Altered

by Shelly Crane

  I felt my lips part. I dug my nails into his arm. “How the hell do you?” I whispered.

  “That’s enough of the family tree for now,” the man said with a chuckle. “Just send her on over and we’ll be on our way.”

  “What for?” Enoch growled, still looking at my face.

  “Bait.” I heard the smile in his voice. “Come on. Red rover, red rover, send Fay right over.”

  Enoch sighed and pushed me back even further as he turned to face them again.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked in a low voice as he pushed harder and faster.

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

  His eyes closed at that admission. “Hold on tight to me.”

  In a second before I could think of what he was doing, he snatched me against his chest and sent us sailing over the dock’s edge into the water. I could hear cursing and yelling, even some loud bangs that had to be gunshots, but I just held on tight.

  A deep voice boomed, “Don’t shoot! We need her alive!”

  We landed in the freezing water and he pulled me under further and further. We swam hard toward the opposite dock. If we surfaced before we made the cover of it, they’d kill us for sure.

  The deeper and further we got, the more I tried to stay calm and hold my breath, feeling the burn and ache in my lungs. I needed to take a breath soon. I was trained in holding my breath. I had been put in a chamber with tear gas when I went through boot camp, more than once. I knew how to hold my breath. But we’d been under for a long time.

  I started to panic and began to fight him. He didn’t understand that I couldn’t not breathe like him, that I need air more often—and then his lips were on mine. I couldn’t see much in the murky water, but I could see that his eyes were open. I tensed, still fighting inside, but he held tight and smoothed my cheek with his thumb. I relaxed my muscles, and opened my mouth under his, blowing my air from my nose. He wasted no time in giving me new air in return.

  I worried about him for a split second before I remembered that he wasn’t human, number one, and number two, if he was offering obviously he had some to spare. He leaned back and nodded his head as if to ask if I was good to go. I nodded back and he pulled me forward, putting a hand under my butt and pushing me forward to give me a boost. He stayed right behind the whole way. As soon as I saw the docks in the water, it was like a cue for my body to gain some little spurt of energy. Adrenaline.

  I took off, determined to get there as fast as I could. My lungs ached and burned, and when I surfaced, I tried not to gasp and moan so loudly in case anyone was close. He surfaced in front of me and wasn’t even winded. I tried to calm my breathing, but it was hard to do with him watching me so intently. “Stop it.”

  “What?” he asked, but the smirk he tacked on let me know that he knew exactly what was up.

  “It sucks that you don’t have to breathe.”

  “Or eat. Or sleep.” Then he looked at me seriously, right into my very soul. “But you don’t have to feed off anyone’s emotions either. Their anger, their hatred, to taste it on your tongue.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “For thinking about my sister even after you asked me not to.” My teeth chattered. “I don’t know what sorrow tastes like, but I can imagine it’s not good.”

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, sidelining my subject. “We can go. You have to get out of this water.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “We should wait and make sure it’s safe.”

  “You’re freezing to death,” he barked back. “I’ll handle them. It should take them a long time to make it to this side of the docks. Let’s go and get you that room I promised you. And you can tell me how you know Clara Hopkins.”

  I shivered again as he said my sister’s name, because the amount of malice that came with it made my skin crawl.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d hotwired a car and it wouldn’t be the last. Miss goody two-shoes hadn’t protested, which meant she either really wanted to see her sister or she was a lot colder than she was letting on. Her lips had begun to take on a slight bluish tint. I debated going to the hospital instead of the hotel, but she assured she was fine. Her logic was if we stole a nice car, chances are that the person would have good insurance and wouldn’t be hurt financially from it. If we stole a beater or some hunk of junk like I had planned to do, then some poor sap would more than likely be losing his only means of transportation and have no way to replace said transportation. She had a point, I guess. So I cranked the heat as high and as hot as it would go as soon as we got into the black as night Lexus IS C.

  The GPS in the car told the opposite direction of the docks was west. Perfect. I followed the roads out, trying to block the sounds of human chattering teeth, and fled as quickly as I could without drawing attention to ourselves. It would have taken them twenty minutes to drive the distance to the opposite dock and it was getting close to fifteen. I wanted to be long gone before they were close.

  Clara and Eli must be in the midst of a big rebel camp for them to be searching so diligently for them. I looked over at her blue tinted lips and knew that even though she was going to be fine, she was still uncomfortably cold. Her teeth still chattered against each other and it pissed me off how much I hated that sound. I shouldn’t care, but I did. I looked around the car and actually made a noise in the back of my throat at what I found. I pulled the jacket from the back and placed it around her as quickly as I could and still drive carefully.

  She looked at me in surprise. “Thanks.”

  “You’re teeth are still chattering,” I barked.

  “It doesn’t work like that. It’s bone-deep,” she muttered. “I need a hot bath, then I’ll be fine.”

  I stayed quiet, letting her fall asleep, and drove the next three hours in complete silence. She slept restlessly and I knew she wasn’t really resting, but her body was forcing her to sleep. She turned and tossed, pulling the jacket up to her neck over and over. I pulled into a motel and left her in the car to get a room. A motel was less conspicuous. People usually rented motels by the week, not the night. And it was all ground level—easier to keep watch.

  I parked in the back by the fence and trash bins. I snuck out quietly and came out with the old brass hotel key in my hand. I stopped when I saw the door to the car open. I blinked and turned in a circle in the dark parking lot.

  “Fay?” I hissed and ran to the car as quickly as I could, not even caring if someone saw the blur of it. The jacket was on the seat, but she was gone. I turned and searched the lot with my eyes, but couldn’t move from that spot. Why would she leave the car? Or did someone take her? Had they caught up to us so quickly and I hadn’t noticed? Had I let them take her because I’d been so preoccupied? “Fay!” I yelled.

  My shoulders slouched. I should’ve been happy, but I was anything but. She wasn’t mine to keep. I was on a mission to find my brother and she had just been a distraction anyway. I shook my head ‘no’. That was until I found out she knew Clara.

  I scrubbed my face with my fist and cursed as I slammed her door. When I turned back to the hotel, I saw a swath of dark hair as it rounded the corner. I felt my brows come together. Once again, not caring who saw me, I blurred over to the building and didn’t stop until I was right behind whoever the woman was. I grabbed her arm and made her turn to face me.

  She gasped and pushed hard into my chest—this intruder’s chest—with the palm of her hand. The tears on her cheek and chin cracked something inside of me. Her eyes met mine and her lips opened to release a strangled noise that sounded like a plea more than anything else.

  “You left me,” she accused.

  “I went to get a room.”

  She sighed and let her hand fall from my chest. I kept her arm in my hand however. “You parked in the back of the lot in the dark. I was alone when I woke up.” She sniffed. There it was again. The cracking in my chest. “
I thought…you left me.”

  “Why would I do that?” I growled, so completely pissed with how she controlled me. She didn’t know it, but she did. I was actually scared in that parking lot back there. Scared! Me! Scared that something had happened to her. And here she sat crying beside the motel because she thought I left her. Why did she care anyway?

  Ahh…. I nodded. “Ah. Thought you were going to have to sleep outside again, huh?” She squinted, but I grinned. “Don’t worry, princess.” I shook the room key in front of her face. “I got you that room, just like I promised.”

  I didn’t let go of her arm as I practically dragged her to the other side of the motel. I unlocked the door and pulled her inside. She didn’t say a word, just crawled into the bed.

  “I thought you were going to take a hot bath?”

  She sniffed again and pulled the covers up to her chin. “I just want to sleep.”

  I locked the door and turned to look at her, tightening my fists. She was facing away from me. “I thought you said you needed a hot bath to feel better, so you wouldn’t be cold anymore. I can’t think with your teeth chattering—”

  She sighed so quietly, but it still stopped me dead. “Enoch…just leave me alone, okay?”

  And then her sadness hit me. I gripped the arm of the chair as I eased into it and tried not to make an audible sound that would let her know I was feeding from her. Her grief threatened to swallow me where I sat. I didn’t dare move as I bore through my body’s acceptance of what she was offering. She didn’t even know what she was doing. Her shoulders shook a little under the covers. I knew she was crying still, but she had no idea that by doing so she was sending that putrid taste right to me.

  I gripped the fabric so hard in my fists that I heard it tear under my fingers. I opened my eyes to find she had rolled over and was staring at me in astonishment. Her eyes were even wetter than they’d been outside.

  I felt so guilty knowing that I was the reason that she’d been crying outside and I may even be the reason she was crying now.

  Guilt. Me.

  I knew I was being an ass—I was doing it on purpose. I didn’t want her to like me, not even a sliver, but it still hurt to think that I was causing this human more pain when she was obviously in so much already.

  “What does sadness taste like?” she whispered. “Or sorrow, grief, or…loss?”

  I let my death grip on the poor cheap polyester go and leaned my head back, closing my eyes so I didn’t have to look at her when I answered.

  “Rotten.” She gasped, but I kept my eyes closed. “It didn’t always taste that way. Back in the day, I reveled in the taste. It was what you could imagine your favorite drug would feel like. Sweet and heady, heavy, but light and creamy. I chased it and produced it. I would have done anything for it. I lived off it. It’s what devourers do. We survive off emotion and I never wanted anything else.” I peeked my eyes open, unable to stop myself. I needed to see the look of hate she had to be sending me so I could get her out of my mind and think of this as the mission it was, move on, and stop looking at this human as some…prize. Some…girl.

  My eyes met hers and she was studying me. It was clear she was waiting for more of the story, giving me the benefit of the doubt. There wasn’t a trace of hate, judgment, or disgust in her eyes as she watched me. She just waited, knowing with certainty, that there was more to tell.

  I had never had someone have faith in me before.

  I gritted my teeth. “What?” I barked. “You don’t believe that I’m the monster I say I am? You think that just because you’ve only seen the tame me that I’m not—”

  “I believe you,” she interrupted and shook her head. She sighed and shivered, pulling the blanket around herself tighter. “What I don’t understand is why you’re trying so hard to make me hate you.”

  I snorted. “So you don’t get any girly notions that this trip is anything but what it is.” I crossed my ankle over my leg and glared at her to drive my point home. “Now—how do you know Clara?”

  She scoffed, barely. She gave me a sad look and then rolled back over. “Goodnight, Enoch.”

  I wanted to fight with her, but knew when her breathing was slow and steady not even two minutes later that I had made the right decision in letting her sleep. She was exhausted.

  I grumbled under my breath and rolled my eyes. I didn’t know how to take care of a human. They needed to sleep and eat and all sorts of things that I took for granted. I loved to sleep. It was one of my favorite pastimes, but I didn’t need to do it.

  Human bodies were useless. They gave out on them daily. Every day they had to recharge. What was that about? That sucked. Eating three times a day. Going to the bathroom constantly. And now here I was, dragging this human across the United States and she was pissed at me, which was what I had wanted, and I still needed to feed. The fight with the Horde earlier had helped a lot, but her little sorrow session had barely tipped the iceberg of what I needed to survive.

  Tomorrow, I was going to be right back where I started, dragging, needing to feed, and cranky as all get out.

  I scrubbed my face with my hands and looked over her. I got up and walked over to look down at her, checking her forehead to make sure her skin was warm and normal temperature. She felt normal enough temperature wise, but her skin… I moved my fingers to her cheek, remembering when I had touched her cheek in the water to reassure her. She had been about to freak and it was all I could think to do.

  She was softer than any woman had a reason to be. I thought back to that night in the alley. She was softer than that woman, too. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of memories. Maybe I was going about this all wrong. Maybe being an ass to this woman wasn’t the best way. She’d been through a lot and she had tried to help me. And just now when I explained what I was and how I lived…how I fed…there was no judgment in her eyes. No fear.

  I smoothed her hair behind her ear and pulled the covers up to her chin. Then I pulled the blanket off the other bed and placed it on top of her, too. She moaned and squirmed around to get cozy, sighing happily as if the warmth helped things. I felt that sigh all the way to my gut, though I would never admit it to anyone.

  I settled back into the chair and found myself staring at her face all night until morning. She opened her eyes when the light through the curtains made its way across the room, reaching her and saying its hello. I decided to spend this new day in a different way. I was Enoch, the ass everybody hated and thought was a bastard, but who I chose to be now that I had a fresh start, a clean slate? That was just that—my choice. She didn’t know me from Adam. For whatever reason, I was given a clean slate in that alley that night. I was a different devourer now and it was my choice what I did from now on.

  She looked at me and then at the bedspread. She studied those ugly, tacky fabric triangles. “Did you sit there all night?” she asked softly.

  I smiled slightly. “Why don’t you go get your hot bath now. Then I’ll buy you some breakfast before we hit the road.”

  I took my time drying my hair, wanting it not to just be dry, but be straight. Enoch seemed different today, less angry at me for existing, and I wasn’t ready to face him. He was going to ask questions about Clara and I didn’t know if I wanted to tell him or not.

  I used the blow dryer to air out the shirt I had been wearing a little. It was pointless, but it made me feel better on some unconscious level. Really, I was just stalling.

  I sighed loudly and got dressed, stalling no more. Cracking open the bathroom door, I didn’t see him in the room. I fully opened the door so fast and so hard that it banged on the wall, leaving a hole in the cheap sheetrock. The hotel door was yanked open then and Enoch stormed in. “What? What happened?”

  “Where did you go?”

  He squinted. “I was checking the motel’s perimeter before we left. Making sure we hadn’t been followed.” He said the last part slowly and looked at my throat and then my chest. He was taking note of my breathing, I realize
d, which was erratic. I tried to calm down. “Where did you think I had gone?”

  “Nowhere.” I moved to put my shoes on, but he grabbed my arm by the elbow and stopped me. “Will you stop manhandling me like some—”

  “Where did you think I went?” he asked again, so close his breath swept across my eyelashes. His eyes were lidded, grimacing, like he was working something out in his mind.

  “Let me go. Don’t worry about it. You’re here. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Answer me,” he bit out.

  I huffed. “I thought you left, okay! Everybody leaves,” I breathed the words vehemently and hated being so open and vulnerable to him of all people. He didn’t care about me. Yes, he saved me. Why? I didn’t know, but it wasn’t because he cared. There was a reason and he was going to tell me soon enough. He was a calculating person. He didn’t do things without having a plan and purpose.

  He didn’t let go; in fact, I could have sworn he moved a half an inch closer. “You thought I left for good. You thought I abandoned you last night, too.” I looked away, down at his neck, but the cords of skin and muscle did nothing to help with calming my breathing. “Why would I save you, twice, just to abandon you in some random spot on the trip? I think it’s obvious that there’s something more going on here, and you know it.”

  I sucked in a small, quick breath and looked up at him. He was so close I couldn’t breathe.

  “Clara?” I sneered and wanted to laugh at how jealous it sounded.

  He swallowed and I saw the clouds roll in behind his eyes.

  “Clara has nothing to do with the fact that you know what I am. I didn’t know you knew Clara when I saved you the first time. Now did I?” I pressed my lips together, but couldn’t look away from those violet eyes. I shuddered and shook with goose bumps, causing his eyes to travel down my neck and shoulders. He sighed. “You’re killing me, little human,” he whispered.