Once Bitten (An Anya Maynard Novel)

Chapter Eleven

I was still shaking when consciousness came back to me, but only the upper half of my body. Maybe the drug Brad gave me took its time to wear off fully, only…I wasn’t the one doing the shaking.

Or the crying.

Someone was touching my head, stroking my hair. I thought I should move away, but I couldn’t. My body was still too heavy. Slowly I opened my eyes and found myself lying in someone’s lap on the floor. Her eyes were closed, her head resting against the wall as she sobbed, but she continued to stroke my hair.

I swallowed a few times, my mouth feeling horribly dry as I feebly called to her, “Jess.”

“Anya?” she asked in disbelief as she snapped her tear rimmed gaze to me, “oh Anya,” she leaned over and hugged me, “thank God you’re awake, I was so worried…” she broke off and began crying again.

“Jess…why…what happened?”

She pulled away from me again, wiping her face on her sleeve as she sniffled. “I’m so sorry Anya. I never thought he’d react like this… it’s all my fault.”

“Who Jess?” Though I could take a guess.

“Brad.” I was right. “When I got back to the party Thursday night…I broke up with him when I saw him. We…we agreed when I gave it all up that he didn’t have to, but that I didn’t want him doing it around me so I wouldn’t be tempted,” she shook her head, “he said that it was your fault, that if it hadn't been for you I wouldn't want to break up with him...and that he wasn’t going to let it happen, that I was his…forever.”

I slowly rolled myself out of her lap as she began crying again, “you weren’t sick were you?” I asked as I pushed myself upright.

My arms wobbled but Jess managed to catch me before I fell back to the floor, “no,” she sniffled, “no I was here.”

I looked around the empty white space as I stretched out my stiff neck. I had to have been lying on that floor for hours, “Where is here?”

“I’m not sure. The last thing I remember was trying to leave Brad’s house on Halloween…then I woke up here. I…I don’t know how I got here, how I got in these clothes,” she tugged at the loose brown top “they’re not even mine.”

I looked at the arms she held me with, at the angry looking welts she had inside both her arms. No wonder she couldn’t remember anything, there had to be a dozen holes in each of her arms and I had only seen her yesterday. At least I thought it was yesterday, there really was no way to tell.

That same anger rolled up on me again.

I took a deep breath through my nose to calm myself, that way Jess wouldn’t think I was angry with her. “He’s kept you drugged hasn’t he?”

She nodded without looking at me, “he’ll be coming back soon to give me my next…” she closed her eyes and grimaced, “my next hit.”

“Heroine?” I asked through my teeth.

I watched her frown, “No, it’s something else. It’s not the same high…I’m sorry I never told you before Anya, about the way I used to be. But I didn’t think it mattered. I swore I would never be that way again.”

Her eyes welled up again and she turned away from me as she rubbed the inside of her arms.

I was going to kill him, if only for making Jess think that she was the one responsible for this.

“You have nothing to be sorry about Jess,” I growled, “and this isn’t your fault.”

She turned quickly back to me at my words, her eyes widening in shock, “you’re...you're one of them...aren’t you?”