Vampirism | ✓

11 | Vampire Newborns

"What are you going to do?" Vincent's voice was low—gentle. When I had poured my heart out to him and explained the situation with Haruto. He had just stood in silence with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jean trousers. His face had been expressionless then, and it still was now.

I let out a sigh, leaning against the wall. "I don't know," I admitted, staring up at the sky. It was about seven in the evening, and I had met up with Vincent since Haruto had work to do. We are in the alleyway between two closed thrift shops. The streets were scarce of people, and vehicles rarely took this path, so Vincent and I were free to talk as loudly as we wanted. I had taken advantage of that and did everything from cry to yell in my passionate admission of how I felt about Haruto.

"You don't know?" Vincent askes me, making me look over at him. His lip was drawn into a thin line and has a worried look on his face. "What are you two doing now, are you dating?" he asked me, making me look away from him.

"I don't know," I said, staring down at my sneakers. This conversation was exposing the fact that I didn't know a lot of things. "I had tried to keep my distance when I resigned from the food bank, but then—" I paused, feeling my eyes sting with tears when I remembered the vampire that had tried to lure Haruto away and make him his meal.

"But then at the bar, I wasn't sure how I could leave him alone," I explained, biting my nails as I stared at the red brick wall ahead. "He asked me to keep seeing him, and I rationalized doing so by insisting that I needed to protect him from the others..." I trailed.

You need to protect him from the other monsters. You need to protect him from people like you. A voice hissed in my head, and I winced, feeling my chest ache and my breathing hike up.

"Wern."

My eyes went wide when I got jogged out of my thoughts.

I looked up at Vincent again, and I noticed the worried look he was giving me. He opened his mouth but closed it again before bringing a hand up to his chin.

"Were you going to say something?" I asked, watching him shrug.

"I was going to say that you could maybe turn him into—"

"No," I said in a firm voice, not waiting to hear the rest of his sentence. "I'm never turning him into this..." I trailed, looking down at my hands that were dotted in liver spots. Vampires aged slowly in some respects, but there were signs that we were older. Our liver spots, our worn-out dentition, and for a few of us, the thinning of the skin that made them look a lot fairer than the average population.

I heard Vincent sigh. "Then what are you going to do? At this rate, you might be the one to eat him, not some stranger."

I opened my mouth, wanting to say something to dispute that, but he was right. One day, I might lose control and eat him. It could be in the next couple of days or it could be in the next couple of years. It was going to happen eventually.

A gasp left my lips as I remembered the night that I had spent with Haruto. I could have easily woken up with him nowhere in sight, and just black slime that was remnants of him that I hadn't eaten on the bed.

Every time I interacted with him—every time I touched and held him—I was putting him in danger.

"Wern," Vincent called out to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Some vampires have turned partners and they're pretty happy..." Vincent trailed, reminding me of a handful of vampires we knew that had changed their human lovers to blood-sucking corpses. I swallowed the air in my mouth at the thought of Haruto having to drink blood to survive. There was no way I was going to get him to agree to any of that willingly.

That was another thing.

Most vampires did not turn their lovers to bloodsuckers with their permission. They bit them and explained later, and it wasn't like you had a choice as their significant other if you're starving and confused. It was clear cut manipulation, and nothing could change that. Not even the flowery language they used to describe it. 'Breaking in a Newborn.'

That's what they called it.

Maybe there was a desperation to the thought process, but the idea of biting Haruto and forcing him to choose me made me feel sick to my stomach. If I was going to change him to be an imitation of one of us, I wanted to have his permission. Would I even get the time to explain what I was and what I wanted from him before he ran away from me and never contacted me again? Probably not.

He's never going to say yes. A voice said in my head, and a part of me crumbled with that realization. I hugged myself, shuddering at the knowledge that I would never have what I wanted.

"I want Haruto to know first," I said, looking up at Vincent. "If I ever consider biting him. I want him to know first."

Vincent looked unconvinced. "What if he pulls a stake on you?"

I winced at Vincent's words. That was the only way vampires could die. A stake to the heart. That was how my mother had died. "Then I'll take it and continue my punishment in hell," I said. "Hellfire's probably a lot less complicated than this." I gestured to the world with my hands, and Vincent laughed, knowing what I meant. Our lives were just a constant rehearsal of hunger, pain, and existential dread.

Vincent kicked a stone close to his shoe. "So, you're still going to see him?" He asked me, and I nodded.

"Yes," I said, and Vincent scoffed. "I'm not going to kill him," I deadpanned, and he shrugged, raising his hands up in mock surrender.

"If you say so," he said before resting his head back on the concrete wall. We stood side by side in silence for a while, and then Vincent got up and dusted the back of his jeans.

"I'm going to find something to eat," he said, giving me a mock salute before leaving me by myself in the alleyway. I watched his lean figure disappear into the streets. I looked down at my hand, playing eeny-meeny-miny-moe with my fingers as I contemplated how to proceed with Haruto.