A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(21)

I tremble with the horror of my transformation. I’m wearing away, just like Monroe said I would. What if it can’t be stopped and the gold reaches my face? How can I live? I lean against the faded green wall, feeling like I’ve just been punched in the gut. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to ball up and cry until I’m cured. But the Need rips me forward and I stumble down the hall again.

When I hear the creaking of a door, I stop. My breath comes out in short jagged gasps and my skin feels as if it’s burning off.

There is a little girl in the doorway—her long blond hair loose and wild around her face. She looks frightened.

“Hi,” I say, unsure. Suddenly there is a burst of wind and I stagger forward, hoping I can help her. Hoping she can make this stop.

She doesn’t answer and instead stares at me with wide blue eyes. My body aches, but I squat down in front of her, getting to her level.

“What’s your name?” I ask. I wait but I can’t see her past. Her want. She’s just a little girl in front of me. But I can tell by the pulsing that this is where I’m supposed to be. Only, it’s not her.

“I’m Olivia,” she says in a tiny voice.

“Hi, Olivia.” I smile, waiting for something to happen. The little girl reaches to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. “Are you alone?” I ask tentatively after a moment of awkward silence. She shakes her head.

I’m considering my next move, when I hear it. It’s a soft moan from inside. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I try to look past her into the apartment. But it’s dark, the windows blocked with heavy blankets.

I lean closer to Olivia. “Who’s in there?”

Her mouth twitches. “My mom.” There’s another moan from behind her, this one followed by a gurgling sound. My vision starts to blur and I know I have to get inside.

“Take me to her,” I say, reaching out to hold the little girl’s hand. I’m unsteady and I wonder if my head smack last night has changed the way the Need works. It’s unusual for me to be so weak.

“But Mommy doesn’t want to—”

“Now,” I say roughly, pushing open the door. The entire room is on a tilt, slowly tipping from one side to the next. The images are fuzzy. The little girl a blur in front of me. An eerie calm comes over me, but just below the surface, I’m scared. Scared that Monroe was right and I might slip away and dissolve right here.

Olivia doesn’t say anything as she leads me into her apartment. The cracked plaster walls are bare. The smell is rancid, like rotting food. I glance toward the kitchen and see a sink of overflowing dishes before my vision starts to fade into darkness. I gasp. This has never happened before, not like this. I’m blind.

From somewhere in the apartment, I can hear moaning. The little girl is holding my hand, and I squeeze it, completely dependent on her for direction.

“She’s on the floor over there,” Olivia whispers and lets go of me. Just then, a weak yellow light surrounding a figure comes into focus. It’s her. My Need.

I stumble toward her, wondering if now all of my Needs will involve glowing light. I hope that my vision will come back after I do what I’m here for. But what if it doesn’t? I swallow hard and push the thought away. My body pulls me toward the edge of the room.

“Are . . . are you okay?” I ask the person lying on the apartment floor, when suddenly my mind is filled with images. Her name is Callie. I first see her as a young girl, her golden blond hair in pigtails. But the man touching her is much older, and it’s as if I am her. I’m being molested.

I cringe, whimpering at the images when the next one flashes by and I’m in high school, injecting heroin into my arm and sighing as I lean back into a dirty couch. There are users and dealers all around me, groping me. But I don’t care. Just as long as I’m not home.

It’s a few years later and my belly is round, but I’m happy. I’ve never been so happy. And then the images change. I can see Callie again, her hair brushed and clean, as she walks hand in hand with a little girl—Olivia. They’re smiling and laughing. I tilt my head, wondering what could have happened since then to make Callie an addict again.

Then I see him, the man who touched Callie when she was younger. He’s older now, bushy mustache, pale blue sweater. He’s standing with a woman who looks like Callie . . . her mother. I suck in a gasp of air. Her stepfather abused her. But her mother doesn’t know. She never told her.

Olivia, close to the age she is now, comes running through the picture to get picked up by the man. He and her grandmother laugh and dote on her. She looks happy. But . . . where’s Callie? Why would she let her daughter go with the man who—

My vision changes and I see Callie on her couch in this apartment just last week, wearing only a dirty tank top and underwear. She’s reading a paper, a court order. She’s lost custody. To them.

The images speed up, a montage of a week of drug-binging on heroin. Callie is afraid to tell her mother about her step-father, afraid it was her fault, afraid no one will believe her. And now . . . now her daughter might suffer the same thing. But she’s denied it for so long, she’s not even sure if it really happened anymore.

But it did. It definitely did. I stifle a cry because I still feel like it happened to me. I feel violated.

I shudder and then the images stop. Instead my vision returns and Callie’s in front of me on the floor, her light flickering. She’s overdosed on her latest batch of heroin. I want to save her—take away the pain. I kneel down, and reach out to brush back her filthy hair; it’s dry and stiff. When I touch the crook of her arm where the needle went in, she gasps and opens her eyes. They go out of focus, staring past me.