“Lexi, that really was inappropriate.” Penn looked at her in disgust. “Thea, go help Gemma get cleaned up. When Sawyer gets back, we’ll talk about how we’re going to deal with all of this.”
“Come on.” Thea took Gemma’s hand and started pulling her away. “You’ll feel better once you get cleaned up, and you’ll think better once the food settles.”
“That wasn’t food,” Gemma muttered.
“It’s what you eat now, so it’s food,” Thea countered.
In the upstairs bathroom, Thea filled the bathtub with warm water. Gemma stripped down to her bikini, then climbed inside. The water quickly turned pink as the blood mixed with it, but Gemma barely even noticed.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, and Thea sat next to her, rinsing the blood out from the tangles of her hair.
“I’m a monster,” Gemma said quietly.
“We all are, sweetie,” Thea said as gently as she could. She used a cup to pour the warm water over Gemma’s hair and ran her fingers through it. The blood had really matted into it on the drive home in the convertible.
“I don’t even really remember what happened,” Gemma said, wiping at the tears that fell from her eyes. “It’s all kind of a red blur.”
“You don’t remember the first couple times,” Thea said. “You’re not really in control of your body or your transformation. And since you were avoiding eating, you were probably especially out of control.”
“But I … I ate his heart?” Gemma asked.
“That’s what we do,” Thea said. “That’s how we survive. We have to eat boys’ hearts.”
“That’s so messed up.”
Thea laughed darkly. “That’s all Demeter’s sick sense of humor. She was one twisted bitch when she made the curse.”
“I don’t think I can do this.” Gemma hugged her knees tighter as her stomach lurched. “I can’t kill people like this.”
“The good news is that you only have to eat four times a year,” Thea said, trying to comfort her. “Once before every solstice.”
“What?” Gemma sniffled and turned to look back at Thea. “You eat more than that.”
“I don’t,” Thea said. “Not really. Have you noticed how my voice isn’t as silky as Penn’s or Lexi’s?”
“That’s because you don’t eat as often as they do?” Gemma asked.
“That’s part of it.” Thea nodded. “I once went a whole year without eating. It nearly killed me. And now my voice is like this. If I ate more, the huskiness would eventually go away, but I don’t need to eat more, so I don’t.”
“You can go a whole year without eating?” Gemma turned in the tub to face her. “Could you go longer?”
“No, Gemma, it nearly killed me,” Thea repeated. “It was excruciatingly painful, physically and emotionally, and eventually I started going mad. When I did finally eat, I was so out of control I nearly slaughtered everyone around me. You have to eat more than that.”
“If you hurt so bad, then why didn’t you eat?” Gemma asked. “Why’d you go a whole year without eating?”
Thea lowered her eyes. “That’s a story for another day.” She leaned over and reached into the tub, pulling out the stopper so the water would drain. “Why don’t you turn on the shower to rinse off, and I’ll go grab you a towel?”
After Gemma got out of the shower, she hated to admit how awesome she felt. Emotionally, she was a wreck, but physically, Gemma had never felt better. She’d never done drugs, but she imagined that this was how a really good high felt.
Thea came back with a huge towel, and Gemma wrapped herself in it.
“You feel better now?” Thea asked.
“I guess,” Gemma said, trying to downplay how good she felt, and started walking to her room.
She lay down in her bed and pulled her blanket over her. It made her uncomfortably warm, but she kept it on, wanting to bury herself in it. Thea had followed her, and she stood tentatively at the end of the bed before sitting down.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Gemma asked Thea. “You used to be such a bitch.”
“I’m still a bitch,” Thea replied. “But this is hard enough to go through. Lexi and Penn are too dumb and selfish to help. I just don’t think anyone should go through this alone.”
“How do you live with it?” Gemma asked.
“What?”
“The guilt.”
“You mean from killing people?” Thea asked.
“Yeah.” Gemma pulled back the blanket a bit so she could look at Thea. “I just can’t stop thinking that he was a person, and … and he didn’t deserve that.”
“If it makes you feel any better, it didn’t hurt,” Thea said.
“How can you say that? I ripped out his heart!”
“Yes, but you’re a siren,” Thea said. “When you feed, you make a kind of purring sound. It’s like a cross between a cat and a lullaby. It has an anesthetizing effect on your prey. So it’s like they’re in a coma almost. They don’t know what happens. They die peacefully.”