Page 110 of So Thirsty

“Now?”

“Yeah. Real quick. Spill it,” she says. The way she’s looking at me, her stupidly beautiful face bright as a firework, her giddiness contagious, I’m defenseless. So I tell her. And she gasps and giggles and we’re teenagers again and everything is perfect and normal until I remember it isn’t.

32

W hen Naomi opens the door, the room falls silent. Ilie sits on the floor, Tatiana and Elisa are on the beds, and Henry hovers over them. They stare at us.

“Hello, loves,” Ilie says after a beat.

“Hey,” Naomi says. “Are we interrupting?”

“They shouldn’t come,” Tatiana says. “They will mess it up somehow.”

“Thanks!” Naomi says, maybe offended. I’m not. Tatiana’s probably right.

“You think we should separate?” Elisa asks.

“We’re not separating,” Henry says. “They’ll come. They’ll be lookouts.”

“Yes, lookouts,” Ilie says. “Good idea.”

“It’s getting late,” Henry says. “Gather your things.”

He strides past us out the door without acknowledging me. I follow him across the hall into our room.

“Henry,” I say as the door slams behind us.

He grabs my suitcase and the empty cooler. “Do you have everything?”

“I think so. But, hey. Wait. Slow down,” I say. He won’t look at me. There’s a shift in his posture, in how he carries himself. He’s tense. “I didn’t mean to…I don’t know—pressure you into a blood heist tonight.”

“This is what we do.” He attempts to pass me, but the space between me and the wall is too narrow.

“Wait. Henry.” I reach out and turn his face to mine.

Our eyes meet, and he sighs. “Let me keep my promise. Let me do something good for you. Please.”

My mouth falls open, but no sound emerges, no words. He has once again rendered me speechless. “I…”

“We need to leave now so we arrive just as it closes. The timing is important.”

I don’t have an argument, since this whole thing is motivated by me. By my angst over how we acquire blood. By my blabbing to Ms. Alice about our supply. So I step aside and let him pass. I trail him out into the hall, where Tatiana and Elisa whisper to each other. Ilie opens the door for Naomi, who dances out of their room wearing Tatiana’s cat-eye sunglasses, which I assume she stole.

“How do I look?” she asks me.

“Like a reclusive movie star who’s murdered every husband she’s ever had.”

“That’s exactly what I was going for.”

We all head to the elevator and ride it down. Tatiana snatches her sunglasses back from Naomi, who pouts. We step out into the lobby, and thankfully no one’s there. Because there’s a phantom ache in my throat. I’m thirsty. I wonder if Naomi is, too.

We go through the doors, emerge from under the awning, and bristle at the light. The sun faints into the horizon and orange hues seep through the trees, branches reaching up toward a purple darkness. I beg the night to come faster. We need it. Need its cover.

Naomi lights a cigarette, takes two drags, then tosses it into some dirty parking-lot snow.

“This isn’t exactly an inconspicuous getaway car,” I mumble to Naomi as we climb into the camper.

Ilie’s in the back with Tatiana. He’s completely naked and she’s lying across the seats with her arms crossed—bored or displeased or both.