The silence is so thick it feels like it has taken on a corporeal form and has settled between us like a third person. We’re no longer just two people—or one person and a vampire—inside the carriage. Now silence is a presence, stretching its claws toward my throat, squeezing until each breath is harder than the last. My fingers keep twisting in my lap, knotting together over and over again. I keep going over his words in my head—that I disturb him? I'm not the one restricting his freedom or constantly threatening to end his life. I don’t see how I could possibly disturb him. And then there's the issue of punishing me... Was he serious? Or just trying to scare me? I want to think it's just a bluff, but by this point, I can’t recall a single time one of his threats hasn’t come true.
All I h
