Page 72 of Thirst
He brightened. “You’re an artist?”
I shrugged. “I just like to draw, is all.”
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told him I was an artist—I could’ve agreed without admitting I was The Haunt. But I’d been hiding behind my party-girl persona for so long that denying it was instinctive.
The guard frowned at Rio from the doorway. “Time’s up.”
“Coming,” he replied and gave me a thumbs-up. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He was back within two hours with the requested items, including another lantern.
I desperately needed to brush my teeth—and my hair, for that matter—but I set the toiletries aside on the cot and reached for the pad of textured charcoal paper instead. “How’d you get it so fast?”
“I have my ways,” he said with a smirk, handing over a box of charcoal pencils—soft, medium and hard—and the special eraser that went with them. “You like?”
“I do.” I hugged the art supplies to my chest. “These are perfect.”
“Thank Eden. She told me what to buy.”
“Oh.” I blinked, thrown. “Well, please give her my thanks.”
“Will do.” He set the new lantern next to the one already in the cell. “The batteries are rechargeable. I brought you another one so if one dies, you can just turn on the other one. I’ll be bringing you your meals—just let me know when you need a charge, and I’ll take care of it.”
I nodded and opened the box. Eden had even included a pencil sharpener. She’d thought of everything.
Guilt tightened my chest, reminding me how close I’d come to having her blood on my hands, the choices I’d made that I could never take back.
“How is Eden, anyway?” I asked.
“Good.” A pause. “Why d’you want to know?”
I moved a shoulder. “Cain told me she just had a baby.”
A grunt.
I wanted to ask how the baby was, wanted proof they were both okay. But Rio had iced over, so I flipped open the pad instead. “Mind if I sketch you?”
His posture loosened. “Me?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a good face—interesting. One part nice, one part ‘don’t mess with me.’”
Like someone who’d seen too much for his age, been battered by life. But I kept that to myself.
“Huh.” He tilted his head, considering that, then flashed a crooked grin. “Later, yeah? I’ve gotta run. Peace out, ‘Kay?”
And he was gone.
I stared at the closed door. The lantern burned with a steady, unblinking light, but the room felt different without him—bigger, emptier. The shadows didn’t move, but they still seemed to twitch at the edges of my vision, like they were waiting for me to notice how alone I was again.
The silence pressed in, thick and heavy.
I straightened my spine and opened the box of charcoal pencils.
19
Cain
I rose from my day sleep with the blood-thirst chewing at my gut like a feral rat. I needed fresh blood to replace what I’d given Nyx.
