Read Altered for Free Online Page B

then I’ll be fine.”
    I stayed quiet, letting her fall asleep, and drove the next three hours in complete silence. She slept restlessly and I knew she wasn’t really resting, but her body was forcing her to sleep. She turned and tossed, pulling the jacket up to her neck over and over. I pulled into a motel and left her in the car to get a room. A motel was less conspicuous. People usually rented motels by the week, not the night. And it was all ground level—easier to keep watch.
    I parked in the back by the fence and trash bins. I snuck out quietly and came out with the old brass hotel key in my hand. I stopped when I saw the door to the car open. I blinked and turned in a circle in the dark parking lot.
    “Fay?” I hissed and ran to the car as quickly as I could, not even caring if someone saw the blur of it. The jacket was on the seat, but she was gone. I turned and searched the lot with my eyes, but couldn’t move from that spot. Why would she leave the car? Or did someone take her? Had they caught up to us so quickly and I hadn’t noticed? Had I let them take her because I’d been so preoccupied? “Fay!” I yelled.
    My shoulders slouched. I should’ve been happy, but I was anything but. She wasn’t mine to keep. I was on a mission to find my brother and she had just been a distraction anyway. I shook my head ‘ no ’. That was until I found out she knew Clara.
    I scrubbed my face with my fist and cursed as I slammed her door. When I turned back to the hotel, I saw a swath of dark hair as it rounded the corner. I felt my brows come together. Once again, not caring who saw me, I blurred over to the building and didn’t stop until I was right behind whoever the woman was. I grabbed her arm and made her turn to face me.
    She gasped and pushed hard into my chest—this intruder’s chest—with the palm of her hand. The tears on her cheek and chin cracked something inside of me. Her eyes met mine and her lips opened to release a strangled noise that sounded like a plea more than anything else.
    “You left me,” she accused.
    “I went to get a room.”
    She sighed and let her hand fall from my chest. I kept her arm in my hand however. “You parked in the back of the lot in the dark. I was alone when I woke up.” She sniffed. There it was again. The cracking in my chest. “I thought…you left me.”
    “Why would I do that?” I growled, so completely pissed with how she controlled me. She didn’t know it, but she did. I was actually scared in that parking lot back there. Scared! Me! Scared that something had happened to her. And here she sat crying beside the motel because she thought I left her. Why did she care anyway?
    Ahh…. I nodded. “Ah. Thought you were going to have to sleep outside again, huh?” She squinted, but I grinned. “Don’t worry, princess.” I shook the room key in front of her face. “I got you that room, just like I promised.”
    I didn’t let go of her arm as I practically dragged her to the other side of the motel. I unlocked the door and pulled her inside. She didn’t say a word, just crawled into the bed.
    “I thought you were going to take a hot bath?”
    She sniffed again and pulled the covers up to her chin. “I just want to sleep.”
    I locked the door and turned to look at her, tightening my fists. She was facing away from me. “I thought you said you needed a hot bath to feel better, so you wouldn’t be cold anymore. I can’t think with your teeth chattering—”
    She sighed so quietly, but it still stopped me dead. “Enoch…just leave me alone, okay?”
    And then her sadness hit me. I gripped the arm of the chair as I eased into it and tried not to make an audible sound that would let her know I was feeding from her. Her grief threatened to swallow me where I sat. I didn’t dare move as I bore through my body’s acceptance of what she was offering. She didn’t even know what she was doing. Her shoulders shook a little under the covers. I knew she was