A Whisper in the Dark

by K J Sutton

  Hearing our approach, Nina turns around and finally meets my gaze. She’s the spitting image of Drew—same lanky frame and curly brown hair. Hers hangs just below her shoulders in deep waves and shines in a way that shows she puts effort into maintaining it. I don’t want to imagine what my hair looks like right now.

  I pause, taking a few beats to consider it before I say, “Hey, I’m Charlotte.”

  My name suddenly sounds so delicate, so breakable. I wish I could take it back.

  “Charlotte,” Nina echoes. “Fancy.”

  Frowning at her, I catch my bottom lip between my teeth for a moment. She’s right. It’s the name of a princess, which I am no longer. “Charlie,” I say. “Call me Charlie.”

  “Okay. Catch you later, then, Charlie.” She turns and goes down the hall, into one of the bedrooms, and shuts the door. There’s nothing cruel in her behavior… just guarded. Though I’ve only just met her, tells me Nina Hayes has known fear and pain.

  Suddenly a beam of sunlight catches my attention as it filters through the large window at the end of the hall. Morning is rolling in, inevitable as a tide. Adrenaline has kept me going for hours—I’m still riding that high, waiting for it all to come crashing down so I can pass out and spend some hours away from my shitty new reality.

  “Did I lose you?” Drew’s voice filters into my thoughts and pulls me back.

  I blink at him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  He shoots me yet another grin. I don’t smile—it feels like my mouth has lost the ability entirely—but something stirs in the pit of my stomach. “No need to apologize. C’mon, I’ll show you to your room.”

  Room. Bed. Sleep. “Thank you,” I repeat. “It’s been… it’s been one hell of a night.”

  “To put it lightly.” Drew steps forward to lead the way, and as we pass the shower list, he pauses, snags the marker, and scribbles his name down. Then he holds the marker out to me. “Better do it now while there are still spots open.”

  Accepting it from him, I scribble my new identity across the white piece of paper. Charlie. In a way, I like it more. Maybe, like the brown eyes I once possessed, it fits me better.

  Once I’m finished, Drew walks to the last door on the right side of the hall. He pushes it open and the hinges release a long whine. “This will be your room. Lucky for you, one of Ada’s boarders left yesterday, or else we would’ve had to stick you in the basement with the other vampires.”

  The joke slips past me as I take in the darkened space. To say that it’s smaller than my old room would be putting it generously. Similar to the rest of the house, everything is made from wood. The floor, the ceiling beams, the walls. No lovely paint or wallpaper. There’s one small window at the far end, and a single light bulb dangling over the bed. The bed in question is rusting and rumpled, with scratchy-looking blankets and iron posts at the head and feet. The pillow looks no better than a sack of potatoes.

  I remind myself, for what feels like the hundredth time, that Gabriela wanted me to come here.

  Drew must see something in my face. He nudges my arm with his and says, “Hey, no big deal, you can just share my bed.”

  Coming from anyone else, the words would normally make me roll my eyes. But tonight, I’ll take kindness in any form. I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my own mouth now, and this surprises me more than anything else—the fact I still can. “That’s very selfless of you, Drew. I’ll take it under advisement.”

  His eyes twinkle as he adds, “I’ll even let you be the big spoon.”

  I just shake my head. Unperturbed, Drew grins and wishes me a good morning, then moves toward the other end of the hall. I watch him go, all swinging elbows and long legs. The sight actually does make me smile now—it’s rare to find a human my kind hasn’t sucked all the life from.

  After a quick use of the bathroom, I hurry back into my temporary room. Despite a faint concern that the moment I put my weight on the bed, the entire thing will collapse into dust, I crawl under the blankets. With a minty mouth and a pounding heart, I tuck the scratchy material around me. The springs creak and moan with every movement.

  For a few minutes, voices from the hall trickle into my room, but eventually the rest of the boarders go to bed, too. Silence settles into every corner of the house. My preternatural hearing picks up on sounds normally too small to hear. The pitter-patter of the cat’s feet, somewhere down the hall. The grumbles of a water heater in the basement.

  Staring at the ceiling with its yellowish, peeling paint and water stains, I can’t stop the tears that prick my eyes. I may have survived the Awakening, but thoughts of what lies ahead are enough to keep much-needed sleep away. The hunger feels like a separate monster, one with its own thoughts and feelings and urges. Daylight is when the monster is the strongest—the shadows are more prominent. Sometimes they almost seem to move. The humans are sleeping, they whisper to me. So vulnerable. So full of fresh, hot, pulsing blood.

  Voices drift through the wall to my left. “Don’t be an idiot,” someone hisses.

  I’m about to yank the pillow over my head when a familiar voice replies, “What?”

  “I’m serious, Drew. Stay away from this one. Promise me.”

  For some reason, I don’t want to hear his answer, and this time I do pull the pillow over my ears. I toss and turn for what feels like an eternity. Eventually, I give up on sleep and reach for my phone. The screen wakes up, hurting my eyes, and I open an app one of my brothers created that blocks the caller’s identity. Once that’s done, I select Julia’s name from the short list of contacts. The other end only rings once before her soft voice answers.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Jules.” My throat suddenly feels thick. I swallow. Silence on the other end. “So it matters to you, then? What I am?”

  With any big sort of question, people usually know the answer—they just act otherwise because they’re afraid of it. When there’s a click and the line goes dead, I stay as I am, holding the phone against my ear. Years go by in that cold, dark room.

  When I finally find the strength to lower the phone, the monster sees its chance. It leaps forward inside me, howling to be let free. It wants to punish someone for my pain. It wants to slaughter everyone in this house. It wants to make others scream instead of me.

  No! I squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth so hard my molars grind, and clench my hands into fits until my nails are biting into my palms. I can control this. I chant those words over and over until my breathing evens out.

  The red haze gradually fades, leaving only grief in its wake, and I finally place my phone safely on the rickety nightstand. The urge to throw it at the wall, shattering it forever, is still there. Instead, I turn to the other half of me. The half I’ve always been aware of, but never able to fully define—humanity.

  And as I curl beneath the scratchy blanket, cover my face, and shake with bone-rattling sobs, I’ve never felt more human in my entire life.

  Chapter Four

  Tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally pass out, only to wake shortly afterward to an unbearable pain in my gums. My fangs slip down, throbbing with a burning need that has me sitting up in a flash.

  I can’t wait any longer—I need to feed. After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, it’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long.

  Shoving my feet into my sneakers, I move to the door and slip into the empty hallway. Someone is snoring so violently that I can feel vibrations of it through the floorboards. Moving faster than human eyes—or inquisitive cats—can track, I’m out of the boardinghouse and jogging down the street in seconds. I pull my hood up as feeble protection against the sun’s luminescent gaze.

  In the harsh light of day, it’s immediately apparent that Oldbel is a city of very few beauties—most of the buildings are rundown or fading. Weeds sprout through cracks in the pavement and there are broken windows everywhere I look. The only people that are awake are the addicts, several of whi
ch I slink past as they get their fixes in alleys or slumped against walls.

  I’ve always thought of this part of New Ve as colorless, and it’s unfortunate to be proven correct.

  Keeping to the shadows, I push my senses out until I pick up the scent of blood. A lot of blood, making its source unmistakeable.

  A feeding unit.

  Within minutes, I’m standing outside yet another dilapidated building. If I weren’t so desperate for blood, I’d walk away now. That’s probably what the owner of this site counts on—vampires who are too hungry, too desperate to care what this place looks like or whether it’s entirely legal. I exhale heavily, shame and embarrassment clinging to me, and cringe as I pull the glass door open and step inside.

  Immediately, my nostrils are assaulted by a sharp mixture of blood and bleach. I try to focus on the mouth-watering metallic instead of the poor attempt at making this place seem clean. A quick glance around tells me it’s far from it.

  The facility is comprised of just one room. The only attempt at privacy for the feedings are thin, stained sheets between each bed. The tiles are peeling from the subfloor and the walls have spackle patches all over them. There’s an enormous reddish-brown stain on the floor. Overhead, one of the fluorescent lights flicker. A fan hums in the corner, despite the chill autumn air outside.

  I go through the motions of paying for and picking a feeder from the human waiting room. It’s a process new to me, as I’ve always had feeders brought to me at the mansion, but it’s straightforward enough.

  My eyes immediately go to a middle-aged woman sitting in the middle of a row of chairs, wearing faded jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt with some whiskey brand logo on it that undoubtedly no longer exists. She’s knitting what looks to be a scarf, her hands working the multi-colored wool with her needles, but she’s looking straight ahead. The feeder’s eyes are void and faded, a reminder of how powerful vampire venom truly is.

  Her gaze becomes more alert when she notices me standing in front of her, and she gets up, leaving her knitting behind. She moves quicker than I expect her to, her heart beating with excitement. Her body knows it’s about to get its next hit of venom—she’s practically vibrating.

  As I cross the room, following her towards an empty bed, I ignore the stares of humans and vampires alike who clearly know who I am—I can’t find the will to care at this point.

  “I’ve seen your face before,” the woman says as she sits on the bed, the cheap sheets crinkling under her like paper.

  “Oh, yeah?” I mutter, hardly aware of anything but the throbbing vein in the side of her neck. I lick my lips, my fangs sliding down as I inch closer.

  Usually, I’m one for niceties. I’d like to think I’m good at making feeders feel comfortable, allowing them to enjoy the process as much as I typically do. Not today, though.

  “You’re that princess,” she realizes. Her expression is distant. Dreamy. From the marks on her neck, chest, and arms, this is far from her first feeding today. I wonder how much is left—will it be enough to sate the monster?

  “I’m no princess.” I slide my chair closer to the bed.

  The feeder moves her long, dark hair away from her neck, granting me access, and my pulse races in response. “Really?” she says faintly. “You look exactly like—”

  I touch her arm, cutting her off. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m really… I’m really hungry.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbles, turning her face away and baring her throat. She folds her hands on her stomach and exhales.

  Without a moment of hesitation, I sink my fangs into the woman's throat. She gasps, whimpering as I slice through her skin and into her jugular. Drinking deeply, I close my eyes, reveling in the way her blood explodes over my tastebuds. I swallow greedily, her blood smooth and almost sweet as it passes over my tongue and down my throat, warming my stomach like red wine. It doesn’t take long, a few minutes maybe, before the throbbing in my gums recedes. The woman moans as my venom trickles into her bloodstream, having mixed with my saliva as I fed. Her grip on the sheets loosens, and her pulse sings with subdued bliss.

  My heart slows, my mind quiets. When I open my eyes, the world comes into focus, like I’ve been looking at it through a broken camera.

  Pulling back completely, I lick the blood from my lips. The woman is barely conscious, but her pulse is steady enough that I can leave without worrying I took too much. I haven’t always been good at remembering to track the human’s heartbeat while also satiating my thirst, but years ago, Father himself trained me how to feed properly. I think he could see how much the bloodlust bothered me.

  Just as I step away from the bed, though, the human stirs. She blinks up at me blearily. It feels strange to thank her, but I also can’t bring myself to leave without a word. “Take care of yourself,” I mutter, turning away. “You really need take an iron supplement and some vitamin B twice a day. Or evening, I should say. Good… good luck, with everything.”

  The girl blinks again, and this time, it’s as though she’s looking through me. “The blood man is coming,” she murmurs. “He’s coming, coming, coming. Silver teeth. Better run.”

  I know it’s the venom speaking, but the eerie words, combined with her happy expression, make my skin prickle with goosebumps. Without responding, I turn my back on the woman and hurry away.

  Though she was hardly unwilling to let me feed on her, the guilt is already setting in. It feels like a monster with physical form, stalking me every step of the way, breathing hot air onto my neck. As I push the door open, I bow my head against a gust of wind, thinking of those lessons with my father, once so tender-eyed and affectionate as he looked at me.

  “You can do this, Charlotte. You just need to focus. Think about how awful you’ll feel if you hurt one of your favorite human pets. Hold onto that while you’re feeding. Use that to make yourself stop when it’s time.”

  I blinked the tears away. “But how will I know?”

  Alexander Travesty, a creature I’d overheard our servants call the devil, smiled angelically at me. “There’s a moment when you’re feeding that you’ll have to listen for. The human’s heart will race for a few beats.. and then slow drastically down. That’s when you know it’s time to make a choice—stop feeding, or continue drinking and risk taking its life.”

  “Okay, Father,” I said in a small voice.

  He rested his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get better at it with time, sweetheart. And we have nothing but time.”

  Remembering how it used to be makes me want to cry again, but I refrain from doing so as I head down the street with a full stomach. Once again, I pull my hood over my head in an attempt to block out the sun, and move at inhuman speed back to the boardinghouse. By the time I creep up the stairs, my limbs are heavy with exhaustion.

  It starts to rain again as I’m hurrying down the hallway. Water pounds against the roof with insubstantial fists as I slip into my room. Fully clothed, I lower myself onto the thin mattress and try to coax sleep to me. But now, with the hunger pangs gone, everything else I’ve been holding at bay has a chance to sweep down in a burst of flapping wings and flashing fangs. I wish I could be a child again with the belief that a single blanket would keep the monsters away.

  Where will I go in two days? When the money runs out, I won’t be able to rent a room or an apartment. Maybe there’s a homeless shelter nearby? There must be other Lavenders in the city…

  Suddenly there’s a soft scratching at the door. I’m already on edge, and the sound makes my heart lurch in my chest. I sit upright in a blur, uncertain whether I want to fight or flee, hardly daring to breathe… until I hear a heartbeat that’s faint and small through the thin layer of wood.

  “Damn cat,” I mutter, getting off the bed with a relieved sigh. I cross the room on silent feet and open the door. The little beast runs in, brushes past me without expressing any sort of gratitude, and immediately leaps for the windowsill. Her calico fur glows prettily in a flash of lightn
ing as she sits, curls her tail around her paws, and gazes out the glass at the rain falling from heavy clouds. I close the door and hurry back into bed, making the bedsprings squeak.

  Within seconds, the fear and the worry comes back, wrapping around me like a blanket of thorns. The air is so cold that it seems to sprout icicles that sink into my skin. I combat both shivers and sobs, but as the day wears on, I lose the war to both. Again and again, I relive the expression on the Vampire King’s face as he closes himself to me. Forever.

  An hour passes. Two. On hour three, though my heart still aches, my tears run dry. My face feels swollen as I roll over and stare at the cat. I pray to sleep like it’s a god, able to grant wishes and pay visits. Meanwhile the sun plods along the blue, blue road it travels every day. Shadows shift over the uneven floorboards. All the while, the creature on the windowsill doesn’t do anything—she just stays through every pang of panic, every tear of terror, a silent presence.

  Sometimes, though, that’s really all you need.

  I wake to the sound of sirens and the sharp bark of gunfire. So it wasn’t a terrible dream, I think as I open my eyes. A sigh fills my throat. Just in case I forgot where I was, Oldbel is here to remind me.

  “Drew, you have got to stop watering dead plants. Throw them away.”

  Shouts float through the paper-thin walls. There’s a flurry of activity on the other side of the door. More footsteps pound past. Doors open and slam. Ada’s voice thunders from somewhere downstairs, and in that instant, I realize breakfast is over.

  Shit. I’m going to be late on my first day.

  I hurry to yank my shoes on. My phone still rests on the nightstand. I snatch it up, then open the door just in time to see a thin human fly past. I poke my head out and watch the young boy, wearing only a towel around his boney waist, slip into one of the other bedrooms.

  “Shower’s free!” he hollers, his voice breaking mid-sentence. He can’t be more than twelve or thirteen. The door slams shut, making the walls on the entire floor tremble.