A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(19)

“What happened to your neck?” I ask.

She looks up and stares back at me viciously. “None of your damn business, Charlotte. Did I ask why you were out late getting hit by cars when you’re supposed to be at home?”

I’m stunned, feeling embarrassed. “No. You didn’t. I’m sorry.”

We’re quiet for a minute and I’m about to go to bed when Georgia starts talking, her eyes closed and her head turned away.

“When I was fifteen,” she says, “my mother was into drugs—using and selling. And one time she let the wrong people in.” She sucks at her teeth as if the memory is painful. “Mom got hit a couple of times, but I got the worst of it. Five stab wounds and a broken collarbone. Spent three weeks in the hospital.” Georgia looks over at me. “After that my mom got arrested for possession and I’ve been bounced from house to house. But I’m almost eighteen and my mom’s getting out in a few weeks and we’re starting over. She’s clean now.”

I’m amazed that she told me this, but I’m without words. Georgia had been attacked. Brutalized. Why hadn’t the Need sent me to her? Why didn’t I save her instead of some junkie in an alley or a thug running from the cops? It doesn’t seem fair. Nothing seems fair anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I say finally.

She waves me off. “Now never ask me again.”

I press back into the couch, watching her as she rests, looking too tired to make it to her room. And I wish that I could somehow save her.

But mostly I wish that I could save myself.

There are sounds around me, but whenever I try to open my eyes, I sink underwater again, submerged in the thickness of sleep that won’t let me go.

“I don’t know,” I hear Georgia say. “She was talking about getting hit by a car.”

“Is she dead?” Alex asks as I feel an arm wrap around my shoulders and tug me forward.

“You’re a damn fool. You can see her breathing right there.”

Alex gasps, and there’s a whisper of a touch on my head. “Oh, yeah. Look, she has stitches.”

“Let me see.”

“Right there.”

And then I’m out, surrounded in dark. But in the distance there is a small glow, a tiny light. Suddenly I’m standing alone, the space starting to brighten as the light grows.

“It’s going to hurt, you know?”

I jump at the sound of the voice and look sideways. Standing next to me in the dark is the woman in black. Up close she’s even more beautiful than I thought—icy blue eyes, pale porcelain skin. And her voice has the slightest hint of a Russian accent.

“That light”—she motions toward it—“hurts like hell. Worse than being burned alive.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m like you.” She grins widely. “Only more evolved.” She stops suddenly and looks around, as if she heard something that I didn’t. She meets my eyes. “We’ll talk more soon.”

My eyes flutter and I feel a jolt. I’m lying flat in my bed.

“Finally,” Alex says. I turn to see him sitting on the edge of the mattress, pushing my legs. “Thought maybe you did die.”

I swallow hard, startled by my dream . . . by the woman. The smell of bacon is in the air and I’m comforted by home. I’d know the lingering smell of Mercy’s cooking anywhere. Within a few seconds the dream starts to fade.

“No,” I say, my voice thick with sleep. “I’m alive. Got the bruises to prove it.” I reach up to feel my head, the stitches still poking out. “My brain hurts,” I murmur.

Alex chuckles and grabs a cup of water off my dresser and holds it out to me. “Your savior is here,” he says after I take the glass, and he tosses me a bottle of Advil.

“Hallelujah.” I down three pills, and then think better and take one more.

“Your man has been calling this house all morning,” Alex says. “You’d better call him back before he sends the SWAT team.” He picks at his nails. “And we don’t need that kind of trouble. Georgia might have someone tied up and gagged in her room.”

I burst out laughing and then wince, touching at my scalp. I kick him off the bed. “Georgia’s not that bad,” I say. “She and I had a sisterly heart-to-heart last night.”

Alex shrugs. “Oh, so you like her better now?” He says it jokingly, but I can hear the tension in his voice. Once you’ve been a foster kid, I’m not sure you can ever be loved enough. And although Mercy gives Alex the world, I think he’s still scared of being abandoned. I know I am.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“After ten.”

“Damn.” Classes started two hours ago, so it looks like I’m taking the day off. I hope St. Vincent’s hasn’t tried to call Mercy at work. I haven’t even told her I’d been in an accident yet. I gnaw on my lip, trying to count out when she’ll get home from her fourteen-hour shift.

Alex sighs. “I have to go. Today we’re doing highlights.” I make a face at him because he’s lucky. While I have to attend St. Vincent’s at eight a.m. every morning, he gets to take classes at vocational school—highlights and weaves from twelve to three. Really I just think he goes because he likes to have half days.