[8/17/461 AC, 9:22 PM]

  Thirty seven minutes. Tick by in a blur.

  Blurring transit lights, pale blue and amber, dancing off eyes and water dripped skin. Hushed whispers, avoidant gnces, spines stiffen, drawing away. Six eyes stand out from the bustle of the summer night tram. Dark. Eerily. Like mine.

  A cluster of figures dressed in reds and bcks, leather and denim, though varied in style by decades. The kind of variety and vintage I'd only grown accustomed to seeing on the racks of The Hideaway’s hindroom. Or st night at the club. That thought is cut when one cocks her head at me. A smile crosses her warm brown cheeks, freckled with glitter of gold and red. She moves smoothly. Her jacket crinckles. About to stand. The train slows. I turn and rush out the door. A station station early, but i’ll take it. I’m not taking chances.

  Stepping once more into the cold. Pink droplets they sptter against concrete. Avoiding the hazes of my peripheral. Sallow and loam cold as they brush against arm’s hairs. Prickling yet oddly familiar. My fellow dead. Bound to a pce. Am I haunting my own corpse? Is that what vampirism is? I shudder past thought and the wrought iron of the old cemetery. As I realize all I can smell is petrichor, and the aging blood sticking to my skin.

  Her scent, gone.

  But not my cellphone’s map of San Toros. Thank you past Annie for asking for her address.

  My cracked screen pings, as my face almost sms into the wrought metal bar in front of me. I stumble to a stop, removing my headphone nwo broken in one ear. Green eyes trace the rickety fire escape upwards, along the sunworn brick of the four story complex of South Mullen Drive. Imposing in the dark of night. Windows but a patchwork of lights, like eyes, some closed and some watching.

  I gnce to the lobby door . . . before looking back to the dark curtained window beside me. Pale skin dulled yellow in the mplight, yet clearly half bathed in blood, clothing torn, c cup breasts visible under the remains of my bra and the drenched jacket over my shoulders. I look back up, seeing familiar curtains, green sptter with rge grey moths. Held behind dimly illuminated gss, like a museum exhibit. A preservation of a memory, out of time, out of pce.

  Sighing my fingers wrap around the rusted rung. Creaking under the strain. I don't dare look as I pass an open window, or acknowledge the yelp of a small child, as I make my way swiftly upwards. I keep moving. A creaking blurr. Damp ruddy hair and sparsely inked skin. Drippeding in blood and torn flesh.

  I look more the part of a monster, than a girl. “Sorry! Rough night. “ I cough as I pull myself towards the window with green curtains.

  I would have slipped, rust and water slick on my fingers. Especially at that scream. But my muscles tightened like a vice. And with a final leaping lurch, I bound onto the ledge.

  Perched gently.

  Toes on a brick ledge.

  That worked???

  Honestly, I should have fallen on my face.

  Anyways, I look inside.

  I can't make out much. But I need to get in there. I can already hear someone walking down the street. Is it the disturbed neighbor . . . no maybe half a block down? Jaw clenches. I'm not exactly a subtle sight. And I don't need health services called on me tonight . . . I don't think even modern medicine can cure death, and from what little I know about vampires . . . hunter’s or even the mage union won't be much help.

  Fuck. You’re wasting time!

  I fumble with the window. It. Won’t. Budge. Only creaking. Grunting as my chipped red nails dig into the wooden frame.

  Only to look down and notice the closed tch.

  Smart boy. Use your brain. My mother’s voice hums with a warm ughter. It would be comforting . . . if i didn't just misgender myself while committing a crime (beyond the definite murder back at my aunt’s house . . . Sorry Auntie O.)

  Fuck.

  I bite my lip. Urging my heart, dead and warmed only by the heat I had devoured a half hour before, to move. Vapor dark and bloody slips from my mouth, cold and biting. The person is nearer. They're gonna see us soon. Reaching out my fingers, pulling upwards. Performing the little magic as I had done for years . . .

  But nothing.

  Not a centimeter.

  I smell warmth a few stories down.

  The figure came to the edge of my vision, heading tipping up.

  Fuck.

  I sm my elbow against the window . . . as the gss spider webs and shatters. My carnivorous poise falters as I tumble onto the bed, bounce, roll, and sm forehead first onto the linoleum floor, with a resounding thwack.

  “FUCK NUGGETS!” Shouting more in surprise than sensation, my pain nerves dulled and half-dead.

  Her room . . . Looks a little different than I imagined.

  I stumble up against her desk, getting my bearings. The room is scattered with photographs of cryptids (dead and alive), posters of obscure bands, newspaper clippings/printed blog posts about HIGH STAKES’ hunts and shows, and a lot of . . . cute things.

  Like fucking adorable. And a lot of pink.

  Her bed is covered in plushies (most appear to be chibified cryptids), a massive sunset colored tapestry of a meadow, and twinkling little strawberry fairy lights. Everything cluttered and yet, cozy. Sharp contrast to the smell of vender and smoke that clings to her sheet. As I realize I’m still gripping it, half fallen as I tumbled.

  I ugh a little, as I pick up a round plushie of a moth with rge red eyes.

  “And you made fun of me for my dolls.”

  The door flies open.

  I flinch.

  She blinks.

  Blue grey fshes an icy blue.

  And suddenly, i'm falling again.

  * * *

  “Hiii!” I nervously smile, swallowing a mix of saliva and the croup— dead hunter’s blood. I don't remember his name. We killed a man and forgot him.

  “Don’t hiiiii me!” Strands of blonde fall around her handsome face. Features twist in a mixer of emotions my brain has exactly zero hope of interpreting. Anger. Fear. Worry. Lu— Also wow her lips look sof— “What are you doing here!” She growls, her breath hot on my cheek.

  “You gave me your address” I sputter as I nudge her back, sitting up against the bed. “I remember someone once told me, ‘I’m here if you need anything, ever’. Well . . . I need help, I think.”

  “You think?!” She runs her hands over her face. “Annie. Andromeda. Darling. You’re fucking dead. You’re a mystforsaken vampire!”

  “So.” I exhale as I slowly stand up. Adjusting my torn clothes in the dim light of her apartment. “Help me.”

  “How?” Bea begins pacing. Fingers digging into the leather of her jacket. “I tried!”

  “You tried to kill me.” I walked towards her closet. Not wanting to look at her infuriatingly pretty face for another second.

  “I — It was a stressful situation!”

  “AND IT WASN'T FOR ME?!?!” I turn back to Bea. My face flush with stolen blood, as it pounds in my ears. Flickeirng with the horrid fucking memories of the st two nights. “I WAS MURDERED. I WOKE UP IN MY OWN FUCKING BLOOD. IN A STORM SHELTER BATHROOM. AND WHEN I FINNALY SOMEHOW MADE MY WAY HOME, MY “BEST FIREND” TRIED TO FUCKING KILL ME!”

  “I—”

  “Am. I. Missing. Anything!” I hiss between my teeth.

  “I’m sorry.” She won’t face me. Eyes glued to her lyric scrap and photograph scattered desk.

  “I’m stealing your clothes” I sm the closet behind me, sighing in the lightless quiet. I hear Bea mumble something about it not being the first time. “We’ll talk more when I'm not a mess. Okay?”

  Even if only a little.

  A little.

  I cry.

  * * *

  “I won't try and kill you again.” Bea says, eyeshadow smeared cheeks and blonde hair spshed with cold sink water, as she leans against her desk. Her thumb twiddles a ballpoint pen. “But you need to know the hunters are after you.”

  The cap flicks off.

  “Gathered that.” I reply as I throw on a denim jacket, a little big for me, over bck t-shirt and a belted pair of jorts. “Something to do about some wizard”

  “Yeah. A lea— vamp knocked off the old archwizard of the Percer’s Union.”

  “And I’m on the hook why?”

  “Cause you're a ripper.”

  “A what?”

  “A vampire with two full sets of fangs. It's a blood trait and y’all don't have a great reputation.”

  “So who killed him”

  “I don’t know.”

  My memory flits back to dark rosy lips and darker eyes, and a mouthful of ruddy fangs, making my shoulders flinch. Sinking into the borrowed denim, at least two sizes too rge. “Was it the woman who killed me?”

  “Probably.” Dropping a pair of orange bottles from over their dresser into the bag, they turn to look at me. Face stern and sharp. Dimples hidden. “She’s the only other ripper that has been spotted in San Toros. But unlucky for you, you were spotted first. And no one even knows her real name or where to find her. The other cryptids for sure won't tell us. FAGGs or BOTEMs”

  “Then let's find out.”

  “No.” They zip the bag shut, slinging it over her sturdy shoulders as they grab stake. A half meter long thin spike of bck metal. I ignore the faint ringing in my ears. “We’re getting out of town.”

  “It’s not that easy and you know it.” I plead as I grasp the edge of their sleeve. “Better than me. Monsters don’t get happily ever afters, Bea.”

  “I don’t want to lose you again.” Its a long moment, her face drawing closer to mine. Eyes blue like the sky, eyes green like dark woods, only two inches apart. Her warm breath and my breathless lips. Her warm olive skin. So close. My freckled cheeks would be aflush if I was alive.“Fine, we’ll clear your name . . . but”

  “But what?” I say my breath sucked in. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck she's close.

  Fingers run along my chin. Gently tracking the knick I had made while shaving before going out. My hands gently on her hips, stabilizing me as she moves in. “We may have to kill a bitc—”

  And that’s when the door splinters.