Read The Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood for Free Online Page A

toothpaste/toothbrush, and deodorant.
    The doctor set the package at Matt’s feet.
    “Okay, so you’ve been a great audience. I play in this lounge every week, but I’m hoping that the two pint cover charge will discourage you from ever coming again…”
    Then he left Matt alone in the stall to change into his new clothes.
     
    “Shit!”
    It was hard to believe that Tyra Redmond still felt the jolt of pain when something sharp penetrated her skin.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Sorry about that, Tyra. Still trying to get the hang of this new needle.”
    Tyra had twenty-six different tattoos covering her chest, arms, and neck. Her upper body had become what she called a “tatimony” to her run-ins with the vampires. Every pair of fang marks got their own tattoo, each one carved around the incisor scars.
    Just a few days ago Tyra was caught with a shank by one of the goons. She was immediately taken to the grey building, where that night she acquired another pair of fang marks to go with the others.
    Her latest tattoo was a spider carved around the vampire tracks.
    Ralph, the CCC prison tat artist, was an aging hippie snatched three months ago on one of the patrol sweeps. He once had his own tat shop in Venice, California, but had given up the trade over twenty years ago. Now he was doing what he could, utilizing his skills as a tattoo artist so that the other prisoners of the camp wouldn’t see him as a weak link.
    Tyra used her index finger to swipe up the blood oozing from the cut on her arm. She was about to wipe it on her jumpsuit, but it suddenly occurred to her, that after more than six months of captivity, not once had she tasted her own blood.
    She swished it around her mouth like her father used to do while tasting fine wine.
    Then Tyra spit it out.
    “I hear it’s an acquired taste,” said Ralph.
    The doors to the grey building flew open.
    Tyra immediately stood and watched as the camp newbies began filing out.
    “Waiting for someone?”
    She didn’t answer him. Tyra liked Ralph, but other than the fact that he had carved almost a dozen tattoos on her body, she didn’t know anything about him.
    “Got a rag on you?”
    Ralph gave her the wash cloth in his pocket. She used it to wipe off the blood as she continued to stare across the compound.
    The guy Tyra was looking for emerged from the grey building. He was almost one of the last prisoners to exit before one of the goons closed the door behind them.
    She started off in the direction of the “juice stand”; the table the goons had set up to offer orange juice to all the newbies.
    “Tyra… my rag,” Ralph called after her.
    She stopped and looked at her tattoo. The spider only had four legs.
    “I’ll be back later to get the other half of my tattoo.” She then tossed Ralph his rag.
    Matt was in the middle of downing a plastic cup of orange juice when he heard a voice that seemed to be directed toward him.
    “I know you, right?”
    After he had drained the juice from the plastic cup, Matt looked over to see a woman, about thirty years old, staring at him. Like all the veteran prisoners, she appeared to be alert and adequately fed.
    He threw the empty cup in a trash can but didn’t say anything to Tyra as he walked right past her.
    Tyra shook her head, and followed after him.
    “Yeah, you're definitely the guy in the Green Zone that night. You were working for the Frontline Security Firm, right?”
    Matt not only stopped walking, he turned, then took a step toward her.
    “What did one of my colleagues do? Steal a Humvee? Fuck one of your translators? Look I wish I could help, but I'm not responsible for any of the assholes I worked with back in the Green Zone. Especially not now.”
    He was off again, as if their conversation was finished.
    Once again, Tyra followed after him.
    “So you don’t remember being at the McAlister International hotel?”
    “Sorry, I don’t,” replied Matt.
    His response was too quick for Tyra, as if