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She’s going to kill Ben Wheeler.
All of the fanfare surrounding her first kill was for not, because Juliette has made her decision. She’s going to absolutely slaughter her lifelong best friend.
Possibly with a pool noodle.
”It’s not a big deal.” He tells her, for the third time that afternoon, as if repetition will help to calm her down.
“Not a big deal?” Juliette squeaks.
Several heads turn at the sound, all eyes of the party sticking to her. She feels heat creep up her neck.
The party.
It was supposed to be a small get-together for Ben’s seventeen birthday. No more than twenty people. The birthday boy, her, and a few of his teammates from track and basketball.
The definition of ‘a few’ quickly became twisted, shifting into half of the school, but that wasn’t what bothered her. She’d spent enough time tailing behind Ben, watching him charm people with his good looks and easy smile, to know that the twenty people limit was unrealistic. She even went ahead and bought four times the amount of cups in preparation.
No, what bothered her was Calliope.
Calliope, the girl who she’s been crushing on and semi-stalking for the past couple weeks.
(Semi-stalking sits somewhere between having memorized her class schedule and knowing where she lives, but not having made a move yet.)
Calliope, the girl currently standing not two yards away from them, nursing a drink.
“You didn’t tell me she would be here.” Juliette hisses. If she had a little warning first, she would have worn a nice outfit. She would have done her hair. She would have done something.
”Maybe I didn’t know she would be here either.” Ben sips from his straw. “Maybe someone else invited her.”
”She just moved here. She was no friends.”
”Sort of a rude way to talk about the girl you’re in love with…” He trails off, giving her a sly glance that withers underneath her pointed stare. “Look, this is a gift for you, too. You weren’t going to make a move. You were just going to pine and pine…”
”No, I wasn’t!” She so was.
”…but now you have a chance to talk to her. In fact, I’m ordering you to. It’s my one birthday wish.”
Ben widens his eyes until they look deceptively innocent, pushing out his bottom lip so it juts like a child’s, even though he doesn’t need to. They have rules, things that have kept their friendship running for so long, one of them being that you can’t argue with a birthday wish.
So, Juliette turns towards Calliope and takes a deep breath, her heart pounding in her throat.
As she starts to creep closer, step by step, beat by beat, Calliope visibly takes notice of her. Her eyes are dark, darker than Juliette had expected them to be, and they drag up and down her body in a way that’s just as surprising.
She’s never been looked at like that by anybody. It sends a shiver down her spine and has her rethinking her entire choice of outfit, from the lame jean jacket to the flowery dress that she bought back in middle school.
”Hi.” Juliette can taste the nerves fluttering in her mouth. “You’re Calliope, right?”
Calliope just nods. “I am.”
”Cool. I mean that’s—it’s a nice name.” She can feel herself floundering. “Would you like a drink?”
”I already have one.” Oh. Juliette blushes as she notices the drink in Calliope’s hand. Idiot.
But, there’s something there—a certain glimmer in Calliope’s eyes, one of mild amusement and another emotion that she can’t quite place.
She can only hope that it’s positive.
Juliette continues to stand there, her arms dangling limply at her sides, a thousand words scrambling through her mind, not one of them suitable. What is she supposed to say now? Her plan hadn’t gone past the initial drink question, which she’s clearly blown.
Thankfully, Calliope takes some pity on her. “We have English together, don’t we?” And physics, math, and history… “You’re Juliette?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet you have a blast around Shakespeare week.” Calliope teases, drawing a genuine laugh out of her.
They’d gotten into Shakespeare just last week, and their teacher had already told several funny jokes about the name correlation, all of which made Juliette want to crawl into a hole.
She smiles now, feeling her anxiety start to ease the more the conversation continues. She had thought Calliope was just going to continue standing there like some sort of attractive statue, barely saying a word.
“It’s definitely something.” She stammers a little, gathering the courage to tease back: “But you probably know that, with a name like Calliope.”
Calliope grins.
It’s startling—a flash of sunlight splitting the clouds. Her chest feels warm from it.
She’s so—
“Gather ‘round everybody! Spin the bottle is in session.” The voice of a loud, idiotic boy breaks her thoughts. She shuts her eyes, sighing, realizing a second later that that loud, idiotic boy is her best friend. “Birthday boy demands.”
What was she saying earlier about killing him?
”Do you know him?” Calliope asks, her eyes drifting off towards the noise. “He’s kind of looking right at you.”
”That’s just Ben.” Juliette explains sheepishly, as if he isn’t still hollering behind her.
”Well, we should go then.” Calliope says, and it’s almost… suggestive, the way it leaves her mouth. Juliette’s heart stops and starts all at once. “Shouldn’t we?”
”Oh—sure.”
They make their way over to the kitchen, where Ben has assembled a small crowd, Juliette leading the way with Calliope trailing closely behind her. She can feel Calliope’s gaze on her back all the while, not faltering for even a second. Her nerves are set on edge because of it.
Yesterday, they hadn’t shared a single word with each other. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to speak a single word to Calliope, and now she’s half-sure that they’re flirting.
It’s sort of surreal, especially considering she doesn’t know Calliope.
Not really.
She knows that they share English, physics, math, and history together. She knows that Calliope is a fan of the tuna salad sandwiches from the cafeteria and that she never puts dressing on her salad. She knows that Calliope prefers books to socializing with other people, enough that she’s gone through at least three books in the last week. She knows that Calliope loves reading, not just to herself, but in class, where her voice is always smooth and calm, never shaky or stumbling.
She knows that Calliope is incredibly attractive, (quite literally) the girl of her dreams.
So, she knows Calliope, but not in any way that counts. Not enough for things to move this easily between them, especially when Juliette has never found a single step of flirting easy in her life.
(Later, she’ll think that she should have known better, that she shouldn’t have been so stupid.)
”Glad you could join us.” Ben wraps his arm around her shoulder as soon as she gets there. About fifteen people are standing in a circle around the counter. “You go first, Lettie.”
Someone sets down an empty beer bottle, swatting away the surrounding chips so it’ll be able to spin properly. It gleams underneath the dim kitchen lights.
Juliette looks from Ben’s widely smirking face to the expectant ones of the strangers around her, before finally meeting Calliope’s. The intensity of her gaze shocks Juliette to her core. She swallows, her hand holding a slight tremor to it as she grasps the bottle.
It spins and spins and spins, only to be intercepted at the last second by Ben, who points it straight at Calliope.
Subtle.
At that, a cheer that runs through the group, but Juliette isn’t sure if it’s big or small, quiet or loud. She doesn’t hear anything above the sound of her own heartbeat, and then the click of the pantry door as it shuts behind them.
The door must be thicker than she thought, because it creates an absence of sound. The cluttered noises of the party fall away, becoming mute, even to her hypersensitive ears. She imagines it must be deadly silent for Calliope.
”Hi.” She breathes, the word lingering on the end of a shaky exhale.
”Hi.” Calliope answers calmly.
There’s a steady thud, thud, thud, inside of here, and it takes her a moment to realize it’s not her own heart, but Calliope’s, beating at a slower pace than her own.
Outside, the thud had been minuscule, but in here, with nowhere to go, it simply strikes the walls and rebounds into her ears, again and again.
She lifts her stare from Calliope’s chest to her face, taking in the oddly alluring darkness of her eyes, the line of her jaw, the pretty set of her lips…
Juliette can’t help herself.
She surges forward, catching Calliope’s mouth in a clumsy bumping of lips. There’s a hot exhale against her mouth, one of faint surprise, and that is all.
”Wow, okay. Not wasting any time, huh?” The thought passes through her head that Calliope could be straight, but then she thinks of the stares she had been receiving all night, and dismisses the thought.
”Sorry. I’m socially awkward. Um…” This should be embarrassing, and on some level it is, but it’s also left her with a strange want curling in her stomach. “And have wanted to do that for a while now. And would like to do it again.”
Calliope considers it for a second, and that second seems to last an eternity. Then: “Okay.”
Juliette moves closer again, this time slower, aware of the way she’s being watched. Their lips meet softly at first, a gentle press that rings tenderly through her body.
There’s a moment where Calliope stands still against her, so still that she’s barely kissing back, despite the given consent. Her body is shaking where it touches Juliette’s own, as if teetering on the edge of a cliff. For some reason, it shoots a sudden desperation up Juliette’s throat, and she presses in more insistently, chasing whatever heat lies beneath Calliope’s careful composure.
Calliope sinks into the kiss, then, a soft sigh pulling free from her mouth as Juliette licks into it, tasting the faint sharpness of cheap alcohol mixed with cola. It shouldn’t have such an effect on her. It shouldn’t make her head spin and turn her muscles to putty. It shouldn’t—
But it does.
She hardly realizes that she’s backed Calliope up against the wall, their kisses becoming more feverish, until she has the counter grasped in her hands. Even then, it barely registers, her entire body too tuned into Calliope to notice much else.
Without warning, Calliope reverses their position in a move that steals both of their breaths, fusing their hips together as she corners her. She feels hands sliding down her body, leaving pins and prickles as they explore lower and lower, before finally gripping her thighs with almost bruising force, pulling her so close that it aches down to her bones. Calliope rolls them together, setting an urgent rhythm.
The fabric of her dress gets hiked up in the process, maybe by Calliope’s hands, but Juliette is dizzy with lust, and all thought leaves her in that moment. Her world narrows down to the place where they meet, where skin meets denim, where wet heat pools in puddles, and her mouth becomes slack, moan after moan leaving it.
Her head falls to the side in an invitation that Calliope gladly accepts, her lips attaching to Juliette’s neck and finding a sensitive patch of skin in an instant. She sucks it into her mouth, and Juliette clenches her eyes shut, a breathy sound that comes from the very back of her throat working its way past her lips.
Something brews within her, not just between her legs, but everywhere else, in the basis of her instincts and in the ache of her gums.
Oblivious, Calliope continues to kiss at her neck, pushing her head further and further back until her mouth is hovering not an inch from Calliope’s throat. Her pulse is visible beneath her skin, pumping with…
(blood)
…adrenaline, and Juliette is dying to tap into it, to sneak just one tiny bite.
Juliette feels her fangs break free from their hiding place, feels them slot down the way that they’re meant to. She swears she can almost taste the blood on her tongue, swears she can feel the rush of it in the air around them.
Fuck. She needs to stop. She doesn’t want to hurt Calliope. She doesn’t. But Calliope is so warm, so fragile, so very human against her, and she’s powerless to it.
She bites down.
The surge of pleasure that she feels is immediately offset by the sharp pain that pierces her heart. She hears a hiss from Calliope, and peers down slowly, registering the stake protruding from her chest with a sort of detached realization.
Oh.
The world begins to move slow, and that should scare her, but it doesn’t, not when she knows she’ll come back.
Oddly, her main concern is Calliope. She watches as the other girl raises her hands in front of her face, fingers trembling, her lips still swollen and pupils blown from the kiss. Blood streams along her wrist, too much of it to be her own.
Juliette wants to explain, wants to apologize, wants to tell Calliope that the paralyzation will wear off eventually, and that there’s no need to panic, but—
The world goes black.
And in the same instant, they both fall to the floor together.
/ /
Juliette comes to first.
Coming back to life feels no different than waking up from a deep sleep, except that it’s accompanied by a faint burning sensation beneath her skin.
Or, that might just be the stake.
Admittedly, Juliette hasn’t had much experience with death, aside from that one time Elinor thought it would be funny to surprise attack her with a particularly sharp stick.
That stick had been thin, plucked off a tree in their backyard. This is thicker, and the wound is much deeper, almost plunged entirely through her body. She spends a long minute lying there, breathing slowly through the pain, pulling the stake out bit by bit until she can toss it aside.
Once it’s out, the pain alleviates, her skin already working to close around the wound. She sits up at the sound of muffled voices outside, remembering the party and spin the bottle and, and…
And Calliope. She’s still here, splayed out in the exact same position Juliette left her, unmoving except for the frantic back and forth of her guarded eyes. She reminds Juliette of a corned animal.
What the hell? She’d thought she felt Calliope reaching for something while they were kissing—but a stake? Calliope staked her?
She’s heard of hunters before, of course, but they felt like something that only existed in her mom’s horror stories, and when she imagined them, they were old, bulky men. Not pretty girls. Not like Calliope.
Whatever. It’s better that she pushes past all of this and leaves before someone else comes in and realizes what’s truly going on here. Before things get worse than they already are.
How could she be so blind to think that Calliope actually liked her? So senseless?
She needs to get out of here.
Yet, that thought does nothing to get her feet moving. It does nothing to stop her from standing over Calliope, head tilted as she scans her form.
”It’ll wear off.” She tells her. “I’m not sure how long it takes to but… you’ll be fine.”
Outside, there’s a loud clatter that sounds like someone’s dropped something heavy, followed by a series of boisterous cheers.
It’s been longer than seven minutes. Isn’t that usually how far these things go? Seven minutes in heaven? Ben probably tried to do her a favor and sectioned them off, but who knows how much time that buys them.
She looks at Calliope.
Then the door.
And then Calliope again.
”Don’t freak out.” Is what she says, although she isn’t surprised in the slightest by Calliope’s widening eyes as she grabs her ankles and begins dragging her out the back door.
There are three steps leading out onto the lawn, all of which she descends with immense care, cradling an arm around Calliope’s waist so she won’t slump and hit her head.
Juliette wishes she could say there was a thrill in the act. Elinor always described it as something primal—their blood was meant to paralyze prey, after all—but she only feels awkward as she tugs Calliope along.
Still, she feels an odd sense of duty to bring Calliope home. She’s the one that bit her in the first place.
”Do you have a car?” Juliette asks. This would be so much easier with a car.
Calliope just blinks at her.
Great.
”Right—okay.” She hikes Calliope further up her hip. Has she always been this tall? This heavy? Juliette huffs. “Come on.”
Luckily, their neighborhood is relatively small, and she’d seen Calliope’s house a few weeks ago, when they first moved in. It was easy to spot, being the only place on the block surrounded by moving trucks.
(And Juliette had sort of stumbled into a puddle while catching her first glimpse of Calliope, but that’s not very important right now.)
Her luck doubles in that it’s late and dark out, so no one asks questions about her hauling a girl home in the middle of the night.
About halfway down the block, Calliope begins to stir, making faint sounds.
”Huh?”
”Screw. You.” The words come out choppy as she regains control of her mouth, but the message is clear.
”Fair.” Juliette swallows any anger she has about being staked. She’d initiated all of this by biting her, anyways. “If it means anything, I didn’t mean to bite you.”
Calliope scoffs.
”And I’m not going to do anything to you. I just want to help you get home.”
”I don’t want your help.” Calliope protests, probably not as strongly as she means to with her body still slack.
”Fine, then.” Juliette stops. “I’ll just leave you here, in the middle of the street.”
Neither of them move, but their eyes remain locked on each other, caught in an impasse. Cal’s jaw ticks.
After a long moment, Juliette makes the decision for the both of them, continuing forward just as she had before. Calliope doesn’t say a word, but her emotions hang in the air, clear as day: apprehension, frustration, fear, anger.
All of it hits Juliette in waves—crashing, liquid, but there, as if a valve has opened up between them.
The rest of the walk to Calliope’s house is a fretful time. She nearly drops Cal a total of three times. Their height balance makes it difficult for Juliette to carry her, and then there’s her apparent lack of strength. She catches Cal raising her eyebrows at that.
”We’re not all Edward Cullen, you know. I can’t stop a car with my hand.”
(Maybe she could, if she fed, but that thought is a fleeting one. Something to be forgotten. For now.)
”Yeah, but I bet you all drink blood.” Calliope’s response is short. Hint taken.
Juliette shuts up after that.
Between their not talking and the absence of people out late at night, the streets are near silent. In the quiet, Juliette picks up on it again, that steady thud. Calliope’s heartbeat.
It had pounded away in the pantry, and gave a spike at the first brush of fangs, but now it tumbles and rolls, mellowing out into a sort of calm that doesn’t show on Calliope’s face. But it’s there. The slow, beating sign of Calliope beginning to trust her.
”Home sweet home.” Juliette announces once they arrive. She tries not to huff as she sets Calliope down on the steps. Some tiny part of her still wants to impress her, just a little.
Cal stares at her.
Juliette swallows, shifting from foot to foot. She takes a breath. “I didn’t mean to—“
”Save it.” Calliope cuts her off and her mouth snaps shut. “You’re really stupid, you know that? Coming here. I could kill you.”
”From down there?” Juliette tilts her head, and she doesn’t mean the tiny smile that creeps onto her face, but there it is.
Calliope’s scowl is slower to come this time, although it does make an appearance. “I will kill you.”
Her heartbeat spikes.
Juliette just nods, knowing she needs to leave, knowing she needs to go home and digest the events of the day, and, deep down, knowing that this little interaction is all that’s safe for her to have.
For now.