Chapter 33

33

Elisa gets out and gets to work on the camper, which continues to sputter even with the engine off. It’s obviously a lost cause.

Through the window, we watch Ilie emerge from the bank with two coolers. He takes one look at Elisa, drops the coolers, and goes back inside. He reemerges moments later with a set of keys. He unlocks the Toyota and drags the coolers toward the car. He pops the trunk, and Henry appears next to him, helping him load.

“We’re not all gonna fit in that car,” Naomi says.

“Nope,” I say. “Not to mention, if he took those keys without anyone noticing, I’m willing to bet someone’s going to notice soon enough and report their car stolen.”

“Unless…”

“Unless…?”

“Do you think our new friends would leave that kind of loose end? Or do you think they’d…”

“Henry promised me no one would get hurt,” I say.

“Do you believe him?” she says, turning to me, letting the curtain fall.

I hesitate, fearing speaking it out loud will jinx it somehow. But I’m tired of cowardice, so I go ahead and say it. “Yeah. I do. I believe him. I trust him.”

“Well, that’s something.”

The camper door rips open. It’s Henry.

“We need to go,” he says.

We stare at him, not sure what to do, what to say.

“We need to go now .” He reaches for me and pulls me out of the camper. I hang on to Naomi, and she stumbles after me. The snow is dense and heavy, the wind severe.

“You two in the back,” he says as we hurry toward the Corolla. “Ilie and Elisa will get you out of here.”

Elisa slips into the driver’s seat and starts the car; Ilie gets into the passenger side. Tatiana comes up behind Henry, and it allows me to momentarily dismiss the sense I have that someone else is approaching. Momentarily. But the man’s heartbeat is so loud. His scent so strong. There’s a stink about him.

A problem. A complication. An inevitability. There will be no clean escape. Whoever stays behind will meet him, decide his fate.

He’s coming. He’s getting closer.

And with him, a sudden crystal clarity. Not horror, or anxiety. Not even thirst. Only a calm resolve that’s eluded me for so long.

I look at Naomi. I can read her; I can tell. She senses him, too. And she knows what I know. Tatiana was right. We need to commit to our existence. The two of us, together. And I need to learn how to save myself.

“Naomi and I will stay,” I say. “Okay?”

Naomi doesn’t flinch. “Okay, hoss.”

“Bonne chance,” Tatiana says as she gets into the back seat.

“Sloane,” Henry says, his eyes finding mine through his tangle of overgrown dirty-blond hair. I trace my fingers across his face, still trying to solve the mystery of what makes it more strange than beautiful.

I slide my hands to his chest, lay them flat, feel him beneath me. I want to thank him for ending my drought. I want to tell him that once I figure this out for myself, accept it, embrace it, can control it, I’ll gladly risk heartbreak for the chance to love him. But there’s no time for all that, so he gets one word.

“Dare,” I say, and I push him back.

He grins. That grin.

And then he’s in the car, and the door is shut, and the vampires—our new friends, our new loves—are speeding away. And then they’re gone.

Naomi and I start toward the dead, smoking camper, moving against the snow, the wind.

“So, this is an exercise in self-control, yeah? I mean, I’m not typically pro-abstinence,” she says. “But in this case…”

“We’re on a case-by-case basis,” I say, thinking about the man at the rest stop. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Happy to follow your lead.”

“Car trouble?”

His voice reaches us before he does. But then there he is. Maybe in his fifties. Camo coat. Jeans. Baseball hat. Boots. He swaggers up to us with a wide gait, thumbs hooked on his belt loops.

“Yes,” Naomi says, not missing a beat. “This stupid old thing.”

“Ah, yeah, yeah. You got a dinosaur,” he says. He’s a particular kind of genial that women learn early to be skeptical of. The jolly drunk uncle who will turn on a dime. “What are you doing parked back here?”

“We’re lost,” I say. “Go figure.”

“We turned in here by mistake,” Naomi says. “Thought there was a way out. It’s so hard to see with all this snow. Then the engine started making this noise.”

The man sighs and shakes his head. He stares at the camper, hikes up his jeans. “Where you ladies headed?”

“Raleigh,” Naomi lies.

He whistles. “That’s still a ways.”

“Is it?” I ask.

He lifts the brim of his hat, looking us over. “You know why women are bad drivers?”

Naomi and I are silent. The sound of distant sirens slinks through the night.

“No guesses?” he asks. “Because there’s no road from the kitchen to the bedroom.”

There’s a pause, and I have no idea what’s about to happen. But then Naomi laughs. A big, fake laugh.

“That’s a good one,” she says, flirty. She turns to me. “Don’t you think?”

The sirens fade. They’re not for us. At least not yet.

“You’re funny,” I tell the man. I reach up to the delicate skin of my neck. I can feel my thirst vibrating underneath. I push against it. Patience. Restraint. Control. We can’t drain every asshole we come across. Ignorance isn’t enough to justify our kind of bloody retribution. Though maybe it should be.

I understand in this moment that there is no right thing to do, no good way to exist as what we are, or even as what we were—mortal women. My worldview, my rules, my morality, were all constructed as a cage for my shame—shame forged by forces outside myself. I’ve related restriction to virtue, nourishment to gluttony; associated satisfaction with guilt ever since I learned about the Atkins diet, ever since I heard the word “slut,” ever since I was young. But I’m not young anymore. I’ll never be young again.

“Ah well. Can’t really tell jokes like that anymore ’cause everyone gets all sensitive. You two are good sports, so I’ll help you out,” he says. “I work over at the AutoZone. There’s nothing we can do with this thing here, but a buddy of mine owns a shop that’s not too far. I’ll get you a tow. No charge.”

“Really?” Naomi says, petting his arm. “You’re a lifesaver.”

He looks us up and down again, takes a set of keys out of his pocket. “Might be a while, though. Got some issues with power. Weather ain’t gonna let up. I could, uh, give you a ride somewhere. If you need it.”

“That your car?” Naomi asks, pointing to the beat-up convertible.

“Yup,” he says. “Only a two-seater, though. One of you might have to ride on my lap.”

Naomi laughs again. “Oh, you’re bad! What’s your name?”

“Dave,” he says, smiling, revealing brown teeth. “What do you say? You want the ride?”

Naomi and I lock eyes, and she answers for us. “We’d love it.”

“Yes. Thank you. We do need a ride,” I say, still looking at Naomi.

“You know,” Naomi says as we follow him to his car, “it’s so lucky that out of everyone we could have come across, we found you. We so appreciate you coming to our rescue, Dave.”

“Do you, now? I could think of a few ways you could, uh, show your appreciation,” he says, laughing as he unlocks his car. “This ain’t my usual ride, by the way. Just a loaner.”

“Is it?” Naomi says, whipping a pistol out of her jacket and pressing it to the back of his head. So much for following my lead. “Actually, don’t answer that. Don’t make a fucking sound.”

“Naomi! Where did you get that?” She doesn’t answer my question, but I answer it for myself. I recognize the gun. It’s from the gas station. It’s the little one that woman pulled on us after Naomi bit her face. Naomi must have taken it. I don’t know if there are any bullets left.

“Give me the keys,” Naomi says to him.

“What the fuck is this?” he asks. I can sense his heart beating faster, blood pumping faster. “What the fuck is this?”

“This is us stealing your car. Figure you won’t mind, since it’s just a loaner. Now, give me the keys or I’ll shoot your fucking brains out.”

The man reels back, knocking the gun from Naomi’s hand. It falls somewhere on the ground, somewhere in the snow.

He’s still got the keys, and Naomi fights for them, digging her nails into his arm.

He cries out. “You bitches! You bitches from hell!”

He’s being too loud. Someone will hear.

“A little help,” Naomi says, trying her best to wrestle the keys away. He isn’t making it easy.

We could find a way out of this without bloodshed. We could. But then this motherfucker spits in Naomi’s face. And I make a conscious choice, make it without guilt or shame, without second-guessing.

I move closer.

Closer.

Close enough.

I grab his arm, and I bite down hard. My mouth floods with blood. So delicious. I wish I could savor it more, but I’m thirsty. I swallow. And swallow.

Naomi, too. She’s got his other arm. Drinking. For a moment, I dip into my imagination, where we’re sharing a milkshake, each with our own straw. Something innocent. Something sweet.

The man’s knees give; his head slumps over. He slips from my grasp and hits the ground. Alive. Still alive. A glass half-full.

Naomi and I stand still for a minute, staring at him, licking our lips. My mind goes quiet. I drift into that state of bliss, but the screaming drags me right out.

Someone’s screaming.

I look up, and there’s a woman. I don’t know who she is or where she came from, but I know she’s seen too much. She turns around and takes off running.

Naomi slips off her boot and chucks it. It hits the woman square in the back of the head, and she falls forward. She does nothing to catch her fall, so I assume she’s unconscious.

“Really?” I say.

“I should’ve played softball.”

“We need the keys,” I say. I check the man’s hands. He must have dropped them somewhere. “They’re in the snow, I think. Fuck!”

“Should we just leave him here?” She takes him by the legs and starts to drag him toward the patch of woods at the edge of the pavement, leaving red streaks in the snow.

“The bloody snow is a sort of dead giveaway, don’t you think?” I say, feeling around in slush. “Got them!”

“Should we take him with us? Put him in the trunk? If he wakes up, he’ll report the car stolen. He’ll report us.”

“What about her?” I say, pointing to the woman laid out near the dumpster.

“Shit, shit, shit . I’ll drive,” she says, dropping the man’s legs. “You’re too slow.”

“Fine. But if you get us pulled over…” I say. I’m climbing into the passenger seat when I hear it. A scuffle, a grunt, and then…

It’s a distinct sound. I know exactly what it is.

A gunshot.

I slam the back of my head emerging from the car, dizzying myself as I turn to see what just happened.

He shot her.

He shot Naomi.

She staggers backward, her eyebrows rising in surprise as her chest smokes.

The man, laid out on his back, gun raised, smiles, contented in his violence.

He turns toward me, and I watch the realization sweep across his face. That he needs to use that stupid weapon again. He aims at me. He pulls the trigger.

But there are no more bullets.

I fly forward and rip the gun out of his hands and bash his head in with it. I hit him again and again, so his blood sprays into my mouth. Then I toss the gun aside so I can watch his eyes bulge as I choke him, as I squeeze, as I feel the blood rushing. He looks at me with such horror, such disgust, and I don’t care at all.

He curses at me, so I shove my hand into his mouth and dig my nails into his tongue and tear it out and show it to him, and then it slips from my grasp and then it’s beside us on the snow, like a fillet of tilapia in a grocery-store seafood display. I bite into his neck, and I drain him, and while I’m doing it I don’t even notice that I’ve crushed him. I’ve caved his chest in. My eyes roll back, and the blood comes in, warm and gratifying. It tastes so good. Even better than before. It might be the best I’ve tasted yet.

It frees me from the false righteousness of deprivation, introduces me to the glorious, necessary selfishness of vampirism.

I drink him dry.

When I’m done, I stare at my trembling, bloodstained hands, and then I lick my fingers clean.

“Sloane…”

Naomi. I snap out of my bloodlust, and I turn to her as she collapses to her knees, holding her chest.

Her eyes are open. I think she’s breathing. Do we even need to breathe? Aren’t we supposed to be immortal?

“Naomi?”

She winces in pain.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” She lets her head back, looking up at the night as her face twists in pain. “We need…to get out of here.”

She stumbles as she attempts to stand. She hobbles toward me, crying out. I want to help her but I’m too afraid to touch her. She looks down at what’s left of the man, then up at me.

“Sheesh,” she says, reaching out for my arm. I give it to her.

“I thought I was the judgmental one.”

“I thought…I was…the violent…one.”

The pile of man pulp is ever present in the corner of my eye. I made such a mess. The guilt creeps in, but I kill it quickly. He shot Naomi.

I help her into the passenger seat of the beat-up convertible. Tears stream down her face. Red tears.

“Okay,” I say, hurrying to the driver’s seat and starting the car. Foot on gas. I go. “Okay. We’ll find Henry. We’ll find the others. They’ll know what to do.”

I drive around the side of the blood bank, cut through the parking lot, pull onto the main road. There are potholes, and the road is slick, and my palms are slick, and with every swerve, every jolt, Naomi wails in agony.

“I think it went through…my fucking heart,” she says. “I think…I think I’m bleeding….”

“No. No, you’re not. You’re…” Henry’s voice echoes in my head. We don’t have much to spare. It’s painful to lose. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

If I say it enough, maybe it will become true.