Night Children

21

Outside Cal's apartment complex, Reese and I sat in silence in my dad's station wagon. The keys were in the ignition, but I hadn't turned them, so the engine lay dormant somewhere beneath us. It was just us, the purple, pink and orange sky above us, the crickets chirping in a bush nearby.

Reese was silent for what felt like a century. I kept lending him wary sideways glances, but he never moved from his spot: his head up against the window, eyes watching the sunset, breath fogging his reflection in the glass. I didn't know if I was supposed to say something, because this wasn't anything I'd ever done. I interacted with humans, sure, but no one had ever gotten close enough to see this side of my life. How was I supposed to go about explaining this?

I had this awful feeling that it would be easier if I could actually change. I could just say, "And by the way, I'm a werewolf," and be done with it if that were the case. It wasn't, however, and instead I'd have to go into a lengthy explanation of how I was a werewolf and at the same time was not, and if vampires had trouble understanding it, it was going to be impossibly incomprehensible to a human.

But there were two little puncture holes, shallow but noticeable, in the side of Reese's neck that kept me from backing out.

"You killed him."

Out of all the things I'd thought Reese would say, that hadn't been it. I gave him another glance, but he still hadn't really moved. "Who? Ethan?"

Reese gave a solemn nod.

"Yeah," I replied, tapping my fingers across the steering wheel. "He was going to kill you if I didn't. That's the thing about vampires like him. They always want something in return, and usually it's something violent."

The silence we'd been stuck in before returned, if only for a moment. Then Reese pushed out a heavy sigh, lifting himself from against the window and turning towards me. "How can you say that so easily?"

"Say what so easily?"

"Vampires," Reese clarified, "and all that."

"Oh."

"You're telling me that all the books in my basement—my dad's super weird fetish—isn't a fetish?"

I frowned, directing my gaze out my driver's side window. "Well, it might still be a fetish, Reese. I don't know what turns your dad on."

"Theo, you know what I mean," hissed Reese. I'd thought being funny about it would make it easier, but obviously he wasn't in the joking mood. "Vampires...they're real. That guy you killed was a vampire."

I nodded, turning back towards him. His eyes, a pallid blue nearly identical to his father's, were burning into me, dimmer without sunlight in them. It was more than curiosity for him. It was a necessity. He had questions that needed to be answered, and I was his only hope. "Yes, he was," I muttered. "And so was the girl."

"And so are you?" he cut in.

I scoffed, then stretched my arm out, resting my wrist against the car console between us. Reese just gave me a weird look, his rust-colored hair hanging in sweaty clumps across his forehead. When he didn't seem to get the memo, I cleared my throat and said, "Put two fingers there, Reese. Feel for a pulse."

He hesitated, but did as I asked. "You have one."

I drew my arm back. "Exactly. So, no, I'm not a vampire. I just happen to be rubbing shoulders with them often, recently. Which is what got you in this mess, so I'm sorry about that."

Reese reached a hand up, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. I could imagine the information must have been a lot to handle; no wonder he felt weary. I'd never really had a major epiphany, but I suspected that, for a human, this one was bigger than most. "If you're not a vampire, then what are you?" Reese asked me. He squinted at my forehead all of a sudden, his eyes widening after a moment. "The cut that was there—it's gone. It healed that quickly? Theo—"