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1. POOR BUT NECESSARY CHOICES
When someone sends you a postcard from Midnight City, it’s all shimmering skylines or romantic cherry blossoms by the Styx. Fulfil your wildest dreams in the Nocturnal City, the City of Wonder, where the world of the natural and the world of the supernatural collide.
What people won’t tell you about Midnight City is that, just like any other big city, it’s cruel. It’s dirty, full of rats, and poor. This is not a judgment – I still love Midnight City, even after everything it’s done to me. Even here, sitting on a piss-stained mattress somewhere in the concrete hell of Tartarus, the smog-tinged view of skyscrapers that I can make out through the boarded window – boarded-shut because someone smashed it in with a vodka bottle – fills me with hope. As if I, out of the eight million people in this shithole, will be the one to make it.
Except –fuck– I don’t know if I will. My vision is going blurry. I’m so hungry, I’m shaking. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get up again.This was not how this was supposed to go.Just like everybody else in this concrete jungle, I came here to live my dreams. For a new start. And now look at me: dying without anyone ever even noticing because I can’t afford to feed myself.
But that’s not true.My mind grapples with the concept of immortality. It used to seem miraculous, almost something to be desired. Now I recognize its full ugliness: no matter how starved, how deprived, I will continue to suffer. I have become the kind of creature even death won’t take pity on. Any human feeling like this might be inches away from the end but I will still be alive even when my body has shriveled up and turned to dust.
“Deni!?”
I blink and turn my head –when did I sink against the wall like a sack of potatoes?– to see Maverick standing above me. I never even heard him come in.
“You scared the shit out of me! I thought you were dead,” he says as he crouches to help me up.
My lip splits when I fake a smile. “Me too,” I joke dryly, though it doesn’t come out sounding nearly as funny as I wanted it to.
“Here.” Maverick hands me the crumpled remains of a blood bag, no more than half a teaspoon left inside. I notice he looks fresher, more colorful – I won’t ask him where he got the money for this. We all do what we have to.
Greedily, I close my lips around its ripped corner and suck out the dregs. I almost gag – it tastes old like it’s been left out of the fridge for a while – but manage to keep it down with a shudder. My body responds with a violent craving for more. It’s a vile sensation, animalistic and wild. It’s been there ever since I was turned, dark and ugly inside me, waiting for my will to weaken so it can burst out.
Even as exhausted as I am now, I fight the monster inside of me with every ounce of my being. I’m not ready to give up on my humanity.
Mav helps me sit up properly. “You need more,” he says with concern in his voice. “By the morning you won’t be able to move at all.”
I wrap my arms around myself, not sure whether I’m trying to keep the cold out or myself together. “I’m broke.”
“What happened to that job you had at the diner?”
Grimacing, I shake my head. “Fired when they found out–”What I am, I want to say, but the words don’t want to come out. The idea that I’m a vampire is still too foreign for me.
He sighs. “It’s OK, you’ll find something else. Hey!” He shakes me a little as the edge of my vision goes black. “Deni!”
“I’m fine,” I croak, although I’m not sure. “I just need to make it through until I get my transition payment from Welfare Services.”
He frowns. “When is that due?”
“This week,” I say. “But I never got it.”
Shaking his head, he says, “There’s ways to get blood other than buying it.”
“I’m not hurting anyone, Mav.” Not that I could, in this state.
His face hardens for a moment – almost everyone here has someone on their conscience, everyone but me. Among the hundreds of tattoos covering his skin and crawling up his neck are two teardrops sitting beneath his eye. His real tears are cried when he thinks I’m sleeping. Then he says simply, “Of course. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
He grimaces. “I’m going out to Elysium tonight. I could bring you some back.”
Going out.That’s certainly one way to put it. “I don’t know. One bag won’t do it. You could take me along?”
“I thought you didn't want to go down this route?”
“Just for tonight. I’m not sure I’ll make it until Welfare Services get their act together.”
He sighs. “Are you sure you can’t ask your family for help?”
I scoff. “I could if I wanted to be burned at the stake.”
