by Melinda Metz
Shay didn’t know how long she stayed there, waiting for the reaction to end. Whenever she tried to move, she retched again, so eventually, she gave up and closed her eyes. The world felt as if it were slowly spinning beneath her, but at least she didn’t have to watch the focus changing.
Urgency. The feeling prodded her back to reality.
Shay blinked, not sure how long she’d been lying on the bank of the stream. The sky was still dark, but the sounds had changed—fewer insects, she decided. And somewhere far off, a lone bird was cooing.
Slowly, she became aware of a pressure building inside of her. But it wasn’t a physical sensation. It was more like a pressure in her mind. Something heavy and irresistible.
Sleep, Shay thought. That’s what it is. I need to sleep.
But that didn’t make any sense. She’d been lying on the ground for who knew how long, and even though she wasn’t sure it could be called sleep, it had to at least count as rest. There was no reason to be tired now.
Still, the pressure mounted. Shay pulled herself up to a sitting position, trying not to squirm from the feeling of weight. And heat.
“The sun,” she gasped.
As soon as the thought occurred to her, she knew she was right. Sunrise was coming, and she felt it somehow, just as she’d felt it when the sun went down.
She was so tired. Not just sleepy, but bone tired. Exhausted. She didn’t even know a word for this kind of fatigue. Hunger was wrenching at her stomach, but Shay leaned back on her elbows, wanting only to sink onto the ground and go to sleep.
Panic.
Shay jumped to her feet, staring around the forest. The sudden feeling of terror had been so strong that her pulse now pounded wildly. But was it her panic? Or Gabriel’s? The waves of fear seemed too intense to come from herself alone.
Run. Hide. Find shelter.
Shay shook off her doubts. It didn’t matter whether it was the communion with Gabriel or her own instincts, she had to listen. The sun would come up soon, and she would die if it touched her.
Her first thought was to get back to the cave. But she’d run pretty far from the entrance, and when she retraced her steps back along the stream, she couldn’t see anything that looked familiar. Just trees and bushes and mountainside. Why didn’t I pay more attention when I came out of the cavern? she thought.
“Because I was busy being a freakin’ vampire for the first time,” she muttered. “And nearly killing myself with a muskrat.”
Shay stopped running and glanced around, forcing herself to think. She had to find somewhere dark. When she and Gabriel had been on the run, they’d stayed in hotels. As long as the door was closed and the curtains tightly shut, Gabriel had been okay during the day. So she didn’t have to find a cave. She just needed shelter, enough to block the light.
Can I run to a hotel? Or a ranger station or something? Shay wondered. She looked in every direction, using her incredible new vision . . . and she saw nothing. No shelter of any kind.
The panic was rising along with the pressure of the sun. She had to get inside, now.
Shay ran, searching for anything that could offer some protection. Hiding under a bush wouldn’t cut it. Could she dig a deep enough hole to hide in? But it wasn’t as if she could bury herself alive . . . or undead . . . or whatever she was. She still needed to breathe, didn’t she? Did she?
Get inside.
She spotted a tree up ahead, a tall, black twisted one that looked dead. Shay slowed down and stared at the trunk.
“Hollow,” she said, and made a beeline for it. The trunk had a hole at the base barely big enough for an animal to fit through, but Shay managed to squeeze herself inside somehow, saying a silent thanks for being so skinny from her long illness.
She was bent almost double, her knees up to her face and her arms squished against her chest. There was tall grass around the trunk, and the forest was dense here—but her hip was right up against the hole. Sunlight would touch her there, if it managed to find its way through the tree cover.
So tired. Shay felt heaviness infecting her limbs, pressing on her skull and her lungs, slowing her heart. With every ounce of willpower she had, she forced herself to untangle her right arm and reach outside the tree trunk. She grabbed hold of the first thing her fingers hit—a large branch that must’ve fallen from her dead tree.
The weight of the sun was too much to bear now. The pressure got more intense with every second. Shay could barely tell if she was awake or asleep, alive or dead.
This is the death sleep. This is how Gabriel’s family members were when the humans massacred them in Greece, she thought. She knew with bone-chilling certainty that if someone attacked her right now, there was no way she could defend herself. She couldn’t even move. She was completely vulnerable.
If I don’t move my hand back in, I’ll die, she thought. It should’ve been enough to fill her with adrenaline. But she lay still, her arm outside, hand clutching the branch.
A rush of fear and urgency hit her like a hurricane wind, and she knew it wasn’t her emotion. But she was so dead tired that she couldn’t even come up with Gabriel’s name. The urgency spurred her to move, and she jerked her arm back, dragging the branch over the opening of the tree trunk. She pulled her arm inside.
Maybe the branch would cover her from the day. Probably not.
I’ll turn to ash. I’ll never wake up, she thought.
But the death sleep draped over her like a dark black cloud. It was dawn. And she was helpless.
She slept.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
IT TOOK SHAY A FEW SECONDS to remember where she was and why her muscles were tight and cramping. She’d spent the day crunched up inside the base of a tree. She flexed her fingers and toes, tilted her head back and forth. That was about the extent of the motion she could make inside her fortress. “I didn’t turn to ash.” She said the words aloud just so she could really take in the fact that she’d survived her first day as a vampire.
Carefully, she wriggled back out of the hole in the tree trunk, then shoved herself to her feet. She pushed way too hard with her hands, so hard that she almost landed on the ground again. This vampire strength was tricky. Okay, first things first. That meant getting away from here. She couldn’t risk another sunrise out in the wild; she needed shelter.
She started to trot, her gait long, even, and steady. Effortless. Even with everything that had happened, there was a wild joy in that, which nothing could stop from bubbling up inside her. And this strength and this energy were hers. They weren’t borrowed by a drink of Gabriel’s blood.
She leaped over a bush and for a second imagined herself as a track star. Then a stomach cramp hit her, so strong that she had to wrap her arms around herself until it passed.
She was hungry. So hungry, it hurt. The animal blood had made her sick enough that it had blocked out her hunger, but now it was back, just as strong—stronger—than it had been when she’d left the caves.
What had she been thinking? All this strength and energy had a price—she had to feed to keep it. And soon. She needed to find more than just shelter tonight. She needed to find a place where there were humans. Givers. That’s what Gabriel and his family called the people they drank from. Maybe she should call them that too. Givers. It was a nice word. But not an accurate one. The humans weren’t giving anything. Something was being stolen from them.
I don’t have to kill, she reminded herself. But she would have to grab and bite. She’d have to terrify someone.
Shay began to move again, but almost instantly, another cramp ripped through her stomach. She had to bend over with her hands on her knees until it passed. Victim. Giver. Sacrifice. Blood cow. No matter what term she decided to use, she wouldn’t survive without feeding on one of them. She had to get out of the woods. She straightened up, tilted her head back, and sniffed.
There was a town close by, at least close enough to smell with her heightened vampire senses. She picked up car exh
aust, fast-food fumes, asphalt, rubber, plastic, and blood. Plenty of blood. That was enough to get her moving. Shay ran toward the smell, her mouth flooding with saliva and her fangs aching to be released.
Within ten minutes, she hit a narrow dirt road; well, more of a path. But it quickly widened and soon intersected a two-lane road, paved and everything. There were town scents coming from both directions. Shay went left, where the odors seemed a bit stronger. With her sharpened vision, she could see a string of traffic lights stretching out into the night, headlights and taillights, too, the closest maybe five miles away. She wasn’t good at judging distances yet.
It felt good to be heading toward civilization. She’d never exactly been a nature girl. It hadn’t been an option with her sickness.
A lime green Volkswagen pulled past her. All three people—and the dog—inside stared at her. Shay ran her tongue over her teeth, doing a fang check, even though her mouth hadn’t been hanging open. No fangs. So why were they gaping at her like that? A girl out jogging not so late at night. She was dressed in cords, not sweats, but really, there was no reason to stare.
I’m running too fast, she realized. Running freakishly fast. She took it down several notches, then several more. The next time a car went by, she got a glance, but no stares.
She reached the first traffic light and stopped. A gas station sat on one side of the street, and about a block down was a high school. She could hear laughter from the school, and the scents from that direction told her that there were a few kids hanging around, but she wasn’t going to go over there. It might be the best place to . . . to feed, but a school felt too close to the life she’d just left.
How was she supposed to choose who to take? Was she supposed to do it like Dexter—and just drink from bad people? Or was she supposed to treat the world as a buffet, grabbing whatever smelled like it would taste the best?
A hospital, she thought. She’d steal herself some blood the way she’d stolen blood for Gabriel. She began jogging again, scenting the air, searching for the familiar odors of antiseptic, bleach, industrial cleaner, pungent chemicals, all with an underlayer of urine, feces, blood, sweat, and illness.
There was definitely one somewhere, close enough that she could smell it. But she couldn’t be sure that it was even in this town. Other scents were stronger. And there were so many of them. She was getting an encyclopedia of information with every sniff.
The odor of warm blood grew stronger with every stride. It was overpowering, launching another stomach cramp that forced her to stop and focus on breathing, just breathing, until it passed. It felt as if claws were raking across her belly.
I’m not going to make it to the hospital. Not in time, anyway, Shay thought. She would definitely start stocking up at every hospital she found, but right now she had to drink. She was afraid if she didn’t, she might pass out on the side of the road.
At the next light there was a strip mall—Pizza Hut, liquor store, Subway, insurance company, six cars in the lot. She’d do it there. It was too risky to keep going when her body was demanding fuel.
It’ll be okay, she thought. I won’t hurt . . . whoever. Other than biting them with my razor-sharp fangs. She felt repulsed and excited at the same time. Her human brain recoiled, but her vampire body craved the blood. I’ll just take enough to make it to that hospital, she promised herself.
Shay slowed to a walk and veered into the parking lot. She paused for a moment and ran her fingers through her hair to check for leaves. She knew she didn’t look threatening. She was just a tiny girl on the outside. But she wanted to look more than safe. She wanted to look normal. Nice and normal. She smoothed down her shirt and put a smile on her face.
Okay, here I am. A nice, normal girl on my way to Pizza Hut. Kinda hungry.
“Hey, girl. Looking for someone to buy you beer?”
Shay turned toward the voice. A twenty-something guy sat in the front of a pickup parked on the other side of the lot. She’d smelled him, but she’d thought he was inside one of the stores. Sooner or later, she would learn how to gauge things like that.
“Come on over here,” he called. “I can hook you up.”
This is fate, or luck, or something, Shay thought. She strolled over to the truck, and the guy rolled his window all the way down. “You’re looking for someone legal, am I right?”
Shay could smell that he’d already had several beers of his own. “You got me,” she said, holding up both hands in mock surrender.
“I just bought a six-pack, and I’m happy to share. Come on and sit with me,” the guy said.
He was making this too easy. Shay circled around the truck and got into the passenger side. It was perfect. The parking lot was dimly lit, and no one would be peering into the truck anyway. As long as there was no screaming.
What now? she wondered. Just grab him and bite? But how do I keep him from yelling?
She needed to cover his mouth. But she needed to do it gently. She didn’t want to end up breaking his neck or anything. All she wanted was a little blood, only enough to make sure she could get to the hospital without collapsing.
“What’s your name?” the guy asked. He popped the top of a can of Bud and handed it to her.
“Veronica,” she said. She didn’t know why she was bothering with an alias. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to believe drunk dude here if he started talking about some chick sucking his blood. But she’d always liked that name. And maybe it would make this easier. I’m not me. I’m Veronica the Vampire. Feeding.
She pretended to take a sip of the beer. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she actually drank it and she didn’t want to have some horrible reaction in front of him.
“I’m Billy,” he told her.
She wished he hadn’t. A name made things personal. She wanted him to stay “drunk dude.” It would also help if he was being more obnoxious.
But she wasn’t going to stop. The scent of his blood was overwhelming. Her world narrowed down to that one scent. It was everything she wanted. Nothing else mattered. Shay’s fangs erupted.
Fast as she had gone after that muskrat back in the woods, Shay jerked toward him, pressed her hand over his mouth—careful, careful, careful—and drove her fangs into his throat. His blood warmed her own throat as she began to feed. In one of her visions she’d been with Gabriel the first time he fed. The sensations had felt so strong that she wouldn’t have believed she was receiving them in muted form.
But this was mind-bending. It was like drinking music, so many flavors. And so many emotions—everything her Giver had ever felt was rushing through her, so fast that she didn’t have time to individually identify each one. It wasn’t like the blood ritual, when the emotions coming from Gabriel were so specific. It was more like sensory overload.
Maybe that’s how the communion is formed, she thought. A vampire’s blood gives you access to their emotions slowly. A Giver’s blood gives you everything at once.
And everything at once was incredible. Shay moaned with pleasure.
The guy twisted his body slightly, trying to escape her hand, her teeth. A part of Shay wanted to pull away for a moment and whisper that she wouldn’t take much more. But pulling away was impossible. It would be like pulling her veins out of her body.
How did vampires not want to feed all the time? What in life could be more potent, more real, more sweet and satisfying?
Shay let herself sink even deeper into the sensation. Her whole body felt as if it were vibrating, as fast as hummingbird wings. No, that’s his heart, Shay thought. Her Giver’s heart was trembling instead of beating, and she felt it through every inch of herself. It was awesome. Truly awesome in the way that the word should be used.
Still, a part of her was repulsed. Maybe part of her always would be. She hadn’t been raised by vampires the way Gabriel and his family had. Maybe that made a difference. At least the pleasure was so intense. Shay could just bury herself in it and leave that little piece of human emotion behind.
The vibrations in the Giver’s heart ceased. And the feeling of revulsion grew stronger. Not just revulsion. Horror, too. And terror.
With a hard thunk, the Giver’s heart began to beat again. But erratically, in fluttering stops and starts.
He’s dying!
The thought was so shocking that Shay jerked her teeth out of the Giver’s neck. She released the hand she’d been holding over his mouth, and he slumped forward against the steering wheel.
She shivered, coldness rushing through her where there had been warmth. Had she killed him? She realized that the horror and revulsion and fear hadn’t been coming from the remains of her humanity. Those had been Gabriel’s feelings. He’d been trying to stop her.
Had he been in time to keep her from becoming a murderer? Shay reached out to put her fingers on the side of the guy’s neck, but it was smeared with blood, and even though she’d been drinking it moments before, she didn’t want to touch it. Instead, she pressed her fingers to his wrist. He had a pulse, but it was so faint. What was his name? He’d told her his name—what was it?
“Billy!” Shay exclaimed. “Billy, can you hear me?”
He gave a low moan in reply. Shay had to get out of there. She couldn’t be found with him. There’d be way too many questions. “I’m getting you help. I promise, Billy.” She jumped out of the truck and ran for the liquor store. She stopped for a moment outside to wipe the blood off her mouth, then went in.
“There’s a guy passed out in his truck over there.” She gestured toward the parking lot. “I don’t know if he drank too much or what, but I think he needs an ambulance.”
“Crap!” the man behind the counter exclaimed, then he grabbed the phone and began to dial.
Shay ducked out of the store and started to run. It’s okay. He’s alive. I stopped in time, she told herself. But without Gabriel, she wouldn’t have. She would have sucked her Giver—Billy—dry.
I never wanted to see this place again, Gabriel thought as he sat down in the living room of the Indiana farmhouse that was the family’s closest safe house. It was the only place they’d been able to reach in one night. They’d left Tennessee only two hours after sunset, but it had still been a race to get here before the sun. They’d all run straight to their old rooms, barely making it before their death sleep. Gabriel had woken tonight with a sinking feeling in his gut. He hated this house. And he hated to think about the mess they’d left behind—sensitive scientific equipment ruined by the sprinklers, their reputations as scientists permanently destroyed by their sudden disappearance. They would all need new identities now.