Aubrey pressed the cold metal against her heart and heard nothing.
She knew that sheâd placed the stethoscope in the right place because she could feel the chill of it against her skin, right over her left breast. But there was no comforting thump-thump of her heart, no whoosh of warm blood as it moved through her veins.
Sheâd played this game before, as a resident at the local hospital. Thumpâthe stethoscope found her warm, human heartbeat. Remove the metal, remove the sound.
Now it didnât matter if the device was against her skin or not. All that she could hear either way was silence.
Yet the silence was different with her new undead senses. It had a sound, of sortsâa never-ending reverberation, as if she could hear the very molecules of the air vibrating.
It wouldnât have surprised her. She could hear everything else, from the tiny, scurrying steps of the spider creeping up her slick bathroom wall, to the beating heart of the human walking by outside.
Bored of the game, Aubrey let the stethoscope fall to the floor. Listlessly she pulled herself to a sitting position, and she could have counted the threads in her sheets, so sensitive was her skin against them.
They were the same sheets that sheâd had two weeks earlier, when sheâd still been alive. They covered the same bed that sheâd slept in, which sat in the bedroom sheâd had for over a year.
Not that sheâd actually slept in the bed that much. Sheâd been almost finished her residency at the local hospital, had almost been fully accredited. Dr. Aubrey Hartâsheâd had the title already, but hadnât felt like a real doctor, not yet. Sheâd been so looking forward to it.
Instead, she was dead. Undead.
Undead and starving.
Malcolm, her maker, had come by earlier that evening. Heâd peeled the covers away from her newly translucent skin and eyed her with disgust.
Get up, heâd told her. Go out. Feed. I wonât bring you blood any longer.
Aubrey knew that he wasnât lying, just as she knew that he wasnât sorry heâd turned her. To be sorry he needed a conscience, and that was something that Malcolm didnât have.
Not all vampires were jerks, just like not all humans were good.
It was her luck that sheâd been turned by an asshole.
His voice berated her as she sat there, staring blankly across the room at the mirror. The woman that looked back at her was familiar, and also looked like a complete stranger.
Gone was her golden tan, the one vice that sheâd allowed herself throughout med school. In its place was skin the color of milky cream, threaded through with a webbing of amethyst veins.
Her hair was still flaxen, and her eyes still sky blue. But both were brighter and better now, despite how worn she felt.
It was the allure that came with her new life, or so Malcolm had said. She now had the power to draw the unsuspecting in, to draw them close, without them ever knowing why.
Not to mention that she was very nearly gorgeous. She would have considered herself plain at best, before.
But even with all these advantages, she was unable to adjust. Sheâd hidden in her bed for weeks, poking her head from beneath the sheet only when Malcolm visited. Heâd taped aluminum foil over her window the second day, when streaming sunlight had burned a vivid ruby stripe across her arm.
She hadnât known any better.
Heâd also brought bags of blood, viscous cardinal-red blood, and had pinched her nose closed and poured it down her throat when sheâd rebelled at the thought of drinking. Heâd awakened the hunger, and now she had two choicesâfeed or die.
She still wasnât sure which sheâd choose.
She had to choose before sundown tonight, or sheâd grow too sick, too weak to make the choice. And if Malcolm didnât come backâand sheâd believed him when heâd said he wouldnâtâsheâd slowly wither away to nothingness.
Aubreyâs new, sharply tuned eyes fell on the framed photo that sat on her dresser across the room. Though the gleam of the brassy frame was brighter than ever before, and though the grain of the dark wood swirled in an intricate dance that sheâd never before noticed, it was the girl in the photo that caught her attention. With a mortarboard on her head, and pale hair falling in a curtain around rosy cheeks, the young woman looked fierceâready to take on the world.
Aubrey felt that that young woman was a million miles away from where she was right now.