Page 73 of Only Fangs

“How did she…” he’s respectful enough to trail off towards the end of the question, even though of course I know exactly what he’s asking.

“Just old age,” I reply. It was hideous. Watching her getting older and older and more and more fragile. It was like she turned into glass. “Anyway.” I need to change the subject. “Let’s go over the pitch one more time. There’s too much at stake this afternoon.”

“Stake,” he says and giggles to himself.

I join the giggle. It breaks the ice, moves us away from the seriousness of the previous conversation and I’m grateful to him for doing so.

We are the second to last to pitch and my nerves are in shreds. Some of the other presentations are so slick, so polished, it’s impossible not to compare us to them.

“Why are they all so good,” Brody hisses in my ear from the wings as we wait to go on.

“I don’t know.” Honestly, is there some kind of vampire pitching school everyone else knows about?

“Fuck.”

“Yep,” I agree with him.

But then he shakes himself, almost exactly like a dog would and his face breaks into a smile. “We’ve got this, you know,” he tells me in this impossibly chipper tone that makes me instantly suspicious.

“Have we?”

“Yes.” He nods a few times as he bounces on the balls of his feet. “Only Fangs is genius. We’ve done all the prep. Andrei gave us the personal go ahead to come and present. The odds are stacked in our favour.”

For a moment I’m also convinced by his show of bravado. But we both know that deep down he’s lying to himself and to me. We don’t have this. But we have got a good idea and we’ve done a lot of preparation and we deserve a chance.

“OK then,” I say and mimic his foot bounce.

“Put your arms out like this,” he tells me, making a stance that look like he’s about to launch into the chorus of “YMCA”.

“You look like a prat,” I tell him.

“Prat?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“The classics are still good,” I tell him. “Although my personal favourite is plonker.”

He laughs. “Plonker is a good one. But anyway. Do it. Put your arms out.”

I do as I’m told. “Why?”

“It makes you feel invincible.”

“Why?”

For a second his face drops. “I don’t actually know. I just read it somewhere.”

“It sounds dumb.”

“You shouldn't knock it until you’ve tried it,” he says with a grin. “Sometimes you just need to try something new.”

I’ve never been great at trying new things. Mum was always telling me not to be dismissive, that you can never know if you actually hate something until you try it. But I’ve always been quick to judge. I hate sprouts. I hate jazz music. I hate swimming – although that one is actually true, vampires on the whole are terrible swimmers and I’m no exception. I hate human guys. How many times have I told Clara that I’d never date a human. Told myself that the idea of drinking for pleasure just doesn’t do it for me.

But then Andrei announces the next pitch and we’re on, Brody’s hand on the base of my spine to gently push me forwards. I send a message to my face to smile and I hope it listens, that my expression isn’t twisted into the hideous rictus grin I fear I’m sporting.

I spot Clara in the audience and am filled with a sense of relief. She gives me a thumbs up and I relax further. I didn’t know she’d be here, but at least now I can basically deliver my pitch to her and try to forget the rest of the audience.

The presentation is a bit of a blur. All that remains in my memory is a montage of moments: flashes of Brody smiling and talking, the front row of the audience leaning forward slightly in their seats, smiling as they listened to him; a question about the financial projections to which I delivered a perfect answer; a little “oooh” rippling through the crowd as we showed the mock ups of the profiles. As I finished speaking, Clara began to clap, leading the audience in a round of applause and cutting off the chance for anyone to swoop in with another question that might derail the whole thing.

Brody and I head back to our rooms on a high. “That was amazing,” I tell him.