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me. They would call Ryka. My father
would curse under his breath while my mother paced the room—“This
isn’t like Zee. Zee would never do this. Maybe something happened.”
The look on their faces. To see all this in my mind made me wither
in sorrow.
    I looked down at the note I’d just
written at the desk.
    Dear Mom, Dad, and Tiff,
    I’m so sorry if I made you worry. I’m
safe. Please know that I love you. I miss you. Don’t worry. I am
happy.
    Love,
    Zee
    A tear dropped onto the paper. It was
red. I gasped and wiped my face. I stared at the blood smeared on
my hand. It disgusted me, the way the blood fell into the lines in
my palm. It made my hand look old.
    I waved at Uther to show him. He
nodded, his lips tight.
    I cry blood. That is so
wrong. I wiped my hand on my
skirt.
    “Axelia,” Uther said. His voice
startled me, snapping me back to this new version of life. “It
might be better for your family not to receive that
letter.”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t want them to
think that I just disappeared or that I’m lying in some
gutter…dead.”
    “But Axelia,” he said in his low, calm
tone. “If they believe that you are alive, they will wait for you
to come home.”
    “What’s wrong with that?” I said,
though I knew the answer.
    “They will wait forever. They will
never grieve and they will never move on.”
    “I don’t know which is worse. Having
them wait or having them move on.”
    Uther stood behind me, his hands on my
shaking shoulders.
    “My heart,” I said, crying. “It
hurts.”
    “It will be all right,” he said. “I
promise. This period of mourning will pass. Of course, you will
miss your loved ones but you will never forget them. You will see.
Everything is going to be fine.”
    He crouched beside me and fixed his
gaze on me, as if he was willing me to understand, as if he could
instill strength through his eyes. “Normally, people choose to be
blessed in this way. They undergo a sacred ritual to become a
vampire. I know that you didn’t have a choice. But no one asks to
be born. This is the nature of fate. It is beyond your control. You
must endure whatever comes. You must be strong.”
    I scrunched up the paper and pushed it
away. My hand fell limp on the desk and the pen rolled away. He
took my hand and held it for a long time. I let him. I still felt
broken but I didn’t feel as alone. I swallowed the lump in my
throat and swiped at a tear on my cheek with the back of my wrist,
marking it with red.
    “In the movies, when vampires crawl
out of graves, they are just so excited about being dead and
sucking blood,” I said. “I’m not excited.”
    “The movies aren’t real,” he
said.
    “Does that mean you don’t drink
blood?”
    “No. We subsist on blood.”
    My nose detected the faint scent of
baby powder before I heard the hardwood creek under Lettie’s
footsteps. She walked in and I frowned at the pungent, rusty smell
coming from the mug in her hand.
    “I brought you something,” she
said.
    She set the steaming mug down in front
of me. It had, “I Love Rome” written on it in red, white, and
green.
    “Where did you get the cup?” Uther
asked.
    “On the street,” she said with a
shrug. “I thought it would please her.”
    “Is this blood?” I asked,
alarmed.
    “Is it hot?” Uther said.
    “I thought it could be like having a
warm cup of tea,” Lettie said. “Humans like tea.”
    “This is not exactly…my cup of tea,” I
said.
    “You need it for strength,” Uther
said.
    I hooked my fingers around the handle
of the mug and peered at my disgusted reflection in the
liquid.
    “I can’t do this.”
    “Sure, you can.” Lettie said
encouragingly.
    “I guess it could have been worse. You
could have brought me an actual person,” I muttered.
    Lettie made a face. “I’m not
savage.”
    “Our blood is supplied,” Uther
said.
    “What does that mean?” I
asked.
    “It means that we have no need to hunt
humans. We are provided for.”
    “So