blood and burning metal. He spared her a pitiful expression and then, hands shaking, he upended the thermos and consumed the blood. He gagged, fighting against every drop.
She couldn’t watch him gulp it down like some foul cough syrup. Delia had to turn away, had to retreat. Sweat burst on her brow, and she held her palms against that old pain, now flaring like a knitting needle piercing her guts.
“Don’t lose it, Delia Castleman. Don’t you cry at work,” she whispered. Somehow, she didn’t.
Sam came to her a few minutes later, returned to the listless and pale but human appearance that vampires maintained, except for when they fed. “Man, I hate that. Being a vampire blows.”
“The blood doesn’t . . .”
“It’s awful. Worst thing I’ve ever had to do. It’s that or go mad. They say it only takes us thirty-six hours to starve up here on the surface. You tear yourself apart from the inside, like you’ve got Ebola. They have to kill you if it goes too far. It’s all anyone can do.”
Delia reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder. Sam was just a kid, just a good, if unambitious kid. Nineteen. He’d had his whole life ahead of him. It wasn’t right. He covered her hand with his own. It didn’t feel like part of a person’s body. There was no moisture, no internal heat. It felt like the hand of a mannequin.
“We could stay open twenty-four hours, I guess,” she whispered. “Maybe then . . .”
Sam looked into her eyes. “Really? You’d do that?”
Everything slowed down somehow, and Delia wondered if she’d lost a moment of time. Like she had blinked far too long, and everything had changed around her. He had come closer, his eyes seemed larger, almost luminous. In the stillness of Sam’s face, she now saw something vaguely beautiful.
Delia withdrew her hand, shaking her head to try to clear it. “I don’t know what I could pay you. In a town like this, maybe there’d be damned slim business through the night, but I guess we could try it.”
He managed a smile, just a small one. “I’d hug you, but I guess that’s out.”
“A year ago, Sam, vampires were just a scary story, just the grist for a movie or a book. When they—I mean your people—came out of the ground in Oslo, it turned everything on its ear for all of us. I’m still getting used to the idea.”
“They weren’t my people then. Not yet. Now . . . I’m still waiting to be all handsome and brooding. I just went from loser to dead kid loser.”
“You’re not a loser, Sam.”
He put up his hand. “No Carpathian Mountains, D. Just the stock room and a cot next to the washing machine in an unfinished basement. I’m a loser.”
Delia took a breath. She didn’t have a counter to that. Nothing true, anyway. “It’ll be quiet most nights. Maybe you could take a correspondence course or something,” she suggested.
He chuckled. “Yeah. Small-engine repair. Paralegal work. Big plans. I’m not even a person, exactly. They don’t know what the heck to call us now. My own mom shoved a cross in my face when I was picking up my clothes. My dad only let me in while he was holding a shotgun. Like I’d try to bite my own parents.” Sam bit down on his teeth, the corners of his mouth twisting. “I don’t see us getting a real warm reception. You’ve always been good to me, D, and even you don’t want me around.”
“That’s not true.” Weak words. Too small a protest to ring true.
“It’s okay. I understand. I have to be somewhere, though. It would be easier to just lie in a grave, but I’m still moving around. I don’t have the guts to just die. I don’t want this to be the end for me.”
“You can stay here, sweetie. I promise. For as long as you want to.” Overcoming her own reticence, that fear that keeps people from putting their hand out to a wild animal, Delia took Sam’s still, mannequin body in her arms. There was no give in his