I remind myself, for what feels like the hundredth time, that Gabriela wanted me to come here.
Drew must see something in my face. He nudges my arm with his and says, “Hey, no big deal, you can just share my bed.”
Coming from anyone else, the words would normally make me roll my eyes. But tonight, I’ll take kindness in any form. I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my own mouth now, and this surprises me more than anything else—the fact I still can. “That’s very selfless of you, Drew. I’ll take it under advisement.”
His eyes twinkle as he adds, “I’ll even let you be the big spoon.”
I just shake my head. Unperturbed, Drew grins and wishes me a good morning, then moves toward the other end of the hall. I watch him go, all swinging elbows and long legs. The sight actually does make me smile now—it’s rare to find a human my kind hasn’t sucked all the life from.
After a quick use of the bathroom, I hurry back into my temporary room. Despite a faint concern that the moment I put my weight on the bed, the entire thing will collapse into dust, I crawl under the blankets. With a minty mouth and a pounding heart, I tuck the scratchy material around me. The springs creak and moan with every movement.
For a few minutes, voices from the hall trickle into my room, but eventually the rest of the boarders go to bed, too. Silence settles into every corner of the house. My preternatural hearing picks up on sounds normally too small to hear. The pitter-patter of the cat’s feet, somewhere down the hall. The grumbles of a water heater in the basement.
Staring at the ceiling with its yellowish, peeling paint and water stains, I can’t stop the tears that prick my eyes. I may have survived the Awakening, but thoughts of what lies ahead are enough to keep much-needed sleep away. The hunger feels like a separate monster, one with its own thoughts and feelings and urges. Daylight is when the monster is the strongest—the shadows are more prominent. Sometimes they almost seem to move. The humans are sleeping, they whisper to me. So vulnerable. So full of fresh, hot, pulsing blood.
Voices drift through the wall to my left. “Don’t be an idiot,” someone hisses.
I’m about to yank the pillow over my head when a familiar voice replies, “What?”
“I’m serious, Drew. Stay away from this one. Promise me.”
For some reason, I don’t want to hear his answer, and this time I do pull the pillow over my ears. I toss and turn for what feels like an eternity. Eventually, I give up on sleep and reach for my phone. The screen wakes up, hurting my eyes, and I open an app one of my brothers created that blocks the caller’s identity. Once that’s done, I select Julia’s name from the short list of contacts. The other end only rings once before her soft voice answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jules.” My throat suddenly feels thick. I swallow. Silence on the other end. “So it matters to you, then? What I am?”
With any big sort of question, people usually know the answer—they just act otherwise because they’re afraid of it. When there’s a click and the line goes dead, I stay as I am, holding the phone against my ear. Years go by in that cold, dark room.
When I finally find the strength to lower the phone, the monster sees its chance. It leaps forward inside me, howling to be let free. It wants to punish someone for my pain. It wants to slaughter everyone in this house. It wants to make others scream instead of me.
No! I squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth so hard my molars grind, and clench my hands into fits until my nails are biting into my palms. I can control this. I chant those words over and over until my breathing evens out.
The red haze gradually fades, leaving only grief in its wake, and I finally place my phone safely on the rickety nightstand. The urge to throw it at the wall, shattering it forever, is still there. Instead, I turn to the other half of me. The half I’ve always been aware of, but never able to fully define—humanity.
And as I curl beneath the scratchy blanket, cover my face, and shake with bone-rattling sobs, I’ve never felt more human in my entire life.
Chapter Four
Tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally pass out, only to wake shortly afterward to an unbearable pain in my gums. My fangs slip down, throbbing with a burning need that has me sitting up in a flash.
I can’t wait any longer—I need to feed. After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, it’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long.
Shoving my feet into my sneakers, I move to the door and slip into the empty hallway. Someone is snoring so violently that I can feel vibrations of it through the floorboards. Moving faster than human eyes—or inquisitive cats—can track, I’m out of the boardinghouse and jogging down the street in seconds. I pull my hood up as feeble protection against the sun’s luminescent gaze.
In the harsh light of day, it’s immediately apparent that Oldbel is a city of very few beauties—most of the buildings are rundown or fading. Weeds sprout through cracks in the pavement and there are broken windows everywhere I look. The only people that are awake are the addicts, several of which I slink past as they get their fixes in alleys or slumped against walls.
I’ve always thought of this part of New Ve as colorless, and it’s unfortunate to be proven correct.
Keeping to the shadows, I push my senses out until I pick up the scent of blood. A lot of blood, making its source unmistakeable.
A feeding unit.
Within minutes, I’m standing outside yet another dilapidated building. If I weren’t so desperate for blood, I’d walk away now. That’s probably what the owner of this site counts on—vampires who are too hungry, too desperate to care what this place looks like or whether it’s entirely legal. I exhale heavily, shame and embarrassment clinging to me, and cringe as I pull the glass door open and step inside.
Immediately, my nostrils are assaulted by a sharp mixture of blood and bleach. I try to focus on the mouth-watering metallic instead of the poor attempt at making this place seem clean. A quick glance around tells me it’s far from it.
The facility is comprised of just one room. The only attempt at privacy for the feedings are thin, stained sheets between each bed. The tiles are peeling from the subfloor and the walls have spackle patches all over them. There’s an enormous reddish-brown stain on the floor. Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights flicker. A fan hums in the corner, despite the chill autumn air outside.
I go through the motions of paying for and picking a feeder from the human waiting room. It’s a process new to me, as I’ve always had feeders brought to me at the mansion, but it’s straightforward enough.
My eyes immediately go to a middle-aged woman sitting in the middle of a row of chairs, wearing faded jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt with some whiskey brand logo on it that undoubtedly no longer exists. She’s knitting what looks to be a scarf, her hands working the multi-colored wool with her needles, but she’s looking straight ahead. The feeder’s eyes are void and faded, a reminder of how powerful vampire venom truly is.
Her gaze becomes more alert when she notices me standing in front of her, and she gets up, leaving her knitting behind. She moves quicker than I expect her to, her heart beating with excitement. Her body knows it’s about to get its next hit of venom—she’s practically vibrating.