Page 51 of So Thirsty

“Hold up. He was a vampire, too?” Naomi asks.

“Yes. But also no,” Ilie says. “Not like us.”

“A feeder,” Henry says.

“Right,” I say. I don’t think I want to know any more. “Naomi, please. Let’s just go.”

“Go where? We need blood, don’t we?” She looks to Henry. “Don’t we?”

“You need to manage your thirst. It will get easier over time, but in the next two, three days, it will be a challenge. Some struggle to resist their bloodlust. Others suffer denying it.”

“We can deny it, though?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “You can. But deny yourself for too long, and you will essentially die of thirst.”

“I thought you said we didn’t need to worry about death.”

“Theoretically, no. Not of natural causes. But there are fates worse than death,” he says. “If you don’t satisfy your thirst you will wither away, quite like the man you saw last night. Not alive, but not dead. In a state of eternal torment, with enough awareness to be present in your pain but without the strength to end it.”

I reach across the table, pick up my mug, and throw it at the wall. Blood-laced coffee and slices of porcelain splatter everywhere.

“Great. Looking forward to it,” I say, turning on my heel and walking out of the kitchen into the main hall. My little outburst wasn’t as cathartic as I’d hoped, maybe because now there’s a scent in the air, faint but bright and inviting, a scent I don’t know how I can identify as that of blood, but I can, and I do, and it has me salivating. It exacerbates this peculiar tickle in my throat.

I get my coat off the rack. My shoes are by the door, next to Naomi’s. I slip them on.

“Sloane?” Naomi calls from the kitchen. “Where are you going?”

I wish I knew.

17

I stand in the hallway in my shoes and coat with no phone, no ride. No clue. Naomi trots in from the kitchen.

I put my hand up. “Don’t say anything.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” she says.

“This—whatever is happening to us right now, whatever was done to us last night—is serious. This is bad. And you don’t seem to understand that. Or care.”

“I do care. I feel some responsibility to handle it, since I’m the one who brought us here.”

“How are you handling it? I’m not shacking up with these people, Nay. This is because of them.” I stop short of saying what I really mean, which is because of you.

“You heard them. We need to get our thirst under control. I don’t want to stay here forever either. Just until we can manage on our own. I’m trying to make the smart decision here. Be cautious.”

Where was all this caution last night? I wonder.

“No,” I say.

“No?”

“No. I’m done. How do we know if anything they say is true? We don’t.”

“Do you not feel it? Do you not feel…different?”

I won’t answer her question. I won’t confirm it out loud. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not waiting around for another surprise zombie or for them to serve us lunch with blood as a condiment. Because whenever I think my luck can’t get any worse, it does! It always does.”

“But what if…” She shakes her head.