Drain Me *SAMPLE CHAPTERS ONLY*

Chapter 2

The fact that he knew my name didn’t alarm me.

My family owned half the city, including a good portion of this very hospital. Considering that my sister’s escapades were constant fodder for the tabloids, I would have been more insulted if he didn’t know who I was.

But once again …it was that look in his eyes. It chilled me right down to the bone; I know you, Eleanor Gray, it said. Way more than just a face from the Society Pages. 

Before I could choke out a reply, he smiled—for real this time—and my poor brain struggled to find the right words to describe it. Dazzling. Magnificent ...

The flash of pearly white teeth nearly knocked me senseless. I lost my grip on the handkerchief for a split second, sparking the taste of copper over my tongue.  

“Word travels fast around here,” he said, voice traveling down my spine.

I felt my nose wrinkle as I frowned. Apparently news of my terminal illness had spread before I’d even left the damn hospital. How long before my picture ended up splattered over the front of some tabloid beneath the headline, Heiress given weeks to live?

I didn’t answer. Instead, I willed my nose to stop bleeding, though I had a feeling that I was quickly becoming in danger of needing transfusion number four.

I felt so dizzy all of a sudden. As if, at any moment, I could pass out. Faint. 

 “What do you see?”

“Huh?”

The question threw me off and had me turning to face him before I could help it. Wordlessly, he inclined his head and my eyes automatically followed.

The hall we were in opened onto a causeway, where patients and visitors alike wandered the pristine floor.

The sight reminded me of a hotel—albeit minus the IV poles some people sported instead of suitcases. The air was the same: that busy, ‘places to go, people to see, get the hell out of my way’ vibe that made everyone seem closed off, further away.

Without meaning to, I found my gaze settling over a young girl who had her head wrapped in a polka dot headscarf. Beside her, a man I guessed to be her father pushed an IV pole that rattled over the floor.

She was almost as pale as I was, with dark, bruise-like circles underneath her eyes—but that wasn’t what stood out to me the most.

She was smiling. Walking, talking and …smiling. Despite the obvious physical signs, if you went off that expression alone, you would have never guessed she was sick at all. My gaze remained glued to her, even as the mysterious doctor spoke up again.

“Mortality,” he said grimly. “It’s the most precious commodity in the world, don’t you agree?”

I nodded. I may have not been that invested in my own life, but I could read the fervent desire on all the other faces—from the new mother carrying her infant in a car seat, to the elderly man clutching a newspaper to his chest.

The lust to live was always the same.

“There are some who would do anything for another chance at life, for more time.”

He spoke so matter-of-factly that it wasn’t until my mind processed what he was really saying that his morbid tone struck me like a blow.  

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sounded like I was under water.  My nose was still dripping. Even the pressure of my hand wasn’t enough to staunch the blood flow.