Hollowed (10 page)

He
'
s seated on a chair in front of Oliver, who is propped on the edge of the bed. Oliver growls in response and his gaze darts to me. He's shirtless, and while I can't exactly tell what Cole is doing to Oliver's shoulder, it's not hard to guess. I don't want to know how one removes a bullet without some kind of medical equipment. Guilt knots up my stomach.

"You could've told me you got shot," I mutter.

Oliver rolls his uninjured shoulder back into a shrug and turns his gaze out the window. "I figured since we were keeping secrets..."

My jaw tightens. That isn
'
t an accusation I can deny, so it's better not to say anything at all. Cole doesn't seem to want us arguing, either, because he wipes his bloodied hands off on a towel and rises to hand me another card key. "Your room is next door to Oliver's."

The way he says it makes me feel twice as guilty.
Here they are, helping me out. They rescued me, took me in, and now Cole is paying for my room...
I take the key. "Look, I..."

Oliver looks back at me, nose wrinkled. "Did you bring an animal in here?"

As though summoned, the kitten pokes his head out from the bundle in my arms. He looks straight at Oliver. Thankfully, there's no hissing or growling.

I refuse to let Oliver's hard stare make me feel nervous.
"I'm naming him Algonquin. He's going to stay with me. I'll buy him what he needs,
"
I say.

Oliver gets up. The blood is drying on his skin, but the wound itself is already healing. I avert my eyes, hugging the cat a little closer.

"No one will ever even know he's here, I promise."

"His name isn't Algonquin." Oliver halts in front of me, leans over
,
and narrows his eyes. "What are you doing, Daniel?"

The kitten blinks at Oliver, slow and lazy, then tips his head back to give me a look. The recognition in his
gaze
is so eerily human. And Oliver talking to him like the cat is his rubs me the wrong way.

"
Algonquin.
And you can get your own cat."

I should probably listen to what he has to say, but I'm not in the mood. Algonquin is the first non-vampire thing to not be terrified of me, and
I won
'
t let anyone ruin that
. Algonquin doesn't even mind how tightly I'm hugging him as I whirl around and stomp out of the room.

Oliver follows me into the hall, sighing. "Briar,
that's not a cat. He's
—"

"Leave me alone." I can't swipe my card key fast enough to get inside.
Oliver
catches my arm and twists me around in the doorway and...
stops. He d
oesn't say anything. Just stares at me like he sees the frustration in my eyes that makes him change his mind. Whatever the reason, he releases me.

As much as I want to be angry, it's hard to sta
y mad
. He's a big jerk, but he's
trying
. The guy took a bullet for me. That isn
'
t something I can just shrug off. "Go get cleaned up before someone sees you and thinks you
'
ve been murdering the maids," is the nicest thing I can think to say without actually apologizing for being a
bitch. Oliver says nothing. He walks away a
nd leaves me to my room and my solitude.

Algonquin makes himself at home on the foot of my bed, tiny paws kneading the covers. I leave him there while I slip into the bathroom.

I scrub down in a hot shower before letting the tub fill to relax in it. The heat melts away the last bit of pain from my ribs. Can't say that's an injury I ever want to get again. I lean back, submerged to my shoulders, eyes closed.

Noah and I once took a bath together. Sort of. He called when he was out of town, and I happened to be enjoying a bubble bath when I answered the phone. So, he did the same on his end. We talked for two hours. When the water got cold, we relocated to our beds.
We f
lipped through television channels and made running commentary on the shows we came across.

More than ever, I wish I could look forward to those moments again rather than reflecting on them as nothing more than memories. We weren't even together for a year,
but it felt longer. I thought—
just maybe
—
what we had might turn into something more serious. One day I could bring him home to meet my parents, maybe one day he would actually tell me something about his secret work life.

I fling an arm across my burning eyes. I'm done crying over it. Painful or not, I have more important things to worry about now. Keeping myself alive. Finding out about Ruby. Avenging Sherry.

Noah was just a guy.

If I tell myself that long enough and hard enough, maybe I can make myself believe it.

The bathroom door creaks open and Algonquin's little feet pad across the floor. I can hear him hop up onto the lid of the toilet, perhaps leaning over to inspect the bathtub. Despite everything, it makes me smile. I have
something
, no matter how small, and I'll hold onto that dearly.

"You're going to fall in," I warn him, lifting my head to look.

Just in time to see a baby duck
wiggling its tail feathers and hopping
into the bathtub. It makes the tiniest of
splashes.

"
Uh.
"

Not kitten.

Duck.

Complete with yellow downy feathers and a pint-sized quack as it treads circ
les in the water near my knees.

I press my back against the tub,
not sure whether to scream or throw it out of the water or what. Screaming over a baby animal seems a be excessive, though, so I opt for sitting and staring, completely dumbfounded.

And again, the look in its eyes
—

"Algonquin?"

No need to ask. I know it's him. This
duckling is—was—
my kitten. Algonquin stops swimming when I say his name, watches me, as though waiting for me to say something further.

I sit up a little straighter. "...I have a magical duck-kitten."

"Quack
."

All things considered, if vampires can exist, I guess something that can change shape isn
'
t really that far-fetched.
Is this what Oliver was trying to tell me? Do they know each other? "Can you turn into...
something else?"

Algonquin seems to consider this, feathers ruffling. He dips his head into the water. I don't know what I'm seeing, or how he's doing it. His body shifts, changes, so quickly there isn't even time for me to study it. Feathers morph into dark, water-slicked fur. He's bigger. Big enough it makes sharing bathtub space a little weird. Then again, sharing any kind of space with a baby otter is bizarre.

He floats on his back, hands rubbing at his face. As though this were nothing. Just an everyday thing. Slowly, I reach out to poke his belly.

"Either I'm really drunk,
really crazy, or you're just...
really cool."

A shape-shifter. What did Oliver call him? Daniel? I'll stick with Algonquin for now. He doesn't seem to mind. Algonquin-the-otter swims around for awhile longer while I sink back down to my chin and watch. The steady lapping of the water makes me tired. Or maybe the entire day has made me tired, and it's just now catching up to me. As much as I want to see what other neat things my new pet can turn into, I'm guessing
—
hoping
—
he'll still be with me tomorrow to find out.

I bundle up in one of the complimentary robes and wander out to actually look at my room. Big-screen TV. Comfy queen-sized bed. What I wouldn't give to help myself to a bottle of wine in the mini-fridge.

Cole brought my things in when he got the room. My clothes are even
unpacked and
in the dresser and the closet. I would be annoyed at him going through my things, but
he doesn
'
t strike
me as the sort to do much of anything without good intentions.

Besides that, looking in the closet there are clothes I don't recognize. Nice clothes. Things I sure would not have had the money to buy. I collapse into bed with Algonquin
—a kitten again—
curling up on one of my pillows. I don't know whether to feel humiliated that Cole looked at my other clothes to get sizes, guilty he bought me stuff, or touche
d he went through the effort.
I owe him a thank you.

More than that, I guess I owe
him
the truth.

Room service wakes me up with breakfast. I have no idea who ordered it, but I
'
m guessing it was Cole. Maybe to keep up our normal
appearances or something. I nibble at it but don
'
t trust myself with much.
Cole was
right, though; it doesn
'
t leave me feeling full at all. In fact the sensation is almost an uncomfortable one, and the food tastes bland and heavy on my stomach. Too bad, I used to love omelets.

Algonquin
eats
from a plate of sausage and gravy I couldn
'
t stomach looking at, much less put in my mouth. At least he's enjoying it.

"
I guess this means no more shoving my face with chocolate when I
'
m depressed, huh?
"
I say.

He tips his head back, licks his mouth
,
and goes back to eating.

While he finishes up, I get dressed in some of the new clothes. Everything fits comfortably and by some miracle,
Cole
didn
'
t get me anything hideous. Dad ruined me on thinking guys could pick out decent clothes for a teenage girl. Once I hit thirteen, he didn
'
t seem to get that I wasn
'
t into Disney Princesses and sequin-covered Christmas sweaters. He learned to let Mom do the shopping.

It feels good to be clean, healed, and in new clothes that don't smell of blood and dirt. I can w
alk down the hallway feeling...
human.
Ha.

Algonquin trails behind me, occasionally batting at my shoelaces. It isn't until I'm standing outside of Cole's room that I realize he almost seems to be trying to
stop
me. He puts himself between me and the door, paws on my foot.

"What's wrong? Did grouchy Oliver scare you yesterday?" I
lean
to scoop him up, and barely make out the voices on the other side of the door.

"...
Until we find out what it is that boy and the others want, you can't be letting her run off on her own. That was foolish."

I straighten slowly
. They're talking about me? I guess that's a
duh
; who else would it be?

"I got it,
I got it.
I thought she would do better on her own, that's all. And I can't watch her twenty-four hours a day, she'll start asking why." Oliver's voice fades in and out. He's pacing, I'll bet. Toward the door, away from it. "She's already asking questions I don't know how to answer. If we could just tell her the truth–"

"Not yet. I don't want her
overreacting
."

My skin prickles
. The truth about what? What aren't they telling me? Or more importantly, what
are
they telling me that isn't true?

The
logical thing would be to
leave. Get out of here before they notice me. If I confront them and they don
'
t react well...
then what? I can't imagine them hurting me, but I also hadn't thought they would lie to me, either.

One untruth after another. N
oah's betrayal. The truth about Ruby
. Now this.

I swipe the card key and shove open the door, nearly slamming it into Oliver in the process. He whirls, staggers back. Like a deer caught in the headlights. That's right, Bambi. You are
so
busted.

They stare
at me, tense. Both silent and waiting
to see how much I heard. Arms crossed, I lean against the doorframe.

"Truth about what?" When neither of them say anything:
"
You have ten seconds to start talking before I walk out.
"

They exchange looks. Cole stands slowly.

"Briar. It's very important that you tell us the truth about what happened last night. It's the only way we can help keep you safe." In such a smooth, comforting voice. Like that
'
s going to calm me down.