur took it hesitantly, removing the cap. He was desperately thirsty, and hungry, the dryness in his mouth bordering on painful. Arthur hesitated, then figured poisoning him now would be a very obtuse way of killing him in his current state, so instead he just drank.

  Whatever it was, it tasted delicious. He swallowed it down, getting through almost half the bottle ravenously, his body almost unwilling to let him stop. Persephone’s hand reached out and slowly tilted the bottle away from his lips as Arthur gulped and gulped, his hands voraciously squeezing the bottle, trying to keep it for himself, as Persephone finally yanked it away, spilling some over his clothes. The smell. It gripped him instantly, and for a moment all he could think about was getting more. Arthur went to take a deep breath after chugging half the liquid before realizing that he didn’t need to. As he looked down, his lungs weren’t working the way they were supposed to. In fact, he realized again he hadn’t been breathing at all since Persephone walked in.

  A strange, terrifying feeling set over him. Arthur wiped his mouth of the liquid, seeing a dark red stain smudged across the back of his hand. His eyes widened as he looked at the bottle, the viscous red liquid sloshing around inside. Arthur pressed his hand against the center of his chest, waiting, hoping to feel something. There was nothing.

  He looked up at Persephone again, who was still smiling her typical, villainous grin, her fangs peeking out from underneath her lips.

  “Feeling better?”

  Arthur slowly reached out to her, turning the bottle around in her hand. The back of it was stamped with tiny script on a medical label. Without even having to scrutinize, the words “TYPE B” stood out. He looked back up.

  “You…”

  She nodded, “What, you thought you survived that fall?” Persephone laughed. “No, no. You didn’t. I have given you a second lease on life. That blood there should be doing wonders for you right now.”

  So he hadn’t misremembered. Arthur looked down again. She was right. The ache was slowly receding and his body was rapidly feeling better. The weariness was fading, the fog from his brain disappearing, that deep gnaw was completely gone. All because of this blood. His head was clear, just for a few moments, like some snese of clarity was washing over him. He studied his arms and legs, the realization of what had happened coming over him. As this new blood he’d just drank coursed through his veins, that sense of calm realization quickly developed into rage. Arthur looked down at the binds on his feet. He strained his legs, hard. To his amazement, the metal rings creaked and groaned, slowly being torn from their hinges on the table. With one motion he swung both his legs and the rings tore right off the hinges. Arthur leapt at Persephone. A second later he hit the floor with a cry of pain. His entire body felt frozen, and as he looked down he saw a wooden stake rammed into his heart.

  Persephone sighed, “Guess we’ll try again tomorrow.”

  -

  Arthur had already known that many of the myths surrounding vampires and what did or didn’t harm them weren’t all real. Most of them weren’t real, in fact, and many other things not common knowledge were real. He’d learned about most of those things working under Saint, and had a good understanding of them. However, he was still surprised at what being staked felt like. In some respect it was worse than just dying. He couldn’t move or speak. Not like being chained or tied down, as he previously was. It was like he was paralyzed. Even his eyes, they only stared straight up at the ceiling. And the pain was severe. It felt like…well, it felt like there was a big spike stuck in his sternum. He had become so intimate with the feeling lying here, he realized the stake was actually piercing his heart. He could feel that pain too, so it sort of made sense why his body refused to move. It thought it was dead.

  The only thing he was glad for was that apparently after being turned into a vampire, his eyes didn’t function the same way anymore, because he didn’t need to blink. It seemed like most, if not all of his normal bodily functions ceased to exist. Lying there, he found out that the blood he consumed earlier wasn’t even turned into waste, so it must have just slowly absorbed into his body somehow. He hadn’t had to sneeze, breathe, sweat, anything. He was well and truly a living corpse. A vampire, he thought. You. You are a vampire now. It didn’t seem or feel all that impressive considering his current situation. He noticeably didn’t feel any of the same muscle aches or stiffness or tired joints that he normally felt. In a way, his body had either rejected those feelings, or somehow repaired them. He would’ve shuddered, if he could, thinking about what his mangled corpse looked like after the fall. But now he was back to normal, mostly.

  He felt fresh. Like he’d been born again. He felt like he could do anything, really. Besides move, of course. But it gave him a lot of time to think. He couldn’t even see his watch, but he must have been lying on this dirty, porcelain floor for hours now. They hadn’t even bothered to pick him up off of it after he’d lunged at Persephone. It been maybe a day. He didn’t feel the same fatigue he would’ve after being up for twenty four hours. He wondered how long he could survive like this on half a bottle of blood. Blood. You drank blood. It felt strange to say. Gross, even. But it had tasted so good. And, he had the luxury of having been around vampires long enough that all their dark habits didn’t really bother him too much anymore. But, now that he was the one partaking in those habits, it was…different. Arthur felt like in the back of his mind this day was coming eventually. Hang around vampires long enough, you were either becoming a biter, or becoming one of thing. It felt like he had been pretending this whole it would never come to that, but deep down he knew it would. Just, Arthur wasn’t expecting it to happen like this.

  He wasn’t exactly sure where to go from here whenever Persephone did return. He wasn’t that in tune with vampire hierarchy, but Saint had told him that when a vampire turns a human, that newly created vampire is more or less beholden to their creator. Not physically, as far as he knew, but socially expected to do right by them. However, as far as Arthur was concerned, it seemed like there were more people willing to bend and break the rules than there were willing to follow. And right now, all he really cared about was getting the hell out of this nightmare house.

  On top of that, he hadn’t exactly given Persephone permission to turn him. If anything, he was expecting Saint to. Or Bartolome. Not her. So this was against his will, really. Non consensual vampire biting. He would’ve laughed, but his body refused, on account of the stake. On the other hand, she did save my life. Sort of. It was strange to think that he had died. That he was still dead, technically. Just, something else, now. I died, the thought repeated in his head. It was a strange sensation. Not many people were probably able to think that thought. Arthur lay on the dirty floor in silence for a while. He was getting to a point where all sorts of malignant thoughts were starting to creep into his mind. Make him think about the worst case scenario. Convince him he had become some sort of monster. He laughed to himself again. He’d already been turning into a monster, regardless of whether he drank blood or not. He’d become so uncaring and distant from the things most people would hold dear, all over some stupid money. He wondered what his parents would think. What his few friends, mostly gone away now, would think. If they’d even care. What Dot would think. The door opened again. Thank God. He wasn’t even sure where God fit into all this mess, but it still felt right to say it.

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  Two pairs of footsteps entered the room again. Arthur recognized them immediately. The squeaky, rubbery soles of the ‘doctor’ and the clicking heels of Persephone. They both moved around in front of Arthur and stood over him so he could see their faces. Persephone was now wearing a completely different outfit, while the doctor remained in his white coat and scrubs. Which meant it had been a day, at least, and also meant the doctor had a poor sense of fashion.

  “I won’t ask how you’re doing this time. I will simply point out that right now, your life is in my hands. And when I pull that stake out of you, which will hurt by the way, you have two options. One is to be polite and answer my questions. Because, as you’ve seen, I hate it when people are rude. Two, is to be rude again. So let me be clear; if you decide to do something idiotic, I won’t stake you. I’ll just remove your head from your body.”

  Arthur just stared at the ceiling, not that he had a choice. He wasn’t sure what to make of all this just yet, but for some reason Persephone chose to keep him alive. Probably to use him, like everyone else had. He decided to be polite, at least see where she was going with this. As if Persephone somehow could read his mind, just moments later she kneeled down and yanked the stake out of Arthur’s chest. He gasped and convulsed forward as a small spray of blood followed the removal. Arthur sat up, looking down at the new wound in his chest. It was disgusting; he realized now for the first time that his skin was grey and lifeless, and the wound from the stake was just a pulpy mush of dead flesh and some bone. It wasn’t bleeding at all. Just a hole in his chest.

  “It will heal, as long as you drink more blood,” the doctor said. “What we gave you earlier has mostly left your system at this point. But since you’ve just been laying here doing nothing, it’s been sufficient to prevent you from going feral. The more you move, act, exert, the more your blood runs dry.”

  The doctor kneeled down next to Arthur and lifted his arm. He punctured it with a needle, and began to draw blood. Arthur barely even noticed the pain. His flesh reacted, and his nervous system told him something was happening, but it was muted and dulled. Now it made sense why shooting a vampire didn’t do so much. The doctor finished drawing blood, capped the syringe and drained the blood into a small vial, before twisting a plastic top on it. He held up the vial in his fingers for Arthur to see, smiled, and left the room.

  Arthur looked down at the needle wound. Just an empty hole, and the tiniest dribble of blood from beneath. Nothing like a gaping hole in the chest and a lack of flowing blood to remind someone that they’re not human anymore. Arthur felt like saying something snarky to Persephone, but remembered her warning. He would rather not have his head taken off, or be staked again. He looked up at her, still sitting on the floor.

  “Get up,” she ordered. Arthur complied, groaning as he stood. Despite that deep feeling of hunger slowly starting to return, he still felt fine, aside from the dull pain in his chest. In fact, he felt more physically fit and mentally sharp than he had in a long time. He pushed himself up, standing face to face with Persephone. She was still just a few inches taller than him even without the heels, and when she stood in front of him she reminded Arthur of Bartolome; dangerous.

  “Looks like you’re choosing to be polite. For now. So, as I said, you’re not dead, because I chose to bring you back. Right now, you at least owe me the respect of answering a few questions. Otherwise you’d still be a smear on the pavement.” Arthur didn’t protest, or react, so Persephone continued. “Was that all Santiago’s plan, or just a fluke?”

  “It was my plan,” Arthur replied. “Worked quite well, too.”

  Persephone snorted “Of course it did. I got away, you died, and your people lost three times as many as mine. Excluding the Ferals, of course, poor bastards. But they weren’t really mine in the first place. So I’d say the execution was a little lacking.”

  Arthur gritted his teeth. She was right, of course, but it still stung to hear.

  Persephone stared at him for a few moments, then to his utter surprise, laced her arm through his like they were going to the school dance. He was the dorky, awkward teenager with a massive wound in his torso and she was the tall, dangerous, vampire who he was pretty certain was about to kill him. Just like high school. She guided him out of the little surgery room into a dimly lit, dingy hallway with stone floors and walls. There were seemingly many other rooms like the one he was in, most of them empty, a few of them apparently being used as prison cells for people Arthur couldn’t get a good look at. Persephone led him to the end of the hallway and into an elevator. They were two floors under ground level. Persephone punched the button for the first floor above.

  “Now don’t get any ideas about running away. Even if you managed to slip away from me, you wouldn’t make it far.”

  Arthur stopped trying to figure out how to run away. “Why not?”

  “That blood in your system won’t last you long. Right now, most of it is being used to try to heal that stake wound in your chest. If you start running and sprinting and exerting yourself, that reserve will dry up fast.”

  “Ok…so where are you taking me?”

  She didn’t reply. As the elevator chimed and opened on the first floor, they appeared to be in a fully functioning hospital. There were staff at the front desk checking people in, nurses hurriedly moving through the back halls and pop music streaming through speakers on the ceiling. Persephone ignored it all, as though they were meant to be there, and kept moving through. Most people ignored them, save for one or two to gawk at the tall, professional looking woman pulling the half-dead looking man with a hole in his chest through the hospital. None of the staff stopped them.

  Arthur tried to cover the hole with his hand as they walked, but Persephone pulled his hand away. “Don’t draw attention to it. They’ll convince themselves whatever they saw wasn’t really what they thought. And if they try to tell someone, who’s going to believe someone was walking around with a wound like that.”

  Arthur let his hand fall. She had a point. He knew how powerful disbelief was. It seemed like the biggest asset to vampires; the fact the world had convinced itself nothing supernatural existed. As they exited the building, which was in fact a fully functioning, high end hospital, Persephone guided Arthur to one of the big, black painted SUVs that looked very familiar to him. She pushed him in the back and got in alongside him. She then ordered the driver to take them to an address Arthur didn’t recognize.

  “This is an elaborate way of killing me,” Arthur said flatly.

  Persephone didn’t reply. She was looking down at her phone now, apparently responding to emails, or texts. She looked utterly nonchalant. It made Arthur uneasy. As of right now, he had to remind himself that they were still technically enemies. Just one night ago they had been trying to kill each other, the culmination of events over an entire year of back and forth. Yet, her attitude didn’t convey that. Arthur looked around the SUV. Nothing about it seemed particularly strange, besides the windows which looked particularly thick and were tinted black.

  “Bullet proof,” Persephone said without looking up. Somehow she noticed where his gaze was. “Apparently we were too lax in thinking our kind weren’t stupid enough to gun each other down in a public place, so we upgraded. And don’t think about jumping out of the car, you’ll just be in the same situation but with a broken arm.”

  Arthur moved his hand away from the door lock. He looked down at his chest again, “I need to…fix, this,” he said, motioning to the wound.

  Persephone’s gaze followed his hand. “You’ll be fine,” she said dismissively. “We can go for long periods without needing to heal wounds. You can even stop your body from doing it automatically if you wanted. But pretty soon you’ll need more blood. First I’ll have to decide if it’s actually worth giving you more blood, or if I made a mistake bringing you back.”

  “Oh,” Arthur said, nodding, surprised at her straight forward explanation. “I didn’t know. Speaking of which, why did you bring me back?”

  Persephone chuckled again, locking her phone away and looking back at Arthur as the car rumbled along the road. “There’s probably a lot Saint didn’t tell you.”

  Arthur couldn’t tell if she was answering his question, or ignoring it again. “Saint and I were friends,” was all he could think to say.

  Persephone cocked her head at him. “And?”

  Arthur made a sound, like she hadn’t heard him, or didn’t understand. “So…we were friends,” Arthur said, like it was self explanatory.

  “Is that so. Friends don’t leave friends out to die. Friends don’t drag friends into dangerous situations in the first place.” Persephone shot him a look, “Vampires don’t have friends.”

  Arthur scoffed, “That’s not true. We were friends, and like I said it was my plan. It’s not their fault that…what happened.”

  “Was it your plan to be handcuffed?”

  Arthur just made a sound, turning away. When he looked back, he realized she was still staring at him, as if waiting for an answer. Arthur realized her eyes were currently not the same, orange glazed color he’d seen in all other vampires. They were bright blue, almost grey. Those cold, icy eyes boring a second hole into his chest. He felt compelled to answer, or to say something, as she stared. There was something about her demeanor that Arthur previously just attributed to being a mean bitch. But now, he realized that she came across as old. Very old. Maybe not as old as Bartolome, but old enough to cast a presence without even speaking.

  “How old are you?” Arthur practically blurted.

  Persephone raised an eyebrow, “Two hundred and sixteen,” she said matter-of-factly. Arthur’s jaw dropped. Persephone just kept staring, “There’s some older than me. Much older.”

  “How old?”

  “This isn’t question time, Arthur,” she said with the sort of tone that a scolding school teacher would have.

  “Then what is it? Where are you taking me? We’re enemies!” Arthur said, the tiniest hint of desperation in his voice. Persephone picked up on it, because her faced turned into disgust. “This shouldn’t be happening. We should be killing each other!”

  “Ugh. You’re so dramatic. We’re only enemies because you got yourself into a world of things you know nothing about and were strung along by a bunch of amateur morons. Right now, I’m giving you a second chance. And to answer your question, I’m taking you somewhere safe, where we can talk in private.”

  Arthur felt a lot of feelings all at once, but for some reason the most prominent feeling was shame. Like this was all obvious somehow and he was stupid for not realizing it. Or maybe because she had just indirectly called him an idiot. “…ok.”

  “Good. We’re almost there. Just follow me and keep your mouth shut and all will be revealed,” she said with a dramatic wave of her hands. “Got it?”

  Arthur nodded. A few minutes later, the SUV pulled to a stop. From the inside, Arthur was surprised that he could actually see pretty clearly through the dark tint, like his eyes had adjusted better somehow. As soon as he got out, he was staring up at a big skyscraper in the middle of the Commerce District of Longley. The car was parked out front under an overhang, and a man was standing at the door holding it open for him and Persephone.

  “Ma’am,” the man said as they approached.

  Persephone said nothing. As they entered the building, it was about as empty as one would expect for…Arthur checked his watch. It had a smear of his own blood on it and it was cracked. But it still managed to tick, and showed midnight. There were a few security guards sitting at the front who were watching as they came inside. Persephone approached the front desk with Arthur at her heel.

  “Ms. Sharp,” the security guard said. “Working late as usual I see. Your guest will need to sign in.”

  Persephone leaned on the desk, gazing at the man. “No he won’t,” she said with authority in her voice. The man leaned back, his eyes widening just slightly. The second security guard looked over, and Persephone shifted her gaze to him. “Both of you will forget we were here, and you will forget I was with anyone.”

  The air in the room changed. Arthur could smell something acrid, like something was burning. Or being boiled. It smelled, good, in a way, before he realized what he was smelling was blood. Persephone’s blood, roiling and turning at her will in order to mesmerize these people. Both of the security guards nodded, Persephone smiled, and continued past them to the elevators. Arthur stood for a second realizing what was happening before he followed after her. There were more guards down this hall as well, standing at either end, but ignored Persephone as she swiped a keycard against a pad next to the elevator buttons. As the pad flashed green, Arthur could hear the sounds of pulleys straining from inside the elevator.

  “I’ve seen that before.”

  Persephone raised an eyebrow, “An elevator? Good for you.”

  “No, what? I’ve seen that…power, before. What you did to the guards.”

  “Hm,” Persephone said, making a face. “Not entirely surprising.”

  Arthur realized that was all she was going to say about that for the moment. “I didn’t know your last name is Sharp.”

  “It’s not,” she said.

  The elevator was beginning to climb upwards, as Arthur awkwardly stood next to Persephone, waiting. “What did you do to them?”

  “I made them think what I told them to think.”

  “Ok, yeah. But how?”

  “My blood.”

  Confusion crossed Arthur’s face. “What?”

  The elevator chimed to let them know they were at their destination. The 30th floor.

  “In due time,” Persephone said.

  “Ok, Ms. Sharp.”

  Persephone turned to him, her face un-amused. “Trying to be cute? It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Oh. Sorry. What am I supposed to call you, just Persephone?”

  “That’s fine,” she said curtly,stepping out of the elevator. “Remember, Arthur, your life right now is on my lease. So just do what I say, don’t be stupid, and maybe we can move onto a more permanent situation for your existence.”

  Arthur just nodded, and followed as they left the elevator. They came out into what appeared to be a normal office space, though notably devoid of any kinds of logos or symbols. The elevator led into two separate hallways, Persephone leading him to an opaque glass door, also without a logo, but with an electronic key card reader. She pressed the same one she’d used downstairs against the device. It came alive with lights, but the door didn’t open. Persephone put the card away and pressed her thumb against the black pad, and a moment later there was a chime and the door clicked and seemingly unlocked.

  “Woah,” Arthur said, but she didn’t acknowledge him. The door opened and they went inside. What they walked into, Arthur wouldn’t call a normal office space. It was a large open floor with a lounge, couches, rugs, and big comfortable looking chairs. There was a kitchen, bathrooms, and some amenities like a pool table, ping pong table, and other distractions scattered throughout. There were some actual offices placed here and there, but they were much smaller than the main floor. This placed looked more like a penthouse than anything else. Each office was positioned on the edges of the floor against the windows. The exterior walls of the offices were completely solid with a big, wooden door on each. Persephone led Arthur into one. The view was incredible. Arthur could see half the city from here, spread out across various highways and roads. Even at night the city seemed completely alive, headlights of cars that looked smaller than ants zipping across the streets.

  “Nice place,” Arthur said looking around the office.

  “I’ve got one of the best decorators in town,” Persephone said as Arthur began to admire the various paintings and baubles carefully positioned in the office. She sat down in the desk and booted up the computer in front of her. Arthur continued to look around the office before he realized Persephone was staring at him again, then pointed her eyes at one of the deep leather chairs in front of the desk. Arthur sat.

  “So, now that I know we don’t have prying eyes on us, you get to find out why I didn’t just kill you.”

  Persephone checked an expensive looking gold watch before picking up the phone on her desk. She pressed a button and Arthur could hear the phone ringing through the receiver. It took a while to pick up, but eventually he heard someone talking to Persephone on the line.

  “Put me through. Yes, blackout.”

  A second later she seemed to connect to a different call. Persephone pressed the speaker phone button on the device and placed the phone back down in it’s carriage before she leaned back in her chair, her gaze shifting back to Arthur. She held up a finger to her mouth, a sign for Arthur to be quiet.

  “Good. Let me start by saying that everything happened as planned,” Bartolome’s voice said on the other end.