by Ava Benton
She was going to die, and the world would be without her.
I would be without her.
I couldn’t let that happen. She was my job. She was the only light in my life. She was innocent.
She was everything.
I was losing her, letting her slip through my fingers like sand.
Every shallow breath could be her last and damn it all, if there was a merciful God it would be because she was suffering unthinkably and I had let it happen.
I touched the side of her face, her once-beautiful face. She was the only beauty I had ever known—living, breathing beauty, and she had wanted to share herself with me, and I had pushed her away because I had to, didn’t I?
I couldn’t let her get too close. What difference had it made? She was dying in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Nothing…?
The idea teased the corner of my furious thoughts.
I didn’t want to let it take control because I knew it was a terrible idea, a dangerous one, one which would be my undoing but what other choice did I have?
To let her die, to watch her light extinguish and leave the world—my world—in blank, empty darkness?
I could save her. I could damn her to hell along with me.
I didn’t have time to think it over.
I had to act, and quickly, because she was almost gone. Her breath was slower and slower, shallower, more pained.
I acted.
My fangs slit the inside of my wrist, and I held it over her upturned mouth.
“Drink,” I begged, stroking her face with the other hand. “Please, Janna, please, take this and swallow. It’s your last chance. I’m begging you. I’m ordering you to drink.”
My blood dripped onto her lips, into her mouth.
She only had to swallow before she died.
I watched her torn, blood-caked throat for any sign of her obeying. Could she even hear me? Was she already far away?
Her eyelids fluttered as another pained, labored breath tore through her.
I could almost feel her pain, and it caused me pain.
All she had to do was swallow.
“Swallow, damn you,” I hissed.
When her eyes snapped open, they locked on mine.
And the red ring crept along the outside of her violet irises.
It had worked.
I had damned her.
“Drink more,” I instructed, holding my wrist closer to her mouth.
She tried to turn her head, even as I knew she must be desperate for it.
“You need it to heal. Come on. Now’s not the time to be stubborn.”
More of my blood spurted out onto her mouth, and she was gone the moment she tasted it.
Her growing need, so fresh and hot and desperate, overtook her fading human sensibilities as she latched onto my wrist and sucked. Hard.
My eyes closed and I groaned as I felt her draining me, swallow by swallow.
I remembered feeling that way, that first burst of complete, all-consuming lust. Hating myself for it, feeling dirty and wrong for needing that sweet, coppery-tasting fluid. Every swallow only made the lust stronger. A thirst that would never be slaked.
I felt myself slipping away and realized she was about to bleed me dry.
“Enough!”
I pulled away using every last bit of strength she had left me.
My blood mingled with hers, smearing over her mouth and chin.
“What… did… you… do…?” she managed to pant before the full change began.
13
Janna
I was dying. I was burning up from the inside out. Every nerve, every muscle, every part of me was wracked with agonizing, blinding, screaming pain.
I writhed on the floor, wishing I could crawl out of my burning skin, wishing I would die and it would all be over.
I opened my eyes and my vision blurred, doubled, tripled.
His face hovered over mine.
Vale.
Where was Bradley? I could almost see him if I tried hard enough, but I didn’t want to try because he was a monster, he tried to kill me, he had hurt me so much, so much, everywhere. He might come back for me.
No, no, he wouldn’t, he thought I was dead.
And I was dead, or dying, and that was fine because I wanted it to end. I wanted it to all end. What did I ever do to deserve this hell? My muscles clenched and I doubled up, rolling onto my side.
He was whispering, over and over. It won’t last forever. It will end. It won’t last forever. Stay with me. Stay with me.
What did he do to me?
He had made me drink his blood. I could still taste it, mingled with my own, but that didn’t make sense because how could I tell the difference?
I drank his blood, and I had liked it. No, loved it, even though it repulsed me.
I didn’t have a choice, did I?
No, there was no choice, because the blood was all that would keep me alive.
But I didn’t want to be alive anymore. What was I going to do? My mind was snapping, shattering into a million pieces. I would never be whole again. I would go insane and stay that way.
Oh, God, I’m dying. When will it end? I just want it to be over. I don’t want this, any of it, please, let me die. No matter what I did in my life, no matter how many sins I committed, I don’t deserve this. Please, let me die. I don’t want to live anymore if this is all there is.
But it didn’t end. It went on and on, the feeling that my bones were breaking and mending over and over, the way my muscles stretched and cramped and burned, the way my heart pounded until I was sure it would explode out of my chest and my brain raced with crazy thoughts, scorching the inside of my head with images I couldn’t explain and didn’t want to see because they were terrible, awful, disgusting and inhuman and brutal.
And he was there, trying to hold me through it.
I felt cold water on my face and realized he was washing me, but it didn’t give me any comfort because the fire was inside and he couldn’t put it out by putting cold water on my outside. It wasn’t working.
I turned my head from side to side and moaned helplessly.
“Shh… try to be quiet…”
That had to be a joke. How could I be quiet? I opened my eyes and looked up at him and tried to focus.
“When… will it end?” I rasped before moaning again as fresh pain raced through me from head to toe.
“Soon. Soon. I promise. Just hold on.”
I closed my eyes and arched my back as even deeper anguish settled in my chest. My chest. I remembered something about my chest. Oh, yes, he had stomped on it with those big, heavy shoes of his.
I had heard my ribs cracking and snapping and could feel them stabbing me inside, but there was nothing I could do about it then.
He was so much stronger.
I remembered tasting my blood, hearing it bubbling in my chest when I tried to breathe.
This was a special kind of horror. Was I healing? Was it possible? If so, it hurt almost as much to do that as it did to fall apart.
A fresh wave of burning, searing heat swept all other thought away, and I lost consciousness.
My next conscious thought was of peace.
Peace, finally.
I felt the floor under my body and wondered if I was even still alive, since there was no more pain and I was sure the only thing that could stop that sort of pain was death.
I had to be hovering in between life and death. That had to be it. My body was on the floor, and I was aware of it, but I was on the brink of death.
I couldn’t have survived.
Yet when I curled my fingers, they curled until my hands were in tight fists. When I took a deep breath, I felt the air moving through my throat, into my lungs. I felt my chest expanding. No more pain, no more gurgling noises. It was all real. I had to be alive.
I opened my eyes.
Still the same ceiling. I blinked hard. My eyesight was perfect, but I w
asn’t wearing my glasses. The brief memory of them shattering when I hit the wall flashed in my consciousness, but it faded away just as quickly. I didn’t need them anymore.
Footsteps.
Vale knelt down next to me. “You’re back.”
“Am I?” I whispered.
I was so thirsty. My throat was parched as a desert, and I could barely speak.
“It looks that way.” His hand was gentle on my face, even if his skin was rough. “It always seems like the pain will never end, but it does. I’ve seen a lot of us change over—even though you’re the only one I’ve ever turned, personally.”
“You… you turned me?”
Of course, he had. That was where all the pain came from. That was the only reason I was still breathing.
Bradley had killed me, or almost. I would’ve died in another minute if Vale hadn’t saved me.
But what did he save me for?
I sat up, shaking him off when he tried to help.
“I don’t need your help. Oh, God, what happened to me? What did you do?”
I looked down at my body, which was virtually exposed. I was still wearing the rag which used to be my dress. I was filthy, blood-covered. But there were no wounds. No bruises. I had healed completely. I closed the dress as well as I could, even though he had seen me with it hanging open.
There was a bucket next to the bed, and I made the mistake of looking into it. “What is that?” I asked, recoiling.
“You were sick for a long time. Hours.”
“That came out of me?”
“Blood, mostly. Your blood. The blood that was inside you after you got hurt. Your body rejected it during the sickness.”
“The sickness?”
“It happens to all of us when we turn.”
I wanted to reject the idea. Like there was a door I could close, and I would never have to consider it ever again—being like him. A vampire. No, that wasn’t possible. And yet I had sucked the blood from his wrist and liked it. I had wanted more. I wanted more right now and here, in fact. If he had offered me some, I would’ve taken it. My tongue slid over my dry lips.
And he knew why. He was watching with an expression of sympathy.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I warned.
“But I am. It was all I could think to do. I couldn’t let you die like that.”
“I wish you had.” I turned away from him and slammed the bathroom door between us.
The bastard. The evil, stupid, monstrous bastard.
I looked at myself in the mirror—aside from the dirt and blood, my eyes got my attention first. They had the same red rings his did.
I closed them and wept. I wept for everything I would never have, never feel, never be. I might as well have died in the dark, against that brick wall. I should have. It wouldn’t be any worse than what I was facing for the rest of my life. All of eternity.
I had to wash myself off and think clearly. The shower was hot—I saw steam rising from the water as it poured out of the shower-head, but it didn’t burn my skin. Right. I wouldn’t feel it the way I used to, just the way he didn’t.
I tried to remember everything he had told me about the differences between us, but it was all a jumble in my brain. No sunlight—I knew that much. Nobody had put a spell on me the way my mother had on him.
Water swirled around my ankles, black and rust red, and I stood there as long as I could before the water pressure went low.
I had to face him eventually. What was I supposed to say to him? Should I thank him for condemning me to misery? To always being thirsty? I wrapped a towel around my body—I was stronger, firmer than before, like I had gotten in a year of daily gym visits in a single night—and went back out.
“You look more like yourself,” he observed.
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I noticed that he had cleaned the blood and dirt off the floor and emptied the bucket. “Thank you for cleaning up.”
“Of course.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, hands in my lap. “I hate you for doing this. I think I should tell you that right off.”
“I expected that, at least at first.”
“At first? I’m supposed to be okay with this over time?” I looked up at him and wondered if the lines of his face had ever looked so sharp, if the stubble on his cheeks had ever been so defined. Of course not, not when I was looking at him through human eyes. I could even see the pores along his nose and forehead. I could make out individual hairs on the nape of his neck, even from across the room.
“I think you’ll become accustomed to it.”
“How is that possible? How can you even say that?”
“I did. I felt much the same as you do now, but I became accustomed to being what I am. What you now are.”
“I never will.”
“I thought that, too.”
“Stop telling me what I’m going to feel, all right?” I held my head in my hands. It was splitting, but not the way it used to when I’d get a migraine. I would never feel one of those again.
Small blessings. Even so, pain was starting to spread.
“You need to feed,” he explained.
“Bullshit. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll die if you don’t feed, but not for a long time. You’ll suffer first, and it’ll make what you just went through look like a day at the park.”
“I can’t just go down to the corner and pick up blood, can I?”
“No, but I have a supply with me.”
I looked up at him again. “No. Not her blood.”
“There’s no other choice, unless you want to go hunting. I don’t recommend that. You’re too young, inexperienced.”
Something terrifying was happening to me, something I couldn’t control. It was like he’d set a fire in my brain when he mentioned blood.
Before he said the word, I was all right. Thirsty, but all right.
After? And knowing there was available blood right there, ready for me to drink my fill?
My breathing sped up like I had just run up the five flights of stairs from the sidewalk to my apartment. I couldn’t hold a thought in my head except for the thought of blood. Sustenance. I didn’t have to be thirsty anymore, because it was right there. I needed it. I had to have it. I would kill him for it if he tried to keep it away from me.
I leaped up from the bed before I knew what I was doing and pushed him against the wall.
“Give it to me,” I snarled, leaning close. I would take his if he didn’t give me the supply. I didn’t care whose it was.
“Let go of me and I’ll get it.” When I stepped back, and he moved, I saw an outline in the wall.
I had dented the plaster with his body.
I looked down at my hands, flexed them, but that was a secondary concern. What mattered was feeding. Immediately.
I shook with need as he pulled the cap from a bag of thick, red liquid and guided the nozzle to my mouth.
I sucked hard, greedily, closing my eyes to let the sensation of getting what I needed more than anything, more than air, wash over me in blissful waves. It was so good, the best thing I had ever tasted. I didn’t want it to ever end.
But it had to end. I sucked the bag dry, and Vale had to pull it from my pursed lips.
“That’s enough for now. You don’t need more than that.”
“You don’t know what I need,” I snapped, shoving him aside to go for more.
There were five bags left and by God, I was going to empty all of them, and he couldn’t stop me.
But he did. He pulled me away from the backpack and threw me to the bed.
“Enough, I said. You don’t need more than that right now. I know you feel like you do, but you don’t. You have to learn control, and fast.”
“Fuck you,” I sneered.
My towel had fallen open, but what did I care?
All that mattered was getting to the blood and taking it for myself because I needed it, I deserved it, I was already thirsty ag
ain and oh, how was I supposed to live like that?
My human thoughts wouldn’t go away no matter how all-consuming the lust was. I couldn’t forget being human. Reasonable. Rational.
I curled up in a ball, lying on my side. Sobbing. “What did you do to me?” I asked without turning to him. “Who am I? What’s going to happen to me?”
His arms closed around my body and pulled me back to his chest. I nestled against him but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I cried it all out—the confusion and horror and the question of what I was supposed to do with the rest of forever, the question of who I was going to become.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He was rocking me, crooning in my ear, trying to soothe me.
“Why did you do this to me?” I wept, even as I rested my head on his arm.
“I couldn’t let you go. I had to make a decision, and fast, because you didn’t have much more time. Letting you die… it just wasn’t an option, Janna. I need you to understand that. I couldn’t sit by and watch you die, even if the alternative wasn’t much better. It was selfish. I’m sorry. I condemned you to this…” His lips brushed against my shoulder, my neck, the side of my face. “I didn’t want to live without you.”
The truth of what he said sank in slowly, unwinding in the middle of my fevered brain and sending shockwaves through it.
“I know it doesn’t sound right. I know I’m a bastard for doing this. But without you in the world… there is no world. It was more than letting my charge die—which would’ve been bad enough, failing my assignment. I wasn’t thinking about an assignment when I held my blood out for you to take. I was thinking about me, needing you. I haven’t needed anyone in so long. Hundreds and hundreds of years. But I need you. I’m so weak. I’m so selfish.”
“Enough,” I whispered, turning around to face him, sliding my arms around him. “Enough, now. Just kiss me. Make it all go away for a little while. Please.”
The first taste of his mouth against mine was almost better than blood.
Strong, firm, musky, hot. He ran his tongue along the seam of my lips and slid between them, and I handed myself over to him when I opened my mouth and slid my tongue against his just as my body slid against his.
I wanted to forget everything but him, if only for a little while.