The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Visionary, pt. 2

THE NEXT DAY WITH CORRINA WAS BEYOND ENJOYABLE. Though I was growing just as close to Ginny as I was with her, Corrina had a special place in my life. She’d taken me under her wing when I needed it most. She had nothing to do with anything negative or stressful in my life. So as we flipped through racks at Prada or perused the tables of scarves at Hermès, she was blissfully unaware of danger and complication, of all the things in my supernatural world. And it showed. We had so much fun together, our biggest concerns debating Tory Burch continuing the coral trend into winter or the acceptability of brightly colored Rag & Bone skinny jeans in January (we came out favorable on both counts). The most intense conversation we had was wondering whether Corrina’s loving husband would notice that she spent more on a pair of Louboutins than their mortgage payment (less favorable on this one). And we laughed all day long. I had missed her. I had missed passing for a human.

Near the end of the day, Corrina and I made it back to her Uptown condo to get dressed for her birthday dinner. I used this opportunity to wear my newly-purchased long-sleeved Rebecca Minkoff dress that cut halfway up my thigh and hugged close to my body. It was a daring number for me, even with the opaque tights I had on underneath it. I slipped into an adventurous pair of red Fendi heels that made me Everett’s height. I would not need to fit into the crook of his neck — my favorite place to be — sitting at the dinner table with Corrina and Felix.

When Everett saw me, his eyes widened. “You look beautiful,” he said, a little stunned. As he leaned in to kiss my cheek, in his mind he added, Anyone ever tell you that you make it hard to be a gentleman?

My breath caught; my stomach tingled. Everett Winter was starting to affect me in ways I had never experienced.

We drove in Felix’s Audi S5 convertible to Nobu in downtown Dallas. I loved the feel of the mild air as it spun around us. Having spent all my time in the wilderness lately, I was dazzled by the city lights. I missed the pace and even the plastic pretense of the city.

We had knocked out four courses and two bottles of wine when our dinner was winding down to the perfect mellow place. Everett and Felix were talking about playing a few courses in Southern California together. Corrina was leaning into Felix as he talked across the table, her own thoughts quiet. I held Everett’s hand, but I was leaning back and quiet too. I idly wondered if Felix had planned it so that a birthday cake for Corrina would arrive at the end of dinner.

It was right then that the buzzing in my head erupted into violent screams, faintly familiar voices, and terror.

I heard Felix ask, “If you’re used to ocean courses, have you played Trump National yet?” as my vision moved from the subdued ambience of Nobu and into a different kind of darkness. It was the last thing I heard before all five of my senses were immersed in a different place.

I was moving and turning and talking like I was a player instead of an onlooker.

I was unaware, at first, of who was talking around me. But the familiar voices matched faces I knew like my own. They were the faces of eight Survivors from my generation, all men, scattered in appearance as each of them had stopped aging anywhere between 15 and 50 years of age. They hissed at each other in low, cold voices. Their eyes were blood red, their skin paler and smoother than it had been the last time I had seen them. Their brows were tightly creased into venomous stares.

I couldn’t read the minds around me, but I understood what was happening. They had herded a group of four young women into a dark, damp place. I tried to look around, tried to see where I was standing, but I couldn’t move. I could only watch helplessly.

“Noah, you get this one’s legs. Make her stop kicking,” Derek, one of my gruff brothers barked.

“I can’t,” Noah’s voice said. But the words had come out of my mouth. “Hurry up and finish her off. The venom’s what’s making her thrash like that.” I understood then. I was inside Noah’s body. Inside his mind.

In horror, I watched as Derek’s mouth moved back to the flailing girl’s throat. The other three terrified girls were sobbing hysterically, screaming, watching my deformed brother drink the life out of her. Unable to contain himself, another brother, Peter, snarled and latched onto the other side of the girl on the ground, sinking sharp white teeth into her leg to drink from another artery. I could feel a desire building inside me, one I couldn’t explain or empathize with. I swallowed — Noah swallowed — hard as a white-hot searing pain built up in my throat. The longer we watched this happen, the hotter the burn became. It began to feel like swallowing knives. Or fire.

The others must have felt it, too. The remaining brothers pounced on the three girls. Despite his greatest efforts, Noah gave in too, and I felt helpless as he — as I — jumped toward one of the dying girls. In seconds, their bodies were limp as greedy mouths — my own included — sucked warm blood out of each of them, quieting their cries of terror. The part of me that was still me was physically sick, tormented by an image I already knew I’d never be able to erase. But a part of me was fully immersed in Noah’s head, feeling what he was feeling, ignited by the hot human blood cooling the burn in my throat. His whole body reacted in a lusty mixture of relief and stimulation. The blood was warm on my tongue.

Then it all went black.