Twice Bitten

by Diana Greenbird

  Ali hadn’t bothered to tell me all of this at the time when she said I wouldn’t have to worry about seeing a vampire until college, but the Grimm casefiles had. The youngest Emerson could be was in his early twenties. I could see that considering he didn’t act like a middle-aged man. But maybe it was an act.

  ‘But eventually they-’ I said, continuing about vampire’s and their age, ‘-get into their hundreds, but still have the body of an eighteen-year-old. And if they hung around humans their own age, that’d look a bit creepy. Especially if they ended up falling in love, bonding over baby boomer nostalgia. Except it would be the human who looked like the creep since they’d be visibly their own age whilst a vamp wouldn’t.’

  I’d noticed that I’d started to monologue and wasn’t exactly sure why. Emerson’s glamour was buzzing around me like a physical presence, but I’d gotten used to that lately, or at least I thought I had. It was getting easier and easier to ignore my body’s reaction to him. I accepted my body found him attractive, and when I caught myself leaning into him, I simply told myself to quit it and dismissed the whole thing.

  Perhaps it was the intensity of Emerson’s gaze. He was currently pinning me with an unreadable expression. Had I crossed a line asking him his age? It wasn’t like I’d not insulted his species before. He’d been angry as hell when I’d asked him how he’d turned back when we’d first met, and I hadn’t given two hoots about it. But now I was kind of his friend and equally aware that he knew I had a crush on him.

  I covered up my self-awareness of how weird it was that I was monologuing, rather than just letting him answer my question, with more rambling.

  ‘But if they hung out with people who looked their age, isn’t that creepier? Like I know there’s the Code, but it doesn’t exactly forbid statutory rape. Which, even if the human was a few months shy of eighteen, there might be a good few decades between them even if the vamp was posing as a teen.’

  ‘You’re trying to figure out if I’m a creep?’

  ‘You’re the one in a high school.’

  We could hear Gi rehearsing her lines in the other room. We were talking low enough that she wouldn’t be able to hear us. Emerson would also know the second she stopped and started walking towards us, so I knew his hesitance to talk about this wasn’t because we would be overheard.

  ‘You wanted to stop me being so ignorant, didn’t you?’ I said. I crossed my arms and bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from talking anymore.

  Emerson sighed, pulling off his cap and running his fingers through his hair. He put it back on and hopped up onto the kitchen counter.

  ‘Most lamia see a vampire’s transformation as purely physical. Mentally, it’s witches whose brains are different to humans. But a vampire’s brain has to adapt to being so long lived.

  ‘Seeing life in centuries, not decades, means the brain has a lot more information to process. We meet a lot more people, see a lot more things and it’s expected to go through a lot more trauma. Not just physical trauma; (it takes a lot to kill a vampire so what a human would normally not have to live through, a vampire would) but emotional trauma.

  ‘The one fact of life is that you’ll die, and you’ll watch someone you love die, too. But if you’re a vampire, you’ll likely watch everyone you’ve ever loved or known die. And you’re still expected to keep on living to love and lose more people again.

  ‘Technically, an adult’s brain isn’t fully developed until in their thirties for women – forties for men. So, a lamia vampire’s brain will technically always be decades short of a fully developed human brain. It will also never deteriorate like a human’s might with dementia or other mental diseases. But that doesn’t mean that a vampire is completely free from mental illness.

  ‘The first vampires went insane – living so long and remembering everything and everyone that had gone and still they couldn’t join them… a lot took their lives. But evolution eventually sorted that problem – or perhaps it was a witch. You can never tell with lamia.

  ‘Vampires now, since the change, are dissociated from life. If you imagine recording every one of your experiences on camera, and then having your brain wiped of your own memories, then watching back your life on a TV screen, that’s what it’s like. Even though you know you did those things, you no longer feel connected to it.

  ‘To remember something that happened in the past, you have to actively think about it – hard – put all your effort into recalling those memories and if you can get past the fog of time, whatever you remember isn’t even yours anymore.

  ‘The closest memories that feel like your own are the ones you experienced before the change.’

  Emerson sighed. ‘I guess, in that long-winded explanation, what I’m trying to say is that even if a vampire was a thousand years old, mentally and physically, they would be whatever age they turned. And if age is measured on a person’s experiences in life, when they can’t be measured by the toil of one’s body, for a vampire are those experiences even their own if they feel like they belonged to another person?’

  ‘You’re eighteen, then?’ I said, in a small voice.

  ‘Forever waiting for myself to feel old enough for kids and big life responsibilities,’ Emerson said.

  ‘Potentially, then, you could spend your whole life going to school again and again?’ I asked.

  For the first time, Emerson chuckled. ‘You could, but it would be a waste of time. Our memories aren’t our own, but the knowledge we collect is different. I can remember the plot of almost every book I’ve ever read – it just doesn’t feel like me who read them in the first place.’

  ‘That’s confusing as hell,’ I said.

  ‘Imagine living it,’ Emerson said.

  ‘Does that mean the person I punched doesn’t technically exist anymore? How much time has to pass between what you experience and what you feel connected to?’ I asked, wanting to understand. I stepped closer to him. ‘Do you feel connected to this moment, now?’

  Emerson coughed, shifting uncomfortable on the countertop, not looking me in the eye. ‘That’s a bit… different.’

  ‘Different how?’ I asked.

  ‘The same way that it’s only me you sense, you’re the only one I-’ Emerson didn’t finish his sentence.

  Unconsciously, I stepped closer. ‘I’m the only one you: what?’

  ‘I feel everything I remember about you,’ Emerson said. ‘It’s like whatever is different about you, makes you immune to being dissociated in my mind. Every memory where you’re present belongs to me. From you running away from me in science class, to getting punched – all of it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  That was a lot of responsibility to be the only thing Emerson felt connected to from his past.

  ‘Do you think it will fade? Like eventually you’ll feel dissociated from those memories, too?’

  ‘Dissociation tends to – at least for us – be a retroactive experience. Whilst the memories are happening, you’re connected to them. But as soon as it’s over, which could be a minute from then or an hour, they no longer feel like yours. If I was going to stop feeling connected to them, I think it would have already happened by now.’

  ‘You’ve kind of made me feel really shitty that the only things you remember are me being a bitch to you.’

  Emerson laughed at me.

  ‘That’s the closest you’ll ever get to an apology and you laugh?’

  ‘Sorry – that was supposed to be an apology?’ Emerson laughed again.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I don’t care how you act, love. I don’t need you to fake being the best person on the planet just because my head is screwed up. However long this lasts, I’m fine just experiencing it exactly how it is. Like a normal person. I’ve got high school memories, memories of Gi – normal teenage memories thanks to you… however unconsciously its being done on your part.’

  ‘Does that mean you wanted me to come along with your shopping trip because then you�
��d actually get to remember it?’ I asked.

  ‘Kind of,’ Emerson said.

  ‘Wait, if you don’t feel connected to anything that’s happened to you in the past, does that mean you don’t remember sex?’ Or kissing.

  Kissing Gi would be the first kiss he’d remember and feel as his own memory since he became a vampire. It might possibly be the last kiss he felt connected to unless he was going to bring me on all his dates. Shit. No way was I getting guilted into being his third wheel so he could have the complete normal high school experience. That would be way too awkward. Especially if this crush thing continued because I’d probably end up getting jealous. Urgh. Jealous. What the hell was wrong with me?

  Emerson scowled at me. He very much looked like he wanted to jump down from the counter and run away – from this conversation, and me.

  ‘You did have sex before you turned, right?’ I asked. ‘You’re not a perpetual dissociated virgin?’

  Emerson flashed in front of me. We were touching toe-to-toe. His vamp-glamour, along with the magnetic pull between us was in full effect. My heartbeat sped up. I’d stopped breathing.

  ‘I see the apology was short lived,’ Emerson said.

  ‘I’m curious. You said we could talk.’

  I tried to hide the way my body was reacting to him. My head knew that crushing on Emerson was an entirely hormonal response and that I wasn’t really attracted to him beyond the physical way, but that wouldn’t matter. I already cringed every time I thought about Emerson’s cocky smile when he told me that my attraction to him was all down to me and nothing to do with his vamp-glamour.

  ‘Talk…’ Emerson trailed a finger along my cheek. Unlike Grayson, he actually touched me.

  I felt goose-bumps form across my back. Heat flushed to my cheeks. He continued to trail his finger down the side of my neck, then moved upwards again.

  ‘Talking appears to be you asking a lot of personal questions.’

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. ‘You keep answering them.’

  ‘I am finding it increasingly difficult to say no to you, love,’ Emerson admitted.

  ‘Because you remember me.’

  ‘Because I feel you,’ Emerson corrected.

  ‘You’re certainly feeling me now,’ I muttered.

  Emerson chuckled.

  ‘I don’t want the first kiss I “remember” to be for an audience,’ Emerson said to me.

  He was so close now that he was talking into my hair, his breath on my ear giving me more shivers.

  My body was screaming at me. Give in! Let him take you! You want to be his! I could tell it was different from the vamp-glamour now. That undercurrent of sexual tension. It was heightened because of the glamour, but I still felt as if it wasn’t simply because it was a vampire I was feeling this for. There was something about Emerson – excluding him being lamia – that my body craved.

  ‘Do you still want to be with me?’ Emerson whispered, repeating the words I told him I heard in my head whenever he was around.

  My body burned. I didn’t answer him, but my hands gripped the front of his t-shirt. A wicked smile played on his lips at my non-answer.

  He leaned his head in towards me, his cool hand cupping the side of my cheek. Before his lips pressed against mine, he seemed to make a small groan-sound in the back of his throat as our bodies pressed together.

  His cool skin against my burning flesh was like a supernova of nerves. When his lips met mine, I couldn’t help but melt, though I was fire and he was ice.

  Emerson pulled me closer into the kiss, his tongue darting out from his mouth and flicking dangerously against mine. My brain had long since left the building. I couldn’t think. I could only feel. And Emerson against me, kissing me, felt more than good. More than amazing.

  My whole body screamed: yes, yes, yes!

  11

  Emerson pulled away, trailing this thumb over my bruised lips. I had no idea how long we’d kissed – I think it went beyond simply making out and more into the realms of having sex with our mouths if that was even possible.

  ‘That was a complete lapse in judgement,’ I said, trying to regain some control over myself as my brain started taking over. I felt like a melted pool. I was surprised I could still stand.

  ‘From now on, our relationship is strictly professional,’ Emerson said, with a smirk. It took a moment for me to realise it was Scaramouche’s line after the leads decided them being together romantically wouldn’t work out.

  ‘Get back in there and practise your lines,’ I said, pushing him away from me, back into the living room. ‘You’ve had enough time to get your “water”.’

  ‘I had enough time to get something wet, love,’ Emerson said. ‘But it sure wasn’t water.’

  My cheeks burned. Kissing him was a big mistake – massive. But it wasn’t one I could undo. And my body was already craving for me to jump him and do it all over again.

  Emerson was a flirt – and my body was falling for it. But this was the last time. First and only.

  I walked back into the living room, taking up my script and pretended that nothing happened. I just had to ignore the look that passed between Gi and Emerson, as though Gi had known exactly what was going to happen in that kitchen all along.

  The next day, when Gi picked me up from Maybelle’s to take me to school, she wouldn’t let me out of the car once we’d parked in the lot.

  ‘What happened with you and Emerson last night?’

  ‘What? Nothing,’ I said, probably a little bit too quickly.

  ‘You were gone almost half an hour. And you both came back looking like you’d just finished Who Wants to Live Forever,’ she said, referencing the musical number that ended in Scaramouche and Galileo having sex.

  ‘Nothing. Happened,’ I said.

  ‘Emerson said the same thing,’ Gi said.

  ‘Then it must be true.’

  There was a pause, but Gi still didn’t open the door. I could just tell from her posture and the way she still clenched the steering wheel, even though she wasn’t driving, that she was setting herself up to have a proper “talk” with me.

  ‘Emerson’s never lied to me before,’ Gi eventually said. ‘But he does when it comes to you. I know you’re both hiding something. The others don’t see it, but I remember how you both warned me to stay away from one another at the start of the year – and neither of you gave me an explanation for that.’

  I blanked. I had forgotten how odd that must have been to Gi – and had been hoping she’d equally been as forgetful. It wasn’t like we could just come out and say that it was because Emerson was a vampire and it had taken me some time to get used to that – both getting over my own prejudice and me not thinking he was up to something. I still had no idea what he was doing at high school, but I no longer felt he was a danger to Gi or the AA Team.

  Gi took my silence as confirmation that I wasn’t about to come clean.

  ‘You two don’t act like new acquaintances. You never have. And even when you pretend to hate each other, it’s just that: pretend. I don’t get why. It’s so clear to everyone that you like each other.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Emerson told me last night that he likes you.’

  ‘Emerson has a habit of saying things without actually thinking them through first.’

  Gi shook her head. ‘No. For a guy our age, Emerson’s particularly smart when it comes to emotional intelligence. He wouldn’t say something if he didn’t know it for certain, especially not something that might be construed as emotional manipulation if it wasn’t true.’

  I wanted to point out that he didn’t seem particularly “emotionally intelligent” when he’d been teasing me in class and trying to get me into trouble, or when he’d picked on Martha to make me laugh, but I doubted that would win the argument.

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘When I asked what happened with you two yesterday, Emerson snapped at me when I wouldn’t let him just brush
it off and lie to my face. Eventually, he calmed down enough to tell me he was worried that you were going to push him away again. He doesn’t know how you’re going to react. He’s always been very clear with how he feels for you, but you’re not. You toy with him.’

  ‘That’s not true. I’ve never said I liked him. I don’t do relationships.’

  Even if it wasn’t Emerson – a cocky vampire who I was unnaturally drawn to – and was some ordinary guy, I couldn’t afford to ever start liking someone. Not after what had happened with Christian.

  ‘I didn’t assume you’d toy with him in relation to relationships,’ Gi said.

  ‘Are you saying I’m basically dangling sex in front of his face-’

  I couldn’t deny that my body was attracted to him, beyond the logical sense of my rational mind, even. I would shamefully admit that I wanted to feel the power of that kiss again, but there was no way I was going to act on that.

  ‘I’m not saying you’re a tease. You’ve never blatantly screwed with him, just immature kindergarten flirting where you both pretend to hate each other. I just… I don’t want Emerson to get hurt. And if he’s looking for a relationship and actually really likes you, whilst you’re only up for some sort of friends with benefits arrangement, it seems to me that you might be the one to have the power to hurt him.’

  ‘That’s not… that’s not what I’m doing.’

  Gi looked me over. ‘Emerson’s the closest thing I’ve come to a best friend since Emma. Before you… I don’t know. He didn’t seem happy. The last thing I want is for him to go back to that.

  ‘I don’t know what went on between you guys in the past – whether you knew each other before coming here or not – but I don’t want some massive fall out, okay?’