The Night House (7 page)

Like I was waiting for a reason to stop
. She doesn’t have to say it.

“It’s not that crazy,” Shiloh adds in a quiet voice. “Just knowing someone cares can be enough to stop a person from doing something stupid.”

Ally’s eyes burn into me. I turn to her and slowly reach for her arm. “Ally, I appreciate your concern, but…I just don’t know if I can. You have to understand that I have limits.”

Her lips thin. “Don’t talk down to me; I’m not a kid anymore.” Her gaze softens. “Sorry, it’s just…I wouldn’t push you if I didn’t think you could do it. This girl sounds like…I don’t know, like what you’ve been waiting for.”

I don’t know if it’s because of Ally’s determined stare, or the pity I feel for this girl in my head, or the fact that I’ve always wanted to know why I have this power, but I make a decision.

“I need to sleep,” I say.

Both of their moods drop like stones. It feels like I’m sinking. They think I’ve given up.

“I’m too tired to go out and find her now,” I finish.

They both sigh happily. Shiloh punches my arm. “I knew you had it in you.”

Ally takes Shiloh’s elbow as they leave, his heart racing at her touch. Ally’s heart is racing too, for different reasons. She believes in me.

Slowly, I crawl into my bed and stare at my arms. The scars are almost nonexistent, and I trace one of the pale lines down my wrist.

That was a long time ago, but I remember it so well. The whole time I was bouncing around foster care, I just thought about how my biological parents would have dealt with my scars and me. Would have they have understood? Did they feel this power in me as a baby? Were they repulsed? Or scared?

With this girl in my head, all my scars feel fresher than ever. I don’t know how she ended up this way, but I know one thing for sure: No matter how infinitesimal it is, there
is
a chance that I could help her.

I’ve felt her pain before.

Bianca

The hive is already buzzing when I wake up. I fumble my way into the tiny little kitchen we all share. Some of the girls hustle right by me like I’m not there. Others bump into me, staring coldly.

Citrus stings my dry hands as I peel an orange. Most of the girls are indifferent toward me, but some of them don’t particularly like me. Everyone else is here to make money, but I couldn’t care less about that. It makes them think I don’t deserve to be here. Not to mention I’ve stolen a client or two from some of them.

The ice water gives me goosebumps as I fill up a glass to take to my room. A container of pills—vitamins mostly—awaits me. Iron supplements are very important in this line of work, but sometimes I forget, like last night. Then I take a shower in one of the two bathrooms we all share. I wish I could make the water piping hot, but if I do that, I could pass out. Blood loss plus a long nap and a hot shower equals blackouts in the water. Still, it feels good in here.

When I’m dressed, I knock lightly on Alex’s door.

“Come in,” she calls. I open it to find her hiking up her thigh-highs.

“Help your sister out,” she says. I rush over and clip her tights to her garter belt. Then she stands up with her hands on her hips. “I need new underwear. Seriously.”

“Finn couldn’t care less what’s under the dress,” I say, climbing onto her bed.

“Clever Bee. I have William coming in an hour. I never know what to wear for him.”

“He’s the fighter, right?”

She nods. “He thinks he’s hot stuff just because he can beat up other vampires. I mean, he
is
gorgeous, but he’s also kind of clueless. He wants to be treated the way human athletes are. It’s like, ‘sorry I didn’t catch your fight on TV, but humans don’t know about vampires. Also, you think animal prints are cool.’ ”

I can’t help but laugh. “The longer they’re alive, the less they understand about fashion.”

“I think he was just born that way.”

“Or he’s been punched in the head too many times.”

Vampires are a bloody species. I’ve heard about their fights, and how much they charge to watch two monsters tear each other apart. If humans knew about them, they’d probably pay a fortune. Fighting’s not the same when you heal from broken bones and torn flesh in a matter of days.

Alex flicks through the clothes in her closet. “Last time I tried to go modern Fifties, but he said it made him feel old.”

“You should straighten your hair,” I tell her. “Try to dull down your color scheme. I know you love your brights, but if you want to be more contemporary—”

She huffs. “Yeah, yeah. Get me your straightener.”

Five minutes later, Alex is sitting on the floor and I am running the iron through her hair. She tells me about an article she read in
GQ
about androgynous women’s wear.

“I wish I could pull off a suit,” she whines.

“Hold still or I’ll burn you.” I yank the flat iron away from her scalp. “You won’t look good in anything with third-degree burns.”

“I’ll start a new trend, and then they’ll write about me in
Vogue
.”

That’s her vice: magazines. She can’t get subscriptions sent to the Night House, but she goes out once in a while to pick them up from a newsstand or a market. We talk about how all the models in the pages are thinner than us.

“They look like they’re going to break in half,” Alex says. “I mean, at least here, Finn makes sure that we’re fed.”

Her comment makes me remember how hungry I am. As if on command, my stomach rumbles loudly. Alex smirks at me.

“Do you have a demon in there?”

I touch my stomach. “Maybe.”

“Go get some food.” She slaps my leg. “I’ll finish up.”

Talking with Alex is easy. It’s normal. But as soon as I’m alone again, the itch sets in. Normally I, too, would be getting ready for my appointment. Tonight was supposed to be an easy officer visit. A little bit of nauth for no hassle. But Jeremiah canceled my appointment. To distract myself, I get my bag and set out for the South Street Diner.

James

It’s eight o’clock when Ally and Shiloh wake me. My body and mind are disconnected. When I sit up, it takes a moment for my brain to comprehend, like the world is going slower than me. I stare at my hands, waiting for the feeling to return to them. Everything I missed from the girl when I slept comes back to me in a rush. It feels like someone dumped ice water on me. “Good
God
.”

“You okay?” Shiloh asks.

Chills rack my body, and I wrap my arms around myself. “I really need her out of my head.”

“Plus you want to help her, right?” Ally asks.

My gaze darts between her and Shiloh. “Yeah, that too.”

Ally smiles. “I want to know everything about her.”

“I just want to know what put her in this place,” Shiloh says. “You said she was about our age, right?”

I nod. “Couldn’t have been older than me.”

Shiloh just keeps shaking his head. “She must be so alone.”

Silence creeps up on us as we all imagine what may or may not happen. I’m picturing this skeleton of a girl, walking zombie-like down an alleyway, looking for something sharp.

My skin feels tight, like my whole body is sunburned. My legs are restless, eager for
something
that I’ve never felt before. I don’t know how it’s possible for someone to be experiencing so many things at once. For the first time, I realize how different we are. I barely know what I’m doing half the time, let alone how I’m feeling. With so many other people around me, it’s hard to know my own emotions from theirs. But this girl feels so much, all the time, and it’s all hers. That would destroy me.

Shiloh glances at me. “Are you ready?”

The answer is no, but I say to him, “Now or never.”

Bianca

The mashed potatoes and steak on my plate are like a five-star meal. It’s like I’ve never been this hungry in my life—only I know I ate this like a week ago, the last time I had a night off.

Most of my meal is spent gazing out the window. I order hot chocolate. When she brings it to me, it has whipped cream on it. She has this cute motherly smile, and I remember how young I seem to strangers. She must think someone is coming to pick me up.

There’s a rock in my stomach. I want to tell the waitress to stop treating me like I’m a lost little girl because I’m not lost. I just don’t have anyone waiting for me.

Immediately, Jeremiah comes to my mind, and I clench my hand around my mug. My thumb stings. I’ve been chewing my cuticle down to the nail.

I find my sketchbook in my bag, mostly to appear busy, but also because I need something else to think about. When a blank white page is staring up at me, my thoughts tend to sharpen a little. That boy’s face is what comes to me. I realize how badly I want to draw it. It’s been stuck there like a thorn, and I want to banish it from my head by putting it on paper. His hair and jaw are easy. I even get the mouth fairly quickly. But it’s his eyes and the nose that give me trouble. Those damn eyes. Thinking about them makes me feel like I’m being pulled under water.

With a ragged breath I peer up from the page. Two teenage boys with baggy clothes and shallow smiles sit across the aisle. They keep stealing glances at me, and every time I feel like they’ve actually taken something from me. They don’t deserve to look at me, to make jokes about me, even to even pretend they’re happy around me. Not when I feel like this, like something’s chewing on my brain.

Snippets of their conversation reach me. I force my gaze back on my sketchbook, and I realize I’d scrawled a jagged line across the blank space where the boy’s eyes should be. Now there’s nothing but eraser marks to meet my gaze back at me.

“Total babe…”

“…too skinny for me.”

“…still a chick…”

I shouldn’t have come here. It’s just making me feel worse. All these people are staring at me and my flaws. All I want to do is just scream at all of them—

“Stop staring at me!”

I clasp my hands over my mouth. Then I start gulping down hot chocolate, to feel its warmth, but nothing gets through. A little bit splashes onto my book. I curse and try to dry it off with my sleeve. Instead, water starts pouring out of me, soaking into the pages of my sketchbook. I claw at my sleeves, trying to figure out where the leak is coming from.

Then reality snaps back into place. The diner has gone quiet. I feel everyone staring at me. Fight or flight instantly takes over, and I shove all my things into my bag, throwing money down, and I flee.

I have to get out of here. Out of the diner, out of the city, out of my body. I need to find a bench and curl up and close my eyes and feel the night air again, so I can feel
something
.

This is Jeremiah’s fault. He did it so I’d want to see him. He’s a controlling freak, but he’s smart. The Night House is so inviting right now. I can’t go back or I might do something stupid. We’re absolutely forbidden from interrupting each other’s appointments, but sometimes truly desperate girls do it, without thinking, if it’s been too long…

I’m not that desperate. I can hold it together.

I can hold myself together. Just a little longer.

James

Ally and Shiloh follow behind me as if they expect me to collapse at any moment. I don’t do this very often, so I guess I can’t really blame them. Still, it’s not exactly confidence inspiring.

Philly breathes down my back. I’m trying to focus on this girl, to feel who she is, what she’s doing, where she’s going. I haven’t had to do this a lot. I need to feel every molecule of her being before I can find her.

Sometimes when I feel a person in my head, I can visualize this thread leading me to that person. It starts in my chest and winds out of me, threading through the city. It’s really delicate, and often it breaks and then I have to start over.

But this time, when I visualize the thread, I feel it like one of my own veins is leading me to the girl by blood. I know exactly where she is because I feel her pulling on the thread like she’s feeding off me.

I don’t even notice that I’m running until Shiloh and Ally catch up to me, panting.

“Dude, calm down!” Shiloh barks at me. “I am
not
on the track team.”

South Street Diner’s pale light spills onto the streets, illuminating a girl standing on the sidewalk, talking to herself. Clothes too tight and a hunger so strong it makes my veins hurt. It’s her.

“Stay here,” I tell Shiloh and Ally.

I’m a block away from her when she starts to run. She’s running at me. I throw my arms up to slow her down, but she doesn’t see me. My mind is telling me to get out of the way, but my body is slower than ever. So when she bumps into me with her frail body and aching bones, I fall straight on the ground.

The street spins around me. I’m on a carnival ride, and I have nothing to hold onto.

When my vision settles, I get back on my feet. “Are you okay?”

She stands there, silent, huge green eyes trying to focus on me. I move one foot an inch forward, trying to get my balance back. She moves hers backward, preparing to run.

I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t say a word. She’s so freaked; I start to doubt my own intentions. I shouldn’t have come. She doesn’t need me. She just needs to go home. I have to pull myself back and find my own head again.

“You,” she says.

“I’m sorry.” The words stumble out of me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Fear weaves through her whole body. She lives on that fear. But there is something else, something that she’s been dying to feel. It’s so insignificant in comparison to the rest of her emotions, but it’s a spark waiting to ignite a fire. She hopes this isn’t a coincidence.

She whispers, “How did you find me?”

I’m not sure how to answer this question. “I felt you.”

The expression on her face is indescribable, but what she feels is shock. Confusion. Terror. One of her eyebrows quirks up. “You
felt
me?”

I blurt out, “Can we talk?”

“Who are you?” she asks.

“You don’t recognize me?” I’m a little disheartened that she hasn’t signified that she understands what I can do. This might have been a really bad idea.