Page 54 of The Unraveling

“I’m Juliet!” she scoffs with faux frustration. “You ruined our video! Now I have to wait for you to fall back asleep again!”

Isla had really planned to stab herself, saying the realness of it would be perfect for the scene. It had taken her an hour to psych herself up, even though she knew she would heal moments afterward.

She loved being on camera, and I loved recording as much as I could. I used to dream of being a movie director. I wasn’t sure how being a vampire would impact that dream, but Isla promised she’d get me a nice camera once I was finished researching which one I wanted.

I still hadn’t decided, but we played with Dr. Todd’s old hand-cranked 35mm camera until he told us we were burning through his old stock of film too fast.

I used to sit in the garden and record daytime videos for Isla, but Dr. Todd was the one to watch them on repeat. The way the sunlight hit the lumpy, wet snowflakes that never stayed for long. The sunset creeping pink and purple across the horizon like a living oil painting.

“I have never been able to understand why the sun harms us,” he’d say. “If only I could find a cure for the intolerance.”

He requested I film him reaching behind the curtain once—much to Isla’s dismay—so he could have an objective video of his sizzling, burning flesh since his observation would be at the temporary consequence of his own eyes. I’m not sure if he ever found anything noteworthy, though. He never brought it up again.

Isla and I were going to film movies together. She even wrote it on the list in her journal. She had this ambitious idea of me pioneering films just for immortals. We’d write scripts for her to star in, and I’d film and edit. We’d pass them on to Victor’s fledglings, as the few I’d met loved the quick clips we made on my phone.

My heart always pounded in excitement over the idea, even when Victor warned that so much video evidence of vampires would probably have the king’s men kicking down our door, so we needed to keep it to ourselves.

The king’s men. I gasp at the time, evening nearly here.

With that thought, I turn my phone off and hide it beneath all the junk in my bedside drawer.

Chapter 20

Dr. Smith slips into my dark room after sunset, offering another glass of blood I barely have the energy to empty. It takes the nauseous edge off my exhaustion, at least.

He sits on the side of my bed with his hands wringing together beneath his unwavering stare toward the floor. The glow of my nightlight casts shadowy flowers against the side of his body. I study the twitching tulips projected upon his working jaw as I remain curled beneath my blanket. The comforting taste of blood coats my tongue while I stroke my finger over the red splotches on my blanket. My eyes ache with every blink, but it hurts just as much to try closing them.

We remain in cold silence while waiting for the king’s men, the wind whistling through the cracks of the old house. The sound gave me dreams about ghostly figures trapped in the walls when I first came here. Telling Isla resulted in her sitting on my floor during the night with her Ouija board like she could intercept the spirits before they bothered me. I thought it was the sweetest, silliest thing, but waking and seeing her calm face basked in moonlight while she focused intensely on the unmoving planchette made it easier to sleep.

The dreams didn’t last long, so I would periodically lie about having them, just so I could have her sit on my floor without having to explicitly ask.

A hefty knock on the front door has my heart flying into my throat and a frantic realization springing me upright in bed.

“You can’t let them take her!” I gasp, fresh tears spilling over my lashes. “Dr. Smith, please don’t let them take Isla and Dr. Todd.”

He heaves out a breath as he stands and straightens his wrinkled, bloodstained clothes. “I’ll talk to them, but⁠—”

“You can’t let them take them,” I plead. “You can’t. Promise me.”

“I promise I’ll do my best to convince them to let us keep their bodies,” he says before giving me a tight-lipped apologetic look and slipping out of the room.

When the door clicks shut behind him, I try to quiet my breaths in hopes I can hear downstairs.

It’s difficult to make out the overlapping voices—one woman in the group of men—so I focus on Dr. Smith’s tone in hopes it gives me insight. Aside from the weight of pain and grief in his voice, he sounds calm until firm words and my name coming up the stairs have my eyes widening.

Why do they need to talk to me right away? What did I do?

The room swims with the crooked hammering of my heart, and I’m too breathless to hide beneath my blanket when a gentle rap on the door proceeds its slow opening.

“I understand you want to talk to her, but I can tell you anything you need to know. She’s sick, and her caretakers just died . . .” Dr. Smith pleads as he backs into my room, facing someone in the hall.

I can’t place the accent—soft, romantic, like French or Italian—of the man who says, “As I stated, it’s better if we all talk together while my team handles things downstairs.”

The vampire comes into view as he enters after Dr. Smith. With his tall body clothed in a black silk dress shirt and black pants, he may as well be another shadow stretching across my room.

His short onyx hair shines in the nightlight’s glow, a few strands resting against his alabaster forehead. His irises are so dark I swear they’re nearly black. They’re just soft enough—light enough—to not blend with his pupils. I’ve met only a handful of Dr. Todd’s fledglings, but I’ve never seen a vampire with eyes like his. Even his hypnotist had pale blue eyes like a summer’s day. I inhale sharply when this man’s gaze lands on me.

But his smile is warm, the sympathy in his gaze genuine. “Can we come in to talk, Daisy?”