The numbness spreads to encompass my whole body, only with a dark gnawing center to it. A black hole of need that I cannot escape.
I can’t feel the cold on my face and hands anymore. The hard press of the concrete against my knees is gone.
I’m caught. Pulled into the feed I was trying to stop.
Shit, shit!
I try to take a deep breath and regain my balance. I can break free of this, I can.
But every time I claw for the surface, for control, that opposing hunger pulls harder. I’ve never felt anything like it.
Is this what it’s like, when I take someone’s life?
My vision shrinks to the smallest pinhole of Izzy’s blond hair, and I can feel myself slipping away, sliding right out of my body, and—
My view judders and shakes abruptly, Izzy spins and whirls away, replaced by grass and then Devon’s worried face above me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his chest heaving against mine. “Jo?”
I can’t hear him over the ringing in my ears, but his words areclear from watching his mouth. I’m disoriented, confused how he’s above me and under me at the same time.
His cheeks are flushed with exertion, but his face is pale beneath that, his eyes wide to the whites with fear.
Drawing in a gasping breath, I start coughing and the world swirls around me, bright fireworks exploding behind my eyes with every jagged exhale.
Devon grips my shoulder, helping me sit up. We’re three, maybe four feet away from Izzy, and on the ground, his coat all rumpled and tangled, my body on top of his. It’s only then that I realize what must have happened.
“You… tackled me?” I ask hoarsely, between coughing jags.
“I couldn’t get you to hear me. You wouldn’t let go.” His full mouth pinches. He looks worried.
“Not me,” I croak. “Did you find them? Spawn.” The incredibly powerful spawn that almost just murdered me.
My throat is killing me, as if I’ve been in a chokehold. I have no moisture left in my mouth, in my gritty eyes. Even my bones feel lighter, more brittle.
Devon hesitates, then shakes his head. “I took a quick look, but I didn’t see anyone. I couldn’t track it, either. It’s as if it came out of nowhere, localized to this one place.”
That is not possible. Feeding from a limited distance, sure. But without any trace of it? No. No spawn can do that. Not even my father can do that.
This is wrong, all wrong. And I don’t know why. Branwick Hall and Lennie, I can kind of understand. But Delta Pi Gamma and a girl I’ve never even met before? They have nothing in common except… me.
My proximity to both.Fuck. Fuck!Is that what it is?
“Can you get up? I think it’s best we move on.” Devon jerks his head in the direction of the sorority house.
I follow the motion to see that the three girls from before are now huddled around Izzy on the ground, her body piled high with blankets. Two more sisters are now on the porch and two others are standing in the yard. The few who aren’t fixated on Izzy are whispering and staring at me.
Oh. Fantastic. I can only imagine what it must have looked like from their perspective—me zoning out while gripping the hell out of their dying friend, so much so that a stranger has to tackle me.
One of the sisters kneeling by Izzy holds Carter’s coat out to me, but pinched between her fingertips as if she thinks whatever I have is contagious. And now that I’m not distracted I recognize her—auburn hair, freckles, perpetually annoyed expression. Megan. No, Regan. Regan Something. From English 200 my sophomore year.
Sirens cry in the distance, getting louder by the second. I don’t know how long it will take Detective Morales to get a whiff of what happened here and figure out that I was involved, however tangentially, but I would rather not be here when she does. “Yeah.”
Devon clamps a hand under my arm, holding me up as he gets to his feet. Then he pulls me up with him.
Dizziness swirls over me in sparkly dust, nearly blacking out my vision again. It clears mostly once I’m upright, leaving me feeling weak, used.
Regan steps a little closer to toss the coat at me, which I miss. But it doesn’t matter. Because the second she broaches that roughly three-foot circle of space around me, my hunger roars to life. As strong and fierce as when it first awakened in me, full-force, when I was twelve.
