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A knock on the bedroom door. “Are you decent?” Freddie’s voice filtered into the room from the hallway.
I sat up in bed, wincing at the ache in my side from yesterday’s overexertion. “Yeah.”
He opened the door and poked his head in. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just flew hundreds of miles with an injured arm while fending off angry birds.” I shrugged. “Could be worse.”
Freddie hummed sympathetically. “Cassie’s warming something up for you if you’re hungry.”
My eyes went wide. “I am hungry. ButCassie’swarming it up for me?”
“This surprises you?”
The first time Cassie and I met, I’d just introduced her to the existence of vampirism by drinking a bag of blood directly in front of her, outing her roommate Frederick as a vampire in the process. It had admittedly been a dick move on my part, even if her reaction had been one of the funniest things to personally happen to me in decades.
“I thought the only thing Cassie hated more than me was being exposed to what we eat,” I said, honestly.
“She is unlikely to chair the Reginald Cleaves Fan Club anytime soon,” he acknowledged with a wry grin. “But she’s comingaround to the idea of what we eat. Which is good timing, given what we have planned.”
His grin was so brilliant it made my chest ache. “Wow. So you’re going through with it? You’re going to turn her?”
He nodded. “She beat me to it and asked before I did.”
When he left the room again, my mind drifted to Amelia. Again. I’d thought about her endlessly since leaving Wisconsin, no matter how hard I tried to think about anything else. For the first time in over a century, I thought I could see the appeal of getting close enough to another person to risk the pain of eventually losing them.
My mind spun with possibilities of what a future with Amelia might look like. Weekend trips to her family’s cabin, preferably in the summer when there was no risk of snow. Breakfasts at her apartment, where I’d make her pancakes (with thecorrectamount of baking soda next time).
Nights in my bed, where I showed her exactly how much she meant to me.
I could never ask her to make the same choice Cassie was making and become what I was. But I could no longer lie to myself and say I didn’t want her. Amelia hadn’t flinched that night in the snow when I’d told her exactly who I was and what I’d done. Instead, she took me into her arms like I deserved to be there.
Her acceptance and understanding weren’t anything I’d be able to forget. In this lifetime, or the next.
It was probably irrational for me to think Amelia might want to be with me beyond what we’d already agreed to. But I was nothing if not irrational. I was greedy and selfish, too. I’d take any amount of time Amelia was willing to give me and be grateful for it.
And I was just presumptuous enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could make her happy, too.
Amelia
When I made it back to my apartment the following afternoon, I was greeted by Gracie, curled up on the sofa, and a note from Sophie.
Ame,
Gracie and I had a lovely time while you were away. Your mail is on the kitchen counter.
I want a FULL report on what happened in Wisconsin when you get home and no, I’m NOT talking about the snow.
—S
I’d wanted to see Reggie as soon as I got home, but he’d used Frederick’s phone to call again while I was on the road to tell me I shouldn’t come over until that night.
“I want to be sure The Collective isn’t tracking me first,” he’d said, sounding apologetic. “An old witch friend of Frederick’s is setting up his apartment with wards. You can come over once she’s finished.”
So witches were real too, then? I guess nothing should have surprised me by that point.
After unpacking, I put the extra time to use by seeing what I could find about The Collective online. I had low expectations, though. Vampires were apparently very real and living among us,yet aside from a few conspiracy theories I’d seen over the years, vampires hadn’t even been a blip on my radar until now.
But there had to be something online outside of conspiracy theories. It defied credibility that a gang of undead creatures could parade about withoutsomeoneon TikTok putting visual evidence out there.
