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in, probably wondering what was wrong. The stall door had swung shut behind her, and she heard the squeaking of hinges as her friends tried the other doors, trying to locate the one she was behind. She opened her mouth to call out to them, but the motion brought about a fresh wave of nausea and she leaned back into the bowl, dry-retching another thin line of saliva.
    The two girls located her and squeezed themselves into the stall, closing the door behind them. She heard the click of the lock being pushed into place.
    “Oh, my God, are you okay?” Jaz’s voice seemed distant, Elizabeth’s hearing suddenly hollow, similar to how she’d felt when her friends had hugged her at the mall’s entrance. Her vision blackened around the edges, tunneling in on the thankfully clean toilet bowl.
    Another scent overwhelmed her—that of metal—coupled with a thumping in her head: thu-thump, thu-thump . No, not one, but two such beats, one just ahead of the other, like an echo. Their sounds drew her, pulling her closer, focusing her attention. Beneath the thumping, she sensed an intense warmth, a comfort, something to make her better, to alleviate the noise and pain and all of her poor, overwhelmed senses.
    Despite being drawn, she remained leaned over the toilet, clutching the bowl with strained, white fingers. A low growl rumbled from her throat, a sound she was only vaguely aware that she had made.
    “Elizabeth?” Emily’s voice came to her ears, uncertain, concerned.
    Her mouth felt strange, as though it was too full of teeth, her jaw aching like she’d been chewing gum for hours. Behind her eyes, a fire had been lit, making her eyeballs burn.
    What’s happening to me?
    But she struggled to put much of a coherent thought together. She wanted to turn around and ask her friends for help, cry at their feet and beg them to call her mom, but her brain seemed to be clouded over with that constant beat which filled her ears …
    Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump …
    And the heady smell of everything delicious she’d ever tasted in her life all rolled into one—onions frying, the warm sweetness of hot donuts, steak sizzling—swept over her and wiped away the sickness, filling her head with one thought.
    Feed.
    A powerful energy burned through every muscle in her body. Her whole body tensed to spring.
    The warmth of a hand connected with her back and the contact snapped something inside of her, the tiny part of control she’d managed to retain. She twisted around, faster than she’d ever moved in her life, part of her mind aware of the snarl issuing from between her lips.
    Her friends didn’t even get the chance to shout out for help, never mind make a run for it. She grabbed hold of Jaz and pushed her against the stall, her suddenly immensely strong body pinning her friend to the divider. Jaz’s eyes went wide in terror, her gaze locked on Elizabeth’s face, seeing a change in her features which Elizabeth had only sensed. Her other hand shot out, catching Emily’s throat in her grasp, strangling any cry for help the girl might have been forming.
    With both girls immobilized, she pressed her mouth to Jasmine’s soft throat. Her teeth were long and sharp, and, without Elizabeth even consciously thinking about it, they pierced the skin. Blood flowed to the surface, coating her tongue with its rich, thick fluid. A memory overwhelmed her, of being underground somewhere, vampires all around her, giving her something to drink, something strong and potent. Something she wanted more of.
    Yet, strangely, the memory invoked no sense of fear. Instead, she’d been in the company she was supposed to keep. That was where she was meant to be. Surrounded by her own kind.
    Elizabeth sucked and swallowed, drawing the blood up through Jaz’s veins, toward the puncture wounds she had created, and down her throat. Still held in her other hand, Emily gave ineffectual little kicks, her hands clawing at Elizabeth’s as she gasped in the small