It was the need to find out why the vampires had innocent human children that coaxed me out of my room and into the cafeteria. I was hoping to see Silas. There wasn’t anyone else I was brave enough to ask that could give me the answers I wanted.

There were a few sires talking and eating. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the cafeteria. Despite Silas’ advice on keeping up the human eating to blend in, I had kept to myself in my room. But the answers I were looking for I would not find confined within the four walls of my room.

I was nervous as I found a table. It wasn’t that busy. There were a few other sires, none that I recognized but they were definitely trainees like me. They did not have the air of confidence the fully trained Sires had. It made me wonder how many teams they trained.

Slowly, I scanned the immediate area for Silas. It didn’t take long to find him standing to the side watching from the sidelines like he usually did. His expression blank. He was so difficult to read. Our eyes locked and I felt a physical reaction sweep through me.

I didn’t want to analyze why responded that way to him, I knew how crazy it was to feel this way especially after everything I had endured at his hands. There was a part of me that explained it away as a necessity to survive.

There was no way I could just walk up to him and start a conversation. And this wasn’t something I wanted to talk about out in the open with the possibility of someone overhearing us. Besides it wasn’t the norm for a Sire to approach a vampire to talk. There was definitely a hierarchy that didn’t make it easy to go to him with the questions I had.

I allowed myself to hold his gaze for a few seconds more than I usually would before I got up slowly and made my way back to my room.

There was no guarantee he would get the message from my lingering gaze. I just had to hope it was enough to peak his interest and he would follow me. Otherwise, I would have to try and speak to him another time but it would waste more time. But the thought of the young boy being subjected to the cruelness of the vampires was too much to bear, every moment was hell. Every second my mind entertained the worst possible scenarios of what the vampires would do to him.

I was sitting on my bed for a couple of minutes, losing hope that Silas had received my unspoken message. What was I going to do now? There was no point in going back out there. I would have to wait for tomorrow and hopefully an opportunity would arise where I would be able to speak to him.

It was then he walked into my room, closing the door behind him.

The sight of him made my heart race. I put it down to nerves. He simply me made me nervous. It was easily explained.

He approached me slowly, it made me more nervous.

“Where were you?” he asked, with a slight frown.

He had noticed I had been gone. It did something weird inside me but I shut it down before I could analyze what it meant.

“They took me to for some tests.” I clasped my hands together.

“Tests?” he echoed the key word in my answer.

“They did more blood tests and a scan.”

I slipped from the bed to stand. Feeling too anxious to sit still.

His features froze. It wasn’t a good sign. I studied him waiting for him to say something. He rarely shows emotion. This was uncharacteristic of him.

“Did they say anything?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Why are they doing more tests?”

He would know the answer but whether he would share it with me was something I wasn’t fully confident in.

“You might not want to hear the answer to that.”

His tone scared me. There would be no good or tolerable answer. I swallowed.

“I saw a boy…” I swallowed nervously, unable to finish my sentence.

He didn’t even blink.

“Why?” The question was filled with my own pain.

His jaw tightened and it was the only visible response to my question. I swear his eyes glimmered a deeper gold.

“Be sure that you’re ready to hear the truth.” His warning didn’t deter my curiosity or need to know.

How could it be worse than what I had already been subjected to? And even if I was scared, what type of person would I be if I just forgot about the boy and did nothing? That wasn’t who I was. I was no hero but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to figure out everything I could so I could try help the boy.

“Tell me,” I whispered. Could he hear my lack of confidence in my voice? I wasn’t sure I could handle the truth but I had to hear it. “I need to hear the truth.”

“Years ago a virus infected vampires, it was wide spread and devastating.”

It was hard to believe there was anything that could destroy these powerful creatures. They seemed to be indestructible. They were immortal.

“At first there seemed to no lasting effects, until birth rates began to drop.”

I held out my hand, still trying to process what he had just said. “Birth rates?”

He nodded.

That wasn’t possible was it.

“You mean female vampires can have children?” I asked the unbelievable question.

“Yes.”

That went against everything I thought I knew about their kind.

“Our birthing rates are no where near the volume of humans but it has been enough to ensure the survival of our species.”

My mind was still reeling.

“The boy?” I managed to ask.

“The only children here are vampires.”

My mind was blown. I couldn’t comprehend what he had just revealed.

The boy wasn’t some innocent. He was one of them. He would grow up to be a Silas. Cruel and heartless. My lungs held my breath.

All my fear and angst was replaced with confusion and the realization of how little I knew about the new world I had become apart of.

In amongst the revelation I remembered the tests they had performed on me. The feeling that there was still far worse revelations to come.

“But his eyes don’t glimmer.” Surely that was a sign the boy was human.

“Only once a vampire reaches adulthood will their eyes shimmer. It’s a protective gene to ensure survival.”

It felt like I was in some sort of warped existence where nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Everything I had learned from books about vampires was wrong. How was I supposed to navigate this new life without any knowledge about it?

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to survive. My only purpose to fight Scavs until I was bested by one which would lead me to being infected and dying a horrible death. Was that the only purpose of all of this? It was difficult not to feel hopeless.

“Our scientists began to research ways for our species to survive. It was essential to our existence.”

I was sure I didn’t want to hear any more but I didn’t tell him to stop.

“We discovered a gene that only a small percentage of human females possess that allows them to carry our children.”

It was madness. I frowned as he watched.

“Is that what they tested us for?” I whispered, trying to make sense of what I was learning.

He nodded.

The fact that none of the others had been made to undergo further tests was enough for me to realize that there was a new horror on the horizon for me.

This would go way beyond anything I had experienced up to this point.

“I have the gene, don’t I?” My throat felt raw.

His eyes held mine for a few moments before he nodded.

Feeling weak I sat down. I wasn’t ready for any of this. In fact I wished I hadn’t asked. Ignorance had been bliss.

I was fighting for my survival only to learn I would be used in away I could barely comprehend to ensure their existence.

It made me wish I hadn’t survived the fight with the Scav. A horrific death from being infected would have been less traumatic than what I was being faced with now.