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“What is it?” Hannah asked, her heart pounding hard in her chest. She took her hand away from the window but kept her eyes on the view outside. There was nothing there anymore, but she could sense its presence. It was near.
“A vampire too. Like me, but different. It’s... insane,” he said. “It feeds on its own kind.”
“A vampire that hunts vampires?”
The boy nodded. “I know it sounds ridiculous...”
“Did it... do that to you?” she said, crossing to him and brushing her fingers against the scabs on his neck. They felt rough to touch. She felt sorry for him.
“Yes.”
“But you’re all right?”
“I think so.” He hung his head. “I hope so.”
“How were you able to come inside? No one invited you,” she asked.
“You’re right. But I didn’t need an invitation. The door was open. But so many doors were open on all the houses, and I couldn’t enter any of them but this one. Which made me think that I’d found it. My family’s house.”
Hannah nodded. That made sense. Of course he would be welcome in his own home.
The rattling stopped. The boy sighed. “It’s gone for now. But it will be back.”
He looked so relieved that her heart went out to him.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked. She wasn’t scared anymore. Her mother always said Hannah had a head for emergencies. She was a stoic, dependable girl. More likely to plant a stake in the heart of a monster than scream for rescue from the railroad tracks. “How can I help?”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her with respect. “I need to get away. I can’t stay here forever. I need to go. I need to warn the others. Tell them what happened to me. That the danger is growing.” He sagged against the wall. “What I ask you to do might hurt a bit, and I don’t want to ask unless it’s freely given.”
“Blood, isn’t it? You need blood. You’re weak,” Hannah said. “You need my blood.”
“Yes.” The shadows cast his face in sharp angles, and Hannah could see the deep hollows in his cheeks. His sallow complexion. So perhaps some of the vampire legends were true.
“But won’t I turn into...?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. No one can make a vampire. We were born like this. Cursed. You will be fine—tired and a little sleepy, maybe, but fine.”
Hannah gulped. “Is it the only way?” She didn’t much like how that sounded. He would have to bite her. Suck her blood. She felt nauseous just thinking about it, but strangely excited as well.
The boy nodded slowly. “I understand if you don’t want to. It’s not something that most people would like to do.”
“Can I think about it?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
Then he disappeared.
The next night, when he returned, he looked even sicker than he had before, as if he were fading—deteriorating right before her eyes. His cheekbones were so sharp and his skin stretched so tight, Hannah thought she could see the outline of his skull. He looks half dead, she thought, and wondered if someone who was undead could look half dead.
“You’re not half wrong.” He smiled.
“You read minds as well.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I can when I want to—but I didn’t even have to—I can tell from the way you’re looking at me. I look that bad, huh?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m so stupid,” the boy said, putting clenched fists up to his eyes as if he were trying to block out a horrible memory. “I should have known from the beginning—I’m so very stupid....” He removed his fists from his face and looked down at his dirty fingernails.
