Hollowed (7 page)

Cold blood. Oh, yum.

Even with my body aching for something to eat, I still can
'
t fathom drinking it. Like a starving kid at dinner. Hungry, yeah, but still don
'
t want to touch those
peas
. The difference between that and this
? T
he peas I could mix in with my mashed potatoes and choke them down. I don
'
t think blood mixed with a soda will do much for the taste.

"
It
'
s not as bad as
you
'
re thinking
it will be,
"
Cole says.

Whether it is or not, there isn
'
t much of a choice.
It takes me a few minutes of working up to it, but
I lift the cup to my mouth, feel
ing
the thick
,
chilled liquid against my
lips and force down a drink before I can gag.

Then a
nother. And another.

Until I
'
m gulping it like my life depends on it.
It feels
disgusting going down, but it leaves my insides pleasantly warm and almost tingly. When the cup is empty I
'
m not anywhere near full, but the sharp edge of my hunger has been blunted. I lick my lips, wipin
g at my mouth self-consciously.
"
Not bad.
"

Cole places the empty blood bag into a paper one and tucks it into a dresser drawer. Not leaving it behind where housekeeping might find it, I guess. Smart.

He continues,
"If you will be staying with us, I'll see about getting you a room first thing in the morning."

My hand flits to my pocket. "A room, uh, I don't..."

He holds up a hand. "Don't concern yourself with the cost."

I nod once, silent, sinking down in my seat.
Maybe I should insist on sleeping on the floor or something, rather than put him out of the cost of an additional room, but I'm still not keen on the idea of letting my guard completely down.

"A cell phone, as well," Cole says thoughtfully, taking a seat again.

"
I have a phone, but the screen is broken..."

"
Probably for the best.
At this point, I feel it is imperative you discard your current phone in favor of something new." He props his elbows on the table, fingers steepled together. "Were you to make or receive any calls, law enforcement would be capable of tracking your approximate whereabouts."

I hadn't thought about that, but I know from numerous crime documentar
ies that he's probably right. But get rid of it? No. All my numbers are on that phone. Maybe I can't access them with the screen broken, but it ought to be on the SIM card.

Before I can ask him if there's anything else I need to worry about,
the door beeps and swings open.

Oliver
'
s presence washes over me and makes my skin prickle. Heavier than Cole's. Colder. Not a threat to me, no, but if I were a human and felt this way, I'd probably cross the street to avoid him.

Cole doesn't seem bothered in the least. He smiles. "I
'
m afraid I don
'
t have any more to give you, but Oliver can take you out later. I imagine you're still hungry."

Oliver shoves his hands into his pockets, studying me with a
lopsided
I told you so
smile
and a smug glint in his gold eyes
. He never once doubted I
'
d come crawling to their doorstep, did he? Going out with him is so not my idea of a good time.

I grit my teeth and force a smile.
"
Goody.
"

Suck it up, self. If I'm going to be spending any length of time with these guys, Mr. Grumpy-face and I need to learn to get along.

Oliver
'
s bed is a piece of heaven, each pillow a tiny cloud I can bury my face into and sleep like a baby, chasing away any
dreams of Sherry and Noah
. Judging by his
grumbling
as he marched off to Cole
'
s room last night, I
'
m guessing the couch in there
isn't
nearly as comfortable.

When Oliver kicks the edge of the bed to wake me up, the room is awash with sunlight. It makes my eyes hurt.

"
Get up. It
'
s almost
five
.
"

I could sleep forever. Feels like all I
'
ve been doing since this started is sleep.
"
Why?
"
Muffled, thanks to the pillow I pull over my head.
"
We can
'
t go out yet anyway.
"

There
'
s a long enough pause that I think
—
hope
—
Oliver is going to
leave me alone
. Obviously too much to
wish
for. He wrenches the pillow away.
"
Oh, right. Because the sun...
the whole turning to ash thing.
"

I grunt in response but otherwise ignore him.
Even though I
'
ve always been a night-owl, I don
'
t feel like being reminded I can
'
t go out during the day anymore.

In one swift movement, Oliver yanks the blankets off me. He
'
s damned lucky I had the foresight to pack pajamas, ‘cause at home I would have been sleeping nearly naked. I suck in a breath, reflexively curling into a tight little ball. He catches one of my ankles, effortlessly dragging me off of the bed while I claw desperately at the sheets.

"
What the hell are you doing?!
"

"
Something I should
'
ve done earlier.
"

Despite my thrashing, he handles me like I
'
m nothing. I
'
m picked up by my waist and carried for the double doors leading out to the balcony. It
'
s not until he opens on
e of the doors that I realize
he
'
s going to throw me into the sunlight.

I shriek
, hoping Cole will hear from the adjoining room, beating my fists against Oliver
'
s chest to try to get free. He sets me down, spins me around before I can so much as blink,
and
shoves me
outside
and shuts the door.
I wait for it—
the burning sensation, the unbearable pain. Something, anything.

Nothing happens.

It
'
s a little overcast but the sun is there, high in the sky, and all I
'
m suffering is a headache from the light. No bursting into flames. No crumbling to dust. I turn back to the door
where
Oliver grins at me through the glass.

Screw trying to get along. I
'
m going to kill him.

The downtown park undergoes an eerie transformation as the sun sets. From cheery and family-friendly to gloomy and haunted in the course of an hour. No sane person comes here after dark alone unless they
'
re looking to get mugged—
or worse. But me? I have no reason to be afraid. Now that I
'
m a vampire, I must have some sort of super awesome vampire ass-kicking abilities, right?

Oliver brings me to the center of the park near a pond
where the water ripples quietly and a few ducks sleep nestled in the reeds
.
"
Can you sense them?
"

Sense what?
The ducks?
The trees? The water? The frogs
in
the water? He takes one look at my blank stare and sighs.

"
Concentrate a little. You can
'
t tell me you don
'
t feel the difference.
"

I do. I sensed it the entire
trip
from my apartment to the hotel, and I sensed it the
walk
here. When you
'
re in a room and get the feeling you aren
'
t alone? It
'
s like that, magnified times twenty. I know we aren
'
t the only ones in the park, even if I can
'
t pinpoint where the others are.

But I
'
ll humor him. Eyes closed, brows knitted together, I focus. For added effect, I let out a low, meditative
ohmmm
.

Oliver elbows me.
"
Like you mean it.
"

"
I get it, I get it. I sense there are other people. What else? Do I have some sort of built-in food GPS now or something?
"
I can tell by the frown on his face he doesn
'
t get what I
'
m talking about. Apparently being a vampire
doesn
'
t mean keeping up on technology
.
"
Nevermind.
"

"
It isn
'
t some kind of special power.
"
He sighs again, pushing a hand through his honey-colored hair.
"
Humans have a sort of sixth sense, right? A gut instinct that alerts them of danger. Vampires have the same thing, but it
'
s amplified. Like the virus opens us up to things regular humans are closed to. Make sense?
"

"
Yep.
"
It makes enough sense for me not to question it. At least for now. Maybe because I
'
m starving and if I have to find someone to munch on, I might as well get it over with.

"
Try
tracking
someone down. Let your senses guide you.
"

"
And when I find them...?
"

Oliver raises a brow.
"
You bite them.
"
He touches two fingers to my throat, easily finding the pulse point.
"
Right there.
"

I frown.
"
Great.
Since I'm not killing them
, aren
'
t they going to remember later?
"

"
Rarely.
"
He pulls back and shrugs.
"
Most humans forget they were bitten.
Even if they
remember and try
to report
it, there would be no evidence; t
he bite marks heal within an hour or two.
"

I rub absently at my throat. There
'
s nothing left of the bite mark on my skin, not even an upraised patch of flesh. "Hey, what happens if I bite someone and they turn?"

Oliver
blinks
. "What?"

"That's what happened to me, right? A vampire bit me, and I got infected. Who's to say that won't happen to the person I bite?" Judging by Oliver's silence and the trapped look he gives me, I guess it's safe to say that there
is
no way to be sure.

"Look...t
hat sort of thing really doesn't happen often. I wouldn't worry about it. You can't starve yourself because of the what-ifs." He takes my shoulders and turns me around.
"
Now go on, baby bird. Fly free into the world.
"

I twist to look over my shoulder.
"
You aren
'
t coming with me?
"

"
I won
'
t be far if you need me, but you aren
'
t the only one that needs to eat.
"