Page 12 of A Whisper in the Dark

I blink at him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

He shoots me yet another grin. I don’t smile—it feels like my mouth has lost the ability entirely—but something stirs in the pit of my stomach. “No need to apologize. C’mon, I’ll show you to your room.”

Room. Bed. Sleep.“Thank you,” I repeat. “It’s been… it’s been one hell of a night.”

“To put it lightly.” Drew steps forward to lead the way, and as we pass the shower list, he pauses, snags the marker, and scribbles his name down. Then he holds the marker out to me. “Better do it now while there are still spots open.”

Accepting it from him, I scribble my new identity across the white piece of paper.Charlie.In a way, I like it more. Maybe, like the brown eyes I once possessed, it fits me better.

Once I’m finished, Drew walks to the last door on the right side of the hall. He pushes it open and the hinges release a long whine. “This will be your room. Lucky for you, one of Ada’s boarders left yesterday, or else we would’ve had to stick you in the basement with the other vampires.”

The joke slips past me as I take in the darkened space. To say that it’s smaller than my old room would be putting it generously. Similar to the rest of the house, everything is made from wood. The floor, the ceiling beams, the walls. No lovely paint or wallpaper. There’s one small window at the far end, and a single light bulb dangling over the bed. The bed in question is rusting and rumpled, with scratchy-looking blankets and iron posts at the head and feet. The pillow looks no better than a sack of potatoes.

I remind myself, for what feels like the hundredth time, that Gabriela wanted me to come here.

Drew must see something in my face. He nudges my arm with his and says, “Hey, no big deal, you can just share my bed.”

Coming from anyone else, the words would normally make me roll my eyes. But tonight, I’ll take kindness in any form. I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my own mouth now, and this surprises me more than anything else—the fact I still can. “That’s very selfless of you, Drew. I’ll take it under advisement.”

His eyes twinkle as he adds, “I’ll even let you be the big spoon.”

I just shake my head. Unperturbed, Drew grins and wishes me a good morning, then moves toward the other end of the hall. I watch him go, all swinging elbows and long legs. The sight actually does make me smile now. It’s rare to find a human my kind hasn’t sucked all the life from.

After a quick use of the bathroom—I find a brand-new toothbrush in one of the drawers—I hurry back into my temporary room. Despite a faint concern that the moment I put my weight on the bed, the entire thing will collapse into dust, I crawl under the blankets. With a minty mouth and a pounding heart, I tuck the scratchy material around me. The springs creak and moan with every movement.

For a few minutes, voices from the hall trickle through the crack beneath the door, but eventually the rest of the boarders go to bed, too. Silence settles into every corner of the house. My preternatural hearing picks up on sounds normally too small to hear. The pitter-patter of the cat’s feet, somewhere down the hall. The grumbles of a water heater in the basement.

Staring at the ceiling with its yellowish, peeling paint and water stains, I can’t stop the tears that prick my eyes. I may have survived the Awakening, but thoughts of what lies ahead are enough to keep much-needed sleep away. The hunger feels like a separate monster, one with its own thoughts and feelings and urges. Daylight is when the monster is the strongest—the shadows are more prominent. Sometimes they almost seem to move.The humans are sleeping, they whisper to me.So vulnerable. So full of fresh, hot, pulsing blood.

Voices drift through the wall to my left. “Don’t be an idiot,” someone hisses.

I’m about to yank the pillow over my head when a familiar voice replies, “What?”

“I’m serious, Drew. Stay away from this one. Promise me.”

For some reason, I don’t want to hear his answer, and this time I do pull the pillow over my ears. I lay there for what feels like an eternity. Eventually, I give up on sleep and reach for my phone. The screen wakes up, hurting my eyes, and I open an app one of my brothers created that blocks the caller’s identity. Once that’s done, I select Julia’s name from the short list of contacts. The other end only rings once before her soft voice answers.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jules.” My throat suddenly feels thick. I swallow. Silence on the other end. “So it matters to you, then? What I am?”

With any big sort of question, people usually know the answer—they just act otherwise because they’re afraid of it. When there’s aclickand the line goes dead, I stay as I am, holding the phone against my ear. Years go by in that cold, dark room.

When I finally find the strength to lower the phone, the monster sees its chance. It leaps forward inside me, howling to be let free. It wants to punish someone for my pain. It wants to slaughter everyone in this house. It wants to make others scream instead of me.

No!I squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth so hard my molars grind, and clench my hands into fits until my nails are biting into my palms.I can control this. I chant those words over and over until my breathing evens out.

The red haze gradually fades, leaving only grief in its wake, and I finally place my phone safely on the rickety nightstand. The urge to throw it at the wall, shattering it forever, is still there. Instead, I turn to the other half of me. The half I’ve always been aware of, but never able to fully define—humanity.

And as I curl beneath the scratchy blanket, cover my face, and shake with bone-rattling sobs, I’ve never felt more human in my entire life.

Chapter Four

Tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally pass out, only to wake shortly afterward to an unbearable pain in my gums. My fangs slip down, throbbing with a burning need that has me sitting up in a flash.

I can’t wait any longer—I need to feed. After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, it’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long.

Shoving my feet into my sneakers, I move to the door and slip into the empty hallway. Someone is snoring so violently that I can feel vibrations of it through the floorboards. Moving faster than human eyes—or inquisitive cats—can track, I’m out of the boardinghouse and jogging down the street in seconds. It bothers me, leaving the front door unlocked, but I don’t have a key and I’ll need to get back in. Worrying my lower lip some more, I pull my hood up as feeble protection against the sun’s luminescent gaze.

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