Page 102 of So Thirsty

“It scares me,” I say, my voice small and quaky. “The thirst scares me.”

“Let me show you,” he says, kneeling in front of me.

“Show me what?”

“How we live without killing. Without hurting anyone. How we get our blood,” he says. “We’ll find a blood bank nearby, a hospital. We’ve done it countless times before. Not a drop of blood given unwillingly. I promise. Let me do this for you.”

“Why?” I ask, my exhaustion giving way to my cynicism. “Why are you trying to be good to me? Is it guilt? Don’t you get it? Your words, your promises—they don’t mean anything. I don’t know how to believe you, how to trust you. I don’t even know how to trust myself.”

He shakes his head, pushes his hair out of his face. “You ask me why. Do you not see it? Do you not feel it? Am I imagining this? What’s between us? If I am, tell me.”

I sigh. “No. I…”

“How can I earn your trust?” He puts his hands on my knees and pulls them apart, and he leans into the space, into me, and he kisses me. “This way? Will you trust my mouth? Will you allow me to prove myself? Prove that I mean what I say. May I?”

It feels unnatural to release the millstone of cynicism and grant myself permission to be in this moment, not to think of circumstance, of consequence, of fear or shame, the potential of future shame. Unnatural, awkward, wrong. So wrong.

But then, all of a sudden, it isn’t anymore. Or it is but I just don’t care.

“Go on, then,” I say, my throat still dry and the words raspy and hushed. “Prove it.”

His hands slide under my shirt, his skin on my skin. He unbuttons my jeans, kisses down my side, and then sinks between my legs. Right out in the open, at the bottom of the fire escape, in the shadow of the coaling tower.

My back arches as the rapture jolts my body, my being, and I look up at the dark velvet sky, manage to clear my mind of everything except this: How do we know the difference between a curse and a cure?

—

By the time we get back to the camper, it’s no longer spewing fumes into the atmosphere. Ms. Alice appears to have fixed it. She chats up Naomi, who looks perfectly content to be in conversation with her. Charmed, even. Blissfully ignorant of what I know about Alice. Ilie sits with Elisa on the steps to one of the abandoned stores, and Tatiana is a few feet away, drinking what I assume is blood out of a flask.

“Look who it is. And here I thought you two had gotten lost,” Ms. Alice says, turning to me and Henry. “Y’all owe me some thanks. You’ll be able to drive on outta here. Though I don’t know how far you’ll get. The sun won’t wait for you, you know.”

“Thank you, Ms. Alice,” Elisa says, standing and walking toward the camper.

“Yes. Thank you very, very much,” Ilie says, following Elisa.

“Aw,” Alice says, shuffling over and pulling one of Elisa’s curls straight.

“So,” Naomi says to me, “where’d you disappear to?”

I just shake my head.

“We’re leaving,” Henry says, going to open the van’s driver’s-side door. It’s locked.

“Hold on, now. Not so fast,” Ms. Alice says, dangling the keys to the camper over her head, unleashing something rank and insidious that permeates the air. “ ’Cause I ain’t do it for nothin’. Last time it was a favor, and I was happy to do it. But you said you’d come back to see me sometime, share a meal. You lied. So this time—this time I want something in return. And I want it now.”

“What?” Henry says, with a grimness that startles me.

“Well, since I’m such a sweet old lady, I’ll give you a choice. You can either give me all the blood you got on ya, and I know ya got some because your little birdie told me,” she says, pointing to me, making me instantly queasy, “or…I’ll take this one.”

She sidles up to Naomi, who goes rigid. Alice reaches out and lifts her chin. Gently at first. But then she clamps on, grabbing Naomi’s jaw. “I like the look of ya. I reckon you look like I did once upon a time, years and years and years and years ago.”

“You can let go of her now,” I say, my voice doing that weird thing it did with the gas-station clerk. I sound different. Frightening.

Ms. Alice doesn’t budge. She lets her eyes shift to the side, to me. She smiles a syrupy smile, but her eyes flare red. “Oh dear, is that how you speak to your elders? Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

Alice releases her grip on Naomi’s jaw, begins to stroke her hair. I hadn’t noticed until now how long her fingernails are. How sharp. “Was I too rough with ya, sweetheart? I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. I ain’t used to people. I’m so lonely up here. So lonely, and with so much time to be lonely.”

“It’s all right, Ms. Alice,” Naomi says, instantly forgiving her, granting her the benefit of the doubt. To Naomi, Ms. Alice is a wounded bird. A creature deserving of empathy.