AS SOPHIE FOLLOWED Aubrey down the hallway, her stomach twisted with unease. It took a majority of her will-power not to turn around and run back to the dining hall. She wanted to hug Tabatha and tell her all about what had happened since she was taken for the Games. She wanted to hear Kitty complain about having to serve, and listen to the twins bicker about random things. But part of her was terrified too. Sophie remembered how inhumanly beautiful the members of the night class had first appeared to her. She could only imagine how strange she now looked to the human students.

Sophie clenched her jaw and shook her head. She pushed the thoughts of Tabatha and the others to the very back corners of her mind. She needed a distraction. "So what happened exactly?" she asked Aubrey. "The Headmaster said there was another attack?"

Aubrey nodded. She turned the corner and stopped in front of Sophie's door. "I don't know much about it. The humans were gossiping a lot about it –apparently it was one of the Day Class members. I don't remember the girl's name. Just that she was in the Games with you."

Sophie's eyes widened. Margret. While she wasn't particularly upset over the death of bitchy Margret, she did feel bad that the girl had been attacked and was now dead. No one deserved to die.

"I wonder why a human would be attacked," Sophie muttered and unlocked her door. The two slipped inside and the door clicked shut behind them.

Aubrey shrugged. "She was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time." She took a seat back at the desk, and turned to face Sophie. An inquisitive expression adorned her face. "Alright," she said. "So tell me about this escape route."

Sophie perched on the edge of the bed. She explained everything, from the amount of turns she had taken to the breeze of the outside world caressing her face. Aubrey listened intently and asked very few questions. The questioning expression that she wore seemed to intensify as the explanation progressed. At the end of Sophie's story, the duo sat in silence for a few moments.

"We need to try to find it again tonight," Aubrey announced. "I swear, I've been down that passage a million times and I have never heard anything outside the stone walls. Or tomorrow. "

"Or we can just go now," Sophie suggested.

Aubrey shook her head. "Didn't you pay attention to the Headmaster's speech? He plans to start a curfew tonight. The hallways will be guarded by teachers, and possibly hired guards. We could get into some serious trouble."

"It hasn't started yet. We can't get in trouble if the curfew hasn't started yet," Sophie objected. "And if we do, we can always weasel our way out of it. I'm supposed to be the Headmaster's second in command right? He said it himself, I've heard free reign of the castle. Come on,"

Aubrey muttered aimlessly under her breath. Both she and Sophie changed into darker clothing, to make it easier to roam the castle undetected. Sophie snatched her map from the desk and ushered her blond companion out into the hallway. It didn't take long to find the path she had taken earlier. Sticking close to the walls, the two worked their way down the hall, and quickly found the stone that Sophie had scratched at.

She pushed it. A soft rumble ensued. The stones shifted, and moved out of the way in the form of a door. The corridor that appeared behind it was darker than Sophie remembered. As she stepped inside, she paused. She also couldn't hear the sound of rushing water like she had earlier. A frown tugged at her lips, and she tried not to sound uncertain as she spoke to Aubrey. "This is the way I went earlier."

The corridor was still covered in mud and aged stone, like an abandoned cave. The girls followed it until it opened into a large, musty smelling room. A massive door sat just in front of them, made of ancient wood and rusted iron. Sophie sniffed. Her nostrils revolted; the smell that engulfed her senses burned. She lifted her hand to her nose and looked around, her eyebrows crinkled.

"I swear, Aubrey. I swear this is the way that I went earlier."

Aubrey observed the room. It was bare, save for the door. Her lips were pursed. "I swear, this place is familiar. But I don't know where I know it from." She moved forward and reached out, her fingertips ghosting over the weathered wooden door. "I know this place."

The door creaked open. Mechanical whirs floated out from the room behind it, and both Sophie and Aubrey shared a small look. Aubrey stepped forward into the room, squinting in the darkness. Machines illuminated bits and pieces of the room with a soft blue-hued glow. Sophie scanned the walls for a light-switch as she stepped into the room. The walls around her, however, were completely bare.

"It smells so horrible," Aubrey gagged. A hand lifted to her mouth.

Sophie tried her best to ignore it. The metallic smell had amplified. If she thought her nostrils had hated her before, then she was disastrously wrong. Her nose burned something fierce. It was almost as bad as the pain she felt when she first woke up as a vampire. It made her stomach churn. Bile burned at the back of her throat.

After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The lumps of shadows and machines focused into large cylindrical pods. A massive metal box was shoved into the corner, with masses of wires tangled around it, all connected to a huge computer screen. Aubrey seemed drawn toward it. She walked almost absently toward the box and placed her hand on its edge.

Sophie flinched when Aubrey hissed and hastily retracted her hand. "What?" she asked, alarmed. "What is it?"

Aubrey grasped her wrist and glared at her palm. It looked inflamed with redness and blistered around the edges. "The metal," she grunted. "There must be something on the surface of the metal. It burned me."

"Are you okay?" Sophie rushed over. She hesitantly looked closer at Aubrey's hand. The inflamed skin seemed to cool as seconds passed, and the blisters vanished.

"I'll be fine," Aubrey answered with a scowl. "See? It's already healing."

Sophie's eyes widened. "I didn't realize that we healed that fast."

Aubrey shrugged. "We heal faster than humans. But it depends on how much blood we are able to intake and burn before the injury. Like, at dinner I had a glass of blood. Since it was such a short time ago, the blood hasn't been dissolved by my venom yet. So I heal faster right now."

"Oh," Sophie muttered.

Aubrey returned her attention to the box. Her scowl deepened. "There is something in there that we aren't supposed to touch," she said. "It wouldn't be poisoned if it was just for storage."

Sophie glanced back at the rows of pods behind her. A wave of familiarity washed over her, and she recognized the center-most pod as the one she had emerged from. "You don't think Eli could be in there, do you?" she whispered.

A grunt echoed throughout the room. Sophie's gaze snapped toward Aubrey, who was now shoving against the box with all her might. Her expression was morphed with pain as her skin touched the metallic surface. Sophie grabbed Aubrey's arm and wrenched her back.

"Hold on!" she hissed. "We don't even know if he's actually in there. There's no use in destroying yourself just yet."

Aubrey stumbled back. Soft pants escaped her lips, and she brushed her hair behind her ear. Her skin blistered in several spots. "No," she whispered, her eyes glued to the box. "I swear, I heard someone in there. There's a heartbeat inside, Sophie."

It took all Sophie had not to throw herself at the box like Aubrey had. "Is it Eli?" she asked, frantic. Her hands twitched toward the box, prepared to punch and pound her way through.

"No. No, it's not Eli," Aubrey responded. Her voice sounded distant, and was almost too soft to be coherent. Her dazed gaze flickered toward Sophie, clouded with something indiscernible. "It's not Eli but I know that heartbeat. Sophie, I know it. It's Wolfe. I swear, he's inside there. That must be the chamber. It doesn't look like the original designs, so I didn't even recognize it, but I swear..."

Her babbling was cut off by a single sentence. It made Sophie's blood run ice cold.

"I had hoped you would never find this room, my dears."