09: What Can Be Lost

                                    

                                          

                            

                                
                            
                              
                                  
                              
                              
                                
                                  
                                  
                                
                              
                             
                            
                            
                          
                          
      There was no war toiling inside of me, trying to rip me apart as my fangs were dug into the neck of some college kid and his blood pooled inside my mouth. All I focused on was the steady heartbeat in his chest, the music and chatter that was a combined sound right at the back of everything else. He had sneaked into the town with his friends, and wanted to see for himself the mysterious ghost town—all he found were monsters. 
   I pulled away from his neck and inhaled deeply through my mouth, savouring what was left inside my mouth. My eyes shifted to the boy's hooded ones, the deep brown that resembled coffee grounds. "I should keep you," I said as my hand trailed down his cheek to his chin, where I gripped it between my fingers, "as my personal blood bag."
   The boy tried to open his eyes. "Wh-what?"
   I smiled, my teeth red with his blood. "My personal blood bag," I repeated in a hum.
   "There's no need to play with food." Julian stepped to my side, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder to pull him away from me. "You need to let the others try."
   My head snapped in his direction. "I think we're all old enough to find out own food. So, how about you send your friends out to find their own?"
   Julian pulled his hand away from the boy's shoulders and laid it around my throat, his fingers digging into my skin. "You forget, Sweet Clara, but you became one of my friends the moment you turned off your humanity." There was a certain brightness in his eyes that I knew well as amusement and anger, two things that were a dangerous combination when it came to someone as unhinged as Julian. "Which means, you should share our dear friend Nick here with the rest."
   I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away from my neck. "Friends. Is that what we are?" A hum left my mouth as I took a step back, and turned my body to look back at the boy. I laid my hand on his neck, as gentle as a lover's touch "Would you share with your friends, Nick?"
   The boy did not answer. He blinked several times, tried to adjust his sight to the light and the countless people that surrounded him.
   A group of these so-called friends had gathered behind Julian, focused on every movement that I made. Their eyes focused on the way my fingers pinched the boy's chin, the way I twisted it and the crack of his neck echoed through the room.
   The body slumped by my feet, eyes open and staring at nothing.
   The group of Julian's friends stared at my mouth as I grinned, teeth speckled with the boy's blood. "I don't like to share." My voice was the only thing that could be heard in the entire bar, both loud and soft. 
   I took a few steps closer to Julian and laid my hand on his neck just like I had done with the boy, his soft heartbeat loud against the tips of my fingers. The smile on my lips did not waver as I leaned closer to him, my mouth brushing against the shell of his ears. "You don't understand what it means to turn off my humanity, Julian," I whispered. "Not only am I giving in to everything that used to make me feel like a monster, but I'm allowing myself to turn into one." I pulled away to look back into his eyes. "It means our friendship, Julian, is on my terms."