Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
10 - Syrsee
All I can think about is the blood.
He’s not craving me anymore.
Well, that was fast. It was my number-one worry on the ride east. And then I just put it out of my mind because his cravings, just yesterday, were so strong I was getting pissed off about it.
But now, he’s telling me that he’s craving bacon.
We’re in the bathroom now. Ryet steps around a stacked-stone wall to start the shower and then comes back out.
When my eyes slide up and meet his, all I see is doubt.
He places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a little squeeze. “It’s fine. I promise.”
But I’m already shrugging him off and shaking my head before he can get those last two words out. “It’s not.”
“We don’t know that, Syrsee.”
I scoff. “Don’t start treating me like that.”
“Like what?” His tone is defensive.
“Like I can be placated with lies.”
“‘Lie’ is a strong word. We don’t understand anything right now. It could all be fine—”
“And it could all be going to shit. Suddenly, you don’t need to drink, Ryet? And I have a craving for blood?” A wave of dizziness washes over me, forcing me to reach out and place a flat palm against the log-sided wall. He reaches for me again, but I just stumble forward and sit down on a small bench just outside the shower.
“Are you OK?”
“No, Ryet. I’m not OK.” I look up at him, and I’m suddenly angry and scared. “I’m not OK. We”—I point at him, then me—“we are not OK. You’re turning into a vampire and I’m turning into… well, I have no idea, but the odds are good that it’s something much, much worse. And now, in the middle of all this, you’re threatening me?”
“How the hell am I threatening you?”
“You’re not going to give me the blood?” Even I am surprised when these words come out of my mouth. But the look on Ryet’s face is more than surprise. It’s… shock.
He laughs. It’s a small laugh that has nothing to do with anything being funny. “You’re worried…” He stops, letting out a breath and sucking in a new one so he can start again. “This is what you’re worried about? The blood? Because if all it takes to make you happy right now is to give you a drink of my blood”—he lifts his palm up to his mouth, bites, and a rivulet of scarlet drips down his wrist—“then by all means, Syrsee, have a drink.”
My heart thumps inside my chest as my eyes follow the red line as it slides down his arm, and then I am transfixed by a single drop as it splats on the tile floor.
I almost kneel down and lick it. But instead I close my eyes, lean forward, and breathe through the compulsion.
Ryet says nothing. And the silence just hangs there between us like something real and heavy.
Finally, after almost a minute of this, he bends down in front of me. One hand on my knee, the other pushing my hanging hair out of my face so he can look me in the eyes. “If you need it, of course you can have it. I just didn’t think it was…” He stops. Watches me. Probably noting how I’m not looking him in the eyes. I’m staring at the blood on his arm.
Then he’s lifting it to my lips. I wish I could turn my head, or at least put up the pretense of an objection, but I can’t. I reach for his hand and then the next thing I know, my mouth is pressed up against his skin and a sense of peace and calm washes through me as a purple and gold mist rises up in the steam of the shower.
This mist becomes thick, almost like a curtain. Separating me from the room, and Ryet, and the whole world. Then it thins again, splitting in half, almost making a hallway. This is when I realize I’m alone now. There is no shower, there is no cabin, and there is no Ryet.
There is just a way forward.
I take a step, then another, and another. And soon there is no purple, just darkness.
I should be afraid—I should be terrified, actually. Because the blood is doing something to me. It’s acting like a very powerful drug and it’s fucking with my head. Just as I think this I see, in my mind’s eye, Ryet sitting on the couch all limp and satisfied, his head rolled back into the cushions.
Like an addict. He looked like an overdosing addict yesterday when we got here. The only thing missing from that memory of him is the cliché needle sticking out of his arm.
But inside this new reality I’m not afraid. I can smell blood up ahead and it’s drawing me forward. Suddenly the space around me is bright and golden, all traces of purple gone now.