The drops of water falling from the stone ceiling were the only things counting time in this room. One. Two. Three.
Each drop echoed as it struck the cold concrete floor, merging with the heavy smell of iron. The smell of my own blood.
Beyond the reach of the chains binding both my wrists, a woman stood beside a wooden table. Shielding her from the dim chandelier light, her shadow stretched all the way to the tips of my shoes.
She hadn't spoken for the past ten minutes. The only sound was metal striking metal—soft, measured, and deliberate.
She was cleaning her dagger.
"You're wasting your time." The voice scraping out of my throat sounded like sandpaper dragged across dry wood. Cold sweat dissolved the thick, dried blood at my temple. "They won't come looking for me. And you won't get anything."
The woman stopped. Her fingers, sheathed in black leather gloves, tightened around the dagger's hilt. When she turned, the light finally fell across her face.
Valerie.
That name was poison on the tongue of every creature living in the shadows of this city. She wasn't imposing, nor did she have the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. Her features were delicate, and she looked to be barely in her early twenties, with dark hair carelessly tied back. Yet there was something behind her eyes—something so clear, so calm, that it felt terrifying.
It was the gaze of someone who utterly believed that what she was doing was a sacred will.
"I don't need them to come looking for you," Valerie said. Her voice was flat, without hatred or fear. A champion who didn't need anger to kill. "I only need one name before sunrise."
She stepped closer. Every footfall against the wet floor rang out with startling clarity. I tried to pull against my chains, intending to lunge at her or simply force her back, but the silver spikes driven into both my shoulders locked away all my strength. The metal's burning agony spread through my veins, making my chest feel as though it had been struck by a flaming hammer.
"You hunt us as if we're a plague," I whispered, trying to chuckle, though all that came out was a bloody cough. "But look at you, Valerie. Standing in a dark basement, holding silver, torturing someone until dawn. How are you any different from us?"
Valerie stopped right in front of me. She bent slightly, bringing her eyes level with mine.
We were only an arm's length apart. From this distance, I could hear something I hadn't heard from myself in decades: a heartbeat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Fast, rhythmic, and so utterly human. Fresh blood rushed beneath the smooth skin of her neck, calling to my wildest instinct to tear it open. But the silver in my shoulders kept me on my knees.
"The difference," Valerie whispered, her gloved fingers touching my jaw and forcing my head up, "is that you need human blood to feel alive. Whereas I... I only need to make sure creatures like you are gone by the time the children wake tomorrow morning."
Her brown eyes did not gleam. There was no magical wonder or dark power in them. She was just an ordinary human. Just a young woman with convictions hard as stone and a silver dagger in her hand.
And that was exactly what made me tremble.
Not a pureblood with hundreds of years of terrifying power to frighten our kind. Not some wild monster rampaging through the streets. But a mortal human like her—willing to step into the darkness without fearing contamination.
Valerie raised her dagger, pressing its cold silver tip right beneath my chin.
"Name," she repeated.
I looked into those human eyes one more time, realizing how ironic tonight's fate was. I, a vampire who had survived three decades behind the night, now knelt helplessly before a human girl who had not even lived a quarter of a century.