No ... but you will.

In the moment, your normal arguments just don’t seem to work. “You’d be killing an innocent person.” Worse ways to go. “You’ll get caught.” You’re kidding, right? “You’ll never look at yourself the same way again.” Girl, you’re not going to look at yourself ever again, PERIOD. “Eva won’t ever look at you the same way again.” … but you’re so hungry. “And if you give in now, why won’t you later? You want this thing to be the boss of you?” No. No, I fucking don’t.

You pull your teeth away from Tanya’s neck as she gasps for air, probably a mix of the steady blood loss and physical exertion. Your fingers guide her down from her last climax as hers go a little limp, then brace against the wall to steady herself. Still buried in her neck, you look at the two, small puncture wounds, drizzling blood down the beautiful curve of her neck and over her shoulder blade. You keep expecting it to heal, but as you watch the blood flow, it becomes … far too distracting. You slowly slide your tongue up from the bottom of the thin trail running from her neck, then all the way to it, savoring the last taste of her you’ll have … for now. When you move your tongue away, your eyes pop just a little to see your bite marks now completely vanished.

“Damn, that was …” she breathes out, managing to stand up again. She shakes her head, a little out-of-sorts, but only about as much from the orgasms as your meal. “You’re … really good at that!”

“Not too shabby yourself!” you say happily, satisfied in having won out over the blind hunger now sulking quietly in the back of your mind. You kiss her hard, but slow, and she responds eagerly, both of you letting the aches and flares of pleasure subside.

You feel a little weird wearing the same clothes back to your dorm after a shower, but you note quickly looking over them that they actually aren’t sweaty at all. Maybe you don’t sweat now? Questions for later.

When you take off a band on your wrist, you see the horrific cut you made this morning with your fangs. It’s stubbornly precisely the same, clearly uninterested in fixing itself in any way, shape, or form. Thinking back to Eva and Tanya’s necks, you slowly bring it up to your mouth. ‘Gonna’ feel real stupid if this doesn’t work,’ you muse before experimentally pulling your tongue along about a third of it. Moving your arm back, you appraise the now-one-third-closed wound. You move your tongue along the rest, the gash disappearing entirely by the time you take another peek. ‘Useful!’ you think a little more happily, just glad to at least kind of understand something here.

“How’s my favorite slutty vampire?!” Eva yells immediately when you open the door. She leans back in the chair at her desk, beaming at you. You laugh as you close the door behind you.

“If we’re worrying about Van Helsings, can you NOT yell to our entire hall that I’m a Dracula?” you say with a heavy sigh as you throw your towel into the dirty clothes (THAT didn’t make it out of your gym trip unscathed …), then strip off your clothes as well. By the time you’ve put a pair of fuzzy, light blue pajama pants on and a similarly-colored tank top, Eva is well back into whatever she’s doing on her laptop. “… what the fuck kind of a website is this?”

“It is the closest I’ve come to finding something reliable about vampires on the internet.” She flourishes at the screen, namely the title. “It’s called ‘Everybody Poops Once, Then Never Again: Beginner’s Guide to Vampirism.’ A little tongue and cheek, but I’m betting that’s to throw people off their trail of it being, y’know, real.”

“That’s a … catchy name …” you comment with a small grimace. “So, assuming you’re right and this stuff is gospel, how’re we doing so far?”

“WELL!” She leans to the side so you can look over her shoulder more easily. “No reflection isn’t universal, but it’s common in some types of vampires. And just randomly some other vampires, too. Seems there are different kinds? It’s very vague on that, though. The not bleeding, the getting carried away drinking, the super-strength, those are all pretty common. Varying degrees, but common. Oh, did you lick my neck this morning after you bit me?”

“Yeah, and Tanya’s, too, when I finished. Healing spit or what?”

“No such luck. But apparently, you can close wounds you make with your fangs that way. Not other vampires’ bites, though, so it’s pretty much just for keeping quiet? Oh, and the bite thing being … just … just great, that’s also normal. Though personally, I think you probably did an especially good job.” You grin at her, and she shrugs. “Tanya okay, though? No trouble or need for backup?”

“Talked myself out of some bad decisions, she’s cool. Last I saw, she had her motor skills all the way back and was headed home.” Your eyes scan the page, but it’s too much to make sense of just by doing that and a LOT of it contradicts other parts. “Jesus, is it all so … dense?”

“Pretty much. If you want to take a crack at it, you’re closer to the situation than me.”

“Not by a lot,” you offer gently as you wrap your arms around her shoulders. She rests her head in your arms and wraps one of hers around yours. “Wouldn’t have gone for Tanya on my own. I need to start thinking about this … thing. If I don’t stay stable, I could really hurt someone.”

“It’s just you,” she tries to comfort.

“It’s not. There’s a part of me … it’s something that got put in. And it sounds like me, talks like me … well, if I believed what it did, it just … doesn’t feel right. Alien. Savage.” You shudder involuntarily. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

“If you can get what you need without hurting people, there’s nothing to worry about.” She looks back up at you without breaking contact. “You’re a good person, Jaq. You’re better than any one part of you, I know it. Don’t be dumb.”

“Well, when you put it like that!” You give a weak laugh and kiss the top of her head. You hear yourself sniffle, realizing you’re crying just a bit, and move to wipe away the tears. The pale red on your hand isn’t so much surprising as it is unpleasant. “Oh, cool, I’ll love explaining this during finals week.”

“I’ll look up some appropriately harmless conditions that can cause it just in case.” Eva holds up the remote to your TV, then flicks it on. “Now, I bought a bunch of stupid vampire movies on Amazon. You want to see if we can find anything/if you can calm down for a bit?” You nod, standing back up.

“We need to look into the woman, though. I want to know why she did this to me.”

“Oh. So, you haven’t checked your phone, huh?” You cock your head at her. “Kappa rush party, part dos: tomorrow night. We’re still pledging for the moment, so attendance is both mandatory and a convenient excuse to snoop.”

“Great. The last one was fantastic,” you snark bitterly, laying down in your bed as Eva scrolls through what looks like primarily deeply stupid vampire horror movies. Still, you don’t have a better idea. “Do you think Atlee might have something to do with it? You’ve been talking a big game about her lately.”

“I’ve just heard that people who cross her tend to end up in a bad shape. Mostly drop-outs, some booted, some just not being heard from much anymore and becoming sort of hermit-ish … it’s probably just gossip, but if it’s not …”

“You think she might have done this to me because I convinced some of the sisters prostitution should be legalized?”

“All I’m saying is that if she could, I believe she would. There’s something I don’t like about the way she looks at people. Especially you.” Eva hops back to her bed after hitting playing, then moves her pillows to the foot so she’s closer to you when she lays down sideways. “We need to be careful. But maybe we’ll get some answers?” You nod absentmindedly. Atlee’s kind of Stepford, no doubt, but this seems like a bit much. And it doesn’t even make sense as a ****. There just have to be easier ways to knock you down a peg if that’s what she was trying for. You shake it off and just focus on spending time with your best friend. The two of you make a mix of jokes and legitimate observations as you absorb the fairly crap cinema throughout the night until you feel the dawn before it even comes, drifting off to sleep just after Eva finally taps out, head still leaned on pillows at the wrong end of her bed next to you.