Page 61 of Heartbeat Girl
And, oh, how badly I wanted her to accept us completely, so I’d never have to take them again. At least that part had worked. I smiled as I looked at her from head to toe.You’re quite different from the first time we met.
Happier… Saferwith me…
Chapter Twenty
LIAM
Three and a half years ago…
“Why are we doing this again?” Steve asked as we walked through the hospital’s sliding doors.
“To see if we can keep from feeding on people,” Pete stated. An elderly lady waddled faster past us as she scrunched her nose up.
“It won’t work,” Steve said flatly.
On a sigh, I added, “It’s worth trying.”
“It’s a little exhausting, I suppose,” Steve admitted. “Trying to enjoy your meal while she manhandles me like I’m the snack.”
I laughed.
Eating was tedious. We’d done so much wrong over the years, and I was tired of feeding. Life was odd at first without Marilyn—being able to choose what I did with the woman I fed from. It was always fucking or killing them—sometimes both. I felt less like a villain the day after we buried Marilyn. For the first time, we shared our first feed. The woman we drank from walked away with no terrible memories. In fact, she thought she had the time of her life with three handsome strangers.Her words, not mine. The choice to set her free had been ours, and it had been the reason we turned on our sire in the first place. Steve, Pete, and I didn’t want to kill senselessly. We didn’t want to fuck obsessively and without emotion. But that was what the madwoman wanted. I knew this because it was the secrets we shared when Marilyn left us alone. In the rare moments of silence, we planned.
A young nurse opened a door with a key card and stopped.
“Might as well be that one,” I said.
Steve moved into action immediately. “Hey, Miss…” He glanced at her name tag. “Denise. Can you help us?”
He lured her in with his vampirism. Her shoulders loosened, and she moved closer, sighing dreamily. “Whatever you need.”
“Where do you keep the blood stored?” he asked her. “Can you take us there?”
She beamed. “Sure.”
Steve looked back and grinned. I shook my head, smiling, and followed behind them.
The rapid thumping of someone’s heart caught my attention. I stopped and frowned. Looking around, I spotted an elderly couple strolling into the emergency room together. I listened closer to their heartbeats.
Not either of those.
The beats I heard seemed louder and took me by surprise. I stuck my pinky finger in my ear, as if that would drown it out. It didn’t. Soon, soft inhales and exhales accompanied the heartbeat.Someone’s breathing.
For fuck’s sake. I had great hearing as a vampire. Usually, I could ignore the chaos and clutter around me, especially as I aged. Once I learned to block out noises, I had to focus harder to listen to any particular one.
But this was different.
Feminine sighs fluttered in my head as if she were right beside me, making those silky sounds in my ear. Maybe I was searching for her sound after hearing those insistent beats? Even her heart seemed gentle. Her thumps came softly and a little broken. I didn’t know why I got that sensation from a heartbeat, but it was the only thing that came to mind.
“I told you not to come here,” someone said in a hushed tone.
Something in me coiled tight, ready to spring, when the woman’s heart went into a frenzy at a man’s voice.
“I think my wrist is broken,” she said.
My mouth parted at the soft, whimpering sound. That had to be my heartbeat girl.
“You said you weren’t working today. I can’t miss any more work. Ruth has already given me so much time off without asking questions.”