Neither (The Noctalis Chronicles 3)

“Where did they come from?”

“Wherever we come from. I don't know.”

“Do you have them?”

“No. I am different.”

“Show me.”

He took off his shirt, and even though it was dark, I could see his skin as it shifted from human skin to greenish scales. He stuck out a now-forked tongue at me.

“You're much prettier, love.”

I walked toward him and put my hand on his face, just to feel. It was like touching a snake, but the scales still retained some of the feel of skin. They were soft somehow. They had a tiny bit of sparkle. He shifted back to his human face.

“Can I go outside now?”

“Of course.”

He gestured to the trapdoor, and I flung it open. If I would have still been human, I would have been blinded. The sun was glorious. It filled me up with light and brightness, and I thought I would burst from one more second of it.

“We need the sun to live, you see. Those vampire stories are all fiction.”

I wanted to take off my clothes so I could take in more of it. I wanted to bathe in it for eternity. I tried my wings out. They were as easy to move as my arms or legs. I flapped them.

“You'll be able to fly soon, I should think. Are you thirsty?”

“Thirsty?” As soon as he said it, a crippling need overcame me. I wanted something, but I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I had to get it. NOW.

“If I tell you to stay here, will you listen? I will be right back with what you need.”

I listened and stood in the sun for what felt like forever. The initial burst of it had worn off, and now I just wanted something hot and liquid. I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything else.

A smell hit me and I knew that whatever it was, it was what I needed. I followed it, disobeying Ivan's orders. My feet carried me to where he was with a man. The man was dirty and had not bathed in a while, but above all else, he smelled of sweat, human and something else. The thing I needed.

“He's yours. Don't worry about killing him. He doesn't deserve to live.”

He tossed the man at me. He was unconscious. I caught him, and without thinking, ripped into his skin, letting his sweet, hot blood spurt into the air like a fountain. I latched into the hole I'd made and sucked. This. This was what I needed.

In the next few hours Ivan brought me three more people, until I was so full and drunk on blood I could barely move. He didn't take any, and I didn't offer.

“It doesn't disgust you?”

“I didn't think about it.” It was true. Distantly, I thought that I should care. I'd killed four people in a few hours and I didn't care.

“It is natural not to care. It will take you some time to get in touch with your humanity again. For now, you need blood and sun.”

Sounded good to me.

***

“Why did you make me promise to spend a day with you?”

“I don't really know, love. I wasn't sure that you'd stay with me after I turned you.”

Ivan and I were lying under the moonlight on the roof of an office building in the heart of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I'd lost count of how many people I'd fed from. At least ten. I'd only been fully immortal for about a day.

“So I'm really going to live forever?”

“Yes. Did you think I was lying?”

“How should I know? You're a stranger I met in the middle of the night who gave me blood.”

“True.” He rose to his feet. “Let's try it out.”

“Try what out?”

“Killing you.”

I was not nervous, although my heart should have raced and my anxiety level should have been high. I knew those things once were, but they were not anymore. I didn't have a heart that could race.

“Okay,” I said, getting up. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, I would throw you off the building, but that might attract attention.”

“You could stab me.”

“Good idea.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the same knife he used to cut me when he changed me. He flipped it at me and I caught it without thinking. “Be careful with it. I like that knife.”

I unfolded the sharp blade from the handle and held it against my skin without pressing. “Why aren't I scared?”

“You have nothing to be afraid of. Fear is a mostly human emotion.”

“Huh.” I pressed the blade against my skin, but nothing happened. I pressed harder, drawing it quickly across my arm. Nothing. No pain. No blood. It just felt like scraping something across my skin.

“See?”

I took the tip of the blade and poked my arm with it. I knew it was sharp. I knew it would cut a human because it had cut me. I leaped forward and shoved the knife at Ivan. He dodged me and I lunged again. He laughed, moving out of my way. I kept trying, chasing him around the roof and trying to stab him. If I was human, I would have thought it a crazy and morbid game. As it was, I started laughing and we ran around the roof, me chasing him with the knife and him avoiding me.

“Nothing can hurt you, Brooke. Nothing. You're unstoppable.”

I felt unstoppable. I threw myself at him and we slammed to the concrete of the roof.

“Careful, love. You'll break something.”

He rolled over until he was on top of me. There was a pit where I'd jumped on him and made a dent in the roof. Oh well. I stared at him as he held himself above me.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked.

He stared at me, our eyes locking. Since we didn't need to blink, we could keep the contact as long as we wanted.

“I don't know.”

He rolled off me and looked up at the stars. I'd never seen them so clearly before. I wasn't hurt by his snub. I would have been, if I'd been human. I wasn't anymore, so I didn't get upset about things like that. I remembered something he said before he changed me. My memories were murky from my human life, but they had been coming back to me in little drips and drops.

“Who is she? That girl you mentioned. The one that loves your brother.”

“Ava,” he said. “Her name is Ava. She's... I don't know. She's pretty and human and she reminds me of a girl I lost.”

I had to dig for the name of the other girl. “Josie?”

“Yes, Josie.” He said the name as if it was the most important word in the world. He didn't say my name that way.

“What was she like?”

“She hated me, but she loved me, too. Love and hate are really the same thing. You can never hate as much as when you love them, too.”

I felt the same way about my mother. Or at least I had. I didn't know how I felt about her now. It was irrelevant.