Dreaming Awake by Gwen Hayes

Author:Gwen Hayes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101559420
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2012-01-05T07:08:38+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The nurses wouldn’t tell us anything about Brittany’s condition since we weren’t related, and then they kicked my friends off the hospital floor too. Since Brittany was in the same wing in the ICU as my father was, I was able to monitor her condition by the expressions of her family while I sat in the lonely hall outside his room.

Her parents’ faces were drawn and pinched underneath their fabulous vacation tans. What a terrible way to end a vacation—though they all should have known it was ill-advised to leave Brittany unsupervised. What had they been thinking? It’s not like Brittany and the other sneetches were usually examples of good behavior. They were overprivileged at best and spoiled rotten at worst. Few of them had real responsibilities and fewer had ever experienced repercussions.

I would know—I’d been one of them for a few hours.

Brittany, who now lay comatose, suffering the same condition as my father, was not pregnant. I felt a little relieved at that, but then I felt worse. Yes, I was glad she wasn’t carrying Haden’s baby, but there was no known cure for what she and my father were fighting. The doctors hadn’t come up with anything, and Amelia and Varnie were stumped as well.

Was Haden responsible for her coma? I didn’t want to think it was possible for him to have been draining her slowly all this time—especially since we’d still been together for most of it. I hated doubting him, but I knew firsthand how difficult it was to resist the urge to feed.

I listened for more clues in the hall. Brittany’s family was so different from mine. Her dad golfed with my father sometimes. That was all the two of them had in common personality-wise. Whereas my father was formal and distant, Mr. Blakely was funny and casual. My father worked all the time, seven days a week; Brittany’s family was always going on vacations to expensive resorts.

Mrs. Blakely was an older version of Brittany—their sisterly image most likely helped along with Botox. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, though, she’d aged considerably. She and her husband both had. I tried not to be alarmed by that. Nobody looks good in hospital lighting, and they were under a great deal of emotional stress. I hoped that was all it was. I didn’t see their auras, and I didn’t want to, even though it might have helped me diagnose whether their pallor was related to demon activity or my own anxiety. I didn’t feel strong enough to go looking for human essence. None of my friends were around to bail me out of trouble if my eyes turned black like Mara’s and I lost control again.

A doctor came out of Brittany’s room and began talking in hushed tones to Mr. and Mrs. Blakely. Focusing very hard, I hoped for extrasensory hearing, but unfortunately my ears were not affected by the demon curse in my blood and I couldn’t hear a word. I left the uncomfortable plastic

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