Snow’s quiet when we get to the car. And I’m quiet because I genuinely have no idea how to proceed. How do you pick up from, “I have to stop kissing you, so I can go drink some blood.”
“You’re a vampire,” Snow says finally. (I guess that’s how you pick up.) I don’t answer.
“You really are,” he says.
I start the engine.
“I mean, I knew it—I’ve known for years. But you really are.…” He touches my cheek. “You’re warmer now.”
“It’s the blood,” I say.
“Would you be heavier? If I lifted you?”
“I imagine. I just emptied a deer.” I glance over at him; he still looks like something I want to eat. “Don’t try.”
“How does it work?” he asks.
“I don’t know.… Magic, blood magic. Virus, magickal virus. I don’t know.”
“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.