of it.
You wanted to. You know you did
. I blinked furiously, the water in my eyes was making everything blur.
Ash let out a yelp. I jerked the wheel, and we drifted out of the oncoming lane. There wasn’t another car on the road for miles, and my entire body was shaking with the hunger’s aftermath. Like little armored rabbits were running around under my skin. My veins throbbed dryly, and my eyes were smarting. A hot trickle slid down my left cheek.
I wished I could stop to roll all the windows up. Ash twitched. He had his arms wrapped around himself, and the next glare of lightning made him flinch again.
“It’s all right.” I had to work to make myself heard above the rain-noise. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
Except it kind of is. What the hell, stealing a two-bit piece of candy?
But I couldn’t be too mad at him. He wasn’t even in his right mind. And I’ve dealt with guys like Piggy Eyes Lyle all over the country. It was a point of pride with me, knowing just how to slide out of Situations. Except I hadn’t slid out of this one. I’d acted just like a punk kid, and—
But I
am
a punk kid
, something inside me whined.
I never asked for this!
I kept checking the rearview mirror. No headlights, no sign of pursuit. If they had cameras at the supermarket we were probably hosed. We’d have to run anyway, ditch this car in the first city and grab another one. I’d done the planning, especially to get us liquid resources. But all that wood I’d chopped was going to be useless.
Don’t worry about the firewood, for fuck’s sake. Worry about something useful
.
Like, how was I going to explain this to Graves? That was going to be all sorts of fun in a handbasket. I heaved in a breath, two, and more hot trickles slid out of my eyes.
Cold rain smacking my face through my still-open window did a sucky-ass job of covering up the fact that I was sobbing. Great gulping heaves, tearing through me like a crowd of hobnailed boots against a street, beating out cadence.
Did I kill him?
Lyle’s head had been twisted so strangely. But I’d heard his pulse, faint and thready. Maybe he’d be okay. Someone would come out any moment and find him and the cop there, the sheriff’s car busted up and the shotgun gone. At least we had another gun, and a shotgun was far from the worst thing to have out in the hills or on the run.
I hope I didn’t kill him
. It wasn’t like my first vampire kill. I’d felt sick over that, but in the end it was like cutting off the head of a poisonous snake with a shovel. It just had to be done, and thank God I wasn’t the snake.
Or was I?
Lyle had just been a garden-variety human jerkwad, not a bloodsucking fiend looking to kill me as messily as possible. Lyle didn’t even know
nosferat
existed, or
djamphir
or
svetocha
or werwulfen—
Ash whined again. He reached out, tentatively, and his pale slim fingers brushed my shoulder. He patted, again and again, like I was a dog that needed soothing. My shaking sobs were oddly unconnected, like my body didn’t even belong to me. The
aspect
was hot oil over my skin, smoothing down and getting rid of any hurt, filling me with a buzzing. My fangs poked at my lower lip, and the twin sharp pressures sent a fresh bolt of nausea through my growling stomach.
I was
hungry
. Not just hungry, ravenous. And thirsty, too. The bloodhunger taunted me, the entire inside of my throat on fire. Waterwouldn’t help it. The only thing that would help was calming down and forcing myself to eat something human.
That’s the problem, Dru. You ain’t human anymore. You’re one of those things Dad would’ve hunted. You suck blood
.
Human
blood
.
No wonder Graves is so disgusted all the time. Even if he says he ain’t
.
That was the wrong thought. I let out another sob. I couldn’t seem to stop. It got darker, and thunder rumbled again. I realized we were coming up on our turn and hit the brakes hard. We slewed through standing water, bumped onto
You wanted to. You know you did
. I blinked furiously, the water in my eyes was making everything blur.
Ash let out a yelp. I jerked the wheel, and we drifted out of the oncoming lane. There wasn’t another car on the road for miles, and my entire body was shaking with the hunger’s aftermath. Like little armored rabbits were running around under my skin. My veins throbbed dryly, and my eyes were smarting. A hot trickle slid down my left cheek.
I wished I could stop to roll all the windows up. Ash twitched. He had his arms wrapped around himself, and the next glare of lightning made him flinch again.
“It’s all right.” I had to work to make myself heard above the rain-noise. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
Except it kind of is. What the hell, stealing a two-bit piece of candy?
But I couldn’t be too mad at him. He wasn’t even in his right mind. And I’ve dealt with guys like Piggy Eyes Lyle all over the country. It was a point of pride with me, knowing just how to slide out of Situations. Except I hadn’t slid out of this one. I’d acted just like a punk kid, and—
But I
am
a punk kid
, something inside me whined.
I never asked for this!
I kept checking the rearview mirror. No headlights, no sign of pursuit. If they had cameras at the supermarket we were probably hosed. We’d have to run anyway, ditch this car in the first city and grab another one. I’d done the planning, especially to get us liquid resources. But all that wood I’d chopped was going to be useless.
Don’t worry about the firewood, for fuck’s sake. Worry about something useful
.
Like, how was I going to explain this to Graves? That was going to be all sorts of fun in a handbasket. I heaved in a breath, two, and more hot trickles slid out of my eyes.
Cold rain smacking my face through my still-open window did a sucky-ass job of covering up the fact that I was sobbing. Great gulping heaves, tearing through me like a crowd of hobnailed boots against a street, beating out cadence.
Did I kill him?
Lyle’s head had been twisted so strangely. But I’d heard his pulse, faint and thready. Maybe he’d be okay. Someone would come out any moment and find him and the cop there, the sheriff’s car busted up and the shotgun gone. At least we had another gun, and a shotgun was far from the worst thing to have out in the hills or on the run.
I hope I didn’t kill him
. It wasn’t like my first vampire kill. I’d felt sick over that, but in the end it was like cutting off the head of a poisonous snake with a shovel. It just had to be done, and thank God I wasn’t the snake.
Or was I?
Lyle had just been a garden-variety human jerkwad, not a bloodsucking fiend looking to kill me as messily as possible. Lyle didn’t even know
nosferat
existed, or
djamphir
or
svetocha
or werwulfen—
Ash whined again. He reached out, tentatively, and his pale slim fingers brushed my shoulder. He patted, again and again, like I was a dog that needed soothing. My shaking sobs were oddly unconnected, like my body didn’t even belong to me. The
aspect
was hot oil over my skin, smoothing down and getting rid of any hurt, filling me with a buzzing. My fangs poked at my lower lip, and the twin sharp pressures sent a fresh bolt of nausea through my growling stomach.
I was
hungry
. Not just hungry, ravenous. And thirsty, too. The bloodhunger taunted me, the entire inside of my throat on fire. Waterwouldn’t help it. The only thing that would help was calming down and forcing myself to eat something human.
That’s the problem, Dru. You ain’t human anymore. You’re one of those things Dad would’ve hunted. You suck blood
.
Human
blood
.
No wonder Graves is so disgusted all the time. Even if he says he ain’t
.
That was the wrong thought. I let out another sob. I couldn’t seem to stop. It got darker, and thunder rumbled again. I realized we were coming up on our turn and hit the brakes hard. We slewed through standing water, bumped onto
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