I didn’t have an answer. Nothing on my human days made me feel the way that hunting did when I was Other. I’d never been any good at making friends, and until today, no one at Heritage had even known my name.
I didn’t have hobbies. I wasn’t part of any clubs. The idea of me playing on a sports team was ridiculous (for a variety of reasons, depending on the day), and the only family I had was my dad, who probably would have been torn between mild upset and academic fascination if he’d had any idea that I’d been bitten.
“Ice-skating sounds good,” I said.
Bethany had to literally bite her bottom lip to keep from arguing, and after a long moment, she turned to the boy behind the counter. He immediately melted into a pile of Skate Haven goo on the floor, but managed to pull it together long enough to give her a pair of pristine white skates and a ticket for a free hot chocolate from the snack bar.
Five minutes later, I waddled toward the ice. Out of habit, I scanned the rink’s perimeter and breathed in through my nose, testing the air for even the barest hint of sulfur.
Nothing.
I breathed out, and as my breath took shape in the air, I tried to remember what it felt like to be the kind of person who didn’t get cold.
Didn’t feel pain.
Never lost a weapon—or her balance.
And then I promptly fell flat on my face. The ice was damp, and for a few seconds, instead of hating the cold, I loved it for the way it banished the heat from my cheeks.
Cold.
That single word was all it took for something deep and fathomless to begin snaking its way up my spine. It felt like losing my body to a black hole, like lying on a sandy beach and absorbing warmth from every individual grain of sand.
“Is it working?” Skylar asked from up above me. I reached for the wall and pulled myself unsteadily back to my feet.
“I don’t know.”
The beast inside of me was quiet and still, but I knew it was there, and I knew with unnatural certainty that no amount of subzero temperatures would make it leave me. It wasn’t going to jump ship and take on a new victim.
The two of us were in this until one of us died.
They—called—lonely. You.
The voice in my mind was strong and velvet-smooth, but the words were broken. I found myself wanting to listen, to fill in the blanks, but after a moment, there was silence.
“Still possessed?” Bethany asked, gliding past me and circling back with the ease of an Olympic contender.
“Still possessed,” I told her dryly, “but I think the cold is doing something.”
Goose bumps dotted the flesh on my arms, and I glanced back over my shoulder, half expecting to see someone or something standing behind me.
Lonely Ones.
The phrase was suddenly there in my mind, and it brought with it a feeling of déjà vu, like these were words that I’d always known and somewhere along the way had just forgotten.
Logically, I knew that extreme cold slowed down biological processes. Bears and yeti went into hibernation; hikers in snowstorms felt their heart rates plummet. It made sense to think that lower temperatures might delay the progression of my condition.
But that wasn’t what it felt like.
My heart rate wasn’t slowing. The voice in my head wasn’t distant. I was on edge, and it was everything I could do to keep myself from sinking into ready position and preparing my pitifully human frame to lash out.
I had no idea why.
Feel it—taste it—help—you.
“So what now?” Bethany asked, her voice barely penetrating the heady fog in my brain—the sound of his voice, the chills on my skin. “Seriously, K, we skate, and we wait, and … feel free to fill in the blank at any moment.”
This thing is killing you, I told myself. The chupacabra is draining your blood and absorbing your memories, and soon, there won’t be anything left of you at all.
The cold, hard truth should have snapped me out of it, but the presence in my mind seemed to wrap itself around my physical body, my wrists and ankles, my waist, my neck.
I didn’t know it would be like this.
I’d thought that I might get light-headed, that my blood pressure might plummet. I’d thought that I might have trouble remembering things, little things.
I thought I’d feel violated.
But I didn’t.
“We need a plan,” I said, just to be saying something, to prove to myself that I still could. That I was in charge, and that whatever I was feeling was nothing.
“What do you mean we need a plan?” Bethany asked. “Don’t you already have one?” She didn’t wait for me to reply. “I knew it! You’re in over your head, you’re scared, you’re stupid, and we’re ice-skating. That’s—”