“But isn’t that a good thing? You know, rehabilitation and all?”
“They aren’t rehabilitated. They’re lobotomized. Or at least, neutered.”
“Well, you certainly haven’t been neutered. Or lobotomized.”
“Yeah, I seem to be the exception.” I shrugged. “And the only other thing I’m the exception to is humanity.”
“You think you’re immune to whatever’s wrong with them because you’re a mara?”
I shrugged again. “I’m kinda thinkin’ out loud here. But yeah.”
“Okay, but what if you’re wrong? What if whatever’s wrong here is only affecting you? Throwing off your empathy?”
“I guess that’s possible.” Especially once I thought about it. “They don’t seem very scared of me. At least, not today...”
“We need a test. Try it on me. Read my fears.”
“Nash, that’s not a good idea.” We’d been down that road; it ended on the edge of a very steep cliff, and I wasn’t sure either of us would survive the fall.
“Just try it. I can take it. You know that.”
Yeah, I knew. That was one of the reasons Nash and I were perfect for each other. I could read his fears—could even feed from them, if I absolutely had to—but because he wasn’t human, he could stop me whenever he wanted. I literally couldn’t hurt him, which was all I could ever have asked for in a boyfriend. Not that the title could even come close to defining what Nash meant to me.
And while he could certainly use his Influence on me, because I wasn’t human, I could feel what he was doing. With a little practice—at his suggestion—I’d learned to break his hold on my willpower. Which meant he couldn’t hurt me, either.
We were both weird and scary—when I was being truly honest with myself, I had to admit we were monsters, both manipulating people for our own benefit. But we were a matched set of monsters. We balanced each other. Kept each other in check.
Nash and I were made for each other, and we damn well knew it.
“Okay, are you ready?”
He nodded, and his eyes took on this weird look they sometimes got—like the colors in them weren’t quite steady—and he grinned. “Yeah, but make it fun, Bina.”
I returned his grin with a sultry one of my own. “Fun” was the least I could do.
As one of several kinds of empaths, I can typically read people’s general emotional state at a glance, no matter what they’re trying to hide. But it usually takes some small amount of physical contact for me to accurately read someone’s fears—to get the nitty gritty details. With everyone else, that contact had to be subtle and small to keep from completely freaking people out.
With Nash, I got to be truly hands-on.
I climbed onto the chair with him again and kissed him, long and deep. His mouth opened against mine, and my tongue met his. Dimly, I felt his hands on my hips, anchoring me on his lap, but then all that faded into the background in a single instant.
I saw his deepest fear in that moment, and it looked like...me.
Huh? Nash was afraid of me? That was new. And...weird.
In his mind—or maybe somewhere deeper and darker, wherever fear truly lives—I lay on his bed, in his room, in only my Cowboys tee and underwear. I remembered that night. That was the night we first...
But why would he be scared of that?
As I watched, he lay on the bed next to me wearing nothing but jeans. I remembered that, too. He was so warm, and he’d smelled so good.
But this was Nash’s fear-memory, not mine, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when what I remembered didn’t happen next. Instead of kissing me, and touching me, and looking at me like the world suddenly existed only in my eyes, this fear-Nash climbed on top of me and started pushing my underwear down.
The fear-me tried to stop him, but then he leaned down and whispered something in my ear, and my hand fell limp at my side. Then he did what he wanted, while I stared at the ceiling over his shoulder.
And that’s when I understood. He wasn’t scared of me. He was scared of himself. Nash was terrified that I’d only slept with him—given him my virginity—because he’d Influenced me into submission.
No!
I pulled away from Nash and stared at him, my lips still warm from his. “No. Nash, that’s not how it happened.”
His brow furrowed. “What did you see?”
“Us. That night. The first time.” I swallowed, then met his gaze so he could see the truth in mine. “You’re afraid that you made me.”
He closed his eyes and his head fell against the back of the chair. “Or that I will make you.”
“But you didn’t. You never have, and you never will.”
He lifted his head, and now his gaze was searching. Worried. “How do you know? I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m pretty new at this, Sabine.”
“Yeah, me, too.” We’d been each other’s first.
“No, not at sex.” Nash shook his head and started over. “Well, that, too, but that’s not what I meant. Male bean sidhes are born with a little bit of Influence, but we don’t really come into our full potential until puberty.” His face flushed, but his jawline was firm—he was determined to spit out whatever he had to say. “Anyway, I’m not very good at controlling it yet. Tod says that’s normal, and I’ll gain a lot of control in the next couple of years, but right now I still...accidentally... Sometimes I make people do things without meaning to. And I don’t want that to ever happen with you.”
I kissed him again, because I couldn’t think of a better rebuttal. And when I pulled away, he looked a little calmer. “Nash, you didn’t Influence me into it that night, or any other time. I don’t think you could, even if you wanted to. I’m not exactly a pushover. Not neutered, remember?” I smiled, and was relieved to see him grin in return. “I wanted to, just like you wanted to, and I want to do it again. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure they frown on incest in here.”
Nash laughed out loud, and I kissed him one more time before climbing out of his lap. “Well, I guess you’re not the problem,” he said, as I settled onto the edge of the bed again.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” I’d almost forgotten the point of our little experiment. The lack of nutritious fears at Holser. “So, if it’s not me, it’s them, right? Or something that’s happening to them.”
“What could be happening to them?”
“I don’t know, but the last time I felt that kind of mindless acceptance of something was when you Influenced the ticket guy into letting us watch the Texas Chainsaw marathon at the Cineplex. He felt like these girls felt. Like he was at peace with a decision he hadn’t even made for himself.”
“You’re saying someone’s Influencing the Holser girls?”
“No...” I frowned again. “There aren’t any men on the staff—much less bean sidhe men—and anyway, I’m pretty sure I’d know if that were happening. Besides, Influence wears off almost as soon as you stop talking, so it couldn’t be any of the dads visiting today, because none of them were outside with the girls I tasted. This is something else. It just feels similar to Influence.”
“Sabine, whatever it is, it’ll probably wear off. It wasn’t like this the day you got here, right?”
“Right.” BethAnne had felt anything but calm and accepting.
Nash nodded. “And you can’t swear it was like this yesterday. Chances are everything will be fine tomorrow, and you’ll gorge yourself on some poor girl’s agoraphobia.”
After BethAnne’s nightmare, such a simple fear would be a relief. “And if you’re wrong?”
Nash sighed. “I’m not going to talk you out of digging into this, am I?”
“Why would you try? A girl’s gotta eat.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Sabine, you’re supposed to be lying low. It works the same way in here as it does out there.” He gestured toward my window, to indicate the ou
tside world. “Your best chance of survival is to go completely unnoticed by humans.”
I barely resisted rolling my eyes. “More of your mom’s advice?”
“She’s eighty years old, Sabine.” Though she looked less than thirty. “She knows what she’s talking about.”
“Not this time.” I shook my head firmly and pushed his hands away when he tried to pull me closer. “My best chance of survival is not to starve to death.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’d refuse to leave this alone even if you weren’t hungry?”
I shrugged. “At least it’ll pass the time.”
“You have to learn to let things go, Sabine.” He took a deep breath and met my gaze, then spat out what was really bothering him—the reason for the frustration I could taste in the air around him. “You should have told me about Tucker. I would have handled it.”
“That was months ago. And I don’t need you to handle things for me.” Besides, knowing what I now knew about Nash’s tenuous control, I couldn’t help thinking that if he’d handled it, Tucker would have gotten a sudden, irresistible urge to walk into rush-hour traffic. “I just need you to be here.”
“I know.” He sighed again, then leaned forward and pulled something out of his back pocket. “This is for when you need me and I can’t be here.” He handed me a small, slim flip phone. The pay-as-you-go, over-the-counter variety. “They’ll take it away if they see it, so leave it on silent and be careful. But call me if you need to talk.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I kissed him, and when I finally pulled away, he stood. “Does this mean you have to go?”
“I need to get home before my mom gets back. Walk me out?”
I nodded reluctantly, and we walked down the hall and out the front door with a respectable space between us, like any normal brother and sister would, even though I ached to be so close to him, yet not touching.
In the parking lot, I gave him a hug, holding him tighter and longer than I probably should have. “Come see me next weekend?”
His eyes looked weird again when he met my gaze, like the colors wanted to shift. “Nothing in this world could stop me, Sabine.”
* * *
On my way back into the building, I was still thinking about Nash and wasn’t watching where I was going, and as I rounded the corner onto the front porch, I collided with Becky—one of the day shift techs—coming up the steps from the other side. She stumbled and dropped a grease-stained fast food bag on the step.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, bending to pick it up. The bag smelled like French fries, and my stomach rumbled. But when I handed it to the tech, her hand brushed mine, and I froze beneath the onslaught of images.
Becky, on the floor of a dirty public restroom, vomiting thick streams of greasy, half-digested food. Over and over.
Becky, lying in a hospital bed, her flesh so bloated and distended that it hung over the sides. Her face swallowed by fat cheeks and voluminous chins. In the hall, the nurses laughed and joked about Becky the Blimp, just like the kids had in junior high.
On the steps of Holser House, Becky pulled the bag from my grip and frowned at me like I’d tried to steal her food—which was exactly what she was afraid of.
I stared after her as she stomped through the front door and took off toward the staff break room, but I’d already half forgotten her fear. All I could think about as I wandered into the building was that whatever was happening to the Holser girls wasn’t happening to the staff.
* * *
By Saturday night, that dark hunger was gnawing at me from the inside again, demanding that I feed. And I tried. Fighting chills from the cold, hollow ache inside me, I Sleepwalked into sixteen of the nineteen other residents’ rooms, starving for a taste of fear. I would even have taken a generic naked-in-the classroom nightmare, but I found nothing. Not one of the natural sleepers—the last three were medicated—gave up even a trickle of discomfort.
Something was definitely wrong, and that wrongness didn’t end with the deep-seated contentment of twenty different traumatized juvenile delinquents. I was too hungry. I was impossibly hungry, considering that I’d only missed two meals, when I should have been able to go more than a week without psychic sustenance before my starving psyche began to devour itself.
I wouldn’t make it much longer without feeding. Not with my hunger accelerating for no reason I could find. And since Holser was the only residential building within a half-mile radius, that night, I could only lie in bed and shiver in spite of the warm Texas night until it was light enough to get up.
Sunday morning, I devoured two helpings of everything at breakfast, hoping that the extra food would help keep me running until I found a way to fulfill my other, darker appetite. Unfortunately, Greer noticed me shivering while I shoveled food down my throat, and when I dumped my trash and set my dirty tray on the stack, she called me into the kitchen.
“Are you feeling okay? You look pale.” She tried to feel my forehead, but I jerked away as soon as her fingers touched my skin. They were scalding, and her touch brought with it only a glimpse of curiosity and a dark smudge of concern. “Sabine, you’re freezing! You need to go to the doctor. I’ll tell Ms. Gom—”
I shook my head without meeting her gaze. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” she insisted. “But you don’t have a fever, and your appetite seems healthy.” She hesitated, glancing around the kitchen, then finally turned to pour a mug of coffee from the half-full pot behind her. “Normally, I wouldn’t give coffee to a fifteen-year-old, but this might help warm you up. There’s cream and sugar on the counter.”
I poured both until the coffee looked like melted ice cream, but it still tasted bitter. However, by my second mug, the chills had stopped, at least for the moment.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Greer asked, when I finally pushed the empty mug away. “Are you on something?”
More like off something. But I only shook my head.
“Why don’t you go lie down,” she suggested. “And if you’re not feeling better by tomorrow, you really need to tell Ms. Gomez, so she can get you in to see a doctor.”
But if I wasn’t feeling better by tomorrow, there would be nothing Gomez’s doctor could do for me, short of putting me out of my misery.
* * *
That night, the cold was so bad I could hardly think, the shakes so strong I felt like I was convulsing. How could the hunger have gotten so much worse, so fast?
It couldn’t have. Not naturally. So I got out my cell phone and autodialed. He answered on the third ring.
“Hello? Sabine?” Nash said into my ear, over the phone. His voice sounded warm and groggy from sleep, and I wanted to roll in it. Wrap it around me so I could share his heat and vitality.
“Yeah, it’s me.” My teeth chattered, even though I’d pulled the covers up over my shoulder, and I couldn’t make them stop. “It doesn’t make sense. Everyone’s scared of something.”
“Huh?” He cleared his throat. “Oh. Still no fear?”
“Uh-uh. There should be plenty to eat here, but there’s nothing, and I’m cold, and it hurts.”
“But this is only the third night, right?” He sounded more alert, and springs creaked as he got out of bed. “You’ve gone longer than that before, haven’t you?”
“I’ve gone a week, several times. But I can’t now. Something’s wrong with this place. I’m starving, but there’s no fear here. Not even what I took from BethAnne. It’s nearly gone and I’m almost empty, like it was never there. I’m cold, Nash, and I’m scared.” The irony of that bitter truth was even more terrifying.
“Okay, let me think,” he said, and I recognized the soft click of his desk lamp.
But I couldn’t think. I didn’t have the energy, and I wouldn’t until I’d fed. “I have to get out of here. Can you come get me?”
“If you leave, you’ll get arrested again.”
“If I stay, I’ll die.” I knew it, even if I couldn’t expl
ain it. I was getting colder by the minute, like a corpse cooling on the undertaker’s table. Something was draining what little energy I had left from BethAnne’s nightmare. Was this what she felt like when I fed from her? Was she cold, and empty, and lonely?
“Sabine, you’re not going to die. Just give me a minute to think.”
“I have to find something to eat. If you can’t come get me, I’ll go by myself and meet you somewhere in the morning.” I couldn’t stay at Holser, and I couldn’t go back once I’d left, if it was only going to happen again. If something was going to drain away the energy I’d stolen fair and square.
“You can’t walk around in the middle of the night by yourself. Especially if you’re sick.”
“Nash, I’m the only thing out there to be scared of.”
“Tell that to the bus that runs you over, or the drive-by bullet that doesn’t bother to look deep into your scary eyes. I’m getting dressed right now. Promise you’ll wait for me.”
“I swear. Hurry.” I flipped the phone closed and pushed the covers back, mildly surprised that the chattering didn’t get worse. Until I realized that the cold was coming from inside me—the covers made no difference, either way.
I’d slept in my clothes, hoping to preserve warmth, so all I had left to do was pull my hair into a ponytail and step into my shoes. And wait. It only took five minutes of shivering and staring at my bedroom door for me to decide I’d rather wait outside.
I snuck out of my room and closed the door softly, then started down the hall with my arms crossed tightly over my chest, grateful that my sneakers didn’t squeak on the floor. The night-shift tech was out cold, sitting up in the common room, lit by the game show she’d fallen asleep watching.
This is too easy, I thought. And I was right. I was halfway across the main room when a door creaked open behind me, and I froze.
“Sabine?”
I turned slowly, still shaking from the cold, to find Kate Greer, the cook, staring at me, one hand still on the cafeteria door, which she’d just locked. At two in the morning.