“How often do you have to drink?”
“Every night, to feel good. Every few nights, to stay sane.”
“Have you ever bitten anyone?”
“No. I’m not a murderer.”
“Does it have to be fatal every time? The biting? Couldn’t you just drink some of a person’s blood, then walk away?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this, Snow. You, who can’t walk away from half a sandwich.”
“So you don’t know?”
“I’ve never tried. I’m not … that. My father would kill me if I touched a person.” (I think he really would, if I bit a person. He probably should, anyway.)
“Hey,” Snow says, wrinkling his forehead at me, “don’t.”
“What?”
“Think. Whatever you’re thinking. Stop.”
I exhale, frustrated. “Why doesn’t this all bother you?”
“What?”
“I’m a vampire.”
“Well, it used to bother me,” he says. “Back when I thought you were going to drain me dry some night—or turn me into a zombie. But the last few days have been properly educational, haven’t they?”
“So now that you know I’m a vampire, for certain, you don’t care?”
“Now that I know that you just sneak around, drinking household pets and legal game, yeah, I’m not too bothered. It’s not like I’m a militant vegetarian.”
“And you still don’t believe that I’m dead.”
He shakes his head once, firmly. “I do not believe that you’re dead.”
We’re at my driveway now, and I turn in. “Sunlight burns me,” I say.
He shrugs. “Me, too.”
“You’re an idiot, Snow.”
“You called me Simon before.”
“No, I didn’t.”
SIMON
I’m not sure why I’m so happy. Nothing’s changed.
Has anything changed?
The kissing. That’s new. The wanting to kiss.
The looking at Baz and thinking about the way his hair falls in a lazy wave over his forehead …
Yeah, nope. I’ve thought about that before.
Baz is a vampire; that’s not news.
Baz is apparently the world’s most reluctant, least blood-sucking vampire—which is a bit of a surprise.
And also apparently the best-looking. (Now that I’ve seen a few.)
I want to kiss a bloke. That is a change, but not one I’m prepared to think about right now.
… Again. I want to kiss him again.
* * *
We park the car in an old barn that’s been converted into a garage, then go into the house through the kitchen door. Quietly. So we don’t wake anyone. “Are you hungry?” Baz asks.
“Yeah.”
He pokes around in the refrigerator. Just your typical teenage vampire, getting a midnight snack.
He shoves a casserole dish into my arms, then grabs some forks. “Milk?” he asks. “Coke?”
“Milk,” I say. I’m grinning, I can’t stop grinning. He puts the carton on top of the casserole, grabs some cloth napkins from the drawer, then heads back up to his room. It’s a struggle to keep up.
I wish I knew what he was thinking.…
BAZ
I don’t know what I’m thinking.
SIMON
When we get up to his room, Baz turns on a lamp—the shade is dark red, so it doesn’t give out much light—and sits on the floor at the end of his bed, even though the room is full of comfortable things to sit on.
I sit down next to him, and he takes the casserole dish from me and casts a quick, “You’re getting warmer!”—then opens the lid. It’s shepherd’s pie.
“Do you need to eat?” I ask. “Or do you just like it?”
“I need it,” he says, scooping up a bite, avoiding my eyes, “just not as much as other people do.”
“How do you know that you’re not immortal?”
He hands me a fork. “No more questions.”
We finish the shepherd’s pie, eating out of the bowl on Baz’s lap. He chews with his hand over his mouth. I try to remember whether I’ve ever seen him eat before.… I finish the milk. He doesn’t want any.
When we’re done, he sets the dishes outside his door, then starts a fire in the fireplace with his wand.
I crawl over to sit next to him. “You’re a pyro,” I say.
He shrugs, staring into the fire.
“You’re not thinking about burning the house down, are you?”
“No, Snow. I don’t have a death wish. I wish I did—it would make everything easier.”
“Please stop talking like that.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then he turns to me, abruptly. “Is that why you kissed me? To keep me from killing myself?”
I shake my head. “Not exactly. I mean, I did want to keep you from killing yourself.”
“Why, then?” he asks.
“Why did I kiss you?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess I wanted to,” I say, shrugging.
“Since when?”
I shrug again, and it pisses him off. He wedges another log into the fire.
“Did you want me to?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Why would I want that? Why would that thought even occur to me? ‘Hey, you know what would fix this miserable situation with the vampires and my mother and the war and the decline of magic? Snogging my halfwit roommate. The one who will probably fuck my life for good someday. That’s a plan.’”