Chapter 28

28

We spend the rest of the night wandering around the fairgrounds, until I get too thirsty. He leads me to the van and goes into the back for the cooler, which is stocked with bags of blood. He reaches to the chain around his neck, pulls it out from under his shirt, revealing the spile. He uses it to puncture a bag. He lets me drink first, and I nearly empty it. He takes the rest.

I watch him drink, watch his neck move as he swallows.

It’s almost as satisfying as if I were drinking it myself. I can almost taste it.

When we’re done, he tosses the empty blood bag into the back of the van and closes it.

“Is it okay that we just took one? We didn’t need to ask?”

“I’d be the one to ask,” he says. I already sensed that he was in charge, but I never wondered why until now. “The sun will be up soon. We should go inside.”

“I bled. Before. I bit my lip, and I bled a little. I didn’t know that was possible.”

“We bleed. There is blood in our veins. We have thick skin, but we aren’t impenetrable. We need to be careful; we do not have much to spare. It’s painful to lose.”

“Didn’t really notice,” I say, cracking a grin. “Preoccupied.”

He chomps at me, and I laugh. “Is that how we don’t empty ourselves? Because it hurts too badly?”

“Yes, in part. Vampire blood doesn’t taste the same as human blood. It tastes like nothing,” he says. “As soon as we consume it, it’s altered. Before you ask, I don’t know why or how. I don’t know everything. Not sure I care to.”

He opens the tavern door and leads me through it.

Tatiana is where she was when I left, on her blanket. She paints her nails, looking apathetic. Ilie, Elisa, and Naomi sit at a table playing cards, all topless.

“You two were gone for a while,” Tatiana says, smirking.

“Get good rest,” Henry says. “We have a long drive tomorrow night.”

He takes my hand and walks me past the hearth, around the corner to a doorway. There’s a small storage room. “We can sleep in here.”

“On the floor?” I ask, sounding snotty though I’m really just concerned. I’m too old to sleep on a hard surface. I can barely get comfortable on a mattress.

He points to a stack of cushions in a corner. They’re dusty, but they’re something. He picks them up and arranges them on the floor and we get on top, and I rest my head on his chest. It’s not so bad.

“If you decide you might want to go somewhere with me, they wouldn’t have to come with us,” he says. “We could go out on our own.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. A stupid question. I know what he means.

“The two of us.”

“I’m not going to ditch Naomi,” I say.

“She’d go with Ilie, or Elisa. Or both. They would look after her. And we’d see them again.”

I turn onto my back, look up at the ceiling, where cobwebs cling and flutter as a draft sneaks in from somewhere.

It’s not like I see Naomi all the time as it is. We go months without getting together. We lead separate lives. We talk at least once a week, though. And I doubt we’d be able to communicate now, considering she tossed her phone out the car window, and I just realized I left mine in the car after the accident, so it’s likely been cremated.

As much as I’m frustrated with her, disappointed, resentful…the thought of separation makes me uneasy. After everything we’ve been through, how could we leave each other now?

Henry slides his arm under me and starts to play with my hair, and somehow it’s more intimate than the sex, more intimate than anything I’ve ever experienced.

My mind empties of everything except one question. Wouldn’t it be nice to stay like this forever ?

—

It’s the best sleep of my life. Deep and dreamless. There’s no need to dream when your reality is so surreal. When you get to wake up next to Henry.

“Good evening,” he says, nudging me with his nose.

“Hi,” I say. “We slept all day?”

He nods, then starts to kiss up and down my neck.

Normally I’d be insecure about how I haven’t showered, or brushed my teeth, or applied deodorant, about how my body isn’t what it used to be. I’d be thinking about all my flaws, and all the things I’d have to do when it was over. Joel would be on top of me and physically I’d be under him, but mentally I’d be paying the electric bill or sending a work email or cleaning the filters on my beloved Dyson or adding bananas to the grocery list.

But it’s impossible not to be present with Henry. Not to be here in my body while he undresses me slowly, while he—

There’s a knock on the door.

“Hey.” It’s Naomi. “Sloane?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re getting ready to head out.”

“Okay. We’re coming.”

Henry chuckles and I pinch his side, which only makes him laugh harder.

“Are you?” Naomi asks.

“Can you give us a minute?” For once I’m not the buzzkill.

I get dressed as Henry stacks the cushions back in the corner. He kisses me again before opening the door, where Naomi waits, standing with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi there.”

Henry nods to Naomi, then bows past us, leaving us alone outside the storage room.

“Well, well, well. What’s going on here?” she asks. She seems more suspicious than excited, more annoyed than anything else, so I hold back on any girlish divulging.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just woke up.”

“Where did you go last night?”

“For a walk. You sent Henry to check on me.”

“No, I didn’t,” she says. “I went to go after you, and he said he would.”

“Really?”

“I mean, he said to leave you alone like you asked. When I pressed, he said he’d go. Make sure you were all right.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She shrugs. “If you’re upset about the gas station, we should talk about it. Don’t freeze me out.”

“ If? If I’m upset?”

“I get it. It was bad. But—”

“Do you remember what you said to me last night? In the van? Or were you too drunk off that guy’s blood?”

She cocks her head. “What’d I say?”

Either it’s a great act or she really doesn’t remember. If she doesn’t remember, I won’t repeat it. “Let’s just leave it in the past.”

“Tell me. You’re obviously still mad.”

“What else do you not remember about last night? Do you remember what you did to that woman’s face?”

“Yes, I remember. What do you want me say? I was out-of-my-mind thirsty because you didn’t share. You always find a way to make it my fault.”

“Because it—” I cut myself off.

“Because it is? Is that what you were going to say?”

“No,” I lie.

She sighs. “I get it. I was the one who made plans with Ilie, and now here we are. It’s on me. I own that. But you also have to understand, if I didn’t push you, I don’t know if you’d ever do anything.”

I open my mouth to argue, but I have nothing to counter with.

“You can’t put all the blame on me. I didn’t know any of this would happen. I was trying to do good by you. To help you because you refuse to help yourself.”

“Yeah, thanks. This was so helpful.”

She shakes her head. “I’m on your side, you know. We’re in this together. And for what it’s worth, you’re not the only one struggling here.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?” she says, scoffing. “How come you’re mad at me but are happy to share a bed with him? He doesn’t get any of the blame for our little situation here?”

“I…I…” I hate it when she’s right. “It’s different.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Guess so.”

“We don’t have time for this,” I say, diverting because I’m embarrassed by my hypocrisy. “If we want to get to Wilmington, we need to leave now.”

“Fine,” she says.

We join the rest of the group in the main room. Tatiana rolls up her blanket. Ilie pushes the tables and chairs back against the wall. Elisa is…

“Where’s Elisa?” I ask.

“Oh, hello, sleepyhead!” Ilie says. “She went to get the bus. We change cars. I miss my car, but Costel and Miri take it.”

“Are they still in New York?” I ask.

“Who knows?” Tatiana says, stretching. “Let’s get a hotel tomorrow. Something nice. How much cash did you get out of the register last night?”

“Three hundred something,” Ilie says.

I shouldn’t be scandalized or surprised, but I am. “You robbed the convenience store?”

“Why burn money?” Ilie asks. “Are we ready to go? Naomi, Sloane, what do you think of the castle? It is nice, yes? Cool place.”

Neither of us respond. I’m hung up on the robbery because it reminds me of the gas station and the murders and that whole sick, horrible mess. Naomi just stares out into space.

“I think it is cool,” Ilie says to himself.

We shuffle outside as Elisa pulls up in a 1980s camper van. It’s brown and beige with an orange stripe across the side. It’s in rough shape.

“Where did this come from?” I ask Henry.

“Some guy,” Ilie says.

“Wait, what? When?” Why do I ask questions I don’t want the answers to?

“Long time ago,” Ilie says.

“We keep it here in case we need it,” Henry says, opening the camper door for us. “There’s an employee parking lot on the other side of the grounds.”

The inside of the camper is just as dated as the outside. There’s bench seating covered in brown and orange upholstery that wraps around the back of the van in a U shape. The windows are hidden behind burlap curtains. There’s also a curtain that separates us from the two seats up front.

Ilie and Henry get into the back with me and Naomi.

I ask about our suitcases.

“Your luggage is on top,” Elisa calls from the driver’s seat, from the other side of the curtain.

“Do you need something?” Henry asks, sitting beside me.

“It’d be nice to change my clothes eventually,” I say, reaching for my seat belt, which goes across just the waist, not the chest. I’m still rattled from yesterday’s crash. “When we get to the house.”

I look at Naomi, who sits across from me, still with that glassy-eyed stare.

I kick her foot. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” she says.

“Is everyone ready to go?” Elisa asks. She doesn’t wait for a response. She starts the engine, which stammers before settling into a gruff hum. When we pull up to the fairgrounds gate, Ilie gets out to open and close it because Tatiana refuses. I peer out from behind the curtain, sad to be leaving the only place I’ve been in the last few days where anything remotely good has happened.

Might have happened.

I’m not sure how I feel about last night anymore. Naomi’s point stands. Henry’s the one who turned me into this. Why was I so quick to forgive him? To trust him. To fuck him. Am I that desperate? Am I that stupid?

I should be angry with myself, but I’m too fragile for it. So instead I’m angry at her. At Naomi. Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

Elisa puts on the radio, flips through stations, finding mostly static. She gives up eventually, leaving us with only the grunts of the camper. Ilie puts his arm around Naomi. She lets him, but after a few minutes she unbuckles her seat belt and lies down, using his lap as a footrest. She closes her eyes.

“?‘Every day, it’s a-gettin’ closer,’?” she whisper-sings, “?‘going faster than a roller coaster….’?”

She opens her eyes and looks at me.

Whatever she’s trying to tell me, I don’t understand. Our silent vows, our ESP—none of it’s working. We’re out of sync. She’s right in front of me, but she’s further from me now than she was when she was on the other side of the world.

When we were seventeen and had just gotten our licenses, Naomi would drive us around in her Jeep and we would listen to curated playlists, writing our favorite lyrics on our arms in pen, contemplating future tattoos that we never ended up getting. Sometimes we’d go to a cemetery for a quiet place to smoke weed. Sometimes we’d go to Hot Dog Johnny’s, because it meant driving through Buttzville, which we always got a kick out of. We’d sit at the picnic tables outside and have hot dogs with sweet relish, split some crinkle-cut fries, and drink root beer out of frosty glasses. Once, on a rare Saturday when I didn’t have to work, we went down to Seaside Heights, where we wandered the boardwalk, ate giant slices of greasy pizza, and mint soft-serve ice cream in waffle cones. We played Skee-Ball at Lucky Leo’s until our arms were sore, until we ran out of money. We pointed out syringes on the beach.

She’s not just my best friend. She’s my youth. She knew me when I was young—the purest, truest version of myself, before life got in the way. Before I knew about things like property taxes and deductibles and inflation, about the slow drain of ordinary days and the quick disappearance of ordinary years, about how men I’d never meet, with beliefs I don’t share, could make decisions about what I can and can’t do with my body. Before I gave in to doing what I had to and never what I wanted. Before all the choices that got me so far from the path I’d dreamt of. Before dreams became impractical.

She holds the best of me, and I think I hold the best of her.

But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s too late to be our best selves. Maybe we’ve changed too much.

Maybe. Not maybe. I know we have. We’re bloodthirsty creatures now. We’re killers. We’ve bitten into a pulse. We’ve had a taste of something.

Henry reaches for me. I let him take my hand, thread his fingers through mine. He doesn’t know who I was before two days ago. He knows me only as this.

I always thought mutual history was something precious, to be coveted. I never understood it could be an anchor. Our shared past won’t necessarily help us move forward. It won’t answer the question that needs to be answered, and fast.

How do we live now?