“Have you lost your mind?!” I exclaimed. “She just tried to kill us!”
“I know! But it’s Tiffany.”
When Dana approached, Melanie had her forearm pressed into Tiffany’s throat to keep her pinned to the wall. I’d have choked from no air if she did that to me, but Tiffany only looked restrained and slightly uncomfortable. Her face was still oozing with blood from all the glass, but despite all that, she was giggling.
“Tiff,” Dana began softly, “I know you’re still in there. Please tell me there’s a part of you that remembers me, remembers us…remembers who you were. You can be more than this. Don’t let what you were forcefully turned into define you forever. There’s still time to take everything you’ve done back, to start over.”
Tiffany tilted her head as she listened to Dana.
Dana took a step closer to her. “Molly and Veronica don’t have to know. We can protect you, I swear. We’ll do for you what we’re doing for Melanie, but you have to stop this. You have to come to your senses. You can’t hurt people anymore.”
Blood dripped from Tiffany’s mouth as she opened it wide. “I’ve always wondered what werewolf meat tastes like,” she said with a giggle. This dumb bitch had one person in the room willing to help her, and she laughs about eating them.
I think this chick being a fucking mess clicked for Dana, because her face fell and she looked like she was going to cry. She took several steps back away from Tiffany, and with a despondent headshake said, “Just do it.”
Without hesitance, Melanie bit down on the base of Tiffany’s throat, and blood sprayed across the room. I turned away because my stomach couldn’t take it, but Jesus Christ, her screams were so high-pitched I thought the windows were going to shatter. When the sound faded and the ringing in my ears ended, I knew crazy-pants was dead.
She didn’t just bleed out a little, either, she slimed all over the damn place. Her blood flowed so quickly it reached the tip of my boots within a minute of her death.
“Goddamn…” I said under my breath. “Good luck getting this out of the carpet.”
Dana turned away and faced the wall. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t okay either. I had figured they weren’t all that close, but the longer I stared at Dana, the more obvious it became how wrong I was. Her and Tiffany were actually friends, and it was kind of sad that it went down like this.
Cora began groaning and stirring about behind me, and until that moment, I almost forgot about her. Her arms were covered in cuts and blood like some kind of junkie, and she could barely climb out of the hole that was the center of the coffee table. I sat down next to her and asked, “You all right?”
“I don’t know if I’m dazed or if I was knocked out for a second,” she admitted with a heavy breath. She rubbed her hand across the back of her neck and winced. There was a large chunk of glass stuck in her flesh and she shakily pulled it out. “Ow, ow, ow,” she whined.
“It probably hurts but, uh, I think you did better than old Tiff.”
At the same time, we turned and looked at Melanie. She stood over Tiffany’s brutalized corpse, staring at us with the bottom half of her face hidden beneath coats of blood and torn flesh. Melanie panted like a wild animal and her eyes were plainly right on Cora. Or, really, Cora’s wounds.
She was hungry.
“I’m…I can’t be here,” Melanie cried, and then ran down the hallway and into another room.
Cora placed her hand over one of her open cuts and then closed her eyes. She looked embarrassed, like she needed to apologize for bleeding.
I looked at Dana and asked, “You have any bandages around here?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
MELANIE
The blood. It was everywhere.
The aroma in the air was as thick as if a person had spilled a perfume bottle all over the couch and polluted the entire apartment with it. But it wasn’t Tiffany’s blood I was smelling. Hers made a huge mess in the living room, and yet it left almost no scent.
No, it was Cora’s. The sweetness, the intoxicating fragrance…it was more delicious-smelling than any piece of chocolate cake, and more addictive than any bottle of vodka. I wanted it. I wanted to taste it so bad.
I didn’t have the strength to fight it, so I ran into Dana’s bedroom and sat on the bed. I needed as much distance between me and Cora’s injuries as I could. I felt bad because I wanted to be out there with her to make sure she was okay, when in reality all I could focus on was the twisting hunger growing inside my gut.
What kind of monster feels this way about a family member? Cora gets hurt, and it only fuels my hunger. It was degrading and humiliating.
Melanie…
I bolted off the bed and looked around the dark room. I heard a voice, I was absolutely positive. Strange, though, was that it didn’t sound like it was someone outside the window or even in the room with me. It felt like it was in my head. No, not again.
Melanie…come to me.
My hands began to shake because I knew the voice. It wasn’t Molly, it wasn’t Veronica, it was him. He was in my head.
He found me, and He had found a way to link our minds together without me being able to do a damn thing about it. There wasn’t even a word to describe the terror I was feeling.
“What do you want?” My voice shook so badly.
Melanie…
“What do you want?!” I repeated, this time desperately.
He said my name once more, but with it came a sinister snicker. He had no intention of answering my questions, he just wanted to terrorize me.
I crawled back onto the bed and pulled my legs into my chest, resting my face on my knees. His voice faded in my mind, but I swore I could still hear it howling in the winter night wind. I pressed my hands to each side of my head to drown out the noise, all the while crying, “Leave me alone…”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DANA
Priscilla went pale in the face by the time I covered Cora’s arm up in bandages and gauze wrap. She wasn’t big on blood, I guess. Lucky for Cora, I was used to cleaning up wounds. I’d woken up in the middle of the forest after a full moon more times than I can count, nude and covered in scrapes and cuts from God only knows what. I had to keep medical supplies around for my own health.
Poor Cora. She leaned against the wall with her eyes squinted shut, trying not to cry out every time I found a piece of glass in her skin that I had to remove with my fingernails. I told her it was okay to cry. She told me we had to keep quiet.
I taped down the last bit of the gauze, and she looked up at me and smiled. “You’re really good at this,” she said.
“I didn’t use to be. It usually slid off my arm in an hour.”
“I don’t think this one will. It’s so tight I can barely bend my arm.”
“You want me to loosen it?”
“No, no, this is good. Tight means secure.”
I bit down on my bottom lip. “Good.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just sorry you got hurt.”
“That’s sweet, but that’s not what I was talking about. I never got to thank you for coming along and helping Max out. He said you volunteered and wouldn’t take no for an answer. You really didn’t have to do that, but you did anyway.”
I couldn’t believe she would think that way. “Cora, I owe my entire life to you. How could I not try to save yours?”
“I knocked you out and shoved you in a car in Rookridge. It’s not like I performed brain surgery on you in the middle of a warzone. Besides, even if you did owe me, you more than made up for it this past summer. Who knows what might have happened if you didn’t show up.”
“If only I got there sooner, maybe Melanie wouldn’t be going through this.”
Cora frowned. It was still a painful subject for her.
“She’ll be okay,” I assured her. “I can already tell she’s a strong person.”
“She has to be. The only other option is…” It was a
sentence she didn’t want to finish. “Did you happen to see where she went?”
“Just down the hall. You want me to check on her?”
“Could you? I don’t think she can stand to be around me right now,” she said regretfully, and then delicately touched her bandages with the tips of her fingers. It was like she was internally cursing out her wounds. “It was my blood, I…” She groaned and tilted her head back until it was touching the wall, and for a moment stared at the ceiling. “God, I should have known this would happen. I tried to order her a rare steak so there’d be blood at the bottom of the container, you know, hoping it would be enough. I guess I was stupid to think that would help keep her hunger in check.”
“It’s not exactly like there’s a handbook on what to feed your recently-returned-from-the-grave cousin,” Priscilla replied. She was being half-serious, but she was completely right.
“I guarantee you she’s not mad at you for bleeding,” I told Cora.
“That makes it worse,” she replied. “Because if she’s not mad at me, then she’s probably blaming herself. I hate that I stirred this up.”
“It’s gonna be alright.”
“Speaking of blood,” Priscilla began as she stood next to Tiffany’s lifeless corpse. It was still hard seeing her like that. “What do we do with her body?” she asked.
I looked back at Cora and waited for an answer, and Cora sympathetically glanced in my direction. “Cover her with a sheet for now,” she instructed. Priscilla immediately went down the hallway in search of one. I stood up, ready to follow, but then Cora touched my arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know she was your friend.”
My eyes began to burn, but I didn’t want to cry. “She’s in a better place now,” I replied.
I wasn’t sure how much of that I even believed, but anything had to be better than the state she was in a few minutes beforehand. That wasn’t the Tiffany I knew. That was something else entirely.
A minute later, I knocked on my bedroom door. It felt strange to be asking for an invite inside the place I used to sleep every night, but I had no idea how Melanie was holding up and if she even wanted company. When she didn’t reply to my knock, I slowly pushed the door open and found her sitting on my bed with her knees pulled to her chest. She was shaking. She was a total mess.
“Are you okay?” My voice was barely above a whisper, but it still startled her and caused her entire body to jump. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s…” Melanie let out a long sigh. “I’m on edge. It’s not your fault.”
I came closer to her and sat down at the end of the bed. Melanie looked away from me, and it was clear she was trying to shield me from seeing the blood all over her mouth. My friend’s blood.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“You shouldn’t see me like this,” she trembled. “It’s gross.”
“I’ve seen and been through worse.”
“I’ve never done something like this before. They wanted me to join them in hunting but I could never go through with it. I don’t know how to deal with taking someone’s life.”
I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She flinched as if it was the first touch she ever felt. “You don’t have to worry about any of us judging you. We’ve all had to go through this. Even Cora.”
Melanie peeked over her shoulder at me, and in the darkness, her eyes were like sparkling sapphires. “It shouldn’t be your job to comfort me. She meant something to you and I took that away.”
“No,” I responded honestly. “You can’t take away something I didn’t have. The person lying in the living room right now wasn’t my friend. I don’t know who that was. Tiffany died in Rookridge. I know that now.”
Her eyes were sad, but still Melanie forced out a weak smile. Maybe it was for my benefit and so I’d feel like I was actually making her feel better, I don’t know. Regardless, it was a beautiful, but tragic smile. All of hers were.
“I’m so sorry,” she softly said. “It seems like all the shitty things happen to the best people.”
I was flattered she saw me that way.
“You too,” I responded.
“I wouldn’t say I’m one of the good people. Ask anyone who knew me in high school.”
“What were you like?”
“I was a cheerleader who dated half the football team and got drunk every weekend behind my parent’s backs.” She laughed to herself and added, “Me and my friends used to throw popcorn at Cora when she was dressed as the team mascot. I was such a monster to her.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Yeah, I doubt you and I would have been friends. You sounded more like Molly’s crowd.”
“Oh god, you’re probably right.” She looked at me skeptically and said, “If that’s true, though, how did you end up friends with all of them?”
“Tiffany. She’s the reason I had any friends at all.”
For a moment I had Melanie in a lighter mood, but the moment I said that, all the happiness drained from her face and she was back to hating herself. I put my hand on top of hers. “Please, don’t be sad. It’s contagious.”
Her eyes were watery and shining. Oh, those magnificent eyes. “You’re not sad at all?”
I swallowed hard. “When sadness is your default emotion, you get really good at handling it. I’m like a sponge—sort of pitiful looking, but capable of carrying a lot.”
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“No, really, it’s not.”
I removed my hand from hers and said, “Hey, Cora is worried about you. You should go see her.”
Melanie’s head dropped. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t go anywhere near that room.”
“They’re covering Tiffany’s body. You won’t have to see her.”
“It’s not that, it’s…” She briefly closed her eyes. “It’s Cora’s blood. Even through the walls, I can smell it. I don’t know if I can handle being so close to it.”
“Oh.”
Melanie’s head hung low, and her blond locks dangled over her face when she looked up at me. “It’s so humiliating. She’s my family, one of the only people that gives a damn about me, and all I can think about is how good her blood smells and how much I want to taste it.”
“Tiffany’s blood didn’t quench your thirst?”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t live off of another vampire’s blood. Cora tried her best with the steak from the restaurant, but it just wasn’t enough. Oh, god, when she got hurt and was bleeding everywhere, I could feel my hunger amped up to eleven. What if I had hurt her?”
“You didn’t, and that’s what matters.”
“But what about next time?”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because you’re the strongest person I know.” Her demeanor and her eyes changed, and I knew compliments like that were a rarity for her. I inched my way in closer to her and said, “If you were to drink blood now, do you think you’d be able to handle Cora’s wounds?”
Unenthusiastically, she shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
I dug my hand underneath the mattress and felt around for a knife I had placed there for my own protection. It was a large butcher knife, and once I had it in my grasp, Melanie looked startled and a little worried about what I was going to do with it. I pressed it to the flesh of my arm, and as I cut I heard Melanie cry out, “No!” The blood rose to the surface of my skin and trickled out through the open wound and poured down my forearm. Melanie scooted back across the mattress like an animal feeling threatened, and I witnessed her eyes turn from blue to red. It should have scared me, made me fear for my life even, yet I trusted she wouldn’t hurt me. She had more self-control than she realized.
Her voice went low and shaky. “What are you doing?”
I presented my arm to her and said, “Drink.”
“
No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t turn me into a vampire, Melanie. You said it yourself that werewolves can’t be changed. Take advantage of that. Let me help you.” Melanie’s eyes were permanently fixed on my arm as she panted, whimpered, and licked her lips. She was fighting the urge to drink. “It’s okay,” I assured her.
She looked at me one more time to make sure everything would be all right, and then coiled her fingers around my arm and brought it to her lips. Her teeth sunk into my flesh, and it was like a dozen daggers stabbing me all at once. It hurt…a lot, but it was a pain I was willing to go through. For her.
My heart rate accelerated as blood pumped through my veins and dripped into her mouth. The sucking of her lips against my skin reminded me of a newborn being fed, only she was moaning and tightening her grip on me the entire time. The pain was intense at first, but my body adjusted over time and a numbness took over me. My muscles loosened up, my body relaxed, and my head felt light. Maybe it was from the loss of blood, or maybe it was a high of sorts. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt connected to her.
The biting stopped and she released her tight hold on me, slowly pulling her teeth out and peering up at me as she held my arm. Her mouth was stained with my blood, and the blueness of her eyes had returned. She was fed.
Before letting me go, Melanie noticed a trail of blood still on my arm and dragged her tongue across the surface slowly, her eyes on me the entire time. I could feel the warm, wet sensation of her tongue cleaning me up, and I closed my eyes to enjoy it.
There was electricity between us. It was palpable.
At first, I thought it was all in my head, until I saw the way she was looking up at me. Her thirst had been quenched, yet a hunger remained in her eyes.
I felt it too.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CORA
“Things I never thought I’d ever do?” Priscilla began as she threw a white sheet over Tiffany’s body. “That.”
Lunar Rebirth (Lunar Rampage Trilogy Book 3) Page 18