Page 259 of Shifting Hearts 1
Morgan froze. Then a thin, high keening ripped from her, folding her over on the carpet. Cass shook her head with theair of someone tired of crude surprises. Morgan steadied and looked up, voice low and raw.
“Someone else was in the room with us,” she said. A growl threaded the words.
My skin went cold.
“What are you on about?” Cassandra asked, blinking like she hadn’t been in the room at all.
“There was a voice. One I didn’t know.”
I stopped. Did she hear me? Had she heard the whisper I couldn’t risk speaking? My throat went dry. I tried, soft as a confession, “Can you hear me?”
“Bibi attacked me,” Morgan insisted, eyes vacant.
“Nobody attacked you,” Cass said flatly.
“She attacked me!” Morgan pushed, wild.
“Nobody attacked you, Natasha.” Cassandra’s voice snapped the claim back down.
“No,” Morgan breathed, smaller.
I tried again, but she didn’t look my way. Whoever, whatever, she’d heard had retreated into the hollow the drug left behind. Shock rolled over her like a tide; Cass hustled to her side with the practiced care of someone who’d rehearsed this exact moment a thousand times.
A part of me felt relief, cold and late. Finally, the storm had a lull. But it was relief poisoned by regret, decades too late to mean anything useful.
“Natasha, please. Don’t do this.” Cassandra’s plea floated; it sounded less like mercy and more like a command.
“You wanted her dead?” I asked, though I didn’t expect an answer that would make sense. Women had always been riddles to me, beautiful, furious riddles, and in that moment they were more inscrutable than ever.
Cass kepther locked in her chambers, and the days bled together. Morgan barely moved, just sat slumped at the edge of the bed like a statue cracked but not yet fallen.
I stayed across from her, back against the wall, trapped in the same monotony. Time dragged, each second stretched thin until it felt like weeks. The only company I had left were my own memories, looping endlessly.
The window gave me a glimpse of the outside, but not enough to escape. And still, every time my eyes slid back to Morgan, the same truth gnawed at me, she needed to feed, or she’d petrify.
At last the door creaked open and Cassandra entered. Even her face, the last one I wanted to see, was a small relief against the crushing stillness.
“You must feed,” she said, jaw tight, words pushed through clenched teeth.
“I’m not hungry,” Morgan muttered without looking at her.
Cass stood there a beat longer, then turned and left.
And still Morgan sat, hollow and stubborn. Still here. Still breaking.
Cass returned days later,the room humming with the same dull cruelty. This was worse than pathetic.
“You need to feed. Please, my love.” Her voice was forced soft. Morgan didn’t answer. Cass left, and came back in a flash, hauling Morgan upright as if she were a rag doll.
“You’re giving me no choice. If you won’t feed, I’ll make you.”
Raymond appeared behind her, a pale girl in tow. My stomach turned. I expected violence; I expected Morgan to lash out. Instead she stared like a ghost, hollowed and distant, part of the woman I remembered on Christmas, broken and unfamiliar.
“Drink!” Cass barked. It was a command that didn’t land. She lunged instead, sinking her teeth into the girl. The scream shredded the room; I shut my eyes against it.
Cass forced Morgan’s mouth to the wound. Blood slicked Morgan’s lips. She drank, not with hunger, but as if pulling herself through a black tide. I looked away and heard the girl’s heartbeat thin, then stop.
Morgan convulsed and hit the floor, heaving blood into her hands.
