Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository

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.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

The boy continued to rant in a furious whisper. “I should have known it was her. I did know, but I forgot. . . . I think she used me or something . . . inside her did . . . everything’s so muddled in my mind . . . I mean, I remember what happened but sometimes I can’t believe it did happen . . . and I feel like I’m the one who should be out there. Sometimes I feel like I am out there.”

He wasn’t making any sense, and Hannah was starting to feel as confused as he sounded. “Who’s she?” But he didn’t have to say it. This time, it was written all over the anguish on his face. Hannah felt a quick stab of jealousy. There was another girl involved. There always was. You didn’t get to look like him—weary and handsome, with those sad black eyes—and not have some kind of girlfriend baggage.

“She was very special to me,” he murmured. “But I think I’m going to have to get back . . . so I can. God. So I can kill her.” Then he broke down into gasping, choking sobs. “I have to . . . but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. . . . I might just let it have me. . . . It would be easier in a way.”

Hannah got up from her bed and embraced him. She was not a touchy-feely kind of person but she wanted to do something to make him feel better. When her parents first separated, she was a zombie, an empty shell, devoid of feeling, but aching with a great and furious need for comfort. Her mother had tried to help, to reach out, but Hannah had resisted accepting succor from the person who was partly to blame for her misery. After all, maybe if her mother hadn’t been such a hard person to live with, her father would never have left her for Delphine, the Temptress Art Dealer. Who knew.

But whatever sorrow the divorce had brought to her life paled in comparison to what this boy was going through. He radiated fear, trembling in her arms. She didn’t really understand what he was telling her, but she could tell that he was running out of time.

Something thumped on the window hard, making them jump away from each other. Hannah took a sharp breath. The glass vibrated, but held and didn’t shatter. That vampire thing was back. It was out there. It was close. It wanted to feed.

And so did he.

The boy needed her blood, the strength and life force within it. He needed her to survive. He would die without her. Maybe not the kind of death humans experienced, but an emptiness nonetheless. A defeat. He would give himself up. He was growing weaker and weaker, and one day he wouldn’t be able to resist the monster’s call. He would walk out to meet his doom.

All he needed was to sink his fangs into her skin and drink her blood.

Hannah felt a shiver of revulsion at the thought. He was a monster, too. There was a monster in her bedroom. She moved away from him, her eyes wide and frightened as if seeing him for the first time. A stranger. A dirty, incoherent, and unwelcome stranger.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I think you should leave now.”

“It’s all right,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t expect you to. It’s a lot to ask.”

The light blinked off, and he was gone.

Hannah’s mother got up early the next morning to make her breakfast. Banana pancakes with maple syrup that came from the can with the Canadian flag on it. Hannah twirled the syrup around before taking a bite.