All things considered, I'm going to go with no.
No, I'm really fuckingnotokay.
I heave one last time before stumbling back to my feet, leaning against the wall of this tiny, shabby bathroom and trying to breathe through the pounding thirst in my head.
Before that damned vampyr turned me into his thrall—drawn to me by my curse, of course—I had left Hawaii and landed in California. I'd just dropped off Everett's dogs somewhere safe, just in case, and I was remotely monitoring the Nether humans' escape. One of my closer contacts, who helped deliver supplies to the refugees when they arrived in the mortal plane of existence, was updating me on everything he could. When he mentioned a horrible winter sweeping over the battlefield, I figured something had happened to Everett's keeper.
Then the Divide fell. All hell was breaking loose—and I was on my way to Heidi. The only thing I could think about was keeping her safe and alive.
But that vampyr got me before I could get out of California. Before I could get toher.
Please still be alive. I have so much left to say to you.
Emotion crawls threateningly up my throat at the thought of not seeing her again, and I breathe slowly through the twist of hunger and nausea in my stomach. Now that I'm a freed thrall, each emotion is so fucking intense that I suddenly have to wipe tears off my face.
The knock sounds again. "Hello? Are you in trouble? It looked like you were covered in blood when you ran in there. Do you need help? I can?—"
I'm way too unstable to deal with this noise right now, so I turn and open the door quickly, accidentally breaking the lock with my unchecked strength before I capture the woman's eyes with mine.
As usual, my temples and the back of my neck tingle as her pupils dilate on mine.
"You didn't see me in here. No one's covered in blood. Go back to your car and leave."
She blinks, dazed as she obeys immediately.
I've been skilled with hypnosis all my life, but now that my life's technically over and I'm back as a thrall, it's so strong that it barely takes effort from me. Everything feels a hundred times more potent. It's been really fucking useful for helping to cover my tracks tonight—and with getting confessions from the people I stumble across to see if accidentally killing them while feeding would weigh down my conscience or not.
Of the five that's happened to, there were two rapists, one guy who admitted to beating his kid, one recently released ex-convict who was planning on tracking down and killing his ex-girlfriend for testifying against him in court for a violent crime he definitely committed, and one old guy who admitted to some pretty sickening things he got away with in his early twenties.
All in all, some pretty deserving midnight snacks, if you ask me.
But now I seriously need to get the bloodlust under control and figure out what all I missed. Since no one has lost their mind and tried to kill me out of the blue so far, I've decided my curse must be gone. However, I'm not sure whether that's because I'm technically dead or because of something else.
I linger beside the bathroom for a second, fighting through the wretched war inside my stomach until I can walk into the rest of the gas station. It's empty now except for the young human guy working the night shift at the cashier. When he glances up and sees me covered in blood, he gasps.
Before he can even open his mouth to scream, I blur to stand in front of him and look him deeply in the eyes, the hypnosis flowing easily. "Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm Ian. Say hi, Ian."
"Hi, Ian," the kid repeats, his blown pupils fixed on me.
"Hi..." I check his name tag. "Horton. Really?Horton?That's your name? Did your parents hate you, or what?"
"I sometimes think they do hate me," he replies slowly, unable to be anything but completely honest under hypnosis. He sways slightly behind the counter.
"Whew—believe me, I feel you there. You should try some therapy for that. Anyway, I need you to hit me with a really short summary of everything that happened after the Divide fell."
Horton's probably too young to drink, but he looks tipsy as he thinks under my influence. "Um. So like, this really hot kinda goth-ish looking chick was all over the news for assassinating the Immortal Quintet, and then it turned out she was doing it to free a bunch of humans who were trapped in the?—"
"Afterthe Divide fell," I prompt again. "Keep up, Hor."
Wow, that's a bad nickname.
“Ton,” I amend.
Nope, that's bad, too.
"I'm going to call you Bob," I decide, peering deeply into his eyes again. "The Divide fell and, then…?"
"And then…the Upheaval happened. There was this never-ending winter, and I had to break up with my girlfriend because my family fled to Halfton because fiends destroyed our house. Things got really bad, like apocalyptic. Then after six months, that chick came back from the dead, and everyone freaked out because she turned out to be, like, a daughter of a goddess. Then this big fight happened, and the Entity was killed. Now there's no Divide, and that demigoddess and her legacy boyfriends guard the Nether instead. And my girlfriend and I got back together when we moved back, but I'm pretty sure she has a thing for my cousin now."
