“Don’t try to tell me what happened.”
“I know what happened to your friend with the glasses. I also know what happened to the pretty, quiet little one, and the girl who turned up missing.”
“You mean Amy?”
Ned nodded and turned around to face her. In his hand was a syringe the size of a little pencil. It wasn’t the cloudy liquid in the narrow plastic tube or the needle at the end of it that frightened her as much as the calm certainty in Ned’s eyes regarding what was going to happen next.
“The police say Amy’s missing,” he said. “Everyone around this hospital caring for the patients from that party along with other kids from the university all say the same thing, but you know better. Amy’s not missing, is she?”
Paige’s eyes narrowed as she sat up in her bed. The muscles in her legs tensed in preparation of unleashing a flurry of kicks. Her fingers clenched around the sheets and the edge of the mattress as if she could somehow pull those things up and use them as weapons. “What’s in that needle?”
“It’s an antidote for what may be running through your system.”
“The doctors already put enough into me. Get that crap away before I call someone.”
Ned stopped, lowered the needle and looked at her with a contemplative expression. “Those Nymar left you alone for a reason. I think I see what that could be.”
“Namor?”
“No. Nymar. It’s what the vampires call themselves.”
And there it was.
Paige had heard people talk about life-changing moments. Most of those were soldiers or survivors of catastrophes, or maybe even people who were critically ill. She might have had a moment like that during the attack, but her brain had done a pretty good job of wiping those memories away like hot breath from a cold window. Not only did Ned’s words bring the memories back, but they convinced her that she hadn’t simply exaggerated things to cover a more earthly violation. If she’d been beaten or raped, it was something she could comprehend. There were support groups she could visit, doctors to comfort her, others who might understand her pain. There were no support groups for victims of vampire attacks.
Or maybe there were. Somehow, she figured Ned might know about such things.
“You saw the vampires,” he declared. “You saw what they did to your friends. They killed one and most likely fed on the others. More than one of them must have fed on you. That’s why those wounds haven’t closed yet. If just one bit you, there wouldn’t be much of a trace left. When their saliva mingles, that gets messed up.”
There were bandages wrapped around Paige’s left forearm, a few taped to her shoulder, and a thick chunk of gauze attached to her neck. When she moved, she could feel the twitch of pain beneath the antiseptic wrappings. “I don’t know for sure what they did. They knocked me out when I tried to fight back.”
“See, that’s the difference. You fought back. More than that, I’m guessing you fought back real well. Did you wound one of them?”
“I don’t think so. Grabbed a corkscrew and tried stabbing him, but it didn’t do much of anything.”
“Where did you stab him?”
Tapping into her reserve strength, she lifted her chin and arched her back so she was almost standing up in the bed. “Right on those fucking moving tattoos. I mean,” she added as her posture slipped, “the thick black tattoo on one of them.”
Ned smiled warmly. “No, you’re right,” he told her while calmly patting her shoulder. “Those black markings moved. They’re not tattoos.”
“Is that why they came for me? Because I can see that kind of thing?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I doubt they came for you. That one fella, Wes, lives on campus and has been feeding on students because they’re easy pickin’s. The others are friends of his, and I’m pretty sure one of them is the leader of the group.”
“Was it a woman named Hope?”
For the first time since he’d made his presence known, Ned seemed shaken. “Is that really her name?”
“That’s what I heard the others call her.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes!” Paige snapped. “How the hell could I not be sure about what a bunch of freaking vampires called each other while they were tearing me and my friends apart?”
Ned sat down on the edge of her bed. “Most people in your situation would have been too frightened to remember such a thing or too affected by the Nymar to remember. Either that or they’d just keep their mouths shut, pretending to forget what happened or force their brains to push it out. This is what I’m talking about. You’ve got a strength that separates you from the rest.”
“My name’s Paige.”
“I know.”
“Then call me that. Don’t just talk about me. Talk to me.”
A trace of amusement crossed Ned’s face. “All right, Paige. Since you seem capable of handling the truth, that’s what I’ll give to you. The serum in this syringe is poison to Nymar. If they left anything in you, this will kill it. If they infected you in any way, this should get rid of that as well.”
“Infected me with what? Will I become a vampire?”
“I could examine you, but I’d want to give you the injection no matter what. Considering all the examinations you’ve endured, I figured I’d just skip the middleman. Hold out your arm.”
Paige got as far as tensing a few muscles, but stopped well before her arm rose above the sheets. “How do I know you’re doing what you say you are?”
“I’d inject myself with the syringe, but that would waste some serum and wouldn’t be very sanitary.”
“I got chewed on by Namor and you think I’m worried about getting an infection?”
“You should always be worried about infection,” Ned replied with a face that was as straight as the plastic tube in his hand. “And it’s ‘Nymar.’ ‘Namor’ is the Sub Mariner from those comic books.” Before she could say anything to that, Ned added, “Lots of people make that mistake. Are you ready for this or not?”
She pulled in a deep breath, held onto it and let it out. “Guess I don’t have anything else to lose.” When Ned extended his hand, he almost got close enough to push the needle into her arm before she said, “What about the others? My friends? You said you knew what happened to them.”
“I know Amy Crabtree is dead. We saw the Nymar drag away the body. Jennifer Walsh was discharged after being treated for blood loss. She recovered quicker than expected, which is normal for someone who’s fed upon normally. The one with the glasses must’ve slipped away.” He then held up the needle and raised his eyebrows as though asking her to proceed without forming the words.
Fixing a stern glare on him as if certain that would be enough to hold him back, Paige asked, “Who are you?”
“Ned Post. I’ve been working at this hospital since about a month or two after Wes and those other Nymar set up shop at the university.”
“Unless the Carle Foundation has some sort of vampire ward, there’s more to it than that.”
Someone walked by the door to Paige’s room. The footsteps stopped, but moved along once Ned nodded toward the door’s little square window. Keeping the same casual, vaguely bored expression on his face, he said, “I’m a Skinner.”
“A Skinner? Is that another comic book thing?”
“No. It’s just what we’re called. The condensed version is that we know about creatures like Nymar and hunt them down.”
“So if you know about Wes, then why aren’t you hunting him down?”
“There’s more to it than that,” Ned hissed. “We need to stay as discreet as possible. There’s no telling what could happen if something is handled sloppily. All of us could be compromised. There could be other Nymar that we don’t know about. If they’re confronted and we don’t have all our bases covered, things can get very bloody very quickly.”
“You mean like what happened to Amy? Like what happened to me?” When she held up her arm to illustrate her point, Ned grabbed her wrist. She tried to pull it away but was held fast within the grip of his rough, thickly scarred hand. Even so, she continued to make it difficult for him to accomplish his task. “You’ve known about these assholes for a month and that’s not enough time to get them?”