lay in the sun and let the water drip from my body into the earth. The remnants dried in the heat, and I drifted to sleep.
When I awoke again, someone was pressed spoonlike against my back. I turned and found Hector, naked like me and aroused. He kissed me and as he did, we both changed.
I sat bolt upright in bed. Or at least I tried. Someone had tied me down. Again.
I was sweating, shaking, crying, but I wasn't in the woods. Obviously I never had been.
"What happened?"
I fell back on the pillow, turned my head. Jessie sat in a chair.
"Kill me," I rasped. "Promise."
"I already did."
I closed my eyes. "It's awful, Jessie. I don't want to be like that."
"I know."
We sat together, silent. I kept my eyes closed until I stopped seeing myself in the woods, with Hector, stopped tasting... horrible things, stopped hearing screams that had never truly happened. At least not yet.
"Where are the boys?" I asked.
"Gone."
"What?" I tried to sit up again. The bonds scraped along my already-raw wrists and ankles. "You didn't let them go after Hector. He'll eat - "
I stopped. "Eat them alive" had once been an expression; now it was reality.
"They aren't hunting. They went to pick up Elise and Mandenauer."
"But they shouldn't be alone."
"Someone had to go, and I thought it was best if I stay."
She left unspoken the reason why. Damien wouldn't kill me. Will probably couldn't.
I wanted to stay awake, but the virus made me weak. The fever made me toss and turn. The changes made me ache. My back burned, which wasn't new. However, my bones were doing something weird.
Snapping, popping, shifting. My eyes hurt. My nose tickled. My teeth seemed too big for my mouth.
I fell back into the void where Hector waited. My dreams, fantasies, or whatever the hell they were remained pretty much the same. Blood, death. A little bit of doggie-style sex.
I awoke to a silver sheen drifting through the windows and across my bed. The moon was cool. It soothed the fever, calmed my racing heart, called me to come and dance in its light, naked and alive.
Murmurs on the porch. My ears tuned in. I could hear everything they said.
"This could kill her." I recognized the voice of Dr. Elise Hanover. "We haven't tested the serum yet."
I'd never seen the woman, only spoken to her on the phone. I couldn't see her now, except for a slim shadow among all the other shadows clumping together on the porch.
"We will test it now."
That was Edward, always calm, in control, regardless of the situation.
"I won't let you kill her on the off chance you might save her," Damien insisted.
"You have nothing to say about it."
"I do!" I called.
The group went silent and still, then filed into the room.
"The gang's all here," I murmured.
Jessie, Will, Edward, Elise, and Damien hovered near the door, as if afraid to come near me. I didn't want to know why.
Elise was the first to move. She clipped across the wood floor wearing heels the shade of fine porcelain.
Her stockings were sheer. Her suit a pure sea green.
She could have been a model - tall, bone thin, with platinum hair that would be long if she ever released the tight coil cemented to the back of her head.
Her skin matched her shoes; her eyes were dark blue, nearly violet. There wasn't a flaw on her face. And she had a Ph.D., too. Life was hardly fair.
"I've invented a serum," she said.
Her voice was as lovely as she was - low, husky, far too sexy for a scientist. Every man in the room, except for Edward, stared at her with his mouth open.
"However, I don't know if it works."
"So I heard."
They all exchanged glances. If I'd been able to hear them whispering on the porch, the change had already begun.
Behind Elise's back, Jessie made a face and rolled her eyes. Dr. Hanover was too perfect for words. We had to hate her. It was a matter of pride.
"The choice is up to you, Leigh."
I turned my gaze to Edward. He appeared older, sadder, quite tired. I wondered what he'd been doing while he'd been away, but I didn't have time to ask.
My body bowed. My spine seemed to be cracking in two. I opened my mouth to cry out, and a howl escaped instead. When the pain went away and the echo of the howl faded, I glanced at everyone, only to find them studying the ceiling. Except for Damien. He