Chapter 2

The phone rang for a long time before someone picked up.

The background was noisy with cheers as a birthday cake was being cut, and a girl's sweet laughter. It sounded like a typical house party.

"Isabella? Why are you calling now?"

Robert's voice carried a casual indifference, even a hint of impatience at being disturbed.

I curled up on a bench by the roadside, my fingers desperately gripping the gaps between the wooden slats. My fingernails had turned up from the excessive force, blood seeping out.

But I couldn't feel the pain.

Because another, more terrifying suffocating sensation was consuming me.

The skin hunger was kicking in.

At that moment, my senses were infinitely magnified. Every inch of skin was screaming, as if I'd been thrown into an ice cellar, or as if countless ants were gnawing at the gaps between my bones.

If I didn't immediately make contact with human body heat, I would go into shock.

"Robert... I'm at the bus stop behind the school."

I struggled to control my trembling vocal cords, each word squeezed from my lungs. "I feel terrible. Could you come over? Just for ten minutes."

Two seconds of silence on the other end.

Then came a mocking, cold laugh.

"Isabella, are you timing your episodes?"

Robert's voice turned cold. "Today is Alice's birthday. Everyone's here. If I leave, the party's ruined. You're being so inconsiderate."

Alice. The school's cheer captain, the most popular girl.

My head buzzed.

"I really can't take it anymore..." I was practically begging. "If you don't come, I might die."

"Stop the act."

He cut me off impatiently. "Last time you said you were dying, I rushed back, and it turned out your hands and feet were just a little cold. Isabella, I'm a person, not your sedative. Don't try to emotionally manipulate me with these cheap tactics."

From the other end came Alice's sweet voice: "Robert, come make a wish!"

Robert's tone changed instantly, responding warmly, "Coming!"

When he turned back to me, he reverted to that superior, charitable tone: "Take a cab to the hospital. If that doesn't work, find a random dog on the street to hug. That should help. After all, isn't your disease just about being starved for affection?"

Click.

The call ended.

The phone slipped from my hand and hit the cement ground, the screen shattering into a spiderweb.

But I couldn't care about that.

My heart began to spasm violently. My vision blurred. The world around me was spinning, warping.

I needed warmth.

I needed someone alive.

A real person. A stray dog. Anyone, as long as they were warm, I wanted them.

This utterly undignified physiological instinct made me feel disgusting.

Just as my consciousness was about to fade, heavy footsteps approached.

It was the sound of thick work boots scraping against the ground.

Someone stopped in front of me.

A faint smell of motor oil, mixed with rust and rain, invaded my nostrils.

Without caring about anything else, I reached out and grabbed the person's jeans.

The fabric was rough, rubbing painfully against my skin, but I clung to it like a final lifeline.

"Help... help me..."

I looked up. My vision was blurred-I couldn't see the person's face clearly-but I could feel a wave of heat washing over me.

This person's body temperature was high.

Much higher than Robert's perpetually cool temperature.

The person froze.

That foot shifted, as if trying to kick me away.

"Let go."

The voice was cold, carrying the hostility of someone who'd spent years on the streets. "Get lost if you don't want to die."

Normally, I would have been scared off by that tone.

But now, this voice sounded like divine intervention.

"Please..."

Not only did I not let go, I crawled up using both hands and feet, throwing myself into his arms without a second thought.

In that instant, scorching body heat transmitted through the thin T-shirt.

I sighed in comfort, tears instantly streaming down my face.

This was my lifesaving medicine.

The person was clearly shocked by my actions.

His muscles tensed all over, like a hard piece of granite.

A large hand suddenly gripped the back of my neck, the force almost enough to crush me.

"Isabella, look at who I am."

He gritted through his teeth near my ear. "You're trying to scam the wrong person. You got a death wish?"

The voice sounded familiar.

I forced my eyes open wide and, by the dim yellow light of the streetlamp, made out the face inches from mine.

A scar across one eyebrow, eyes as fierce as a wolf's, and a trace of blood that hadn't been wiped from the corner of his mouth.

Daniel.

The legendary bad boy who got into fights, whose attendance and grades were both rock bottom.

Everyone at school said he'd end up in prison.

Under normal circumstances, a straight-A student like me would walk the other way when seeing him.

But at that moment, all I could feel was his palm's astonishing heat flowing through the back of my neck into my bloodstream.

It was so warm.

A million times better than the little bit of embrace Robert would spare me.

"I don't care who you are..."

I buried my face in his motor oil-scented jacket, holding tight to his waist and greedily absorbing that heat source. "Let me lean on you, just for a moment... please."

Daniel's hand gripping my neck froze.

He seemed like he wanted to curse, but in the end only a muffled "damn it" rolled from his throat.

The next second, he didn't push me away.

That calloused hand actually loosened its grip, then clumsily, tentatively, pressed against my back.

Then suddenly tightened.

He hid me completely and securely in his embrace.