Bo walked to the window and stared out into the dark. I could tell he wasn’t seeing the night, at least not this night. His eyes had a distant look about them, the look of someone peering into the past.
“I hadn’t been turned very long and, fortunately, I slept through most of it. I’d been in the woods for days when I woke up. And there was this thirst—a thirst I couldn’t explain, a thirst that no food or water would quench. That’s the day I met Lucius.
“He’d been feeding me. He’s an elder, but he lives a…different kind of life. He explained what I was, what I needed. It was like waking up to a different world. My dad was dead. The prime suspect in his murder had been released on a technicality. I was turning into some kind of creature from the movies.
“For weeks after that, I searched the woods day and night, waiting, hoping to find the person responsible. I needed blood, but I refused to drink from humans. I realized that I could survive on animal blood, just barely, but enough to find Dad’s killer.
“I was going into the woods one night, stalking a deer, when I heard the squeal of the brakes. I ran back to the road and got there just before the car started rolling. Just in time to see your face through the windshield. For a second, I couldn’t move. I can’t describe what it felt like, but I can still feel it when I remember that night.”
He paused, lost in the feelings that he couldn’t articulate.
“The sounds of metal and glass on asphalt were so loud. I wanted to turn and run, knew that I should, but when the car hit the tree and stopped, I knew I had to get to you, to make sure you were alright.”
Though he was finally telling me how he felt—something I’d wondered about and agonized over for quite some time now—it was another thought that took center stage in my mind. He’d come after me. Me.
“I had to know that you were alright,” he groaned.
“Me?”
Bo nodded.
A tiny red spot of anger penetrated the gray cloud of confusion that had settled over me. It swelled and surged until it had enveloped me in a blinding crimson haze of fury.
“You let my sister die to save me?”
Bo said nothing.
I was beside myself, unable to contain the pain and the rage swirling inside me. I wanted to lash out. Drawing my arm back, I brought my hand around as hard as I could, my palm connecting with Bo’s face in an ear-splitting crack. “How could you? How could you do that? How could you let her die?”
“I didn’t, Ridley. She was already gone,” Bo explained softly, sadly.
“No she wasn’t, she—”
“Yes, she was, Ridley. I knew when I saw her that she wouldn’t make it. Even if I could’ve gotten my blood into her, it wouldn’t have mattered. Her injuries were too severe. There was no way she could’ve survived that. There was just no way.”
It took a few seconds for his words to penetrate my addled brain. Looking at him, Bo appeared calm and sincere, yet devastated, too. But, strangely, he also looked somehow deserving, like he was willing to take the blame for something that wasn’t even his fault just so I could have someone to blame, someone to be angry with.
As quickly as it had come, my anger died, leaving behind only an intense sadness. I knew what he was saying was true. Izzy’s head had been crushed against the tree. Everyone knew that she was ninety percent gone as soon as it happened. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.
Putting a hand to my chest, as if to stop the ache that throbbed there, I apologized. “I’m sorry, Bo. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, so forgiving and understanding it made me feel even worse.
Though I could easily get caught up in the guilt and misery of mindlessly lashing out at Bo, I couldn’t focus on that right now. I had to know the rest of the story.
“So then what happened?”
Bo sighed. “I pulled you out and carried you to the grass. I could hear your heart beating, but there was so much blood,” Bo said, his face contorting in remembered pain. He closed his eyes against it. “And you smelled so amazing.”
“Did you- did you…” I trailed off, unable to finish the question.
Bo hung his head. His nod was barely perceptible, but I saw it nonetheless.
“I couldn’t control myself. It was like being taken over by some kind of demon that didn’t think or care. It just felt. And tasted. I couldn’t stop myself, no matter how wrong it was,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stood quietly by, watching Bo relive those moments that I couldn’t remember, the agony of it, the disgust of it. The pleasure of it.
“How am I still alive?”
“I heard your heartbeat slow and then I remembered your face from behind that windshield. You were so scared,” he recalled. “But you were so beautiful.” His lips curved into a bitter smile. “I just couldn’t take your life. I just couldn’t do it, so I made myself stop drinking. I realized that I wanted to help you. I wanted to feed you—my consciousness, my energy. I wanted to feed you life. My life. So, I tore open my wrist and I fed you.”
I was silent for a long time, digesting what he’d said, working his words into what I knew of the accident and my recovery.
“You saved my life,” I stated, as much for my benefit as his. As if he hadn’t given me enough, Bo had given me back my life. He’d saved me.
“I almost took it,” he said miserably.
“But you didn’t.”
“But I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“As you were waking up, I promised you, promised myself, that I’d never drink blood from another human. And I haven’t. I live on blood from the bank and nothing else.”
Listening to him, something he’d said before, when I’d asked about my mother, popped into my head.
“You said you couldn’t stay away from me.”
Bo nodded.
“And I feel like I can’t breathe when you’re not around,” I stated absently.
As I rolled the two puzzle pieces around inside my head, I stopped and looked up at Bo when, with an ominous click, they came together in my brain, showing me a picture that terrified me.