“With your permission?”

“Absolutely with my permission.”

“But why—why would you want—what are—how does—”

“Daisy.” He lays a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch away. Hurt flares in his gaze. “I’m still the same person. Still the same guy you knew.”

“You’re really not.”

“Okay, there are some physical differences, sure. But inside, Daisy, I’m me. Same as ever.”

The earnest glow in his eyes reassures me a little. But my body is trembling all over, uncontrollably, and my teeth have started to rattle. I clench my jaw to keep them still.

“I think you’re going into shock,” Jay says gently. “Let’s get you inside, and once you’re all snug in some blankets, we’ll talk.”

12

Jay carries me indoors and lays me on a couch. When he goes outside for Myrtle and settles her on another couch with nearly equal care, my nerves ease, and the knot of horror in my brain uncoils.

A vampire, but not a murderer. A monster, but not cruel.

Jay sweeps a blanket over me and goes to change his clothes. When he comes back with a glass of water and some painkillers for me, Myrtle is stirring and groaning.

“Wh-what happened?” She stares around, bleary-eyed and shivering. “What did I—Oh no, oh god—” She starts to whimper incoherently.

“It’s all right, Myrtle. Here, put this on.” Jay winds a light scarf around her neck, covering the puncture marks from his teeth. “You tried to shoot me, but you missed. So the good news is, you’re not a murderer. I’m going to get you some help, and you’re going to be just fine.”

I huddle in the blankets while he talks on and on, low and soothing, first to Myrtle and then to one or two other people on the phone. Someone arrives to take Myrtle to the hospital for observation, and then Jay converses with a policewoman, the same one who pulled him over on the day of the hike. As they talk, he points to Myrtle’s gun beside the pool. I’m not sure how he explains the reddish tinge of the pool water, but the policewoman merely collects the weapon and leaves without even asking me for a statement. The only acknowledgment of my presence comes when a paramedic checks me over briefly and nods, apparently satisfied that I’m in no danger. She touches the red marks where the gag dug into my cheeks, but she doesn’t ask about them. She explains about concussion symptoms and which ones might require a doctor’s attention.

Then everyone is gone, and the house is empty again.

It’s scary that someone as young as Jay holds so much power, that he can smooth over an event like this with a few calls and quiet words.

The house is silent as a tomb, motionless as a corpse. I can’t help thinking of the other way this day could have gone. If Jay wasn’t a vampire, he would have died in that pool. And I would be the one screaming incoherently and vowing revenge—or more likely clamming up and withdrawing deep inside myself, into my own private vault of pain.

But Jay is alive. I’m alive. And Myrtle is going to get some help. So that’s all good, and I should feel relieved, but I’m mostly shaken and confused. And very, very curious.

Jay perches on the edge of the coffee table, concern shining in his brown eyes. “Do you want to talk? Or would you like me to take you home so you can rest?”

“Are you kidding?” I haul myself upright, tugging the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “I will not be able to rest until you tell me everything. Starting with—how are there actual vampires?”

“There weren’t. Not until four decades ago, when a guy named Dr. Clarence Endive started working on a new kind of gene therapy. He thought if he could create self-healing cells, or speed up the body’s natural regenerative processes, he could cure a whole slew of illnesses and genetic disorders. He worked on the formula until he thought he had it just right. But he lost his funding, and his entire lab was shut down. So he went underground, got funding from some shady sources, and began conducting tests of his gene therapy, first on animals and then on desperate humans. And it worked—to a point. He was able to alter people at the genetic level, so that their cells would repair and regenerate at an incredibly fast rate—which meant resistance to diseases and aging. In some cases, he could even reverse genetic disorders like muscular dystrophy.

“But as with most good things, there was one drawback. The people he treated could no longer produce their own blood cells. The human body makes 259 billion blood cells daily, and none of his subjects could do that anymore, so they died. Dr. Endive altered the formula a bit, tried a new set of test subjects—and they started manifesting physical alterations, like fangs and claws. It’s possible Endive blended some animal DNA into the mix—Cody doesn’t know, and Endive died years ago.”

“So he single-handedly created the first generation of vampires.”

“Yes. And before you ask, there’s no garlic or crosses or stakes involved.” He smiles tenuously.

I give him the tiniest smile in return. The grin that floods his face is like sunshine. Which reminds me… “What about sunlight?”

“Ah, that. Well, we don’t sparkle or burst into flames, but we are photosensitive. If I’m out in the sun for more than a few hours, I start feeling sick. The older the vampire, the worse the sun sickness is. Cody can’t handle more than an hour of full sun, and even that much is uncomfortable for him.”

“That’s why we had to go home when we were on the lake and the sun started coming out.”

He nods.

“So it’s a side effect,” I say. “Like when they advertise a medication on TV, and then list a million things that might go wrong with you if you take it.”

“Exactly. But the payoff is healing from deadly wounds within seconds, and looking young and healthy for a very long time, so it’s kinda worth it.”

“How long do vampires live?”

“We don’t know. Like I said, we’ve only existed for a handful of decades. Cody has met two people from the original batch—one was his progenitor, Meyer Wolfsheim. Cody says Wolfsheim was twenty-five and terminal when he signed up for the gene therapy, and he still looks twenty-five. Strong as a grizzly, and just as mean.”

“So vampires are strong. Stronger than humans?”

“Nice fresh healthy cells tend to do that, yes. I’d say we have about the same level of strength as a human bodybuilder or heavyweight champion, and that’s without hours of working out. And we’re fast, but we don’t have superspeed.”

“Bummer. I was hoping for a speedy piggyback ride through some misty forest in Washington.”

He arches an eyebrow. “That would make me the Edward in your scenario, and I object. Strongly.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles in my throat. Aside from the horrifying blood-drinking bit, it’s funny—really and truly hilarious—that the first boy I loved came back to me as a fucking vampire. And he’s a billionaire as well—which he still has not explained, along with a number of other concerning things.

“Where do you get your blood?” I ask. “And if you actually drink it, how does it get from your stomach into your bloodstream?”

“Vampires have two stomachs and two hearts. The extra organs are for handling the intake of blood.”

My eyebrows lift sky-high, and Jay winces. “Yeah, it’s weird. But cows have like four stomachs, and squids have three hearts. It’s not unheard of in the natural world.”

“Point taken,” I answer. But the idea still makes me squeamish, and my eyes drift over Jay’s body. Where does he even keep an extra heart and stomach? He’s so lean, so human-looking.

He keeps talking, apparently oblivious to my anatomical curiosity. “Like I said, we can’t replenish our own blood cells, so when our blood supply is low, we start to feel achy and irritable. There’s a special kind of hunger that kicks in, stronger and more painful than regular hunger. If we’re near a live blood source, our fangs are triggered, and they start to elongate. The claws come out too, sometimes. And that change reroutes the internal systems.”

“Like how food and air go down the same throat, but they end up in different places,” I say.

“You got it. The blood we drink goes into its own reservoir, our smaller stomach, and our second heart pumps that blood into the regular vascular system, to be used as needed. We can go for a number of days without drinking any blood, but if we wait too long, we start to get sick—shaky, clammy, and weak. Then the headaches begin, and eventually, if the blood supply in our bodies gets too low, we start having seizures and go into cardiac arrest.”

“So you can die.”

“Of course. We’re not undead. We’re still alive, just changed. Genetically mutated.”

“And how does someone become a vampire? Is Myrtle going to be one now, since you bit her?”

“The genetic catalyst doesn’t transmit through saliva or other fluids, only by blood ingestion or transfusion. There’s another component to the process as well, but we don’t need to talk about that yet.”

“So it’s like the old legends then.” My voice is way shriller than I’d like. “You drink a vampire’s blood, and you become a vampire. Cool, cool, cool. Supercool.”