I instantly feel unclean. Needing to get everything they touched off my body, I tear my jacket off and throw it onto the floor. It’s followed by my sweater. Before I can try for my pants, the blood I’ve swallowed turns my stomach, and I barely make it into a stall before I vomit.
“Callie, feel free to burn those,” Donovan advises as the creak of his leather boots draw closer.
“Can I burn them too?” Callie asks, her voice hauntingly calm.
A terrified shiver runs down my spine, and I hurl up more of the liquid death inside me.
Donovan sighs from his position next to the stall door. “As much as I want to say yes, that’s considered murder.”
There’s a frightening pause filled only with Callie’s soft, circling steps before she comments, “It wouldn’t be my first time. I’m prepared to take the cost of their souls.”
“No,” I wheeze into the toilet before heaving my guts up yet again. The cold has returned tenfold, and my body shakes so badly I’m surprised my bones haven’t splintered. “Please… make them leave.”
“Oh, goddess, what was I thinking?” Callie cries, sounding more like herself and less like a wrathful deity, but there’s still a furious edge when she focuses on Gina and Anastasia. “Go to the girl’s locker room. Get cleaned up. Go to class. Don’t talk about what happened here unless I order you to.”
They sprint away as if their lives rely on following Callie’s orders, which, in a sense, they do.
After dry heaving several times and feeling too exhausted to kneel, I collapse onto the floor. Donovan grabs me by my white undershirt before my head meets hard tile. He drags me into his lap, his legs splayed out on either side of me, and into the next stall. While he leans against one side of the bathroom stall, my back falls against his chest. It’s only by being pressed against him that I realize the calm he’s projecting is only skin deep. His body is shaking with hot rage, and his muscles are flexed to the consistency of rocks. To have this tight of a leash on his anger means that Callie scared the shit out of him too.
She walks slowly toward me, but before she can reach out to me, I jerk away. The touch that used to cleanse me now disgusts me, her image forever tied to my violation. She curls her hand away and takes a step back, the face I now love and hate in equal measures covered in silent tears.
“I’ve got him,” Donovan assures her while he attempts to chafe warmth back into my body.
My skin begins to feel raw under his ministrations, unable to touch the cold that seems to be freezing me from the inside out. I twist my hands into fists and pull them tightly to my chest, hoping that if I tense my muscles enough, I’ll stop shaking, but it’s useless. My body isn’t my own anymore and does whatever the fuck it wants.
Unable to look at Callie without feeling sick, my gaze shifts to the stall wall, cataloging the various ways teachers suck and who to text if you want an easy lay. I’m surprised my number isn’t on it. It’s probably in a different stall.
My mind keeps shifting from the horrifying to the absurd. One moment, I’m dully focusing on the spidering cracks on the ceiling, and the next, I’m crying because I want to tear my skin off. Despite it all, my hunger for blood reigns over everything else. I hate it. I want to deny it and starve to death if only to stop one more person’s essence from entering my body, but it won’t stop. It never stops.
Hissing like a snake, with my bloodied fangs fully exposed and my words separated by gasping breaths, I beg, “Blood. I. Need. Feed.”
“Here,” Donovan grunts, holding his wrist to my mouth.
Immediately, I sink my fangs into his thick forearm, the blood flowing over my tongue tasting clean and bright. Safe.
“Hey, careful,” he cautions as I take larger gulps, needing his blood to cleanse all that’s been tainted inside me. “You keep going like that, and you’re going to get sick again while I pass out from blood loss.”
“Donovan,” Callie murmurs, her voice trembling and unsure. “I think… I think Nolan might be really sick.”
“You’d fucking be too after what those bitches did,” he growls, his anger no longer as easily hidden now that it doesn’t look like Callie will obliterate everyone under the force of her magically charged rage.
My gaze stays on the wall, tracing each doodle, letter, and number with my eyes, pretending that they are talking about some other person. Some other Nolan that’s broken.
She sighs, and her knees crack as she moves to kneel on the floor. “I don’t mean just that. We… He told me earlier that there’s something wrong with him.” There’s the harsh scrape of nails running along denim. “Gi… She who shall not be named and her Barbie sidekick barely have any magic. They are only slightly one step above humans.”
“They were powerful enough to pull this shit off,” he yells, his body jerking from some type of gesture.
The more they talk, the more separated I feel, floating and numb. A thing that sits, feeds, and exists—nothing more.
“That only proves my point more,” she insists, frustration lacing her words. “The reason they could pull it off is because he’s sick. I think it might be the curse. It’s getting worse.”
“Angel, the only thing getting worse right now is my temper,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “Go. Tell the others that I’m taking Nolan home. After school, we’ll meet there and talk about whatever the hell you want.”
“Fine,” she answers, her voice small and wet.
Her misery cuts through my numbness, and I feel like I’m dying. All the joy and love that makes life worth living was ripped from my body. I wish I was empty. I wish I was dead. I wish I never existed. I hold it in just long enough for her to leave, and then all that is civilized shatters inside me. Retracting my fangs from Donovan’s arm, I cover my mouth with both hands, curl forward, and fall prey to racking sobs.
A warm hand rubs circles along my back, the thick fingers and calloused palm safe in its familiarity. “Don’t worry. We’ll get that bitch. She’s not getting away with it this time.”
