Cora placed her hand over one of her open cuts and then closed her eyes. She looked embarrassed, like she needed to apologize for bleeding.
I looked at Dana and asked, “You have any bandages around here?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
MELANIE
The blood. It was everywhere.
The aroma in the air was as thick as if a person had spilled a perfume bottle all over the couch and polluted the entire apartment with it. But it wasn’t Tiffany’s blood I was smelling. Hers made a huge mess in the living room, and yet it left almost no scent.
No, it was Cora’s. The sweetness, the intoxicating fragrance…it was more delicious-smelling than any piece of chocolate cake, and more addictive than any bottle of vodka. I wanted it. I wanted to taste it so bad.
I didn’t have the strength to fight it, so I ran into Dana’s bedroom and sat on the bed. I needed as much distance between me and Cora’s injuries as I could. I felt bad because I wanted to be out there with her to make sure she was okay, when in reality all I could focus on was the twisting hunger growing inside my gut.
What kind of monster feels this way about a family member? Cora gets hurt, and it only fuels my hunger. It was degrading and humiliating.
Melanie…
I bolted off the bed and looked around the dark room. I heard a voice, I was absolutely positive. Strange, though, was that it didn’t sound like it was someone outside the window or even in the room with me. It felt like it was in my head. No, not again.
Melanie…come to me.
My hands began to shake because I knew the voice. It wasn’t Molly, it wasn’t Veronica, it was him. He was in my head.
He found me, and He had found a way to link our minds together without me being able to do a damn thing about it. There wasn’t even a word to describe the terror I was feeling.
“What do you want?” My voice shook so badly.
Melanie…
“What do you want?!” I repeated, this time desperately.
He said my name once more, but with it came a sinister snicker. He had no intention of answering my questions, he just wanted to terrorize me.
I crawled back onto the bed and pulled my legs into my chest, resting my face on my knees. His voice faded in my mind, but I swore I could still hear it howling in the winter night wind. I pressed my hands to each side of my head to drown out the noise, all the while crying, “Leave me alone…”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DANA
Priscilla went pale in the face by the time I covered Cora’s arm up in bandages and gauze wrap. She wasn’t big on blood, I guess. Lucky for Cora, I was used to cleaning up wounds. I’d woken up in the middle of the forest after a full moon more times than I can count, nude and covered in scrapes and cuts from God only knows what. I had to keep medical supplies around for my own health.
Poor Cora. She leaned against the wall with her eyes squinted shut, trying not to cry out every time I found a piece of glass in her skin that I had to remove with my fingernails. I told her it was okay to cry. She told me we had to keep quiet.
I taped down the last bit of the gauze, and she looked up at me and smiled. “You’re really good at this,” she said.
“I didn’t use to be. It usually slid off my arm in an hour.”
“I don’t think this one will. It’s so tight I can barely bend my arm.”
“You want me to loosen it?”
“No, no, this is good. Tight means secure.”
I bit down on my bottom lip. “Good.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just sorry you got hurt.”
“That’s sweet, but that’s not what I was talking about. I never got to thank you for coming along and helping Max out. He said you volunteered and wouldn’t take no for an answer. You really didn’t have to do that, but you did anyway.”
I couldn’t believe she would think that way. “Cora, I owe my entire life to you. How could I not try to save yours?”
“I knocked you out and shoved you in a car in Rookridge. It’s not like I performed brain surgery on you in the middle of a warzone. Besides, even if you did owe me, you more than made up for it this past summer. Who knows what might have happened if you didn’t show up.”
“If only I got there sooner, maybe Melanie wouldn’t be going through this.”
Cora frowned. It was still a painful subject for her.
“She’ll be okay,” I assured her. “I can already tell she’s a strong person.”
“She has to be. The only other option is…” It was a sentence she didn’t want to finish. “Did you happen to see where she went?”
“Just down the hall. You want me to check on her?”
“Could you? I don’t think she can stand to be around me right now,” she said regretfully, and then delicately touched her bandages with the tips of her fingers. It was like she was internally cursing out her wounds. “It was my blood, I…” She groaned and tilted her head back until it was touching the wall, and for a moment stared at the ceiling. “God, I should have known this would happen. I tried to order her a rare steak so there’d be blood at the bottom of the container, you know, hoping it would be enough. I guess I was stupid to think that would help keep her hunger in
