The Lair

boy.”

His lips twitch like maybe he’s amused, but I can’t hear it in his voice. “Nice try, Melanie. But I don’t buy it.”

He’s right, of course. The rhymes don’t come easily anymore. I have to work to find those words. That, too, has been stolen from me, along with my life and my death.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” I grumble.

“You don’t need to do that anymore,” he says, his voice as toneless as my ears. “That’s not who you are.”

I leap up from the table. I can’t listen to him anymore. I can’t hear him past the fury blaring in my ears. He stands, just watching me.

“That’s who you were,” he says calmly, “when you were human. That’s not who you are anymore.”

I whirl back toward him. My voice comes out drenched in my fury. “That is who I’ll always be!”

Instead of answering, he just stares at me. I hate the look in his eyes as much as I hate him.

Because I know he’s right. I can feel it in my bones. In my every cell. I’m not Mel anymore. Not that human girl. Not that autistic girl. Not that living, breathing, music-savant, indigo girl. I’m not her.

She died in that parking lot. I have her memories. I have part of her body, but I have very little else from her. My stomach. My taste buds. My ears. My mind. They are all different. Unique. Inhuman.

Even my anger is my own.

She was never this angry.

Pouty, difficult, temper-tantrum throwing. Yes. Resentful. Yes. Indignant, prickly, fearful. Yes.

But this burning anger? This all-consuming fury? These are all Melanie. They are not what I want. I want hope and music and my sister. Instead I have this.

Perhaps this anger is what makes me a vampire. Maybe this fuels my thirst. Makes me a killer.

I still can’t imagine killing another human to feed myself, but maybe the anger is what would push me over the edge. Maybe all vampires are this angry.

“Listen to yourself,” Sebastian says, his voice as seductive as the gleaming coils of a Slinky. “Your rhymes are so slow and labored now, I can practically hear you struggling to come up with them. But when you’re too angry to think before you speak that’s not what comes out at all.”

“I’m always angry.”

He stands and walks over to me. “Of course you are. No one likes being helpless. No one likes having a sacrifice like the one you made for your sister thrown back in her face.”

He runs a hand up and down my arm in a gesture that I guess is supposed to be soothing, but I can’t stop looking at his hand. It’s weird being touched. I used to hate being touched. By anyone. Now, I haven’t been touched since that first day. The sensation is pleasant. Not needle pricks, like how being touched used to feel.

Still, I don’t like him touching me. It’s disingenuous. He doesn’t want to touch me. Vampires, by nature, aren’t touchers. There’s no snuggling in vampirism. I wrench my arm out from under his hand and flick my hand to backslap him.

He grabs my wrist before my hand makes contact, a smile oozing across his face.

“Very good,” he murmurs.

I don’t know what surprises me more: the fact that I tried to slap him or that he anticipated it. That it pleased him.

I jerk my hand away and back up. I clasp my arm close to my body, shielding it from his touch with my other arm. “What do you want?”

“I want you to snap out of it. To be yourself. As you are, not this ridiculous shadow of yourself.”

Again the hatred boils inside of me. “There’s nothing ridiculous about who I was.”

“The ridiculous thing is that you’re still pretending to be her. She’s dead. Why are you fighting me so hard on this?”

“I’m not fighting you. I’m fighting this.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Why are you fighting what you’ve become?”

I just stare at him blankly, unable—or maybe unwilling—to force this into words.

“At the risk of overstating this, there are people who would give anything to have the kind of power you refuse to even acknowledge you have. You should be ecstatic to—”

“Why? Why should I be ecstatic? Because of what I was before? Because I was autistic? Turn the poor autistic girl, give her the ability to talk, and she’ll be over the moon.”

Sebastian rocks back. “Ah. I see.”

His knowing look annoys me and I want to stop talking, to stop giving him the satisfaction, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. The words are pouring out of me. “You think I should be grateful, just because I was autistic? That I should be thrilled with who I am now? But I’m not. Because I was fine before. That girl I was? She was just fine.”

“And if you accept who you are now, that would mean admitting she, that girl you were, wasn’t okay.”

“I was okay,” I say firmly

“I knew you then, when you were on the Farm. I saw how frustrated you were when people didn’t listen to you. When they ignored you. Were you really okay then?”

“I was fine,” I say again stubbornly.

“Yes, you were. You were smart and observant. You fought harder than most humans do. There’s nothing wrong with who you were. But that’s not who you’ve always been, is it?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer, which is okay, because I have nothing to say.

“Carter told me you used to be different. When he knew you in school, you functioned almost like a normal teenager. No nursery rhymes. No chanting. Is that right?”

“Yes,” I admit reluctantly. “I’d had years of therapy to get there. I had routines that helped. Rituals that helped me express myself.”

“So at some point, in the Before, you functioned. You’d worked hard, you’d made progress. For years. All so you could be more normal. For you to work that hard, that must have been something you wanted very badly.”

“It was.”

“So what’s different now? Why work so hard in the Before to be heard and understood, and throw it away now?”

“Because it’s not the same! The Mel I was when I was a child is the same Mel who functioned as a teenager. On the inside, I was the same—not less, just different.”

“And that’s what you think now? That you’re less than she was?” He tipped back his head and laughed. “I turn you into a vampire. Into the top predator in the world. You are practically a god. And you think you’re less?”

“I am less! I live in silence now. I have nothing. I contribute nothing. You say I’m an apex predator, but the only thing predators do is consume. In the Before, I created. Everything I did, everything I was, fed the world around me. Now that’s gone. I am different and less.”

“You are not less. You’re a vampire,” he says. “Act like one.”

“Fine.” I straighten my shoulders. “I’ll start to act like a pompous ass. That’s how the only vampire I know acts.”

His lips twitch, but I can’t tell if I’ve amused him or pissed him off. “Come on. We’re going out.”

“Out?” I look around the tiny kitchen. I don’t remember how long we’ve been here. Days, at least; maybe weeks. If it’s been six weeks since I was turned, then it’s been nearly that long that I’ve stayed in this house. Sitting here at the table, or laying on the sofa. “Why?” I ask.

“Because Domino’s doesn’t deliver pints of blood, and I’m tired of bringing you food while you pout. It’s time you learned to hunt. I’m not going to be around forever to act like your nursemaid.”

His words sting, but I know they are true. Vampires are very territorial. They cannot stand to be near one another and they always live alone. Newborn vampires like me are the exception, but only for a short time. Sebastian and I will have six, maybe seven months before I am fully vampire. After that, I will live alone. Forever.