Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
He’s dying, Syrsee.
And he is.
Even if I wasn’t told that, I can see it.
He’s not getting out of this bed. He’s not.
He’s dying.
And there is only one thing that will save him.
He will make you offers you can’t turn down.
My grandma’s words come back to me now. She was right.
And it’s not even that good of an offer. I mean, I’m not getting anything out of this other than a clear conscience that I didn’t turn my back on a dying man. A man who has been hunting me for my blood.
I have every right to leave him like this. I do.
But I won’t.
I sit down on the bed next to him and pull the aspirin out of my coat pocket. “Can you take these?”
He nods. Kind of.
“Open your mouth.”
He does and I drop two tablets on his tongue. He crunches down, making me wince at the imagined bitterness, then swallows. “Thank you.”
His eyes are ready to close again, so I hurriedly say, “Ryet?” to keep him awake.
“Hmm?”
“I met your… friend.” His eyes are closed now. “Ryet? Can you hear me?”
He’s already asleep.
I wanted this last conversation because if he asked me—if he was able to ask me for what he needs—then I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for this choice. I could blame it on him.
And now I can’t.
If I feed him, this is my decision.
I get up, walk over to the little kitchenette, open the one drawer, find a knife, turn the gas stove on, hold the blade in the flame, and watch the metal turn bright orange.
Then I walk back over to Ryet, cut a one-inch gash across the fleshy part of my right palm near my thumb, and let the blood flow. Then I hold it over the small opening between his lips and let it trickle in.
He doesn’t move. Not for almost a minute. Then he swallows the pool of blood in his mouth and lifts his head up with closed eyes, blindly searching for the source.
I lower my hand down to his mouth and watch as lips seal around my cut and he sucks on me. After only a few moments, he’s strong enough to reach up and grab my hand with both of his, holding it possessively, like he’s afraid I will pull the blood away.
I expect him to get stronger. To sit up, to feel better. And he looks better.
But his eyes don’t open. In fact, after that one act of reaching, he seems spent. And then he turns his face to the side and just… drifts off.
I sit there on his bed watching the color return, little by little, to his pallid skin. The sweat dries and no new beads of sickness appear on his brow. And when I place the back of my hand against his cheek, he’s cooler. Not normal, like a human, but much cooler than he was.
It’s helping. My blood was his cure.
I blink, noticing the lavender haze around the corners of the room, and for a moment I think—I hope—that maybe this whole thing is a dream.
Maybe I’m still in the library back at the Guild.
Maybe Grandma didn’t die.
Maybe everything is the same and I’m going to wake up and know for sure that this was nothing but a dreamwalk.
But then there he is. Paul. Sitting in the chair where I was earlier. Me on the bed, next to Ryet.
We have switched places.
He smiles as he begins to clap. A slow, mocking, deliberate clap.
Then he is gone and the lavender haze recedes, and I’m too spent and tired to care what happens next.
I just lie down and within moments, I’m asleep too.
Zusi haunts my dreams, but in her typical, fun, Zusi way and not some purple-haze stalking way.
It’s not a walking dream. Just random memories, I think. Our formative years play in my head as I sleep, vaguely still aware that I’m in bed with a vampire.
“He’s cute,” Zusi is saying. We’re in our dorm, which is in the top-floor attic of the Merchant Building on the west side of campus. This is where they put me once I was old enough to leave the Community Building with the other kids our age. Zusi is my only roommate. And I love her for this. Because she should be down on the seventh floor with the rest of her class, and she isn’t. She’s up here, with me.
She’s got her phone out and she’s pointing to someone on the screen with a perfectly manicured and polished fingernail. “Are you going to kiss him?” Her tone is teasing and fun.
This is when I realize I’m not the one she’s talking to. Not grownup me, anyway. I am Syrsee, age… I dunno. Fourteen, I guess. Other me is sprawled out across my bed looking up at the ceiling with a stupid smile on my face. We’re still wearing our uniforms, so it’s probably break time.