Hollowed (6 page)

"Ms. Greyson?" someone calls out. Unfamiliar.
Has to be
a cop. Who else would it be? The voice lowers until I can barely make it out. "Told you, she's not here. Let's just get the key from the front office and open the place up."

Uh oh.

Walking to the front office takes less than two minutes.
Which means I have very little time to grab what I can and get the hell out.

I shove whatever clothes I have scattered near my closet into a backpack. Hairbrush, because it's next to my
busted
cell phone on the dresser. My laptop. A handful of photos from a dresser drawer. The bag is so full I can hardly zip it shut.

A
peek
out the front door shows one of the cops still hanging
around, so I slip out the back,
hop the patio fence
,
and
hit the ground running
while silently praying one of the officers will take my cat and bring him home
. They won't see me, especially in the dimly lit parking lots. Slipping out the front of the complex is cake but I don't stop running until I'm two blocks away and heading for the light rail station.

I was never on track in high school.
Hell, I
couldn
'
t
even finish the mile in gym. So it dawns on me that all this running should have me choking for breath. It doesn't. In fact, every movement is easy and fluid. Effortless. Like I could run forever.

The light rail tram is packed, leaving nowhere to sit. I linger near the exit so I can be the first one off. No one looks at me. In fact, there
'
s at least a foot of space around me in any direction. I
'
m not sure anyone even
realizes
they
'
re shying away. Instinct tells them to keep their distance. A few stops later, I slip off the tram and into the crisp night air. Even the people on the sidewalk step around me.

I've always been the sort of person easy to shove around in a crowd. I've been swept away at concerts. Gotten shoved to the back of the line at more than one movie theater. Now the waters might as well be parting when I walk down the street.

It would be kind of cool if it weren
'
t a constant reminder that something is different about me.

My big sister, Ruby, once told me,
"
If you don
'
t know where to go, let your legs move on their own. Your subconscious will know where you need to be.
"
While that advice never saved me from getting miserably lost in grocery stores or
Disneyland
, it helps me now. My body is on autopilot, and it
'
s that way that I end up at a hotel only a few hours before dawn. Good thing, too; I don
'
t want to burst into flames
or whatever
when the sun comes up
.
Oh My God I
'
m On Fire
would not be a good look for me.

I fish out the note
from Cole
. Ninth floor, room two-oh-six. No idea what I
'
ll say, and I
'
m dreading having to admit they were right, but I can
'
t deny it. Just as I never had a doubt before that I was human, I don
'
t doubt what I am now. But I
do
doubt my ability to keep myself alive and out of trouble without their help.

Meal-time?
So
not looking forward to that.

There
'
s a clerk at the desk, but I ignore him and his uncomfortable stare
—
yeah, I know I look like shit, buddy
—
and take the elevator up. My hair
'
s a wreck and I
'
m in dire need of a shower.

I knock on the door to room two-oh-six. Wait a moment. Knock again, louder. A sleepy-eyed Cole answers, hair mussed
,
shirtless. Funny, aren
'
t vampires supposed to be creatures of the night?

"
Ms Greyson
, what a pleasant surprise
.
"

I grin despite myself.
"
Housekeeping.
Also,
Ms Greyson
? Really? Please don't.
"

Cole quirks a smile and steps aside to let me in.

His room is almost the size of my apartment. The television mounted on the wall is on, volume low. A barely touched meal sits on a rolling cart a few feet inside the door. Why would a vampire order food? It reminds me how ravenous I am.

Cole must catch me staring at it as I pass because he says,
"
Human food doesn't sustain us, but we can eat it."

"
Oh.
"
I slip further into the room
, noting
the faint smell of flowers
. The patterns on the wall and blankets are generic
floral
hotel-fashion, but it
'
s a nicer room than I
'
ve ever been in.
"
Where
'
s Oliver?
"

"
Out.
"
Cole gestures for me to have a seat. I sink into a stuffed chair at a table near the
balcony doors
, watching the
silent and graceful
way
he moves across the room.
He sits across from me, hands folded neatly on the table.
"
How are you feeling?
"

I thought about that the entire trip here but,
"
I don
'
t know.
"

"
Tired. Hungry. Confused. At a loss?
"

Understatement.
"
About sums it up, yeah.
"

"
That
'
s normal.
"
He smiles softly.
"
We can take care of
the hunger. The rest of it...i
t fades with time.
"

I nod slowly and stare out the window. Cole is silent, waiting patiently while I process my thoughts into something coherent that can be translated into words. I suck at that whole brain-to-mouth transition even on a good day.

"
I don
'
t know where to go,
"
I
finally
say
, cursing the way my voice wavers
.
"
Can
'
t go home
. No job. Even my boyfriend...h
e took one look at me and ran.
"
And that was while I
'
d been sick. Am I fully changed? Would it be even worse now?
"
What am I supposed to do?
"
Elbows on the table, I press my face into my hands, rubbing at my eyes. I
'
m torn between wanting to cry and wanting to throw
something
. Breaking a couple plates sounds awesome.
Shoving everything to the recesses of my mind only works for so long before I want to explode.

Cole touches my arm until I look at him.
"
I can
'
t promise it will get better overnight.
"
He squeezes once, briefly, and draws away.
"
But give it some time. Adjust
, a
dapt
, l
earn more about what you are. A whole new world has been opened to you, and it might be one you enjoy.
"

"
Yeah. Having everyone treat me like a leper is great. Like I wasn
'
t
alienated
from humanity enough as it was.
"

Cole chuckles.
"
Your presence, your...
aura, if you will. It
'
s what triggers the instincts of others and makes them afraid, but
I assure you,
it can be harnessed and controlled
so you can blend in
.
"

The possibility leaves me light-headed with hope
. If I could learn to control it, could I find Noah again? Show him there
'
s nothing to be afraid of?
"
Am I going to live forever?
"

"
Unless something kills you, yes.
"

"Something like what?
"

"Decapitation kills most anything, last I heard." He smiles sweetly. "Massive damage to the brain or heart can put us out of commission. We can starve, but it takes a while."

"
How old are you?
"
I want a feel for just how long ‘forever
'
really i
s. A hundred years? A thousand? Growing old has always terrified me, but I
'
m not sure that immortality isn
'
t terrifying, either.

Cole lowers his lashes.
"
Old enough,
"
he says.
"
I couldn
'
t give you an exact number. Oliver is younger; I met him in the
nineteen-
forties and he was a little older than you at the time.
"

Wow
. Oliver looks like any guy that could have walked into my high school. I try to imagine fifty years down the road and not looking a day over eighteen. Some women would kill to be me.

"
What about...
you know...eating?
"
Just the thought of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me a little dizzy.
"
Because I can
'
t kill people.
"

"
You don
'
t have to.
"
He taps a finger on the table thoughtfully.
"
Unlike the stories you might
have read,
we don
'
t have some animalistic, uncontrollable urge to drink the blood of anything we come across. It
'
s food to us, nothing more.
So long as you don't go days on end without eating, you'll be fine.
"

"
So...
theoretically, I could drink it out of a bottle and it would be
okay
?
"

"
Of course.
"
Cole sweeps to his feet and relocates to a mini-fridge near the bar. From inside, he pulls out an IV bag of blood and holds it up for me to see. My stomach twists. He continues,
"
Granted, it tastes better from a warm, living creature than from a bag.
"

"
Sort of like the difference between pizza fresh out of the oven and something that
'
s been sitting in the fridge for three days?
"

Cole blinks.
"
I suppose so, yes.
"

Super. See? I
'
m catching on.
"
Does it have to be human blood?
"

"
You can feed from animals. It
'
s an acquired taste, though.
"

"
Veggie burger versus real beef?
"

He laughs.
"
Your analogies are charming. Also, the chance of the animal surviving is slim; usually the stress alone is enough to send them into cardiac arrest.
"

Ugh.
"
That
'
s out. I could traumatize a person easier than I could
kill an
animal. A
nything else I should know?
"

Cole turns away. I can
'
t see what he
'
s doing, but I can smell the blood when he rips open the bag. I
'
m prepared for some kind of overwhelming surge of hunger, but it doesn
'
t come. Ins
tead I get the light-headed
sensation I
'
ve always gotten when I go too long without eating. A moment later,
Cole
places a cup in front of me.