It was our secret. Vampires with bloodlust were either taken away to be imprisoned or put to death. Our council simply eliminated the problem instead of researching the disease. But I wouldn’t let that happen to her.
So ever since I was a kid, I helped to hide her condition from the world. We kept to ourselves. We made sure to have hundreds of blood bags in the house for when a frenzy hit. It was the cheap stuff, since we couldn’t afford anything else. She’d stay locked in our shared bedroom with chains and bars, while I prayed to the gods that my aunt’s mind would return and the frenzy would subside.
My greatest fear was that this would be it—this would be the time when she wouldn’t come out of it. But she did. She always fought it. For me.
The dynamic in our relationship switched drastically because I had to take on a lot of the responsibilities, but there was loving give and take. She was my biggest supporter, and I was her advocate. It didn’t matter to me that I had to catch wild animals and toss them at my aunt when the frenzy was particularly bad. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t leave the house sometimes because of her fear of an episode coming on. All that mattered was that she was my family, and I took care of my family.
We’d had plenty of close calls over the years, but we were careful. We had to be. And though it was hard and scary at times, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, because that woman was my rock.
Aunt Marie took me in when I was just two days old. I was the bastard of an apathetic woman and a proud man who didn’t want me tainting his family line or revealing his transgressions outside of his public marriage.
Aunt Marie didn’t have much, just a one bedroom apartment in the vampire community. But she had love, and a lot of it. She gave up most of her life to raise me and battled the bloodlust to stay sane during my childhood. It wasn’t always easy, but it was worth it, and I couldn’t imagine sharing this moment with anyone else.
“I couldn’t open it without you, Aunt Marie. Hell, I wouldn’t even be here without you,” I told her with a smile.
She came forward and held her arms out to me, blood-red tears filling her eyes as she enveloped me in a big hug. When she pulled away, I laughed at the dress she was wearing—I hadn’t noticed it before.
She was in a knee-length black cotton dress with clowns printed all over it. Leave it to Aunt Marie to not bother with traditional garb on a prestigious day. I loved how, despite it all, she clung to her quirky personality. One of her hobbies included going to local thrift shops, finding the most ridiculous fabrics she could, and then turning them into something she loved.
“I like the dress,” I said with a wink while noting that one of the clowns was sucking a phallic looking banana.
“You know I hate stuffy clothes. Everyone here is dressed for a funeral,” she said in a disgusted tone while looking around the room. She wasn’t wrong. It was like looking out into a sea of mourning wear.
Aunt Marie was fun despite her grim diagnosis. Even though most of my life was spent worrying about when the bloodlust would become too much—when she would finally snap—she never made it feel like a hardship. She just made the most of everything we had.
“You should have worn your cantaloupe boob dress. That would’ve really livened things up,” I teased.
Aunt Marie laughed, but her joy suddenly cut off. She sniffed the air and squeezed her eyes shut, every muscle in her body going stiff. She was hungry. I’d gotten to the point where I could predict when another episode would come. Bloodlust was like a boomerang, every time we thought we had gotten through the worst of it, her illness would circle back to haunt us.
I noted her shaky hands and the dull, glassy look in her eyes. She looked happy, but there was an underlying desperation creeping to the surface.
“Let’s open this, yeah?” I asked, feigning nonchalance while squeezing her hand.
We didn’t have much time, and she needed to go home soon. Her episodes were sporadic, but they could be triggered when she was around too many people. Aunt Marie had a thin thread of control when it came to fending off the bloodlust, and I couldn’t let it snap today. Not here, where there were hundreds of vampires around, including political leaders of our community. If they saw her fall into a mindless frenzy, they’d take her away quicker than I could blink, and there would be nothing I could do to stop them.
“Yes! I’m on pins and needles,” she said, her smile shaky.
Distraction. She needed a distraction.
I tore off the ribbon tying the rolled parchment together and unfurled it, revealing my diploma.
Just my diploma.
No invitation to work at the council. No slip of paper stating I was offered an internship. No acceptance letter to attend a university abroad. Just...nothing.
“What the fuck?” I whispered under my breath before looking up at my aunt.
She was waiting with bated breath, a proud grin on her face. Luckily, she seemed clueless that something was wrong.
Aunt Marie never got the opportunity to attend Thibault. She dreamed of attending and one day working for the council. She loved everything about this school, but she hadn’t been strong enough or rich enough to get in. In many ways, she lived vicariously through me, and I didn’t want to let her down.
I opened and closed my mouth, at a loss. I wasn’t sure what to
