My head buzzed and my vision jarred. It definitely felt as if I was about to have my head filled with voices, so I took a deep breath and imagined a brick wall, the way Nathan had taught me. Of course, when he’d explained it, it had been a shield of white light, but a brick wall with some nice, climbing ivy seemed a bit stronger than that New Age, hippie claptrap. It would block other minds—Nathan’s and now, apparently, Cyrus’s—from entering my own and sapping my strength.

I lifted the vial of my own blood, popped the top off and downed it, trying to ignore the taste. To my vampire tongue, human blood is amazing. Thick and warm and rich with a coppery bite, it’s like no food a human could experience. Vampire blood—at least Nathan’s and Cyrus’s, on the few times I’ve tasted it—was the same, but with an emptiness to it, as though my senses could tell I would not receive the kind of sustenance I needed from it. Plus it was the equivalent of deep-fried, sugar-loaded food for a human. It could screw up your metabolism permanently, like the Soul Eater’s, and for a vampire, permanently was an awfully long time. My own blood, however, tasted just like regular old blood, like I’d gotten a paper cut and licked it clean. It wasn’t pleasant, and I forced my uncooperative gag reflex away in order to swallow. Still, it was better than leaving it out for one of March’s boys to find.

My stomach growled at the reminder of the blood I’d been denied earlier, and I reached into the ice bucket for a bag. Under ordinary circumstances, the blood would be suspect, but I was too hungry and weak to argue myself out of drinking it. My hands brushed something definitely not ice buried under the bag. It was a note, this one folded tightly, the ink beginning to run from the moisture of the ice.

I’ve left some Tylenol in the bedside table drawer.

Take it easy until sundown. And then, if you know what’s good for you, get as far away from here as possible.

Evan

I reread the note and stuffed it back into the ice bucket. No way was I taking any pills Evan had left behind. I knew better than to take candy from strangers, especially when they’d already tried to steal my blood. Besides, my headache was nothing a little food and rest couldn’t cure.