Annika Northman: Part One

Chapter Eleven: Ragged

"There's a tear in my beer

'Cause I'm cryin' for you, dear,

You are on my lonely mind.

Into these last nine beers

I have shed a million tears,

You are on my lonely mind . . ."

"Well, that's terrible," I mutter before clicking the little arrow that points right on Hoyt's scratched, dented iPod. The tiny screen flashes away from a picture of a bearded man in a cowboy hat to a cleanshaven man in a cowboy hat. The white letters beneath the picture read "Friends in Low Places."

"Blame it all on my roots,

I showed up in boots –"

"Ugh, no – why do you all wear boots?" I click the arrow again. This has been my life for the past few hours. Sitting on the clean tile of a shiny bathroom – well, sometimes on the edge of the bathtub, sometimes on the toilet with the seat down – flipping through song after song on a stranger's iPod, the earbuds repeatedly falling from my ears as I try not to think about whatever's happening in the next room.

Hoyt likes country music, something I have barely any knowledge of. Most of the music I hear is beeping, bumping club music that sounds more like a robot than a song. Eric sometimes listens to classical pieces or recordings of Old Swedish songs, so I hear things like that as well, and I usually think they're pretty. But Hoyt has nothing like that – nothing in Swedish, nothing classical, and no club music. Some pop, though. Some of it not bad. And a lot of rock – soft rock, with lyrics I can understand, not the bashing, screaming stuff that Longshadow used to listen to. A band called U2 had some songs I liked. And someone called Bob Seger. So it's not a total waste of time, sitting in this bathroom for half of the night.

But it does drag on. So, when the door cracks open to reveal Jessica, still in her bathrobe – or back in it, maybe – it's refreshing. "Hey," she says, sort of shrugging. Her hair is a mess. "You can, um . . . you can come out now. Hoyt went out to pick up some food. He didn't want to put room service on the bill . . ." She widens her eyes. "Oh, God. Food. Oh, you gotta be hungry. I'm so sorry, um –" She disappears back into the room. I rise, gathering the tangled wires of the earbuds as I follow her out.

She's in the corner of the room, where there's a sink and a mirror above a mini-fridge. She shakes out a hand towel, lifts a hairbrush. "There's a menu here somewhere – I saw it, I'm sure –"

"It's fine. I'll just get something from the minibar."

"Are you sure –?"

"Yeah." I cross the room to the fridge, dropping Hoyt's iPod on the bed as I go. I open the fridge and take in the dozens of brightly-colored packages before picking out a bag of potato chips.

"I'm sorry." Jessica props herself against the sink with one arm, the hand of the other arm gripping her elbow. "I can't believe I didn't think about feedin' you."

She really is sorry. I can sense it. I sigh. "It's okay. Honestly. I know vampires can forget how regularly humans need to eat." I pop open the potato chip bag. The smell of salt and oil puffs out at me. I fall back on the bed and eat a chip, enjoying the grease and the crunch. I never get to eat bad food at home. Just specially-made, vegetable-packed meals and whole grain everything.

Jessica sits beside me. "I'm sorry about the whole . . . bathroom thing, too. I mean, not as sorry as I would have been if you hadn't taken thirty dollars from Hoyt, but . . . still. I know it's not fair of me to ask you to do that. I just . . ." She looks at her hands. "He's really special, you know? And I've never . . . I mean, he's the first boy I've ever . . ."