Page 103 of So Thirsty

“Such a dear,” Alice says. “You want to stay here with me, sweetheart? I’ll teach ya how to be. How to really be. This crowd doesn’t get it like me. It’s good huntin’ around here. We could eat good together.”

“No,” Henry says vitriolically.

“No?” Ms. Alice says. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you, was I?”

“We won’t be separated,” he says. “Naomi is with us. We’ll give you two bags. That’s all we can spare.”

Ms. Alice’s eyes burn red again. This time they stay that way. “That wasn’t one of the choices. No deal.”

Tatiana tucks her flask into her pocket and struts right up to Ms. Alice. “That’s our best offer. I suggest you take it.”

“Or what?” Ms. Alice gives a brief, bitter laugh. “No one’s got any morals these days. No sense of gratitude or respect. But I’m stickin’ to my guns. I get what I want, or you don’t get your vehicle.”

It happens so fast. Tatiana lunges for the keys, and Alice backhands her. I barely process the shock of the slap before Tatiana grabs Ms. Alice by the throat.

Alice scratches at Tatiana’s face, so Henry takes her wrists, holds them behind her. I have to remind myself that they’re not violently assaulting a helpless old woman. It’s not what it looks like. But Naomi doesn’t understand this. She didn’t see what I saw, doesn’t know about Ms. Alice’s appetites.

“Hey!” she says.

Ms. Alice’s red eyes shoot over to Naomi. There’s an opportunity for manipulation, and she doesn’t hesitate. “Please. They’re hurting me.”

“Let go of her!” Naomi shouts, pulling at Henry’s arm. “I’ll stay! I’ll stay. I’ll…”

Distracted by Naomi’s declaration, Henry must loosen his grip, because Ms. Alice’s hands break free. They’re quick, flittering up to Tatiana’s face. To her eyes.

Ms. Alice’s thumbnails are atrociously overgrown, impossibly pointed. Tatiana screams, and then Ms. Alice is free and Tatiana is on the ground, silk pajamas soaking through with snow as she holds her face in her hands. She moans to herself, speaking in French.

“My girl,” Ms. Alice says to Naomi, smiling sweetly again, arms open wide in anticipation of an embrace.

Naomi stumbles backward.

“Come on, now, darlin’. Oh, I think you’ll do quite nicely. Anyone happens upon you in these woods, they’ll be happy to follow you anywhere, I reckon.” With her smiling like that, I can see there’s skin between her teeth.

I wonder if Naomi sees it, too.

“She’s not staying,” I say. “We’ll give you the blood. You can take the blood.”

Tatiana spits at the ground. Her eyes are intact but a goopy pink, her face streamed with black mascara. She looks to Henry and says something to him in a foreign language.

“Here!” Ilie says. He and Elisa have the cooler. They open it, toss a bag of blood at Alice’s feet, then another. But she doesn’t seem interested anymore. She’s focused on Naomi.

“I’ll stay,” Naomi says. “It’s fine. I’ll stay.”

“What are you doing?” I ask her. “Stop. I’m not leaving you here. Not with her.”

“What does it matter?” she says, uncharacteristically resigned.

“You heard her. She’s stayin’,” Ms. Alice says. Her body shakes, and suddenly she has Naomi by the hair, pulling her toward the woods. “No changing your mind on me, darlin’.”

The first time Naomi was arrested, it was for assault. She came to my dorm to comfort me after Smith circulated the naked pictures I’d sent him. She told me she was going to step out to smoke, but she went and found Smith and punched him in the face and smashed his phone. This all happened outside, on the street, so instead of the campus security it was NYPD who showed up, and they didn’t exactly care that Naomi was a nineteen-year-old girl. I finally emerged from my dorm when a classmate alerted me to the situation. The whole incident only brought me more notoriety at school, and sometimes I wonder if that’s what really set me off self-medicating. Because it’s always been easier to blame Naomi. Because whenever she tries to save me, she makes things worse.

But she does try to save me. It can be a burden to be loved the way she loves me. I’ll never be sure if I deserve it. I can only love her back the best I can.

Ms. Alice yanks her hard by the hair, and Naomi winces, and then I’m there, and I’ve got Ms. Alice’s arm in my mouth, and I bite down with all the force I have, and she screams this awful scream and falls back away from me.

Her blood is in my mouth, and it tastes like nothing, but that only makes me angry. Resentful. Rabid. Makes me want to chew her up and spit her out.

“Y’all belong on leashes,” Ms. Alice says, cradling her arm, pressing on the wound to stanch the bleeding.