February 23rd, 11:09pm. Victoria Evans.

  I knew Zach would never want to hurt me in a million years. Not physically, and never on purpose. So when what had originally been a beautiful moment of passion was shattered with searing pain, his fangs slicing into my neck, I knew he wasn't Zach anymore.

  Not the one I liked, at least.

  "SHIT-SHIT-SHIT! GET OFF!" I barked maybe a little too harshly.

  I managed to shove him away enough to free my neck, which only left me to bleed profusely as I gasped for air. I barely understood what was happening, I'd been so lost in the moment and the pleasure that I had to look around to gain my bearings.

  The tent was dim, but the lantern beside the air mattress kept the space light enough to stop him from becoming triggered. My shirt was just out of reach. So was my phone, and anything helpful.

  My attention fell back onto the husk hovering above me. His eyes burned a deep scarlet, irises pooling from capillaries bleeding. His messy hair stuck to his face from sweat. His skin flushed pink, ablaze from emotions I really wasn't used to seeing him experience. If I wasn't in so much pain, I'd probably have melted pathetically at the sight, but I was kind of in the middle of something. I decided to refuse the urge to look below his shoulders, given that the gore around his mouth and on his teeth deserved my attention more.

  He was hollow.

  Zach would sometimes fade away into a shell after biting someone properly – at the jugular and using his venom, not a simple nip on the wrist. This was horrific timing though, considering we were both in a compromising position and I was moments from passing out. Which would mean death.

  "Hey, hey," I sat up quickly, slamming a hand over my wound in hopes of slowing the flow, "You need to wake up. Zach?"

  A shaky exhale was the only response he gave. He glanced down to my neck. I quickly turned his face back towards me with my free hand.

  "No-no-no. Don't look." I gulped, feeling the shock begin to numb my legs. "You gotta snap out of it. Right now. Hey! HEY!"

  He shook his head a little, a weak groan escaping him. Finally he began to blink, however slowly.

  "What...?" He croaked out.

  "Listen to me carefully." I grabbed his shoulder tightly. My body began to tremble. "You bit my jugular. I'm bleeding. If I pass out, I will die. Do not panic. Heal me right now."

  "Huh?" He rubbed his eyes. "Tori, I didn't... bite you. I'd know if I–"

  "ZACH!" I shook him, holding my neck tighter. "HEAL ME!"

  His red eyes snapped wide and he finally took in my injuries. With a thick gulp, he nodded, but I knew he was struggling. Every blink was too fast. Every breath was too slow. I wasn't sure if he managed to comprehend what I said at all.

  "... How?" He mumbled.

  I was going to die. My stupid vampire boyfriend was too intoxicated to remember basic biology.

  "Fucking–!" I choked on my own breath. My head was spinning, my ears ringing. My hand loosened as the rest of my body turned numb. Cold.

  "The.. blood..." I coughed. "Use your.. mouth to..."

  He hurriedly nodded again, which only made me worry more. The early moments of a blackout usually came with memory loss, even for the simplest of things. If he was that confident, I'd said something wrong. Black fuzzy dots were taking over my vision, so I didn't have the time to realise what he was doing until I felt his wrist against my lips.

  I squirmed as hard as I could, panicking horribly while his blood burned on my tongue. The liquid quickly charred the walls of my mouth and fizzed around my teeth like some sort of acid. I forced myself to swallow the boiling blood and yanked his arm away from me.

  What the hell had possessed him to think that was what I'd meant?

  "LICK MY NECK!" I yelled.

  Something snapped behind his eyes. Dread hit him. He immediately did as I instructed, and I finally let myself breathe. There went another moment to add to the vault of one-sided memories he'd never learn about. The pile was overflowing already. Maybe the worst part was that even though I'd been seconds from death, I couldn't find it in me to blame him.

  What even was there to blame, an animal? That's all he ever was when a blackout would start. Until his mental state would switch into either the paranoid and jumpy version of him or the manipulative instinct-driven version of him, depending on what triggered it, he'd stay dumb and dazed like a deer. He couldn't help that. Regardless, I was still going to pretend to be pissed by all means.

  "The hell was that about?" I sighed. My senses began to start back up as I healed. "Am I that tasty?"

  "Don't ask me that."

  I shot cold. The growl in his voice, the audible snarl... I suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable.

  "You're fine, Victoria. Don't be dramatic." He grumbled, sitting back up and lazily licking his bloody lips.

  And there it was, the parasite. The sly, cruel, sadistic nightmare that had destroyed my lover's life while simultaneously saving it. The vampire.

  "Uh..." He cringed, looking around at the scene. "What were we doing, exactly?"

  "Doesn't matter." I stuttered out, quickly grabbing a blanket to cover myself with. I held it against my chest like a shield as I made eye contact with the beast. "You didn't do that on purpose?"

  "No." He snickered like I was a moron. "If I wanted to bite you, I wouldn't try to kill you. Gotta keep you alive or I'll never get to do it again."

  "That's a horrible reason to not kill me."

  "God, you're annoying."

  My mouth hung open at the jab, but I'd grown accustomed to this monster. I'd learned to ignore almost everything he said. I threw the other blanket over him before getting up and grabbing my clothes while he couldn't see.

  "Don't take that off!" I ordered.

  "Alright!" He raised his hands from under the covers. "It's not like I've ever seen you without clothes on before or anything. Like literally five seconds ago. Jeez."

  "Only normal-Zach gets that privilege. Not you." I growled, hurriedly fixing myself up. "Not in a million years."

  "Ouch! What gives? I'm a little blood-drunk, sure, but I'm not a total asshole." He grumbled, shifting under the blanket like he was watching me through it. "Y'know you're moving an awful lot for someone who just lost over a litre of blood."

  "Can it! Just... put some damn clothes on and hurry up and go back to normal."

  The next half-hour or so was torturous for me. While I sat in the corner with my phone for a mirror, wiping the blood from my neck, the monster refused to leave. It made no sense. He wasn't doing anything bad, just sort of hanging out. I couldn't figure out why the blackout was still dragging on.

  Nor could I figure out why my body wouldn't stop shaking, my heart racing.

  "It can't have hurt that much." He muttered bitterly while he scrolled on his phone, lounging on the mattress. "You like it when I bite you. I don't say anything but I hear how breathy you get."

  "You used venom." I frowned softly, pointing to my neck. "See this purple stuff here?"

  He craned his neck to get a glimpse, only to shrug it off.

  "Okay, well there's no way to know if that's why it hurt. The only people I've ever injected are all dead because I ate them afterwards, I can't go ask them, genius."

  "And what if it kills me too?"

  "Then I'll just bring you back like you always wanted. No big deal."

  "I'm gonna ignore that because I know you don't mean it." I looked back to my phone. "Your blood messed up my mouth really bad. I've got a killer toothache, my lips are all cracked and scarred, and my tongue's burnt."

  "I could kiss it better?" He grinned.

  "Maybe later. I don't want you near me right now." I sighed. "Why the hell did you stuff your wrist in my mouth anyway? It was like soda left in the sun. What got lost in translation?"

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Ugh, I don't know. You said 'blood' and 'mouth' so I thought you meant 'blood in mouth.' My mind was all fuzzy."

  "I feel like I'm gonna puke."

  "Maybe you should. No one's ever swallowed my blood before. For all I know it could be deadly." He smirked, sitting up on an elbow. "Maybe I'd have to turn you then."

  I paused for a moment. I knew not to listen, I knew everything with him was either a trick or a joke. But I couldn't argue with the logic behind what he said.

  "I'm not talking to you." I spat out. "Go piss off back to your cage."

  Zach shook his head and laid back down. He practically nuzzled into the bloody pillow, sighing blissfully like the scent was a safe haven. I glowered at him.

  "Don't sniff the stains, you freak."

  "Smells nice." He protested, scarlet eyes falling shut. Blood was seeping onto his cheek from the spill. He licked it off. "Just pretend I'm asleep."

  Easier said than done. My ears were burning harder with every thump of my heartbeat that echoed through my body. I could feel each pump as the blood passed my temples. I zipped my jacket up in hopes of fighting off the abnormal cold waving over me, but it only made me shiver further. The ringing grew louder in my ears. I couldn't feel my toes.

  "I should be healed by now." I whispered to no one. "The wound's sealed. I should have recovered already."

  "Come lay down. I'm bored." Zach smiled. "I'll keep you warm."

  "Stay away from me." I pointed a finger at him and stood up. "All you ever want is to hurt people. You've done enough already. I don't want you to even look at me until this blackout is over."

  I grabbed a scrunchie and threw my hair up in a messy ponytail, then snatched my boots off the floor. I couldn't stay there, I was risking my life just being near him.

  There was no reason for him to still be in that state, which meant there was something I didn't know. Either he was still hungry despite having now fed on me three times in 24 hours or something was keeping his body on alert, like a dog hearing sirens a mile away. Was he sensing something? Was it because I was stuck in fight or flight and he saw me as possible prey?

  Usually that version of him would pretend to be normal and try to gaslight me into believing he was still the man I loved until he'd gain enough trust to break me. He did at the start, this time, but it felt like he changed his mind. He was being too obvious. Something wasn't right.

  I needed to calm down before I could afford to think about any of that. There'd be no point in trying to stop him from doing something stupid if I was too weak to stand on my own two feet.

  "I'm gonna put my phone on charge." I muttered as I hastily climbed out of the tent. "Don't go anywhere."

  "Tori, wait," he jolted upright, "Don't leave me alone."

  "I'm not. I'm only going to the car." I scowled. "If I come back and you're not in the exact spot you are now, I'll drive off and leave you here stranded. I'm dead serious."

  For a brief moment, he seemed hurt. Threatened, even. If his eyes had been hazel, it would've been genuine, but their ever-present bloodiness made it clear all he felt was possessiveness.

  "Okay..." Zach slumped and pouted. "Please don't take too long."

  "Since when do you use manners?" I scoffed and zipped the tent closed.

  As I took out my phone to check its battery, the screen went black, which felt like a rude way to answer my unasked question. With a sigh I began to trudge through the open bush, trying to remember where the car had been parked.

  Up ahead the moon was new and the darkness was blinding. The crunching of eucalyptus leaves echoed between the skinny trees. There were no owls to hoot, no deer to rustle the bushes, not here. Out in the forests sure, but Red Hill was barren and quiet. Even nocturnal creatures like foxes stayed silent here. All I could hear was my own body shutting down on me.

  Finally reaching the car, I gave myself a moment to hunch over a bush and vomit. The sloshing sound of the blood mixed in with stomach acid made me want to do it all again. I groaned and wiped my mouth, only to hiss at the stinging pain from my cut up lips. My chest heaved and ached with every huff. My legs wobbled, and I hurried to open the car door. I quickly threw my phone on charge and shut my eyes.

  "Venom. It's gotta be the venom." I shook my head. "Right?"

  I traced my fingers delicately over the fresh skin on my neck, mind running a marathon.

  "Okay, okay, think. What would it do to me? Why would vampires evolve to have venom?" I rambled to myself. "Uh... God, it depends what it's used for."

  Most animals evolved neurotoxic venom to immobilise prey. I wasn't paralysed, so it couldn't have been that. Viper venom's purpose was to break down tissue and cause internal bleeding. That wasn't that far off. What else was there? Cardiotoxins, cytotoxins, haemotoxins, myotoxins... Where on earth would vampire venom fit in?

  The only reasons I could think of for a vampire to have any venom at all would be prey immobilisation, to numb pain, or maybe anticoagulation like when vampire bats feed. I'd originally thought Zach's lied somewhere between sedation and euphoria, given that I'd seen how the victims he'd used it on in the past had gone into another world in their head, but I didn't feel anything like that right now. Did it have several purposes? Or was I the problem? Was this from his venom at all?

  Could it have been the fact I swallowed his blood?

  "Oh no." I gulped as I thought it through, slumping against the car seat. "There's no way."

  But part of me knew. I'd read every vampire novel and watched every vampire movie on the planet. The way turning was always depicted was either being bitten or drinking a vampire's blood.

  I'd just done both at the same time.

  "Zach?" I called weakly as the world began to spin. "I need... Shit."

  I jumped out of the car and scrambled to my feet, running as fast as my numb legs could carry me. My vision was mostly gone, replaced by blurry patches or completely blank spots. The ringing was becoming overwhelmingly loud. I could see my own breath.

  "ZACH!" I cried out. "Where are you?"

  I tripped at the surface change upon stumbling across a road. I froze. We'd set up the tent deep into the trees, far away from any cars. That meant I'd just ran the wrong direction.

  "Okay." I panicked, jaw chattering. "Someone will help. Someone will come."

  I headed down the road for a while. I couldn't keep track of the minutes that passed, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't feel anything but the aching cold of my limbs losing all sensation. Eventually I realised I was walking over sticks again, and despair finally hit me.

  I cried as loudly as I could as I sank to the ground, begging every deity I could think of for Zach to hear me. For anyone to hear me. If I was going to die, I didn't want to be alone.

  I'd been there when it was Zach's turn. I'd seen him wake up choking on his own blood and screaming in agony from his injuries. The way whoever his attacker was had mauled his flesh to shreds, the way bones poked out of every corner they weren't meant to, the way his guts spilled from the slashes on his stomach.

  I couldn't do that. I could never go through that.

  I wasn't disembowelled or bleeding like he'd been, but I could feel myself dying. My spine lost its last ounce of strength and I sobbed as my face slammed into the dirt. I couldn't move anymore.

  I was going to die. I was going to come back, but I'd go through it all alone. There wouldn't be anyone to hold me and tell me everything would be okay. The animals would eat me if I took too long to wake up.

  It was cold. I was scared.

  My eyes gently fell shut. A weak breath escaped my quivering lips.

  I didn't want to die. The only way I'd wanted to become a vampire was calmly, consensually, painlessly. I wanted to wake up in a bed with flowers and Zach beside me. I wanted a fairytale, but I'd been handed a nightmare. I didn't have the strength to cry anymore.

  I didn't want to go alone, with no one knowing where I was or what was happening. I didn't want this. I wanted to be with Zach.

  All I wanted was to stay, no matter the cost.

  I opened my eyes to find myself back in reality. Flashes hit me of what had happened: the petrol station, the car, Diego and Apple, the gunshots, Zach's... jaw flying off... and then the crash. I couldn't remember much more than a handful of still frames, most of which just Zach's blood spraying in the air. It was hard to decipher what was real and what was that dream.

  Dream? Memory?

  Where was I?

  My eyelids weighed a ton, only getting heavier the harder I tried to focus on my surroundings. The blurring began to subside, colour seeping into my senses. Wherever I was, it was completely dark. The only hint of a light came from what I assumed was a window at the top of some kind of wall, where the moon shone through the glass pane.

  I was sitting on the floor, back against a wall. My wrists were tied together behind me to a white blob I could only guess was a radiator or something of the sort. I felt unbearably hungover, which reminded me of my teenage years.

  It also reminded me of that dream I just had.

  It felt so real, so visceral. Could I trust it? If it truly was a memory of my life as Victoria, it would be the last one. I'd have thought I'd remember childhood pets long before that. Unless something had triggered it.

  Like silverleaf might.

  Night vision began to kick in, the cogs turning and gears clanking through the rust. The air was uncomfortably silent, so much so that I couldn't hear my own breaths. I could barely stay awake or keep my head up.

  Beside me a figure began to appear as my eyes took in the light better, sharper. In a way I sensed she was there before the confirmation, but it still shook me. Only a few metres from me, tied to a table leg, was Tori. She was still knocked out, whether that was from the silverleaf Zach had given her or from the new batch we'd been dosed with I wasn't sure. Specs of moonlight glittered off of the splintered shards of glass that rest in her pale hair, and had been wedged in her cheeks similarly to how her blue face-paint had adorned them in my memory. Now it felt a little more concrete.

  Though it was dark and I still struggled making things out, this was the first time I'd gotten to see her so close for more than a few seconds, or other than looking in a mirror while in her body. I put aside my horror and disgust for a moment and tried thinking of her as what she really was: me.

  That was my hair that was covered in glass. My skin that had turned blueish and was slashed all over, stitched back together like Frankenstein. My clothes she was wearing, even. My mouth that was cut up and charred like a creature from The Walking Dead.

  My mouth that... Zach's blood had boiled from the inside out the night I died. Or at least that was what happened in that dream.

  He was at the other side of me, near the door. I knew that but I refused to look. I could smell his blood from where I was, the scent was trapped and lingering in the small space. It wasn't like when anyone else would bleed and I'd go hungry, the scent of it made me feel like vomiting from panic. Like toxic fumes or a poisonous substance. Like I was in a room of arsenic and carbon monoxide gas. That and I knew the image of his face would haunt me if I dared peek. It was hard enough seeing Tori disfigured. At the very least, his jaw would be in pieces, not to mention all the possible injuries from the crash itself.

  I glanced down at my crossed legs in search of my own injuries. Aside from the fatigue and the overwhelming sense of impending doom, I wasn't that bad. A few scrapes or scratches here or there but they were all healing on track. Though I suspected the strange sticky sensation on the sides of my face and neck was my blood. Had I been shot too? Was it coming from my ears or my head?

  I shifted slightly only to grunt out from a sharp pain in my spine, but I didn't hear it. I shot cold as I realised. I tried grunting again and was met with silence, though I was sure I'd made noise, having felt it in my throat.

  I coughed. I growled. I cried. I yelled. But I couldn't hear any of it.

  If the blood was coming from my ears, I'd either have had my eardrums blow or been shot from one through to the other. Could I survive that? Would I heal before I'd know?

  My head hit the wall behind me as I panted in despair. It finally sank in that we'd been kidnapped. No one knew where we were, I couldn't even tell what type of room we were in, and the weird occasional sway of gravity messed my senses up. It was like the ground was floating. I couldn't make any sense of it.

  I shut my eyes and drowned in the deafening silence. All I could do was wait. I considered trying to untie myself and the others, but there would be no point with them both unconscious. I had to hope for time to pass quickly and for the silverleaf to wear off from them. Although if Tori woke up she and I would be sent back into loop mode, and I couldn't handle the thought of repeating that mess again.

  I shuddered.

  Please wake up, Zach. I can't handle this alone.