Page 106 of So Thirsty

“Eternity is a long time to wallow, ma chérie,” she says, lowering her sunglasses to show me her eyes, which are oozing, crusted with pinkish gunk. “Too long.”

She pushes her sunglasses up her nose and turns away from me. I touch my lips, now slick with gloss. Her words snake through my brain, and I feel naked, exposed. I zip up my coat, as if that’ll do anything to cover me.

“Keys!” Elisa says, whimsically leaping through the hotel’s automatic doors, holding up three key cards. “It is not the castle, but it will do.”

The hotel lobby is small, dimly lit, with linoleum floors and a drop ceiling. It smells strongly of bleach, but at least that means it’s clean. Elisa presses the button for the elevator. Naomi glares at the woman behind the counter, who smiles politely and waves, wonderfully unaware that the person she’s greeting so amiably wants nothing more than to rip her neck apart with her teeth.

“Nay,” I say, taking her arm.

“I’m fine,” she says, pulling away from me.

The elevator dings, the doors open, and the six of us cram into the elevator.

I realize we’re a sight—an eccentric bunch. Tatiana in her silk pajamas, Ilie in one of his hipster-pirate getups, Elisa in a long, flowing dress. Henry, Naomi, and I look relatively normal, though a little dirty. None of us are properly dressed for the weather—it’s below freezing out. If we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, we’re doing a pretty bad job.

Our rooms are at the end of the hall on the second floor. They’re all next to one another. Elisa and Tatiana take the first. Ilie stands outside the second, looking at Naomi, who looks at me.

“Whatever you want to do,” I say. The tension between us is supremely icky, and I hope she goes with Ilie so I can escape with Henry. So he can distract me from everything with his mouth.

“All right, Ilie,” Naomi says, slipping her arms around his waist and giving him a tight hug. “Let’s have ourselves a sleepover.”

“So fun,” Ilie says, smiling.

Henry and I take the last room. It’s nicer than I anticipated. The carpet is torn up in some spots and the wallpaper is peeling, but it’s clean. There are two queen beds, which presents an awkward predicament. Do we use the two beds? Or do we share one?

There’s a knock on the door, and my stomach flips before I hear Ilie’s voice.

“You have the cooler,” he says. “Naomi needs to drink.”

Henry opens the door and there they all are. Ilie, Naomi, Elisa, and Tatiana. They plop down on the beds, make themselves comfortable as Henry gets out the bag of blood. He takes the plastic cups from the bathroom, pierces the bag with his spile, and pours two even. They get passed around, with Naomi and I getting the cups last.

I consider abstaining, attempting to resist my thirst. But deprivation doesn’t seem to work. Any attempt I’ve ever made to punish myself has only led me straight to my next mistake.

Also, it’s not lost on me that this is it, the last of our supply. I don’t know when we’ll get more. How we’ll get more. Maybe this goes unnoticed by the others. It definitely goes unspoken.

I bring one of the cups to my lips, and I close my eyes and I drink. Let it in. A taste like no other. An immaculate medicine. It settles me.

“The day is young,” Ilie says. “Let us stay awake.”

Tatiana yawns. “I am exhausted.”

“Me, too,” Elisa says. She gets up on tiptoe, pirouettes, curtsies, then says, “Sleep sweet.”

Tatiana follows her out, pausing in the doorway to say, “Ilie, leave the lovers in peace.”

I feel my cheeks go red.

“You are all no fun. Naomi, let us go have fun. We can watch TV. We can run around hotel, pretend we are spies,” he says.

“Do you have drugs, by any chance?”

“Of course I have drugs,” he says, laughing.

She jumps on him, and he piggybacks her out into the hall. Henry closes the door behind them.

“She’ll be okay with Ilie,” he says. “He’s smarter than he seems.”

“If you say so.”