Thea II

Chapter 5

5

In the living room, there’s a fire blazing in the hearth. Even though I’m not in the least bit cold, the heat feels good. Kate is sitting on an old, worn out brown couch, staring at me; her eyes filled with either intrigue or worry.

“Sit down,” she says.

I do as she says and sit next to her.

“Do you understand what’s happened to you?” she asks.

I shake my head, struggling to snap out of this zombified state.

What’s wrong with me?

Reaching over, she takes my hand. “You’re a vampire, Thea. Do you know what that means?”

I nod.

“What do you remember?”

“Just pieces,” I reply with a shrug. “Flashes. Like…”

“Like what?”

“A woman. I bit her neck and killed her.”

“Do you know who she was?”

I try to focus on the woman’s face, but it’s blurred. “I can’t make her out.”

“Good,” she says with a smile. “It’s not important who she is anyway. You were hungry. You had to feed.”

My eyes start to wander around the room. It’s hideous. The paint on the walls is cracked and peeling, the floor has no carpet, with just rotting floorboards showing, and the window is sealed up with pieces of wood, nailed to the frame. “Is this where you live?”

Kate follows my stare. “No. Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

“Do you know that man upstairs?” I glance up at the black, swollen ceiling. “And the girl?”

“No. They’re nobody. Squatters. Junkies. Just food for people like us.”

“Why are you keeping him upstairs?”

“Because we need to feed on him; ration our food supply. I don’t want to be hunting just yet. I can’t risk leaving you alone in the house.”

“Okay,” I reply. “What was that smell from earlier? Smelt like old pennies.”

“That was blood. We can smell it from half a mile away.”

“I don’t smell anything now.”

“That’s because you’ve fed. Your senses go into overdrive when you’re hungry.” She picks up a small piece of broken wood from the floor, and then throws it onto the fire. “Tell me what you know about vampires?”

I think for a moment, remembering school. My school. I’m sitting next to a girl. I think her name is Daisy. There’s a teacher. A fat woman with grey hair. I can’t remember her name, but she’s talking about vampires. “The sunlight will kill us.”

“That’s right,” Kate says. “That’s why I had to get you into the boot. We would have burned to death in a matter of minutes. What else?”

“We don’t age.”

Kate shakes her head with a smirk. “That’s not true. You will age, but much slower than humans.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-five—but I should be forty-six.”

I gawk at her face; the lack of wrinkles, her perfectly white teeth, green eyes sparkling in the light of the fire. She’s beautiful. Perfect.

How old am I? I can’t remember.

“You’re thirteen,” Kate replies, even though I didn’t say a word.

“How did you do that?” I ask, only now realising how impossible it seems.

Kate doesn’t answer.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She lets go of my hand, rubs her eyes, and then sighs. “You have my blood inside you.”

“How?” I ask with a puzzled frown.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies, sheepishly, throwing another piece of wood on the fire.

“Did you bite me?”

“No. Humans don’t get infected from bites. That’s just a myth. The most common ways are through unprotected s*x, sharing needles, and consumption. Someone gave you some of my blood.”

“Who?”

“That’s not important, but what is important is understanding that we have a connection now. I can read your thoughts. Not all of them, just some. And I can feel what you feel.”

“Forever?”

Kate shakes her head. “No, not forever. Nothing is forever. The stronger you become, the less effective the connection is.”

A thin beam of light creeps through a small gap in the boarded up window. The sun is coming up.

“Am I your slave?” I ask, just as my eyelids start to feel heavy.

Kate spots the light as well, turns to me, and then takes both my hands gently. “No, of course not. The connection is only to help you. The next few days are going to take a little getting used to. The more you remember about your human life, the harder it’ll be to accept the change. But it’s my job to keep you safe.”

Kate gets up from the couch and I follow her out of the living room and up the stairs. There are three rooms. Two must be bedrooms and the other the bathroom. We step inside one of the bedrooms. It’s completely bare apart from another boarded up window, a broken chest of drawers, and a few pieces of rubble scattered across the bare floor.

I lie next to Kate in the centre of the floor.

I don’t feel cold, or even uncomfortable; all I feel is an all-consuming need to close my eyes and sleep.

I wonder if that man is sleeping too…