The Night House (5 page)

“Thank you,” he whispers.

His words are all I can think of as I start to dream.

***

Sunlight pours onto my face, and a tired Micah nudges me.

“Can I have my bed back?”

I push myself up to my elbows, and he helps me the rest of the way as I try to remember my dreams. There are fragments and images teasing me, but I can’t recall a complete scene.

Unfortunately, Micah gets a glimpse of my wrist when I rub my eyes.

“What was that?”

“A client.”

Micah frowns. “Let me give you something.” He means his blood. He is one of a few vampires, like Finn, whose blood is beneficial to humans. It’s a quality that more and more vampires are starting to have; at least, that’s Finn’s theory.

I stop Micah. “Don’t. It would kind of ruin what I did last night.”

“You only need a little,” he starts.

I wrap my hands around both his wrists. “You don’t get to be the victim and the hero. Not in the same day, anyway.”

“Way to cheer me up, doc.” He gives me a wry smile. “At least let me wrap it.”

Before I can say anything, he disappears and reappears with some gauze. We sit side by side, and he carefully covers my torn up wrist.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.” I try not to wince as he tightens the wrap. “It’s nice to see you.”

He tapes the gauze into place. “Always good to see my Bumble Bee.” Then he ruffles my hair. “I just wish she’d take better care of herself.”

All I can do is smile. Sometimes it’s nice to know someone is concerned for me—even if I can’t do anything about it.

I stand up. “Go to sleep, Superman. And don’t be giving away your blood to any poor girl who asks.”

He nods. “Yes ma’am.” Then he draws me into a quick hug before kicking me out.

***

Micah has never hurt me, even when he was at the Night House. Because he
is
my friend.

In the vamp world, how you get blood determines your status. If you’re rich and working outside the human radar, you dine at a Night House. If you’re desperate and smart enough, you take people off the street and hope your nauth will make them forget your face. If you’re truly on the outs, or if you’re trying to blend with humans, you drink animal blood. Reliable sources tell me it’s like the fast food of blood. Cheap and easy, but usually tastes awful in comparison to the real thing.

I am a status marker for vampires. Dining at the Night House makes one vamp higher up than another. And yet, my precious blood can’t save the one vamp who deserves it.

Halfway to the Night House, I crash.

I’m on autopilot. I automatically find a bench and fold right onto it, using my bag as a pillow. Air flows in and out of my lungs, but I barely feel it. Blackness inches around the corners of my vision. My veins are running on empty. Finn’s going to kill me. Then it’s dark.

James

When I wake up, my whole body aches, as if I’d wrestled someone twice my size last night.

I know everything I felt last night wasn’t real, and I certainly didn’t do anything that would cause this lingering pain. With strangers, it’s always been the same: I get glimpses into their feelings, and then everything fades away once there is enough distance between us. Nothing sticks.

The only people that have left me with lasting pain like this are Ally, Shiloh and my adopted parents because I’ve known them for years, and I have an emotional connection with them. That emotional connection is what allows me to feel them from miles away at any given moment. One of them could be in pain. They might need my help.

But I realize that what I’m feeling is not from either of them. This is different. It’s that girl from last night. She did this to me, and I don’t know how. With one glance, she somehow got me to bridge the emotional connection that usually takes months to form. I know nothing about her, and yet I feel her the same way that I feel Ally or Shiloh. This girl is stuck in my head.

I can feel the marks.

I get out of bed with some effort and stand on shaky legs. I can feel every facet of this girl’s emotional life. There’s an intense sadness, almost like grief. She’s angry, too, but that’s an old emotion. She wouldn’t be herself without being angry.

I feel violated by this girl. She shouldn’t be here. I want her gone.

Then I think of the kiss. How she wanted to help me. The strange innocence of her, in complete discord with the pain she was feeling.

My eyes shift over to the wall between Ally’s room and mine. She’d want me to tell her, but will she understand?

I can’t answer that question, so I reach for my phone. I manage to type out a message to Shiloh:
Need to talk
.

Seconds later, I get a message that he couldn’t have possibly typed in such a short time:
It’s not bad if you use your talent to get girls.

This is a depressingly frequent conversation we have. He argues that I should be doing more with my so-called talent to connect with women. The difference between Shiloh and Ally is that Shiloh’s never actually serious about it.

I type back:
Haha, screw you. I’m serious
.

He responds:
I know. When are you not? My mom is home, is that a problem?

I want to scream. Shiloh’s mom is a nurse. If she sees me like this, she’ll flip. She’ll tell my parents. Everyone will know I’ve had a panic attack. That’s the last thing I need.

Star Garden Park?

Figured,
he texts back.
See you there when I get off work.

It’s torture until then. My body seems to be ringing with the residual pain from my encounter. This is what I get for trying to act like a normal teenager.

Again, I try to replace this pain with Ally’s feelings. She’s playing bass; I can tell that much. With my head in my hands, I try to shut out the pain in my wrist and my neck. I’ve never
wanted
to connect with someone before, but I really need Ally. For a fleeting moment, Ally’s aches and pains begin to layer over the other girl’s. I feel
both
of them. Then it’s gone, and I’m back in the other girl’s body.

The presence of these fresh scars all over me dredges up memories like bile rising up in my throat. It was not so long ago when scars were a regular part of my life.

I get a book off my shelf and try to lose myself in someone else’s world. It doesn’t work for long. I give my clay a try, at first mashing it into my palms, and then trying to make something with more detail. My legs shake as I use my thumbnail to carve out a face in my chunk of clay. But the shaking gets so bad that I mess it up and slash right through it.

My parents are actually less worried about me today than usual. I went out last night, like a normal kid should. I’ve bought myself some time. This has been the nature of my relationship with any adult for as long as I can remember. If I stay inside for too long, they start thinking it’s abnormal, so I go out for one or two days and then they think I’m normal for another month.

Ally is on the verge of freaking out. I can feel it like an electrical storm brewing in the next room. So I go see her before I meet Shiloh.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” She hides behind her bass. “Are you okay?”

I shrug. “Let’s just say I’ve never felt that kind of feeling.”

“The feeling of being high? Yeah, I know. You’re a loser. That’s why I’m worried. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I shrug.

She frowns. “Are you mad at me?”

“Come on, you know I can’t get mad at you.”

She smiles at me, and I do my best to return it.

***

I set out toward Star Garden Park on Lombard Street, and the breeze goes right through me. I’ve reclaimed most of my body from the pain, but I’m still feeling weak and way too thin.

I make a detour to South Street and buy some food. Sitting against the fence of the park, I’m sure people think I’m a homeless person who’s hit the jackpot in tips. Shiloh texts that he’s on his way, and I watch the street for him. I start to fold in on myself. There are a couple families running around on the green, and their emotions reach out to me, but I shut them down. The girl is more than enough for me.

This park is about as far as I’m willing to go outside of my home. There are usually families on one side and occasional Frisbee players on the other. It’s enough space for me to feel separate, and it puts a barrier between the street and me. Otherwise, I’ll just absorb the public like a sponge.

Once Shiloh arrives inside the park, we claim a bench, dividing up the food between us. I’m ravenous because I feel like I weigh one hundred pounds and wind up eating more than half of the stuff.

“What’s up with you?” Shiloh asks. “Usually I’m the one finishing your food.”

I take a deep breath. “You’ve been hung over, right?”

His eyes widen. “Jesus Christ, James.”

I rub my forehead. “I have to start over.”

“I didn’t see you at the party last night. You need me there if you’re going to pull that shit.”

I stop him with a glare. “Calm down. Ally brought me there, but I didn’t stay long.”

Emotion swells inside Shiloh when I say Ally’s name. He has had a crush on her for about a year now. I wish she cared. I also wish that every time I mentioned Ally, there wasn’t a brief moment where it felt like
I
was the one who had feelings for her.

I explain to Shiloh about my panic attack in the club, and the girl I met and how I am terrified that I might always feel what she’s feeling. I explain the wound on her wrist and all the other scars she had, like an animal had attacked her. He takes it all in calmly, nodding every once in a while, pondering my misery.

“Ouch.” He pretends to wince. “You know, my mom was just talking about the weird bite marks people come in to the hospital with sometimes. Usually on drugs. They don’t remember how they got bitten. She thinks they’re bad pet owners making excuses. Threatened to call animal control a number of times. Maybe it’ll fade soon?”

“Maybe, but it’s different. I don’t just feel hung over. I feel her emotions too.” I glance at the weed-ridden flowerbeds in front of us. She was beautiful, for being so sick. Her eyes were such a brilliant green. I hope she made it home.

“Maybe she’s like you.”

“Like me?” The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. “You mean an empath?”

Shiloh nods. “Yeah. Maybe that’s why you still feel her. It’s not a one-way street like normal. It’s two-way, and you’re both feeling what the other is feeling. She’s probably as freaked as you are right now.”

“I…I don’t know…”

“This is amazing. We gotta tell Ally. We may have found you a partner!”

“Whoa, there.” I raise my hand up to stop him. “We don’t know that for sure. It doesn’t change the fact that this girl is in serious trouble. I don’t exactly want a stranger who gets high as my new best friend.”

“Don’t be so harsh. You don’t know her life.”

“What good would it do if we found each other?” I ask. “If she is like me, we would just sit there and bounce emotions off each other’s brains until it fried our systems.”

“Maybe you could help her. Instead of just sitting around being terrified of your own power, try using it for good. Imagine what the two of you could do together!”

“I’m not a comic book superhero,” I snap. “I’m not searching for my calling. I’m searching for a good online college so I can live on my own terms. I’m sorry if I’m not living up to your potential.” I put my head in my heads. This isn’t me. It’s her. The anger inside her is poisoning my own mood. I’m only fighting Shiloh because this scares me so much. If I have to connect with another person, to store another body in my head for the rest of my life, I might break. And she’s already so broken.

But I do want to make sure she’s okay.

“James, you’re not
living
. You’re hiding from the world. From everyone. Fine, you don’t want to help people. At least help yourself.”

I take a deep breath, trying to find my reasonable self. “How?”

“Find her, and maybe you can at least reverse this connection.”

“I don’t know where she is,” I say with a sigh.

“But you could, if you tried hard enough.”

I frown. Shiloh is
right, as usual. If I try hard enough, I can sort of tell where Ally or Shiloh is. The only problem is that it’s even more tiring than trying to feel them.

“I’ll help you,” Shiloh adds, as if reading my mind. “You don’t need to go alone.”

“Shiloh, what makes you think I can do any good?”

“Because you have some experience with this,” he says thoughtfully. “There was a time when you needed help, too, Jay. Maybe it’s time you passed the torch, you know? You got help, so now you need to help someone else.”

He’s serious. Damn. He is thinking the same thing that I am. This girl is in pain, and I know a little something about that. If she’s anything like me, I know she’ll need a lot of help to get better.

Maybe the kind of help I could give.

Bianca

Waves lap at my feet, inviting me closer. A fine mist of salt water coats my body. The sea murmurs a lullaby in another language. The night is warm. Right now, right here, it’s perfect. I could sink into this sand and never think twice. I spread my arms out in front of the endless ocean in front of me. It almost looks like fabric instead of water, gently rising and falling. Breathing. The possibilities are infinite.

Then I see the boy in the water. He’s waiting for something. He turns to me, and his eyes are the same color as the sea that’s swallowing him up. Nothing about him is recognizable, except those eyes. It’s that boy who saw me on the street.

My blood runs cold, like I’m already dead.

The boy just stares.

***

Some driver lays on the horn and jolts me out of my dream. Headlights blind me as I try to wake up. I rub my wrists, to make sure I’m not bleeding. The familiar pain soothes me into wakefulness.

I don’t know if that dream was a nightmare or nothing at all, but it sticks with me and I need to get it down before I forget. I open up my bag and pull out my sketchbook filled with the skeletons of my most vivid dreams. I do a rough sketch of the boy standing in the ocean, water pawing at his legs. I screw up when I try to draw his mouth. My face heats up. I can’t believe I kissed him. I’ll fix the drawing up later. I shut the book and slip it back into my shoulder bag. Then I make my slow journey back to the Night House. I need food and sleep.