Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

Fearless BY RACHEL VINCENT

“Sabine, look at me.”

Not likely. But staring out the car window wasn’t much better. All I could see was the building—long, low, and squat with tall windows arranged in pairs. Better than correctional custody, but not by much.

The brick-backed sign to the right of the sidewalk read “Holser House,” but that was a lie. “This isn’t a house.”

“Sabine...”

“Houses have yards. This is a parking lot.”

May as well have a barbed wire fence or a metal detector at the door; the effect would have been the same. Everyone knew about Holser House, and the Holser girls. Whores, junkies, and thieves in training, biding their time till they turned eighteen and were officially booted from the Texas Youth Commission with a sealed record and a prayer.

“It’s only for six months.” Navarro insisted, and I rolled my eyes at his optimism. Six months was the minimum stay, the maximum to be determined by the director. “Better than the alternative, right? You can wear your own clothes and go to public school when the semester starts. And when you turn sixteen, they’ll let you get a job, if you’ve been playing nice.”

But I would only be there when I turned sixteen if I decided not to play nice. So much for optimism.

Finally, I turned to look at him, my fingers curling around the door handle. “Can I go in alone, or am I still under escort?”

He gave me a strict, parole officer frown. “There’s paper work...”

There was always paperwork. You know you don’t really exist when you’re known by a case number, instead of a name.

“Sabine, do not run away from Holser. This isn’t prison, but you’re still in state custody. Running away is considered escape, and you do not need an escape charge. Next time it’ll be Ron Jackson.”

The Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex. Navarro says it makes the detention center look like kindergarten, and four days in juvenile detention was plenty of time for me to remember that I hated orange jumpsuits and institutional food.

“I didn’t run away.” I’d just missed curfew. By seven hours. Evidently a grievous violation of my parole, even without the additional status offense—underage drinking.

“David reported you missing.”

That’s because David was a dick. “Whatever.”

Navarro sighed. “Look, Sabine, I’m trying to help you. I had to call in a favor to get you placed here. They don’t usually take violent offenders.”

“I’m not violent.” But Navarro only frowned. We’d agreed to disagree on that one.

“If you don’t take this seriously, there’s nothing else I can do for you.”

He wanted to help me. He might even have believed me if I’d explained about missing curfew. That Jenny was out of town, and I didn’t want to be alone with David because he might decide to do more than look, and if that happened, I’d have to hurt him. Then I’d be in Ron Jackson for sure. With the actual violent offenders.

Because even if Navarro believed me, the rest of the system wouldn’t. They’d never take the word of the troubled teen parolee over the upstanding foster father.

“Promise me you’ll stay here. Just ride it out for a few months, then you can go home.”

Assuming the Harpers would take me back. Not that I cared about them, but a new foster home meant a new school, and then I couldn’t see Nash. But I refused to follow that line of thought.

“Promise me, Sabine.”

I looked up, meeting his dark-eyed gaze, studying him for the millionth time. “Why do you care? For real. You’ll still draw a paycheck even if I puke up my well-balanced, state-mandated group dinner.”

Navarro sighed again, and the weight of the world slipped a bit on his shoulders. “I don’t want to see you waste your life.”

It was a lie, yet very close to the truth. He wasn’t afraid I’d never reach my full potential, but that he would fail me. Or one of his other girls. That he would drop the ball, and one of us would wind up dead.

Oddly enough, his was a fear I’d never felt the need to exploit. At least, not while I was the one benefiting from his efforts.

“You ready?” Navarro asked.

I opened the door and stepped out of the car. Fort Worth was sweltering, even at ten a.m. on an early June morning. Navarro slammed his door and circled to the back of the car, where he popped the trunk and lifted out my two suitcases. I took one, then followed him inside.

Holser House felt sterile and blessedly cool after the blinding heat outside, and my sweat quickly gave way to chill bumps. When my eyes adjusted, a long white hallway came into focus, the tight throat of the beast that had swallowed me whole.

It would choke on me, sooner or later. Just like the holding houses, foster homes, and the detention center. I was indigestible by the Texas Youth Commission and social services. Eventually, they all realized something was off about me. Fortunately most humans lacked the ability to interpret that feeling of wrongness.

At the end of the hall, I saw a waiting room-style couch, and the corner of a chair. The room flashed with the bluish white glow of a TV screen. Though if anyone was actually watching it, I couldn’t tell.

“In here.” Navarro extended one arm toward a door on the left. He led the way without touching me, like all well-trained employees of the state. Care from a distance. From across that vast gulf where lawsuits breed.

The office was lit by fluorescents and the glow of a computer screen, while the window was tightly covered against the Texas heat. A large woman sat behind the desk, but she stood when we entered. The nameplate on her desk read, “Anna-Rosa Gomez, Director.”

“Cristofer, you’re early!”

Navarro smiled and shook her hand. “We could come back later, if you want...”

“Of course not. This must be Ms. Campbell?”

Good guess. Might have something to do with the edge of my file, which was sticking out from under the pile on her desk, where she’d probably slid it as we’d walked in the door.

Navarro nodded and gestured for me to shake the plump hand the director held out.

I studied Gomez first, taking in dark eyes, the firm line of her jaw, and the patient, steady hand waiting to grip mine. She looked decent enough. But you can never really know a person until you’ve seen what scares them.

I set my bag down and took her hand reluctantly, bracing myself for the sensory onslaught.

A white wall. A tall amorphous shadow. The darkness coalesces as I cower, lost in her terror. The silhouette becomes a man with a tightly clenched fist. The shadow arm rises, and I recoil. I know this horror. It has dozens of variations, and I’ve felt them all.

The fist swings, and I flinch. Shadows have no substance, yet the first blow breaks my rib. I scream, awash in pain. The second blow fractures my skull. The hits keep coming, bruising and breaking me, but there are no words. No explanation, because I don’t deserve one. He is mad, and I am there. That’s all the logic there is.

Then there is only darkness.

Time moved forward again, but I could only stare at the director with her hand clenched in mine, her fingers warm against my suddenly chilled skin. “Sabine, are you okay?” she asked, wariness peeking from beneath her mask of concern. I’d made her uncomfortable two minutes into our relationship. Might be a new record but probably not for long.

The things that make most people’s blood run cold make mine burn with anticipation. They light a fire deep in my soul, which can only be quenched by a deep drink of their fear, left vulnerable during the dream phase of sleep. But Gomez wouldn’t want to know that. She couldn’t understand it, even if I told her.

“Yeah. I’m good.” But she wasn’t. She was terrified he’d beat her to death next time, if he ever got paroled. She was right.

I pulled my hand from hers and dropped my gaze to keep her from seeing the lingering horror in my eyes. The reflection of her own fear. If she thought something was wrong with me, she might change her mind about taking me, and there were no other residence spots open. It was Holser Not-Really-A House or Ron Jackson, and I would not go to jail.

Not just for breaking curfew.

“Sit down,” Gomez said, sinking into her own seat. I dropped onto one of the two chairs facing her desk, one foot on the cushion, hugging my own knee. Navarro sat next to me. “I have your file here somewhere...”

“On the bottom,” I said, and Navarro glared at me. I ignored him.

“Yes, thank you.” Gomez opened the folder and scanned the first page. “Says here you pleaded guilty to breaking and entering four months ago...”

“I didn’t break,” I insisted. “I just entered.”

“Sabine...” Navarro warned, and I rolled my eyes. The details might not matter to them, but they mattered to me.

“Look, the back door was open, and I only went in to grab

Tucker’s bat.” Unfortunately, the state of Texas considered that proof of my intent to commit a crime. And they were absolutely right.

Navarro sat up straight, looking like he’d like to throttle me. “Remember what we said about your right to remain silent? That applies even when you’re not currently under arrest. Ms. Gomez has all the facts she needs.”

I shrugged. “She has the facts, but she doesn’t have the truth. Don’t you think she should know what really happened, if I’m gonna live in her ‘house’?” Especially considering she’d never really know what I was. Neither of them would. They’d probably never heard of a mara.

Navarro sighed, then waved one hand in a “be my guest” gesture.

I glanced at Gomez. “What else does it say in there?”

She studied the file again. “You pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism.”

It was originally felony vandalism, but the prosecutor gave me a break. I was a first-time offender.

“It says you beat in someone’s taillights, fender, and rear passenger side window with a baseball bat, resulting in more than two thousand dollars in damages.” Gomez looked up at me with one brow raised. “Isn’t that a little cliché for someone as smart as you’re supposed to be?”

What, did she have my test scores in there too? I shrugged. “I’m fifteen. I have limited resources. Besides, I used his bat. That’s, like, poetic justice, right?”

Her brow rose even higher. “Justice for what?”

“Tucker...” In my head, I spelled his name with a capital F instead of a T. “...gave me a ride home from school that day, but he pulled over half a mile from my house and said I couldn’t get out unless I worked off the gas money he’d wasted on me.” The prick had unzipped his pants and tried to shove my head into his lap.

“And how did you handle that?” Gomez closed the file and crossed her arms on her desk, focused on me now. She was good. She should have been a social worker.

“I punched him in the junk, then ran all the way home while he puked.”

I thought I saw a flicker of satisfaction on her face before the director remembered she was supposed to be firm and generally disapproving. “Did you report him?”

“I fight my own battles.”

“So you went back that night for his car...?”

I nodded, though actually, I’d gone back to give him a nightmare he’d never forget. But he wasn’t home. Fortunately, both his bat and his vehicle were. “That car was his weapon, and someone had to disarm him. I was doing society a favor.”

Navarro groaned. Evidently I wasn’t showing enough remorse.

Gomez cleared her throat and tapped her pen on my file folder. “You know, we have a system in place to deal with people like Tucker. But it can’t work if the crime isn’t reported.” She sat straighter and opened the file again. “It sounds like taking justice into your own hands was your first mistake.”

No, my first mistake was getting caught.

“But clearly not your last.” She spread her arms to indicate all of Holser House, and my presence in it. “You got probation on breaking and entering, and misdemeanor vandalism, which you violated last week with a missed curfew and underage consumption of alcohol.”

I’d also taken twenty bucks from David’s wallet, to pay for my drinks, but suddenly it seemed like a good time to exercise my right to remain silent.

“You should know that missing curfew here constitutes an escape from state custody and will result in an additional charge against you. And likely a bed at Ron Jackson.”

“So I hear.” I dropped my leg and sat up, glancing around at the plaques on her walls. “Are we done?”

“Your foster mother has already signed the necessary forms.” And she’d left before I even got there. Not a good sign. “Mr. Navarro and I have some additional paperwork to complete, but you’re welcome to look around while we do that. I’ll give you the official tour when we’re done.”

I stood and was halfway to the door when Navarro called my name. “Sabine...” I turned, but what he wanted to say was clear in his expression. Don’t screw this up. This is your last chance.

The living room—they probably called it the “common room”—was big and mercilessly bright. There were several stiff-looking couches and waiting room chairs, most facing an old-fashioned TV—the kind with a thick, curved screen—tuned to a Spanish-language soap opera.

I stood in the doorway, watching. Trying to convince myself that this was home, at least for the next several months. Group meals, shared chores, full accountability. I can do this. Like there was any other choice.

But on the bright side, with twenty beds, lights out would be a virtual buffet. So many nightmares to gorge on, and with this many people to share the burden of my appetite, they’d never connect the bad dreams with my arrival.

At least not consciously.

Maybe I should have violated probation sooner. I’d practically starved with only David and Jenny to feed from.

“Marina, if you don’t turn off this Latina drama shit, I’m gonna throw that TV out the window, and you with it.” A tall, heavy girl about my age walked into view and dropped onto one of the couches on her knees, shoving her hands between the cushions. She had huge brown eyes, smooth dark skin, and deep hollows beneath sharp cheekbones. “Where’s the damn remote? I can’t take any more of this Speedy Gonzales babble...”

“That’s Sharise’s drama,” a second girl insisted in a thick Latino accent, just outside my field of vision. “My show went off.”

“Both of ya’ll shut up,” a third voice—obviously Sharise—snapped. “I’m tryin’ to learn Spanish.”

“You’re not gonna learn to say nothin’ from this crap but ‘I’m pregnant’ and ‘I’m dyin.’” The first girl paused in her search and glanced over her shoulder at Sharise. “But you’re gonna need to know those anyway, right? That, and ‘I need another hit.’”

“Whatever,” Sharise said, and couch springs squealed. “I’m done with that.”

“Hey!” the first girl interrupted, and I looked up to find her staring at me, now holding the missing remote control. “You the new girl?”

“Yeah.” I’d been caught; might as well own it.

“Well, look at this. We got another white girl, even paler than BethAnne. Looks like crime finally found the suburbs.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

More springs squealed on my right, and I turned to find two more girls watching me from the second couch. “Hey, I’m Sharise, and this is Marina.” The girl who stood and offered me her hand was older than me—maybe seventeen?—and looked exhausted. Used up, but not shut down. She was shorter, skinnier, and darker-skinned than the first girl. I braced myself for new fears as I took her hand.

But all I got was a vague whisper of discomfort, like a chill up my spine.

Sharise didn’t live in fear. She held her personal terrors close to her heart, buried too deep to be read with the first casual contact. I respected that, but not enough to give her a pass. Secret fears always made the heartiest meals.

Sharise shook my hand, then glanced over my shoulder at the girl still holding the remote. “That’s Elesha. She’s mean, but she’s just coverin’ her own insecurity.”

“Yeah, and Sharise thinks she’s gonna be a psychiatrist, if she hasn’t already fried her brain.”

“See?” Sharise lifted her brows and shot a scowl over my shoulder. “Mean as a snake.”

“I just say it like it is,” Elesha insisted, dropping the remote to the center cushion. “What’s your name?”

“Sabine.”

Elesha snorted. “You even got a white girl name,” she said, and I shrugged. “What’d you do?”

I didn’t have to say, and Gomez wasn’t allowed to. But acting like I had a secret would only make people more determined to figure me out. “Missed curfew and found a bottle of Jack.”

“That’s it?” Elesha looked skeptical.

I shrugged and sat on the arm of the couch. “I was already on probation.”

Before they could pry any deeper, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Gomez leading Navarro out of her office, one hand on his arm. He stopped in the hall. “Sabine?”

“What?”

“Wednesday at four.” Every week like clockwork, I met with my parole officer when most girls my age were watching television or not doing homework.

I nodded. Then I grabbed my bags from Gomez’s office while she walked him to his car. When she returned, she gave me an assessing look, then nodded like she’d just made her mind up about something. “Okay, let’s get you settled in.”

Gomez squeaked her way down the hall in rubber-soled shoes, and I followed with both bags. She showed me offices belonging to the assistant director and the events coordinator.

Next came the meeting room, for all the rehab classes and group sessions. The sign hanging on the door read: substance abuse treatment and prevention education. I peeked through the window. Most of the girls looked bored.

Past the common room was the cafeteria, which—Gomez explained—doubled as the classroom for the girls who lacked the privilege points to go to school. Her short, thick heels clacked as she marched into a kitchen and small serving area. “Our full-time cook has Tuesdays and Thursdays off, but you’ll meet her tomorrow. Penny is our relief cook.”

Penny waved as she worked a commercial-size can opener around the edge of a huge can of tomato sauce.

I nodded, then followed Gomez back through the kitchen and around the corner. “We have twenty beds for girls between the ages of thirteen to seventeen. The older girls are on this wing; the younger ones are down there.” She turned to point behind us, at an identical hall. “Each wing has a community bathroom. There’s no door, obviously, and they’re pretty closely monitored by the techs.”

One of whom was visible through the bathroom doorway, wearing slacks, a blouse, and an ID tag hanging around her neck.

“This is your room.” Gomez opened the last door on the left—notably missing a lock.

The room was sparse. A bed, a dresser, a built-in desk, and a window. I set my suitcases down and headed straight for the window, hoping to find the grass that was missing from the front “yard.” There was a small, dry patch of green, sprinkled with concrete picnic tables, squeezed in next to a basketball court and an open recreation area. The whole thing was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence.

Easily climbable. I made a mental note.

“You can wear your own clothes, so long as you stick to the dress code. Jeans and plain T-shirts. Sweats are okay, when it gets cold. Athletic socks and shoes. If you lose privileges, you wear the issued tees and sweats.”

“What about phone calls?” I leaned against the desk, trying not to be overwhelmed. It’s better than the detention center. And probably way better than Ron Jackson.

“You can call the people on your approved list, unless you’ve lost privileges. You’ll need a calling card for long distance.”

Shit. The approved list would include only David and Jenny, Navarro, and my court-appointed lawyer, who was about as useful as the gum on the bottom of my shoe.

The only person I actually wanted to talk to wouldn’t be on the list. Nash. I couldn’t handle six months with no contact. I’d lose my mind. Or my temper. Or both.

“No matter what you hear, you’re currently our only violent offender,” Gomez said, recapturing my attention.

I frowned up at her. “I’m not violent.”

She raised one of those arched brows at me. “You gave a car a baseball bat – makeover.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t make Tucker over.” Which was what I would have done in his nightmare, if he’d been there, to mess with.

“Your file says you broke a girl’s jaw with a lunch tray in the detention center.”

I rolled my eyes. “She tripped me and called me a white trash whore. I came up swinging.”

“You put her in the hospital.”

“She put herself in the hospital. I was just defending myself.”

Gomez narrowed her eyes at me. “Sabine, if you defend yourself so vehemently around here, I will let them lock you up. These girls aren’t dangerous. Most of them just took a wrong turn in life, and they’re getting themselves back on track. Holser is the best halfway house in the state, and I won’t let you ruin our record.”

“I’m not looking for trouble.” I held her gaze, letting her see the truth in my eyes; there’d be plenty to hide from her soon enough.

“Good,” she said, one hand on my doorknob. “Cristofer thinks you’re special. Worth the effort. I hope he’s right.”

Me too.

She pulled the door closed as she left the room, and I sank onto the bed. Welcome to Holser Hell.

I lay on my bed in the dark, in a tee and baggy gray shorts. Staring at the ceiling. Missing Nash. It was hard not to think about him at night, when there was nothing to distract me from his absence. I could feel him squeezing my hand. His lips warm on mine. I could hear his voice in my head, warning me not to let myself get too hungry. Promising he’d be there when I got out. Telling me he loved me.

No one else had ever said that to me. Ever.

But those bits of him were figments. Memories at best. I’d lost him, at least for a while, and I couldn’t even see him in my sleep because I can’t dream. Maybe that’s normal for a mara, but I don’t know; I’ve never met another one.

The closest I can come to dreaming is feeding from someone else’s nightmare. I need that, like I need food and water. Or maybe more like I need air.

Hunger gnawed at me—a ravenous beast chewing me up from the inside. I hadn’t fed much in the detention center because so many of the kids there were drugged. Their sleep was unnatural, thus beyond my ability to manipulate, and if I couldn’t mold their dreams into nightmares, I couldn’t feed from them.

The same could be true at Holser, but I hadn’t seen many meds handed out, so I clung to the hope of a nightly all-you-can-eat as the one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy sentence. Because Nash was right—I’d lose control if I got too hungry.

Lights out for the last group of girls—those with the most privilege points—was at ten o’clock. My alarm clock, casting a weak crimson glow over the small room, read 12:13.

I rolled over and stared at the wall, silently feeling out the rooms around mine. I can sense sleep like a rat smells cheese, even when he can’t see it. Most of the girls near me were out cold, and so far, their slumbers felt natural. Organic. Delicious.

It was time.

I closed my eyes, mentally drawing energy into the center of my body. It coiled there, pulsing slowly, cold and sluggish from hunger, but eager to be used. Then that energy gradually stretched into my limbs, mimicking my body structure. I stood and felt this energy-me separate from my physical form—the metaphysical equivalent of dislocating a joint, only it didn’t hurt. It felt satisfying, like stretching first thing in the morning.

The energy-me crossed the room. My footsteps made no sound. My form had no substance. No one would see me, even standing right next to me. I turned to look at the bed, where the physical me still lay, eyes closed, one hand resting on my stomach, breathing steadily.

Privately, I call this part Sleepwalking, because while part of me was up walking around, my physical form seemed to be sleeping. That’s exactly what anyone who saw me lying in bed would think. They’d notice how peaceful I looked, and how innocent.

The irony of that thought gave me a small, secret smile.

My Sleepwalking form enjoyed a freedom my physical body could never experience, but there were some weird limits, most of which I’d discovered through trial and error.

Not like Nash. He was no more human than I was—but his mom and brother were around to teach him stuff and answer questions. I had only instinct, and ignorance on a cosmic scale. Kinda tragic, if you think about it.

So I don’t think about it. I think about the stuff I do know.

Like Sleepwalking physics, I thought, stepping into the dim hallway without opening my door. I could Sleepwalk through doors, climb through closed windows or boarded up holes in walls, and through anything else that might serve as an entrance or exit for my physical body. But I couldn’t fall through floors or walk through solid walls. My Sleepwalking-self slammed into them just like my physical form would have.

It made no sense. But then, very little of my life did.

The hallway was empty and quiet, but I could hear the nightshift tech watching TV in the common room. She would make rounds, checking all the beds and bathrooms, but with any luck, in a nonsecure facility, nights would be pretty low-key.

The room next to mine belonged to a girl named BethAnne. During dinner, my fingers had brushed hers when we’d both reached for a saltshaker, and I’d slid into her fear as easily as sinking into a tub full of hot water.

Sometimes fears exposed secrets, a glimpse of the memories they were based on. Other times, especially in little kids, they were a fleeting terror inspired by a scary movie or a dark closet. But BethAnne’s fear had the gritty feel of real pain—a satisfying meal, as opposed to a quick snack.

I glanced down the empty hall again, then stepped through her door into a room just like mine. BethAnne slept on one side, her knees tucked up to her stomach. I knelt by her bed. Her face was inches from mine, and if I’d had a physical presence, her breath would have stirred my hair.

I ran one finger over her cheek, and that I could feel—warm and soft and bumpy from a mild breakout. I could feel her in my bodiless Sleepwalking form because she was dreaming, and I was pretty sure she could feel me too, though how she’d interpret my touch in her sleep was anyone’s guess.

But she wouldn’t wake up while I was touching her. No one ever had. I was part sedative, part leech, and all bad dream—literally. And I wouldn’t even have known that much, if not for Nash’s mother.

You’re a mara, she’d explained the night he’d brought me to her in tears. One of several breeds of parasitic empath. My generation would call you a Nightmare. You can read people’s fears, and when they sleep, you guide their dreams to cultivate that fear. Then you feed from it.

She was right, though I could never have explained it so well on my own. For years, I’d done what my body wanted—what it needed —with no understanding of what was actually happening. Of what I really was. I’d only known that when people touched me, they saw their worst fears reflected in my eyes, and it scared them. I scared them.

Hell, for all I knew, that’s why I’d been abandoned on a church doorstep when I was no more than two, by the social worker’s best guess. No one knew my birthday or my real name. For all practical purposes, I was born that afternoon, in social services, to the woman who named me after the heroine in a romance novel and the label on a can of her favorite soup.

But she didn’t keep me. No one kept me for more than a few months at a time. I made them uncomfortable. When I was around, fear floated in the air like dust moats in sunlight. Floorboards creaked louder, goose bumps grew fatter, and the dark felt darker than ever before.

Obviously, I don’t make a lot of friends. But when people go to sleep, I know them better than anyone. I see things they wouldn’t show their best friends. Hear things they wouldn’t whisper to their therapists. Sometimes I know things they don’t even know about themselves. Buried memories. Forgotten trauma. The quiet terror slowly rotting away at their souls.

I gave their terror life. I gave it form and purpose, carefully weaving borrowed images to create a dream tapestry, sticky as spider’s silk and a million times stronger. They struggled pointlessly against my carefully braided dream threads while I rode their fear, gorging on it to nourish my own soul until the hunger ebbed—at least for a while.

In their nightmares, I had power, and for those few moments—precious because they were so brief—I felt sated. Full. In the most hedonistic, pleasure-filled sense of the word.

Just thinking about it made my hunger swell, a cold-blooded beast demanding warmth and nourishment. Tonight, BethAnne would be both.

She sighed beneath my caressing finger, and I laid my palm flat on the side of her face, treasuring her warmth. I slid my hand over her jaw and down her throat to her shoulder. Then I pushed.

BethAnne rolled onto her back with a soft grunt. Her forehead furrowed, but her eyes didn’t open. I pulled the covers back and knelt on one side of the mattress. She was helpless, and practically plump with energy she didn’t even need, while I was cold and starving. It’s not wrong, some stubborn voice in my head insisted. It’s survival. She’ll live, and this way, so will you.

I slid my leg over her stomach and straddled her on the bed. Her tee was soft against my thighs, her skin warm through the material, in contrast to the cold hunger chilling me from the inside.

My eyes closed, and I scooted forward until I felt her rib cage beneath me. Her breath hitched, struggling beneath my weight. But I wasn’t heavy enough to truly suffocate her, and I would only take as much energy as I needed.

I leaned forward and touched her face. Warm cheeks, warmer neck. The physical contact I needed to establish a mental connection.

Then the world shifted, and I saw what she saw. I wasn’t truly in her dream, but I was in firm control of it. The wizard behind the curtain of her subconscious.

BethAnne sat on a beach in the sun, sculpting a sandcastle with the handle of a broken plastic fork. She glanced up and smiled at a man in a folding lawn chair, then carefully scraped sand from the side of a turret. The man had no face, and I’d been in enough dreams to interpret that one—BethAnne had never met her father, but her subconscious hoped he was the kind of man who’d set aside an entire day just to watch her on the beach. To be with her.

So peaceful. So hopeful. So ... completely useless to me. Peace and hope are cute. But fear is my medium. It’s the vibrant paint on the canvas of my life, the only color bright enough to mean anything. To truly feel.

With it, I could paint her dream into a nightmare...

I started with something simple. The next time BethAnne turned to look at her blank-faced father, he was gone. So was his chair. I was proud of that little detail; it said that he hadn’t merely left her—he’d never really been there in the first place.

Next, the sand melted beneath her feet, flattening and hardening into featureless gray concrete, gritty against her bare legs.

BethAnne stood, frightened by the abrupt changes. That’s when I dropped the rest of the nightmare around her, as sudden and disjointed as any natural dream.

I dried up the ocean, giddy with power in my dream-state kingdom. Then, when BethAnne whirled again, bars slammed into the ground in front of her, clanging like a prison cell door. Three more bar walls dropped on her other sides, and she was trapped. Caught. Alone.

BethAnne tried to shake the bars, but they didn’t move. She yelled, but her throat made no sound. She was locked up—cut off from the world. This was the fear she’d shown me. Total isolation. Being gone and forgotten, like she’d never existed in the first place.

She was afraid now—the real BethAnne trembled beneath me on her mattress, so small and scared—but I needed more. There is a well of true terror in everyone’s heart, and she was hiding hers from me instinctively.

No fair holding back. I wanted it all.

The Sleepwalking-me leaned forward and stared down at BethAnne in her bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her fists clenching the sheet at her sides.

I closed my eyes again and swiped an eraser over my mental whiteboard. In her dream, the concrete beach disappeared, along with the dry ocean bed. But the bars remained, and BethAnne could see nothing beyond them but a yawning black abyss. I’d left her no sign that the rest of the world still existed.

She opened her mouth for a scream, and I gave back her voice. But the blackness devoured it the moment the sound flowed past the bars. No one would hear her. No one would see her. She could scream and cry and bang on the window all day, but...

Wait. A window?

And that’s when I saw through the cracks and into that well she’d tried to keep from me. I fell into its depths and landed in the middle of her true nightmare—the remembered terror I’d somehow recreated for her with no conscious thought. I was on autopilot, gorging on her fear without noticing the changes until they’d gone too far.

BethAnne whimpered.

A basement, pitch dark, but for the pitiful streetlight shining through a narrow, filthy window at the top of one wall. A child version of BethAnne sat in the stretched rectangle of dirty light, tiny arms hugging her knees. Something skittered in the corner, and BethAnne sobbed. Her empty stomach growled and cramped. Her tongue felt thick and dry. She’d wet herself the day before.

The stairs were lost in darkness, and the door at the top was locked from the outside. With a padlock. BethAnne had gotten out of the house once when her mommy went out, and someone called social services. Mommy wasn’t taking any chances this time. She had to keep her daughter safe from nosy strangers with cell phones. Safe from anything until Mommy came back with food and water, smiling and playing the hero. And when she did, BethAnne would love her and hug her and cling to her shining salvation. So what if her savior was also her jailer?

But what if her mommy didn’t come back this time? What if no one ever heard BethAnne again?

Beneath me, her heart beat faster. Too fast. She was sweating now, and her pulse was irregular.

Too much. Too far. What kind of sick-ass parent would do that to a kid? No wonder BethAnne kept that one buried.

Maybe I was better off without a mom.

I opened my eyes and withdrew from her dream, and without my will to support it, BethAnne’s nightmare collapsed like a house of cards. I was done with her. Just like some restaurants are too dirty to eat at, some fears are too filthy to consume, for fear of planting rot in my own soul.

Her breathing slowed, and I slid off her chest. BethAnne rolled onto her side. She pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked one hand beneath her cheek. Silent tears streaked her face, but she breathed deeply now, without my weight to constrict her lungs. She looked so vulnerable—a larger version of the girl huddling in the basement—and suddenly I wished I’d chosen someone else to feed from on my first night at Holser. Someone a little less damaged.

I was warm and full, nearly glutted, but the meal sat heavy on my soul, like bad fish in my gut. There was nothing left to do but lie awake in my bed and wait for morning. And try to forget BethAnne’s basement, and the fact that I—a walking Nightmare—had been outplayed by the memory of an ordinary, human nightmare of a mother.

Morning couldn’t come fast enough. It never did. You’d think I’d be used to that, after fifteen years of lying awake in bed—I only seem to need three to four hours of sleep—but it never gets easier to fill the empty hours before dawn.

And I’d learned quickly not to ever, ever wake anyone else up.

But by quarter to six in the morning, I’d had all the nighttime I could take. By six fifteen, I was showered, dried, dressed, brushed, and scowling at the locked cafeteria door.

“I don’t serve breakfast until seven thirty,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to find a blue-eyed woman in khakis and a green button-down shirt. An official laminate ID hung around her neck, reading kate greer. “Most of the girls aren’t even awake this early in the summer.”

“I’m not most of the girls.” But I was starving for actual food, now that my more exotic hunger had been temporarily satisfied.

“Then you must be Sabine,” Greer said, and I nodded. “Well, Sabine, how ’bout this: I’ll let you eat now, if you help me serve breakfast afterward.”

“Yeah, I guess.” First served, plus I wouldn’t have to pretend not to notice the others avoiding me as they ate.

“Great. It’ll fulfill your chore requirement for today too. Follow me.” Greer pulled a pink coiled key chain from her pocket and unlocked the door, then led the way through the dining room into the kitchen, where the combined scents of bacon, butter, and syrup were enough to make my head swim.

“Why is the food ready, if you don’t serve it for another hour?” I asked, staring at the serving line, where steam rose from slits in aluminum foil covered buffet trays.

“Because I feed the day staff before their shift starts.”

“That’s really cool of you.” And probably not a requirement of her position.

“I don’t mind. Help yourself.” She pointed to a stack of plastic trays at one end of the serving line. So I did.

I scarfed pancakes, bacon, and juice while the day-shift techs and staff members wandered in alone or in pairs.

None of them sat near me. A couple smiled—I’d seen them the day before—but when my gaze met theirs, they looked away and hurried past my table. My creepy factor was strongest after a good meal, and I’d fed well the night before.

Kate Greer was the only staff member, so far, who didn’t seem in a hurry to get rid of me. After I ate, she gave me an apron and a pair of tongs. “You do bacon, and I’ll handle the pancakes. If they want seconds, they have to wait until everyone else has eaten. Got it?”

I nodded just as the first residents pushed through the double doors into the cafeteria. But twenty minutes later, when everyone had been served, Greer’s pile of pancakes had dwindled to a single stack of five, but my bacon tray was still full. I’d only served two girls. All the others had passed me by after one glance.

“That’s weird.” Greer frowned as I covered the full tray. “Bacon’s usually a hit. Now what am I going to do with all this?”

I had no answer, so I hung up my apron and crossed the cafeteria in silence, avoiding eye contact while I was still so warm and full—and obviously sending out creepy-vibes—from BethAnne’s nightmare.

It wouldn’t take long for Greer to notice that no one was eating whatever I was dishing out. I’d have to find a more solitary house chore and wait to eat with the general population, no matter how loud my impatient stomach complained.

At least the nighttime self-serve is plentiful.

Or so I thought...

I spent most of my second day at Holser House alone in my room, avoiding people so they couldn’t avoid me. That night, I was still pretty full—or at least not starving—from BethAnne’s nightmare, so I decided not to feed, hoping people would find me a little less spooky the next day. It turns out solitude is a lot easier to deal with when foster parents are the only people trying to ignore you. Though I would never have admitted it, being alone in a house full of girls my own age ... well, that kind of sucked.

And it made me miss Nash even more. He and his family were the only ones I’d ever met who didn’t mind me hanging around—probably because they weren’t human either. Knowing why I was creepy had gone a long way toward helping them get over it.

Unfortunately, revealing my species to the rest of Holser wasn’t an option. But skipping one meal wouldn’t kill me, right? I’d gone longer than that plenty of times. So that night, I put in my earbuds and listened to the iPod David had given me while I waited to fall asleep on an empty stomach.

The next day was Saturday. Visiting day. From ten a.m. on, there were strangers everywhere I turned. Or at least, that’s what it felt like, though once I started counting, I realized only about a dozen of the girls had company.

I wasn’t one of them. Not that I’d expected to be. Jenny was pissed that I’d gotten arrested again, and David wouldn’t come see me without her. Not after I’d pulled a no-show on his watch.

So I decided to scout out a suitable meal for that night from among the girls who didn’t have visitors. I tried the common room first, but the only two girls there were talking to parents, one of whom had brought along a kid brother, evidently glued to a PSP.

The cafeteria was the same, only worse. Several more fractured family units were spread out around different tables, alternately talking, arguing, and sitting in uncomfortable silence. Another point in favor of me not having a real family.

My only other option was the backyard. None of the visitors wanted to leave the air-conditioning for the broiling Texas heat, so all three picnic tables were occupied by Holser residents. The only girl I knew by name was Sharise, who sat alone at the shaded end of a concrete picnic table.

I dropped onto the bench across from her. “Hey.”

Sharise looked up from a game of Solitaire and met my gaze, unflinchingly. “Hey.”

She hadn’t picked up her cards and run—definitely a good sign. My growing hunger would make it harder for me to read her fear, but easier for her to tolerate my presence. “No company today?”

“Or any other day.” She flipped over a red five and stacked it on a black six. “No one left to come see me ’cept my sister, and she can’t drive yet. What about you?”

Had she just asked me a personal question? That was new. “Same. Minus the sister.”

Sharise nodded like she understood. “You in foster care?”

Wow. Two questions in a row. That was practically a conversation! “I was.” I shrugged, trying not to look shocked as I squinted into the blinding sun. “Not sure anymore.”

Jenny probably wouldn’t let David take me back. I was pretty sure she’d gone out of town that night to get away from me anyway, even if she didn’t even really understand her own motivation. She hadn’t been sleeping very well lately—plagued with nightmares of one miscarriage after another, caused by the fear that she’d condemned her husband to a childless life. Well, caused by that, and by me.

What she didn’t know was that David’s worst fear was actually being saddled with an infant. He’d been having trouble sleeping lately too...

“So, how long does this family love-fest last?” I asked, glancing around at the other residents who’d chosen the heat over the Visitor’s Day commotion inside.

“Till five. But everyone with enough privilege points gets to check out for dinner.”

Dinner out? Something told me I wouldn’t be so lucky. Fortunately, so far the food at Holser was much better than I’d expected.

I was oddly reluctant to end the unexpected conversation with Sharise, which would definitely happen once I touched her. But my other hunger had to be satisfied too...

“Hey, you can use this two on that red three.” I leaned across the table and pulled a card from Sharise’s hand, letting my fingers brush hers in the process. I’d gotten very little from her before, but this time I got absolutely nothing. Not a single whiff of fear. Not even the brief spine chill I’d read from her the first time. All I felt from her now was a thick, smoggy kind of peace and acceptance of her past crimes and her conscious decision to move past them.

Sharise stared at me like I’d just snatched a bite of food from her fork. “I got it.” She plucked the card from my hand and played it, then went on with her game without another glance in my direction. Pointedly ignoring me. I might not have freaked her out, but my interference in her Solitaire game was definitely unwelcome.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and stood and wandered away from her table, as confused by her complete lack of fear as I was disappointed to have lost her company. Sharise seemed cool enough— she was certainly nicer than anyone else I’d met at Holser. But making friends with her, if that was even possible for me, would have been like getting to know my hamburger right before lunch.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

Speaking of human hamburgers, I still hadn’t found a meal...

Across the yard, a girl I didn’t know sat on another concrete bench, while a second girl, perched on the table behind her, braided long strands of her hair. I accidentally-on-purpose bumped their table as I passed and knocked a bag of tiny, neon colored rubber bands to the ground.

“Sorry.” I knelt to pick them up, and when I handed them to the girl on the bench, our hands touched. I looked into her eyes and felt ... nothing. No fear. I saw only patience and a weathered acceptance of Holser House and the part it played in her rehabilitation.

Really? Patience? Acceptance? And no fear?

“What’s your problem?” The girl asked, without any real venom. That’s when I realized I was frowning at her, still holding the bag of rubber bands while she tried to pull them from my grip.

“Sorry,” I said, for the second time in as many minutes. I backed away from the table and into the shade of one of the few trees on the property.

I might not be the poster child for normality, but I’d looked into the eyes of at least a hundred girls my own age in the last couple of years and had seen fears ranging in severity from the stereotypical dread of being dumped in public to the shy, quiet girl’s terror that her brother would lose his temper again and beat her to death in her own room. I’d also felt all kinds of paranoia, insecurity, and rage. But I’d rarely ever felt simple, overwhelming patience and acceptance from a normal teenage girl. Much less two in a row. Two parolees, who should—logically—have more to fear and resent than your average high school kid.

In fact, the only time I’d ever felt anything like what I was getting from Sharise and the other girl was when...

“Sabine?”

I glanced up to see a tech I didn’t recognize holding a clipboard and squinting out at the yard from the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“Your brother’s here to see you. He’s in the common room.” Then she stepped back inside and let the door slam shut behind her.

Brother? Then I smiled. Nash...

Sharise raised one brow at me as I pulled open the back door, but I only shrugged. She knew I had no family, but she wouldn’t tell anyone. She was feeling too peaceful to start any trouble. I happened to know that for a fact.

It took all of my dwindling self-control not to race down the hall, but I didn’t want to look too eager. I mean, how happy would a girl really be to see her own brother?

I stopped in the common room doorway, and there he was. He turned when he heard my footsteps, and his hazel eyes lit up, one side of his mouth curled into a half-smile.

“Hey, sis.”

I almost laughed out loud. My relationship to Nash could in no way be described as ‘sisterly.’ I made myself take the next few steps one at a time, and then I merely wrapped my arms around him, instead of running to jump into his arms.

He squeezed me tight and whispered into my ear. “You don’t seem very happy to see your only brother.”

I whispered back, “I might be, if I had one.”

“I’m kind of glad you don’t. He probably wouldn’t like what I’m thinking about his sister right now.”

I grinned as he let me go, then glanced around to find the two separate groups of visitors watching us curiously. “Come on.” I started to grab Nash’s hand and then stopped myself and tugged on his short sleeve instead. I wasn’t sure whether we were allowed to have visitors in our rooms, but I was certain that if we got caught, no one at Holser would ever mistake Nash for my brother again.

Still, a few minutes alone with him would be worth the risk.

From my room, I glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one was looking and then closed the door and turned to face Nash. He was there in an instant, in my arms again for a real greeting this time. “Damn, I missed you. School sucks when you’re gone.”

I grinned and pulled him closer. “School sucks anyway.”

“Well, it’s worse now.” He kissed me like I was the only source of oxygen in the room—like he’d die without me—and something in my chest ached so fiercely I thought my lungs would pop. I hadn’t felt right since I’d last tasted him five days ago, four hours before the cops picked me up outside the mall, drunk and very, very disorderly.

And I wouldn’t feel right again once he left. I never felt right without Nash. He was the only person in the world who wasn’t afraid of me, or repulsed by what he saw in my eyes. He wanted me, even knowing what I was. Even knowing what I had to do to survive. He loved me.

And I loved him more than I had ever, in my entire life, loved a single living soul.

When I finally pulled back—more for lack of air than anything else—Nash smiled at me, but didn’t let go. “So, I guess you think you’re badass now, huh? An ex-con parole violator?”

“Whatever. I probably would have gotten probation again, if I hadn’t broken that girl’s jaw while I was waiting for my court date.”

His brows rose, but he didn’t look truly surprised. “You broke somebody’s jaw?”

I shrugged. “She had it coming.”

“You should join the football team,” he said, and I laughed.

“You just wanna tackle me.”

His gaze smoldered. “We don’t need pads and helmets for that.”

“No, but we might need a door that actually locks. Speaking of security measures, how’d you get in here, brother? ”

Nash smiled and sank into the only chair in the room. “I have a way with words.”

“The understatement of the millennium...” I straddled him in the chair and stared down into his eyes, trying to convince myself that he was real. That he was actually there, in the flesh, beneath me. If I could have a dream, that would be it. “So, what? You just showed up at the door and Influenced your way in?”

“Nah.” His grin deepened. “I called first and got myself put on your approved visitors list. Then I showed up at the door...”

“Your Influence works over the phone?” Nash was a bean sidhe —or banshee, to the uninitiated—the little known male of the species. The females were more famous in folklore, because of the girlie, nerve-shredding screech they let loose when they sensed someone near death, but the male bean sidhe’ s ability is actually much more powerful. And convenient. With nothing more than the sweet, seductive sound of his voice—his Influence—Nash could convince just about anyone to do just about anything. The best part? They thought they actually wanted to do whatever he talked them into. It was like hypnosis, only better.

Unfortunately, the effect wore off almost as soon as he stopped talking. So if we were caught, he could probably talk us out of serious trouble for the moment, but later, I’d no doubt get written up and lose some privileges.

But Nash was still worth it.

“Apparently. Tod didn’t think it would work over the phone, but I never pass up a chance to prove him wrong.”

“He knows where you are? Is he gonna tell your mom?” It was a good hour’s drive from Nash’s house to Holser, and he’d only had his license for a month.

“Nah, but he’ll probably use it against me next time he wants to get out of mowing the lawn.” He smiled and ran his hands up my sides. “So how happy are you to see me? I’m guessing this place really sucks?”

“Extremely, on both counts.” I kissed him again. His hands roamed upward, but I pushed them back down reluctantly. “We’ll only have a few minutes alone.”

He scowled. “This place does suck. At least the eating’s probably ... plentiful though, right?”

I frowned. “More like pitiful, if today’s any indication.”

“What does that mean?”

I climbed off his lap and sat on the edge of the bed to get comfortable. “Thursday night, I visited the girl next door—who is screwed up beyond belief, FYI—and had a pretty heavy meal. Last night, I abstained. But then today, I was looking for something appetizing outside right before you got here, and I found ... nothing.”

“Nothing good?”

“Nothing at all. No fear, no panic, not even a taste of chronic discomfort. They’re all ... content.”

“Wait. All of them?” Nash scooted the chair forward until his knees hit the mattress between mine.

I shrugged. “The two I tried, anyway.”

“Well, that’s hardly the entire population. Still, what are the chances of two in a row? This is a halfway house, not a birthday party. If the residents were shiny, happy people, they wouldn’t be here.” He caught my frown and amended. “Present company excluded.”

Yet we both knew I was neither shiny nor particularly happy, at least when he wasn’t around. “According to the director, I’m the only hardened criminal—most of the others are here for possession with intent or truancy. But yeah, there should be some major fear in here. Or at least regret or anger. But I’m getting nothing but peace and acceptance. It’s creepy.”

“Are you feeling okay? Getting enough sleep?” Nash asked. I rolled my eyes, and he shrugged. “Okay, any sleep?”

“Nash, I don’t think it’s me. I think it’s them. I think something’s wrong with them.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s just a hunch, but this place doesn’t feel right. I’ve been here for two and a half days now and haven’t heard a single person yell. No one’s arguing over chores or showers or food or the phone. No one’s arguing about anything. They’re all just ... getting along.”

“But isn’t that a good thing? You know, rehabilitation and all?”

“They aren’t rehabilitated. They’re lobotomized. Or at least, neutered.”

“Bina, how do you neuter people? And girls, at that?”

“I don’t know, but that’s what’s happened. They’ve lost their balls. And you can’t tell me they never had any, ’cause if you’ve never caused any trouble, you don’t end up here in the first place.”

“Well, you certainly haven’t been neutered. Or lobotomized.”

“Yeah, I seem to be the exception. And the only other thing I’m the exception to is humanity.”

“You think you’re immune to whatever’s wrong with them because you’re a mara?”

I shrugged again. “I’m kinda thinkin’ out loud here. But yeah.”

“Okay, but what if you’re wrong? What if whatever’s wrong here is only affecting you? Throwing off your empathy?”

“I guess that’s possible.” Especially once I thought about it. “They don’t seem very scared of me. At least, not today...”

“We need a test. Try it on me. Read my fears.”

“Nash, that’s not a good idea.” We’d been down that road; it ended on the edge of a very steep cliff, and I wasn’t sure either of us would survive the fall.

“Just try it. I can take it. You know that.”

Yeah, I knew. That was one of the reasons Nash and I were perfect for each other. I could read his fears—could even feed from them, if I absolutely had to—but because he wasn’t human, he could stop me whenever he wanted. I literally couldn’t hurt him, which was all I could ever have asked for in a boyfriend. Though he was so much more.

And while he could certainly use his Influence on me, I could feel what he was doing because I wasn’t human. With a little practice—at his suggestion—I’d learned to break his hold on my willpower. Which meant he couldn’t hurt me either.

We were both weird and scary. When I was being truly honest with myself, I had to admit we were monsters, both manipulating people for our own benefit. But we were a matched set of monsters. We balanced each other out. Kept each other in check.

Nash and I were made for one another.

“Okay, are you ready?” I asked, hesitantly.

He nodded, and his eyes took on this weird look they sometimes got—like the colors in them weren’t quite steady—and he grinned. “Yeah, but make it fun, Bina.”

I returned his grin with a sultry one of my own. “Fun” was the least I could do.

As one of several kinds of empaths, I can typically read people’s general emotional state at a glance, no matter what they’re trying to hide. But it usually takes some small amount of physical contact for me to accurately read someone’s fears—to get the nitty gritty details. With everyone else, that contact had to be subtle and small to keep from completely freaking them out.

With Nash, I got to be truly hands-on.

I climbed onto the chair with him again and kissed him, long and deep. His mouth opened against mine, and my tongue met his. Dimly, I felt his hands on my hips, anchoring me on his lap, but then all that faded into the background in a single instant.

I saw his deepest fear in that moment, and it looked like ... me.

Huh? Nash was afraid of me? That was new. And weird.

In his mind—or maybe somewhere deeper and darker, wherever fear truly lives—I lay on his bed, in his room, in only my Cowboys tee and underwear. I remembered that night.

But why would he be scared of that?

As I watched, he lay on the bed next to me, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. I remembered that too. He was so warm, and he’d smelled so good.

But this was Nash’s fear-memory, not mine, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when what I remembered didn’t happen next. Instead of kissing me and touching me and looking at me like the world suddenly existed only in my eyes, this fear-Nash climbed on top of me and...

The fear-me tried to stop him, but then he leaned down and whispered something in my ear, and my hand fell limp at my side. I stared at the ceiling over his shoulder as his mouth and hands wandered.

And that’s when I understood. He wasn’t scared of me. He was scared of himself. Nash was terrified that he’d Influenced me.

No!

I pulled away from him and stared, my lips still warm from his. “No. Nash, that’s not how it happened.”

His brow furrowed. “What did you see?”

“Us. That night...” I swallowed, then met his gaze so he could see the truth in mine. “You’re afraid that you made me.”

He closed his eyes, and his head fell against the back of the chair. “Or that I will make you.”

“But you didn’t. You never have, and you never will.”

He lifted his head, and now his gaze was searching. Worried. “How do you know? I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m pretty new at this, Sabine.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“No, not that.” Nash shook his head and started over. “Well, that too, but that’s not what I meant. Male bean sidhes are born with a little bit of Influence, but we don’t really come into our full potential until puberty.” His face flushed, but his jaw line was firm—he was determined to spit out whatever he had to say. “Anyway, I’m not very good at controlling it yet. Tod says that’s normal, and I’ll gain a lot of control in the next couple of years, but right now I still ... accidentally ... Sometimes I make people do things without meaning to. And I don’t want that to ever happen with you.”

I kissed him again because I couldn’t think of a better rebuttal. And when I pulled away, he looked a little calmer. “Nash, you don’t Influence me. I don’t think you could, even if you wanted to. I’m not exactly a pushover. Not neutered, remember?” I smiled and was relieved to see him grin in return.

Nash laughed out loud, and I kissed him one more time before climbing out of his lap. “Well, I guess you’re not the problem,” he said, as I settled onto the edge of the bed again.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” I’d almost forgotten the point of our little experiment. “So, if it’s not me, it’s them, right? Or something that’s happening to them.”

“What could be happening to them?”

“I don’t know, but the last time I felt that kind of mindless acceptance was when you Influenced the ticket guy into letting us watch The Last House on the Left at the movie theater. He felt like these girls felt. Like he was at peace with a decision he hadn’t even made for himself.”

“You’re saying someone’s Influencing the Holser girls?”

“No...” I frowned again. “There aren’t any men on the staff—much less bean sidhe men—and anyway, I’m pretty sure I’d know if that were happening. Besides, Influence wears off almost as soon as you stop talking, so it couldn’t be any of the dads visiting today, because none of them were outside with the girls I tasted. This is something else. It just feels similar to Influence.”

“Sabine, whatever it is, it’ll probably wear off. It wasn’t like this the day you got here, right?”

“Right.” BethAnne had felt anything but calm and accepting.

Nash nodded. “And you can’t swear it was like this yesterday. Chances are everything will be fine tomorrow, and you’ll gorge yourself on some poor girl’s agoraphobia.”

After BethAnne’s nightmare, such a simple fear would be a relief. “And if you’re wrong?”

Nash sighed. “I’m not going to talk you out of digging into this, am I?”

“Why would you try? A girl’s gotta eat.”

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Sabine, you’re supposed to be lying low. It works the same way in here as it does out there.” He gestured toward my window, to indicate the outside world. “Your best chance of survival is to go completely unnoticed by humans.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “More of your mom’s advice?”

“She’s eighty years old, Sabine.” Though she looked less than thirty. “She knows what she’s talking about.”

“Not this time.” I shook my head firmly and pushed his hands away when he tried to pull me closer. “My best chance of survival is not to starve to death.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’d refuse to leave this alone even if you weren’t hungry?”

I shrugged. “At least it’ll pass the time.”

“You have to learn to let things go, Sabine.” He took a deep breath and met my gaze, then spat out what was really bothering him—the reason for the frustration I could taste in the air around him. “You should have told me about Tucker. I would have handled it.”

“Nash, that was months ago. And I don’t need you to handle things for me.” Besides, knowing what I now knew about his tenuous control, I couldn’t help thinking that if he’d handled it, Tucker would have gotten a sudden, irresistible urge to walk into rush-hour traffic. “I just need you to be here.”

“I know.” He sighed again and leaned forward and pulled something out of his back pocket. “This is for when you need me and I can’t be here.” He handed me a small, slim flip phone. The pay-as-you-go, over-the-counter variety. “They’ll take it away if they see it, so leave it on silent and be careful. But call me if you need to talk.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I kissed him, and when I finally pulled away, he stood. “Does this mean you have to go?”

“I need to be home before my mom gets back. Walk me out?”

I nodded reluctantly, and we moved down the hall and out the front door with a respectable space between us, like any normal brother and sister, even though I ached to be so close to him.

In the parking lot, I gave him a hug, holding him tighter and longer than I probably should have. “Come see me next weekend?”

His eyes looked weird again when he met my gaze, like the colors weren’t quite steady. “Nothing could stop me, Sabine.”

On my way back into the building, I was still thinking about Nash and wasn’t watching where I was going. As I rounded the corner onto the front porch, I collided with Becky—one of the day-shift techs—coming up the steps from the other side. She stumbled and dropped a grease-stained paper bag on the step.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, bending to pick it up. The bag smelled like French fries, and my stomach rumbled. But when I handed it to the tech, her hand brushed mine, and I froze beneath the onslaught of images.

Becky, on the floor of a dirty public restroom, vomiting thick streams of greasy, half-digested food. Over and over.

Becky, lying in a hospital bed, her flesh so bloated and distended that it hung over the sides. Her face swallowed by fat cheeks and voluminous chins. In the hall, the nurses laughed and joked about Becky the Blimp, just like the kids had in junior high.

On the steps of Holser House, Becky pulled the french-fry bag from my grip and frowned at me like I’d tried to steal her food—exactly what she was afraid of.

I stared after her as she stomped through the front door and took off toward the staff break room, but I’d already half forgotten her fear. All I could think about as I wandered into the building was that whatever was happening to the Holser girls wasn’t happening to the staff.

Hmmm...

By that night, my dark hunger was gnawing at me from the inside again, much worse than it should have been by that point, demanding that I feed. And I tried. Fighting chills from the cold, hollow ache inside me, I Sleepwalked into sixteen of the nineteen other residents’ rooms, starving for a taste of fear. I would even have taken a generic naked-in-the-classroom nightmare, but I found nothing. Not one of the natural sleepers—the last three were medicated—gave up even a trickle of discomfort.

Something was definitely wrong, and I wouldn’t make it much longer without feeding. Not with my hunger accelerating for no reason I could figure out. That night, I could only lie in bed and shiver in spite of the warm Texas night, until it was light enough to get up.

Sunday morning, I devoured two helpings of everything at breakfast, hoping that the extra human food would help keep me running until I found a way to fulfill my other, darker appetite. Unfortunately, Greer noticed me shivering while I shoved food down my throat, and when I dumped my trash and set my dirty tray on the stack, she called me into the kitchen.

“Are you okay? You look pale.” She tried to feel my forehead, but I jerked away as soon as her fingers touched my skin. They were scalding, and her touch brought with it only a glimpse of curiosity and a smudge of concern. “Sabine, you’re freezing! You need to go to the doctor.”

I shook my head without meeting her gaze. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” she insisted. “But you don’t have a fever, and your appetite seems fine.” She hesitated, glancing around the kitchen, then finally turned to pour a mug of coffee from the half-full pot behind her. “Normally, I wouldn’t give coffee to a fifteen-year-old, but this might help warm you up. There’s cream and sugar on the counter.”

I poured both until the coffee looked like melted ice cream, but it still tasted bitter. However, by my second mug, the chills had stopped, at least for the moment.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Greer asked, when I finally pushed the empty mug away. “Are you on something?”

More like off something. But I only shook my head.

“Why don’t you go lie down,” she suggested. “And if you’re not feeling better by tomorrow, you really need to tell Ms. Gomez, so she can get you in to see a doctor.”

But if I wasn’t feeling better by tomorrow, there would be nothing Gomez’s doctor could do for me, short of putting me out of my misery.

That night, the cold was so bad I could hardly think, the shakes so strong I felt like I was convulsing. How could the hunger have gotten so much worse, so fast?

It couldn’t have. Not naturally. So I got out my cell phone and autodialed. He answered on the third ring.

“Hello? Sabine?” Nash said into my ear. His voice sounded warm and groggy from sleep, and I wanted to roll in it. Wrap it around me so I could share his heat and vitality.

“Yeah, it’s me.” My teeth chattered, even though I’d pulled the covers up over my shoulders, and I couldn’t make them stop. “It doesn’t make sense. Everyone’s scared of something.”

“Huh?” He cleared his throat. “Oh. Still no fear?”

“Uh uh. There should be plenty to eat here, but there’s nothing and I’m cold and it hurts.”

“But this is only the third night, right?” He sounded more alert, and springs creaked as he got out of bed. “You’ve gone longer than that before, haven’t you?”

“I’ve gone a week, several times. But I can’t now. Something’s wrong with this place. There’s no fear here. There’s nothing much left of what I took from BethAnne. It’s nearly gone, and I’m almost empty, like it was never there. I’m cold, Nash, and I’m scared.” The irony of that last statement was even more terrifying.

“Okay, let me think,” he said, and I recognized the soft click of his desk lamp.

But I couldn’t think. I didn’t have the energy, and I wouldn’t until I’d fed. “I have to get out of here. Can you come get me?”

“If you leave, you’ll get arrested again.”

“If I stay, I’ll die.” I knew it, even if I couldn’t explain it. I was getting colder by the minute, like a corpse cooling on the undertaker’s table. Something was draining what little energy I had left from BethAnne’s nightmare. Was this what she felt like when I fed from her? Was she cold and empty and lonely?

“Sabine, you’re not going to die. Just give me a minute to think.”

“I have to find something to eat. If you can’t come get me, I’ll go out by myself and meet you somewhere in the morning.” And the truth was that I couldn’t come back, if it was only going to happen again. If something was going to drain away the energy I’d stolen fair and square.

“You can’t walk around in the middle of the night by yourself. Especially if you’re sick.”

“Nash, I’m the only thing out there to be scared of.”

“Tell that to the bus that runs you over, or the drive-by bullet that doesn’t bother to look deep into your scary eyes. I’m getting dressed right now. Promise you’ll wait for me.”

“I swear. Hurry.” I flipped the phone closed and pushed the covers back, mildly surprised that the chattering didn’t get worse. Until I realized that the cold was coming from inside me—the covers made no difference, either way.

I’d slept in my clothes, hoping to preserve warmth, so all I had left to do was pull my hair into a ponytail and step into my shoes. And wait. It only took five minutes of shivering and staring at my bedroom door for me to decide I’d rather wait outside.

I snuck out of my room and closed the door softly, then started down the hall with my arms crossed tightly over my chest, grateful that my sneakers didn’t squeak on the floor. The nightshift tech was asleep, sitting up in the common room, lit by the game show she’d been watching.

This is too easy, I thought. And I was right. I was halfway across the main room when a door creaked open behind me, and I froze.

“Sabine?”

I turned slowly, still shaking from the cold, to find Kate Greer, the cook, staring at me. One of her hands was still on the cafeteria door, which she’d just locked. At two in the morning.

“Are you okay? Still sick?” she asked, brows lowered in a frown that looked more irritated than concerned.

“I just couldn’t sleep.”

“You ... couldn’t sleep?” Her frown deepened, and she glanced at the tech still passed out on the couch. “Come in and let’s see if I have anything that will help.” She unlocked the cafeteria and shoved her keys into her purse, then held the door open for me.

Great. How was I supposed to meet Nash if I couldn’t get rid of her? Fortunately, the drive would take him at least forty-five minutes, even with virtually no traffic. So I brushed past Greer into the empty cafeteria, dark, but for a single light shining in from the kitchen.

“You’re shaking! Let’s get you something warm...”

I followed her into the kitchen and sat at the prep table when she waved one hand at the folding chair next to it. “Why are you here so late?” I asked, still shivering as she poured milk into a microwavable mug.

“Just finishing up some work.” Greer set the mug in the microwave and pushed several buttons. “So ... you can’t sleep, you’re pale, and you’re obviously cold. Any other symptoms I should know about?”

I shook my head, and she watched me while the mug rotated. When the microwave buzzed, she took the milk out and stirred powered cocoa into it, dropped the spoon in the sink and handed me the mug. Her fingers touched mine, and the sudden flash of fear, pain, and anger nearly blew me out of my chair. But the realization that came with it was a million times worse.

None of what I’d felt was hers. It was theirs. All of it.

My eyes went wide, but hers only narrowed further. She nodded, like something mysterious finally made sense. But the only thing I understood was that she was the problem. Whatever was wrong with the girls at Holser was wrong because of Kate Greer.

How could I not have seen it? She wasn’t working the night I’d fed from BethAnne, and she was the only one not scared of me the next day. What the hell was she doing to them?

She leaned against the counter, lightly gripping it with both hands. “Okay, you’re obviously an empath of some sort, and based on the situation and your symptoms, I’m guessing ... a mara?”

I blinked, as stunned by her casual utterance of my lifelong secret as by the fact that she knew what I was. And finally, I nodded, for lack of any better response. “So what the hell are you? ” As hungry as I was in that moment, I could never have drained twenty girls at once, much less over several nights in a row. How had she?

Greer raised a brow at my language, then waved away the question, as if the answer didn’t matter. “I’m a fellow empath, of course, though of a slightly different variety.” She smiled and opened the industrial-size fridge for a can of soda. “Wow. A walking Nightmare. Do you have any idea how rare you are, especially these days? Few women have seven kids anymore, much less seven daughters in a row. I’m guessing your parents gave you away?”

“Like a naughty puppy,” I said, numb, yet still shivering while I sipped my hot chocolate.

“I’ve only met one other mara, and she was old as dirt. Still scary as hell, though. You could have learned a thing or two from her.”

“Wait...” I interrupted, as something she’d said finally sank in. “Seventh daughter?”

“Yeah. You know, ‘And the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter shall be born a night-hag, and she shall feed from the fear of the innocent as they slumber...’” Greer stopped and raised both brows at me. “You haven’t heard that, have you?”

“No.” And I’m not a hag. I took another sip, then stared up at her, my mind spinning. “So ... I have six sisters?”

“Oh, no, not anymore.” She frowned, like that should have been obvious. “Not if they gave you up. Maras are always born to human families, and it’s really hard for humans to believe they’re not the top of the food chain. And that their precious baby girl is literally a thing of nightmares. So the seventh daughter is almost always abandoned.”

Abandoned? I’d known it, of course, but hearing it outright ... it kinda stung.

“A couple hundred years ago, there would have been others of your kind to take you in and teach you. But today ... well, with the popularity of contraception and termination, there are fewer and fewer of you born. Especially in the U.S. So you have to fend for yourself.”

She drank from her can and gestured with it. “You know, I knew there was something different about you. The others are like drops of rain in a puddle, but you’re a river of fear and resentment. Though based on the looks of you, I’d say that river has nearly run dry. Sorry ’bout that. Collateral damage.”

“You’re ... stealing their fear?” And clearly stealing what little I’d collected from them, as well as what I produced on my own.

Greer’s eyes flashed in irritation, and her gaze narrowed again. “I’m not stealing anything. I’m flushing out the negative energy and replacing it with acceptance and peace—exactly what girls like you need.” She hesitated, then gave a little chuckle. “Well, not girls like you, obviously. But the others...”

What they need? Who was she to decide what they—what we —needed?

“But that ‘negative energy’ is half of who they are! They’ve been through a lot. They’ve earned a little anger and aggression.” I know I had! “You’re turning them into ... zombies!”

Greer’s frown deepened, and another chill ran up my spine. “I’m turning them into respectable young women who finally have a chance to make something of their lives. How many of them would even be thinking about college and careers if they were still on the self-destructive paths that put them here in the first place?” she demanded, and I felt my temperature drop at least another degree. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, and I swayed on my chair.

She was draining me where I sat!

“This is a mutually beneficial arrangement, and I’ve made Holser the top halfway house for girls in the state. They should all be grateful to be here!”

Wow. Was she serious? Regardless, she was clearly pissed, and the angrier she grew, the weaker I felt. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to stand up by the time Nash got there.

“What do you do with all the ‘negative energy’?” I asked through chattering teeth, trying to calm her down and buy myself some time.

“Well, I need some of it, obviously. A girl’s gotta eat, right?” She grinned and patted her flat stomach, as if we’d just shared a great joke. Nausea churned in my guts at the realization that I’d said the same thing to Nash. “The rest of it I sell, or trade for the healthier energies I’m replacing it with. Fortunately, the dark stuff sells for much more than the shiny-happy feelings, so I still pull in a tidy profit, even after expenses.”

“You can sell fear?” I asked around still-chattering teeth, trying to hide my growing revulsion.

“Of course.” She shrugged. “And despair and pain and anger and everything at the opposite end of the spectrum, too. Everything is food for something, Sabine. You’d know that better than most.”

“I guess.” But with her words, a new world had just opened up in front of me, and its dark, gaping maw threatened to swallow me whole. I didn’t know how to exist in a world where I wasn’t the scariest thing around. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But the new fear that realization should have triggered in me was gone almost before I’d felt it, leaving me light-headed and hollow.

Greer was taking it—all of it—before it could even ripen. And along with my emotions, she was stealing my energy, my very life force, much faster than she took from the others. Whether she meant to or not, she was killing me.

Keep her talking, Sabine...

“So ... you’re like me?”

“I’m an empath, yes.” She looked irritated at having to repeat herself. “But not like you. I am an emovere. By replacing what I take with much healthier emotions, I’m making the world a better place, one rehabilitated delinquent at a time.

“You, on the other hand...” She smiled at me in nauseating mock sympathy. “You can’t help what you are, but the truth is that you provide no benefit to anyone but yourself. You’re a dirty little parasite, sucking people dry in their sleep. Like a giant bedbug.” Greer set her soda can down and leaned against the counter at her back. “You’re lucky, you know, Sabine. Most people wouldn’t hesitate to squash a bedbug that had burrowed into their home. But I don’t want to hurt you.”

A statement unsupported by my steadily dropping temperature.

“But you can’t stay here, obviously.” She shrugged, like we were friends again. Greer gave new meaning to the word “unstable.” “One more night, and I might have accidentally drained you dry.”

“What?” Her alternative to killing me was to kick me out of my court-mandated halfway house?

“I think the best thing would be for you to leave tonight. Go find some sleeping drifter and have a good meal. The staff will report you missing in the morning, and when the police pick you up, Gomez will send you to Ron Jackson. Problem solved.” She brushed her hands together, like she was brushing dirt off her palms.

Was I that dirt?

No. And she couldn’t brush me off either.

“Hell no.” I said, my hands curling into fists around the edge of my metal seat.

“What?” Greer looked genuinely confused by my refusal.

“I’m not going.” I stood, struggling to keep my jaw from chattering, but my legs were steady, since she seemed to have stopped actively draining me. “I’m not going to prison just so you can keep selling stolen emotions on some weird-ass black market. This is where the judge sent me, and this is where I’m gonna stay, until the director decides to release me.”

Greer’s jaw clenched in fury, and the blue of her irises darkened rapidly. “I can make your stay here very unpleasant, bedbug. And very, very short.” Her eyes narrowed to mere slits, and pain exploded in my center. If felt like the air was being sucked from my lungs. But Greer wasn’t taking air. She was taking the very last of the energy generated from my emotions, and when that was gone, Ron Jackson would be the least of my worries.

“Leave her alone, or I’ll make sure you’re never seen in the human world again,” a familiar, masculine voice said, and I turned to see Nash walking toward us from the cafeteria.

“Nash, no! She’s an emovere.”

“You should listen to your girlfriend, little bean sidhe,” Greer growled, her eyes almost solid black now. But my pain ebbed when she focused on him. “Your honey-voice won’t work on me.”

But somehow, Nash was unfazed. “Leave her alone and back the hell off, or you’ll spend the rest of your short life in the Netherworld.”

Greer laughed out loud. “Take one more step, and you’ll spend tomorrow night at your own funeral, little boy.”

Nash glanced at me and winked, like he had a plan. Then he took one step forward.

“No!” I shouted. He’d forgotten to actually tell me the plan!

Greer focused a wicked black-eyed stare at him. Nash crumpled to the floor.

I dropped to my knees at his side, and the minute my hand touched his face, I realized he was still alive. She hadn’t completely drained him. His fear called to me like a lighthouse on a foggy night, but I pushed past that to his periphery emotions. The ones I normally wouldn’t touch. Even unconscious, Nash was still furious at her—and still in love with me.

“What is wrong with kids today? You never do as you’re told,” Greer lamented, as I leaned down and kissed Nash. And this time I fed from his other, stronger emotions though they tasted bitter compared to his sweet fears. And when I sat up, I was no longer shaking. My teeth no longer chattered.

“Take your boyfriend home before I drain you both,” Greer said. “And consider this your one and only warning.” She twisted to reach for her soda, as if we weren’t enough of a threat to interrupt her caffeine fix. The moment her back was turned, I lurched to my feet. I grabbed a lunch tray from the stack on the counter and rushed her.

As she turned toward me, I swung the tray. The edge slammed into her cheek. Bone crunched. Her soda can went flying. Kate Greer fell backward and landed face up on the linoleum. Her head smacked the ground, and her eyes fluttered shut. She was out cold.

For a moment, I stood in shock. Not over what I’d done—it wasn’t my first time wielding a lunch tray—but that it had worked. Then I dropped onto her chest, put my hands on either side of her face—the right side of which was now soft and lumpy—and drank long and hard from the well of fear she’d filled earlier that night.

She was glutted with it. Fat and lazy on the inside, and high on her own power. She was also delicious, and I was a poor kid in a candy store, stuffing myself because I knew I might never get a second chance. How often does one even meet an emovere?

The more I drank, the better I felt, physically. But the angrier I got. She’d hurt those girls, who couldn’t defend themselves from a predator they didn’t understand. She’d tried to send me to prison. She’d threatened to starve me if I didn’t go. And she’d tried to kill Nash.

So I drank. And I drank. I fed until I had all the fear she’d amassed. I fed until her cheeks went cold beneath my fingers. I fed until her breathing grew ragged and labored.

“Sabine!” Nash pulled on my arm, but I barely heard him. “Sabine, stop! You’re killing her.” But that was the point. She’d tried to kill him, she would have killed me. Poetic justice.

“Sabine, I said stop!” That time Nash hauled me off of her, then pulled me away. He wrapped his arms around me and turned us so that his body blocked hers from my sight.

For several long moments, I could only breathe deeply and ride the high surging through me, like bolts of lightning striking me over and over. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and it felt good. I felt hot and alive and powerful. Scary -powerful.

Did Greer feel like this every night? No wonder she wouldn’t leave! Who could give up that kind of power and ... feast? And if I hadn’t wound up at Holser, she never would have been caught. She could have gorged forever, convinced that she was shaping the next generation, while stuffing herself and her wallet on the emotions of neglected, abused delinquents.

And now, so could I...

No. That was my stomach talking. The sweet, succulent fear. But I didn’t need anywhere near as much as she had taken, and neither did she.

Nash pulled something from his pocket, and distantly I heard him speak into his cell phone. “Tod? I need you to get Mom and bring her to Holser House.” He paused, and his brother said something over the line. “Well, wake her up! It’s an emergency. An emovere just tried to kill me and Sabine. Mom has to take her to the Netherworld before she wakes up, or we’re all in trouble.”

Tod cursed over the line, then said something that sounded like an agreement. Nash hung up and shoved his phone back into his pocket. His hands slid beneath the back of my shirt, and his skin was blessedly cool.

“You’re burning up, Sabine. What happened?”

I took several deep breaths, and when I could speak—when I could think straight again—I pulled away to look at him. “I took too much. And it wasn’t just fear. She was so full of anger! Everything she took from them, and I drank it.” And that’s when it hit me. “I would have killed her. Nash, I would have killed her if you weren’t here.” Then I would have gone after the girls. All of them. Not just what I needed to survive. Because it felt so good. They were going to shun me anyway, so why not give them a reason to?

Because you’re not a monster. Not really. Not yet, anyway. But I could be...

I saw my own true fear in that moment. I was afraid of myself. Afraid of what I was capable of. Of what I still wanted to do, with the power still buzzing through me.

Was Greer right? Was I just a parasite, feeding on the weak in their sleep? Was I nothing but a monster?

No. Not as long as Nash saw something else in me. Even if I couldn’t trust myself, I could trust him. To see the truth, and to hold me in check. But without him...?

“Promise you won’t leave me, Nash,” I whispered. “Promise me.”

“You know I won’t.” He whispered it in my ear, his cheek cool against my overheated face.

“Say it.”

Nash stepped back and lifted my chin so that my gaze met his. “You’re stuck with me forever, Sabine.”

“Good,” I whispered. But in my head, I heard what I didn’t dare say, even to him.

Because I’m not sure what I’d become without you...