Her Yearning for Blood Read Online Free Page B

position and sighed as stinging ne rve endings settled down. Exhausted, I could still hear the boys yelling in the background. A series of thumps and slaps seemed to silence them.
    Nurse Groacher leaned over me. A vision of Kathy Bates’ character from Misery, the Stephen King movie , came to mind . I had a fleeting vision of a board being propped between my ankles as the woman smashed a sledge hammer against my feet. I knew I had to get out of th is place but my body had done all it could do. Already my eyelids were growing heavy. I ran my tongue across the inside of sore gums and was glad I couldn’t remember fire ants crawling inside my mouth.
    Nurse Groacher said, “I’ll be back in a couple of hours with….”
    I didn’t hear anything else because blessed unconsciousness took me .
     

 
     
    6
     
    A blood-curdling scream stabbed like a knife through my ears. I sat bolt upright and heard the clank of chains. Cold steel chafed at my wrists. A white hot rage flashed across my mind. I snarled and yanked against the shackles that bound my arms to the cast iron headboard behind me . I kicked and felt a nother set of chains secur ing my ankles to the footboard. Somehow , I had allowed my self to be duped by the gorgeous but evil Evan and his mean-spirited aunt.
    Rage surged like a living mass inside of me.
    “Let me out of here!” I hissed and felt the skin inside my mouth rip. For some reason, the coppery taste of blood was driving me crazy. I ran my tongue across the wounds but could fe e l nothing. The pain was gone.
    S omething was different , however .
    I probed my teeth with my tongue . They seemed to take up more space inside my mouth. Then the tip of my tongue passed across the point of an upper canine tooth . I felt an instant stab of pain but as with the earlier cut, the discomfort vanished as quickly as I felt it . The taste of blood sent my mind into an almost uncontrollable state of hunger. My stomach grumbled with need.
    What was happening to me ?
    “Evan! Nurse Groacher!” I shook all four chains at once. “You better let me out of here!”
    Through the walls, I could hear a muffled male voice also calling for freedom, but his pleas seemed to have no more effect than my own. If only w e had been closer together, maybe w e could have teamed up to escape.
    Suddenly, I realized the pain from m y ant bites was gone. I glanced down. Unbelievably, the hundr eds of red welts all over my body had disappeared . It hardly seemed possible that I could have healed so quickly. Maybe the red marks hadn’t been bites at all. Maybe they had been some kind of a rash … caused by Nurse Groacher ?
    Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true. I had still been conscious wh en the ants attacked me . They had been as real and painful as the recent marks on my skin. No, something beyond my understand ing had happened ; I intended to find out what , just as soon as I could get free of my restraints …and get something to eat. My stomach cramped in hunger .
    “Evan, please let me go now. I promise not to tell anyone . ”
    Who would believe me anyway?
    “ Evan? Evan? ” I kept up my calls for several minutes until it became obvious that either he wasn’t listening or didn’t care. Either wa y, I was on my own. I knew I should have been more frightened but something inside of me had changed. Here, chained and locked in a strange room, I felt more in control than e ver before in my short teen life . I couldn’t put a finger on why I felt so different, so strong, but I did.
    I was also hungrier than I had ever been .
    Visions of barely cooked hunks of steak came to my mind. And the weird thing was , I didn’t even like steak…certainly not raw. Nevertheless, the image made my mouth water. I remembered the blood being squeezed from the headless squirrel. I imagined my mouth below that gray body, catching every drop.
    “Yuck!”
    What was happening to me?
    I had to get away from this place. Now.
    I st udied m y