Chapter 9 The Inferno

The east wing is beautiful. It’s also a prison. I’ve gone mad memorizing every painting, every piece of furniture, and every crack in the ceiling. The guards rotate in shifts; they’re always watching, never speaking unless I speak first.

Thad visits once a day to bring me blood. He stays long enough to make sure I drink it, then leaves without a word. Whatever happened between us when I fed from him, he’s determined to pretend it never occurred.

Fine. Two can play that game.

But by the third night, I’m climbing the walls. I need to get out of here. Not forever—I’m not stupid enough to think I can survive on my own when I don’t even know what I am. But I need air. I need space. I need something other than these four walls and the guards and Thad’s cold silence.

The isolation is eating me alive. I used to complain about my cubicle at work, about the fluorescent lights and the endless meetings and the coworker who microwaved fish every Tuesday. Now I’d give anything to be back there. At least I could leave whenever I wanted. At least I could walk outside and feel the sun on my face without worrying that it might kill me. At least I had a life that made sense.

The window in my bedroom faces the back of the property. I’ve studied it for hours, watching the way the shadows move across the lawn as the sun rises and sets. There’s a garden out there, overgrown and wild. A stone path leads toward what looks like a greenhouse. Trees stand beyond that, thick enough to disappear into.

Freedom. Right there on the other side of the glass.

The last time I tried to go outside, the sun burned me. But that was before I fed from Thad. Before my body stopped fighting and started accepting whatever it’s becoming. Maybe things are different now. Maybe his blood fixed more than just the fever. Maybe I’ve adapted.

There’s only one way to find out.

I wait until midmorning, when the guards change shifts and there’s a gap in their patrol. The sun is high and bright—much brighter than it was that first day when I stumbled through the double doors. If I can handle this, I can handle anything.

I slide the window open. The frame groans, but no alarms sound. No guards come running.

So far, so good.

I climb onto the sill and lower myself down. My feet hit the grass, soft and cool beneath my bare toes. The garden smells like jasmine and wet earth, and somewhere nearby, a bird is singing. For one perfect moment, I feel normal. Human. Like the woman I used to be, sneaking out of her apartment to go for an early morning run in the park.

Then the sun finds me.

The pain is instantaneous and blinding. It’s a thousand times worse than before. This time, it’s not just burning but incinerating, like someone poured gasoline on my skin and lit a match. I scream and throw my arms over my face, but it doesn’t help. The heat is everywhere, searing through my clothes, blistering every inch of exposed flesh.

I try to run back toward the window, but my legs won’t cooperate. They buckle beneath me, and I collapse onto the grass. My vision goes white. I can smell my own skin cooking, can feel my hair singeing against my scalp. Every nerve ending in my body is shrieking, begging me to make it stop, begging for relief that won’t come.

I curl into a ball and sob, clawing at the ground beneath me like I can somehow dig my way to safety. The grass is cool against my fingers, but the rest of me is an inferno. I’m dying. I have to be dying. Nothing could survive this kind of agony. No human body could endure this and live.

The thought runs through my mind before the pain swallows it whole: maybe I’m not human anymore.

“Thelma!”

Thad’s voice cuts through the haze. I hear footsteps pounding across the lawn, and then hands are grabbing me, lifting me, pulling me against a chest that’s just as hot as my own.

He’s burning too. He came out into the sun for me, and he’s burning too.

We crash through the window together. Glass shatters around us as Thad shields my body with his, and we land hard on the bedroom floor. The curtains billow closed behind us, blocking out the murderous daylight.

I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can barely breathe. My entire body is one massive wound, throbbing and screaming with every heartbeat. Tears stream down my face, carving hot trails through the ruined skin on my cheeks. My throat is raw from screaming, and my lungs feel like they’ve been scorched from the inside.

But even through the pain, I can feel myself healing. The blisters are already shrinking; the blackened flesh is flaking away to reveal pink new skin underneath. It itches and burns and pulls, like my body is knitting itself back together by force. The sensation is almost worse than the burning—this wrongness of my flesh remaking itself while I lie here helpless.

Thad releases me and staggers backward. His face is bright red, and his hands are covered in burns that are healing slower than mine. He’s breathing hard, and his chest heaves beneath his ruined shirt. When he looks at me, the fury in his eyes makes my stomach drop.

I’ve never seen him like this. His body is trembling with rage, and I realize with a sick lurch that I don’t know what he’s capable of when he’s angry. I don’t know anything about this man except that he made me into whatever I am now.

And I’m too broken to do anything but lie here and wait for whatever comes next.