Just One Bite

[4] Hunt

HUNT

Turns out, Rhys knew how give great incentives.

After dark, all four of us left the house in Aaron's Ford fiesta. They were taking me to my flat. I would get to take some things to stay at the house with the others, and I hoped, God I hoped, that Hettie would be there. The possibility made me want to jump for joy. Maybe if I did, I'd end up on the ceiling. Who knew what was possible with this new, strange body?

All the way over I was silently buzzing in the car and during the walk up into the building even with Rhys's hand holding mine. He'd told me it was just in case. His grip was firm and warm. My stomach twisted a little seeing the building, it was like a concrete giant. It almost seemed to... speak.

You are not welcome anymore, you the undead walking.

Now that my mortal curtain had been dropped, everything felt different. Everything.

"Why did we have to come for this?" Isak complained quietly as we got into the lift.

"You know why," Rhys said calmly as we all squeezed in, thumb brushing over the back of mine once. "You should've stayed in the car if you wanted to complain."

Isak opened his mouth to argue back but Aaron grabbed him around the neck, messing up his short hair. "This guy. Always with a stick up his ass. You're lucky we love you, man."

Isak pushed Aaron off of him and grumbled.

I was trying to hold it together next to them but my mind was racing. Would Hettie be able to tell I'd changed? She always knew me the best out of anyone. What would she say when she saw the three attractive guys tailing me like some kind of security detail or when I told her that I was suddenly staying with them?

God, I didn't even want to think about the theories she'd have about that.

My hand shook as I tried to get the key in the familiar front door.

It didn't matter though. I knew she wasn't there without even setting a foot through the threshold. The door swung open and the flat was undeniably void of life.

"She's not here," I said, not sure how I really knew since there had been times where I'd assumed she wasn't home then she'd come out of nowhere scaring the shit out of me.

But I just knew this time, for certain.

"Yeah," Rhys said from beside me. He dropped my hand and I felt a cold shiver slip through me. "You'll be able to notice things like that now, if you couldn't before. How many people are in the space around you, things like that."

I sighed and pushed my way in, going for her room just in case. The shuffling of shoes came from behind me as the boys piled into the hallway. A part of me hoped she would be there snuggled up in her duvet watching Greys Anatomy on her laptop. No such luck. Her bed was messily made, remnants of last night evident from her makeup lined up on her dresser to the outfit she hadn't chosen over her favoured one, lying abandoned over her desk chair.

I frowned as I stroked the crocheted blanket her Mum had made for her when we'd moved in. Where was she?

Rhys poked his head around her door, obviously wondering what was taking me so long.

His eyes went over her ribbons on the wall from her dressage competitions. The cork board she'd haphazardly put up with thumb tacks and all the pictures on it. He gently poked a string of beads she'd hung up on her curtain rail. "I'm sorry, I know you wanted to see if she was okay."

My stomach sank, shaking my head. "Maybe... maybe she stayed at someone's house." It wasn't rare for her to get lost in a night or a few days of passion with someone and come back when she was ready with a giddy smile.