After shakily stuffing clothes into my backpack, I sat on the bed and stared at my feet. What was I going to tell Anna? I couldn’t stick around, I had to go. But how could I leave her here? Knowing what he was? What if he was mad at me for leaving and he killed her? I should warn her, get her to leave, too.

I should do it in person, though. I would go and see her, give her the news. She’d think I was crazy, but when I upped and left maybe she would think about it and take me more seriously. It was the best I could do.

Zac had given up calling, but Danny had taken up the role. I couldn’t answer it. I couldn’t tell him before Anna. I’d be letting him down too when I left. Would he understand? He knew Zac wasn’t normal. Maybe he even knew what he was already? He’d tried so hard to warn me away.

Sirens wailed outside and the next thing I knew I had paramedics at the door. Dammit Danny. They ran some tests and satisfied themselves that I wasn’t having a stroke. Then they pulled out a few fragments of glass and patched me up. They were insistent I should get checked out at hospital. I refused, assuring them I’d go straight there if anything got worse.

If anything got worse. What did that mean now? Puncture wounds in my neck? In a body bag? Turning into a vampire?

I knew as soon as I heard the tentative knock at the door that it was him. In fact, I knew before the knock because I’d heard the engine as he pulled up outside. The knocking continued when I didn’t answer, slow and gentle tapping, like he was trying not to scare me! I stood as far from the door as I could, wishing that I was staying self-catering and would have had a knife on hand.

The patient tapping didn’t last long before it turned into banging and thumping.

“Jess, please. I need to talk to you.” He sounded like a normal, anguished boyfriend after a fight. Not a blood-curdling monster.

“Stay away,” I shrieked. “I’ll call the police.”

Why hadn’t I called them already? OK, so I couldn’t tell them I had a vampire banging on my door, but I could tell them I had a madman out there. I got as far as pressing the 9 before the door flung open with a loud crack and I dropped the phone. He flew into the room, grabbed it, and then backed off with his hands up in the universal ‘I mean no harm’ gesture. He quietly shut the broken door and put a chair in front to keep it closed.

“Sorry,” he muttered, still holding his hands up.

I guessed this was what it felt like when you face your death and people say your life flashes before your eyes. My mind raced over things that had happened to me in the past, irrelevant things that it didn’t make sense for me to think of. I thought of my mother, her beautiful face and the smell of the cookies she baked when I was little. I thought of my father, of his disappointment in me. The explosion. The guilt. I remembered the night that I’d pulled a little boy from a burning room, fire blazing all around me. His mother’s face as I handed him to her outside. Then there were some relevant thoughts, like those of Anna and how it would be my fault when he killed her, too.

“I’m not going to kill either of you.”

“So what are you going to do?” My whole body was shuddering like a maniac on speed.

“Nothing. I needed to apologise.”

“For what?”

“For leading you on. For letting you think there could ever have been anything real between us. I knew it would have to end. I was planning on that happening before you found out. I’m sorry.”

“Before I found out,” my voice sounded distant, my head fuzzy.

“I couldn’t keep it hidden forever. If it wasn’t the hunter’s notes, it would have been something else. You’d have pieced it together eventually.”

“Hunter.”

“The vampire hunter, he was targeting us,” he said matter-of-factly.

That was it then. The word vampire had left his lips and the bile rose in my throat. I wanted to laugh out loud at the silly prank he was playing. Instead I sank to my knees and cried.

“This isn’t real. Please tell me it’s a sick joke,” I wailed. “You’re just one of those sad freaks from the internet who dresses up and pretends to be the undead, right?”

Except I knew you couldn’t fake the attributes he had.

His arms wrapped around me. Had I noticed how cold he was before? He definitely seemed colder now. My whole being was screaming at me to run away, defend myself, but his contact sent those little tingles through me and for some unfathomable reason I felt safe. I didn’t want him to let go. I buried my face into his shoulder and sobbed.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head. “This should never have happened. I should have left before, disappeared. I kept trying, but I had to keep coming back for more.”

Further panic engulfed me. “You were trying to leave me?”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have been putting you in danger. But the more I was around you, the more your hold grew on me.”

I pulled back. “You said you’re not going to hurt me. Why was I in danger? I feel so safe with you, it doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t think I’d ever hurt you, but I can’t be certain. It’s too risky trying to have such a close relationship. I didn’t mean for it to get this far. Once you’re gone I promise my stalking will end. I won’t follow you. I’ll stop myself… somehow.”

“But, I don’t want to be without you,” I sobbed.

He pushed me away this time and held me where he could see my face. “What are you saying?”

“I’m… I’m saying I can’t be without you.”

Was I? How did I let those words leave my lips?

“Yes, you can,” he said deliberately. “You have no choice. This is non-negotiable.”

My sobbing increased into great, wracking howling. “I can’t just forget you. I can’t go on with my life, go about the normal business of living, knowing that you exist and that I’m not with you.”

“What you feel for me isn’t real. You only want me because of the power we have over humans. You have no choice but to want me.”

“Don’t patronise me!” I screeched. “It doesn’t matter what the reason for it is. Blame it on your magical powers if it makes you feel better. The fact remains that I can’t be without you and nothing will change that.”

I’d not realised just how much I needed him, until he was sitting next to me threatening to leave. Buzzing and panic began whirling around me.

“Distance would change it. If you didn’t see me for long enough the power would gradually fade and you’d wake up one day wondering why you even liked me.”

“No.” I swung my head in denial.

“I’m a vampire, Jess. Do you know what that means?”

“You said you won’t hurt me and I believe you.”

“I said I didn’t think I would hurt you, but that I couldn’t be sure.”

“You’d already have done it by now if you were going to.”

“Really? And you’re an expert on vampires, are you?”

“I’m… I feel safe when you hold me.”

“That’s my power, it’s not real,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a three year old. There, there, little girl, stop being stupid and come to your senses. “Deep inside you’re terrified, the way you should be. That’s why your heart is hammering and your muscles are locked. Vampires are masters at disabling their prey, we’re alluring and seductive. We make you want us.”

“Prey,” I said the word out loud and lurched forward to be sick. Nothing came up, just painful heaving.

“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing my back as if consoling a drunken girlfriend. “I need to make you see reality.”

“There is no reality, not since I found out a vampire has been kissing me.”

“Look into my eyes and tell me what you see,” he said.

I didn’t dare. I held my gaze on the floor until he took my chin gently. “Look at me, Jess.”

The tears blurred him. I blinked a few times and focussed on his eyes. My heart crushed under the weight of their beauty. Golden, glowing, deep.

“What do they say to you?” he asked.

“They say don’t come any closer, don’t touch me, don’t fall for me… run.” I reached out and cupped his face in the palm of my hands, those beautiful eyes haunting my soul. My lips were so desperate to melt into his. I leaned in and whispered, “Yet my body says to go closer, touch you, fall for you… stay.”

“I rest my case. Fucked up, right?” He averted his gaze and avoided my kiss.

I let myself slump forward. After a while I realised he was no longer holding me. He’d sat himself back against a chair. My mouth felt clogged with sawdust and fluff, gluing it shut. Words refused to come. Slowly my mind cleared, or at least de-fogged slightly, and my hands trembled again.

He was right, why on earth was I trying to stay with him? He wasn’t even human. I could see it now, when I looked in his eyes, that formidable glaring look that I could never work out before. It was evil. It was hunger and lust. They were predator’s eyes and they were preying on me.

Without allowing myself another thought I grabbed my backpack and left. I was half expecting him to stop me, for my life to be ended, but he didn’t move. I thought I saw a flicker of despair when I chanced a look back at him on my way out.

* * *

I rode for hours, tears streaming down my face, in no fit state to be on the road. I kept urging myself to stop at the next motel, but they came and went. I didn’t want to have to think.

I narrowly missed a head-on collision when I found myself on the wrong side of the road, unsure as to how long I’d been there. Eventually, after I realised that my eyes had been closing by themselves, I had to stop. The running was over. My body was still in flight mode, though. It didn’t want to stop running. I paced up and down the motel lot, hands shaking. Shaking so much that I couldn’t undo the zip on my jacket.

The motel was modern, compared to my last. Nicely painted walls, good furniture, even some fresh flowers dotted around the place. The clerk was a cheery lady in her forties, overweight, with bobbed hair and too much makeup. She was watching a comedy on the television and laughing away to herself when she noticed me at the counter, and her face dropped.

“Oh dear, sweetheart, are you alright? You look like you need to sit down. Come, sit over here while I make you a drink, what would you like, my love?” She removed a Chihuahua puppy from her lap and put it in a basket.

“Nothing, thanks. Just a room.” I tried to hold my voice steady and wiped my tear-smeared face with the back of my hand.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like someone to talk to?”

“I’m sure.”

She begrudgingly fetched some keys and led me to my room, insisting on carrying my bag for me. Fretting around the place, she found as many things to do as she could – straightening out the already made bed, showing me the coffee pot, showing me how the shower worked. When I just nodded absently at everything she went and hovered in the doorway for a while, before I kicked her out.

My knees buckled under the weight of it all. I collapsed on the bed and something dug into my hip. I reached into my pocket and fished out a syringe, followed by a small bag of heroin. That was a surprise, I didn’t remember getting it, but small flashbacks came to me of a dingy bar along the way. I had stopped after all.

I held my hand over my mouth and sniffed my breath. Great. I was drunk. No wonder I’d been on the wrong side of the road. I didn’t feel that wasted though, not enough to forget the last few hours like that. What if something more had happened? Last time I had a blackout it was after my family home burnt to the ground.

Something might have happened in one of those bars on my journey. My heightened emotion, it could have caused something. Something inexplicable. Something bad.

Fear clawed over my skin, making me shiver. I sank deeper into the bed and let the silence settle over me, breathing it in, calming the anxiety. I hadn’t sat in silence for weeks. Even alone, in your own room on South Padre, there was still always noise from this bar, or that bar, fireworks or pool parties, people fucking or pissing and puking in the street.

Sometimes when I lie awake at night I think about all the bad decisions I’ve made in my life. There’s so much material to work with, it can keep my mind occupied for hours as the darkness swirls around me.

Was going to South Padre a bad decision?

I’d readily admit to the bad ones. I have no qualms with analysing my own destructive personality and choices, even if I don’t learn from them. But no matter how hard I told myself that this was bad, I couldn’t make myself believe it.

For the first time ever it felt totally right. And wrong. But right.

* * *

The new day brought a fresh surge of pain. I took a huge lungful of air and slowly released it, repeating the move over and over. I made coffee and gulped it down, burning my throat. I emptied the heroin down the sink. It didn’t look like I’d actually had any of it, but I couldn’t remember much.

Then I sunk back into the bed and toyed with my phone. Messages had come in from Danny and Anna, asking where I was, if I was OK. What was I supposed to say to them? How could I even look them in the eye? If I told them, Anna would be dragging me to the doctors for more meds before I could get another word out, and Danny? Well, he’d surely suspend me on grounds of mental health issues.

I was supposed to be at work for my next shift tomorrow. Could I walk in there and carry on?

I noticed the social media buttons on my phone’s home screen. I hadn’t been on to any of them since my arrival at the island. I pressed on one and was greeted with notifications for unread messages.

Message 1: Jess, what the hell? You changed your number? I want to talk, call me back.

Message 2: Where are you? No one knows where you are. Call me.

Message 3: Baby, I’m worried. I went to your station, they said you left? Call me. I’ve been taking that anger therapy you wanted. I’m getting better. Call me!

Message 4: Seriously, fucking call me you stupid whore. Who the hell do you think you are?

I threw the phone down like it was poisoned.

Luke.

I thought I loved him once. Turned out it was just the drugs talking. He was just an asshole, cage-fighting machine. A real delight.

Where would I go if I left the island? Back home, to my old town, where Luke would be waiting for me? Would I let him in? In all honesty, I was more afraid at the prospect of getting back together with him, than I was of Zac biting my neck.

Zac wasn’t like him. He was nothing like him.

There was a ping, as yet another message came up from Anna.

I pondered it all for a while and decided that Zac was not a danger to them. He didn’t seem like a revenge-seeking psycho. He wouldn’t go after Anna, just to get at me. Besides, he told me to go, didn’t he? So that he wouldn’t hurt me. He didn’t want to hurt me, or Anna.

The pain crept back in and I fought to stop the tears. Why did I still want to be with him? What was wrong with me?

Perhaps they’d been right about me all along – the teachers, parents and friends. I was messed up and needed fixing. I wasn’t capable of making normal, sane choices.

Or maybe it was just that I still couldn’t believe vampires were real. That’s why I didn’t want to leave him, because it was all a big joke that had gone wrong.

I shook my head. I couldn’t escape the truth. I knew what he was. When I’d looked at him in the motel it had been clear.

I felt it.

He wasn’t human. And that set my core alight.

* * *

I rode back to the island with my held my head high, marching into my motel room and noticing that the broken door was still swinging on its hinges. I crept inside, my gaze darting around the room, to the shadows, the closet, half expecting a monster to leap out at me.

It was empty, but ransacked. The furniture was upturned, the drawers strewn around the room. Opportune burglars? I had left nothing behind, there was nothing to steal, except the motel’s TV, and that was still there. Maybe just opportune fuckwads, then. I pushed aside the idea of Zac doing it in a fit of vampiric rage.

I went over to the office and told them someone had broken in. They promised to get a replacement door within the hour, and they were right. Once it was all sorted I fell into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning. My regular nightmare morphing once again into something more; the burning bodies now had vampire fangs, and blood… so much blood.

My 24 hour shift at the firehouse passed in a surreal blur, without incident, other than a callout to help the coastguard search for a guy who had entered the water on the beach and not been seen since. Danny had supposedly returned to work, but was called over to the Port Isabel department. That left Meat in charge again, which I was grateful for. I couldn’t face Danny, not yet.

He did put a call in to Meat though, I heard him confirming to Danny that, “Yes, she’s come in to work, and, no, she looks like shit.”

Wonderful. I guess Danny had expected me to be absent after my breakdown. He’d send me back to the shrink for that. Story of my life.

Hours drifted by and turned into days. I barely moved from the sofa during my days off, except to buy more alcohol. The vice that was tightening around my chest was becoming so crushing that even breathing was hard.

Anna came to visit. She did the motherly thing and gave me all the best snippets of advice. I nodded through it, barely hearing a word. I decided she didn’t know though, and nor did Danny – about the whole vampire thing. If they knew, they’d surely have realised that I too, knew.

I didn’t see Zac at all. I expected him to be watching from afar, the way he always did, but he wasn’t there. He was nowhere. And that left me sinking with depression.

I gradually realised that the underlying panic that had settled so firmly into my core wasn’t because of him being a vampire. It was fear of leaving the island, of going back to my old life. I could go back and slip into an old life that was doomed to a worse fate, or I could dive headfirst into this fucked-up freak show.

Because he was everything.

He was too little and yet too much. Too little when he evaded me and left me panting for more. Too much when he was with me, making me mad with confusion and lust.

He was moody, weird, and kind of an ass. He was so devastatingly attractive that he sucked the breath from me every time our eyes met. I was caught, trapped, under his consuming spell.

And was it really so hard to believe what he was? How could I possibly deny all plausibility of vampires being real, when I myself was far from normal? Had I really believed I was alone, a solitary, isolated freak? What if there were others like me? What if he could help me? If I had finally found someone who could understand and accept me for who I am, should I run from that?

I’ve always loved the supernatural. I believe in psychics, in mysterious abilities. Was this any different? Could vampirism be classed merely as an ability? An evolution of the human race?

My heart ached to be close to him. And I needed answers. Many of my original questions seemed to answer themselves now that I knew what he was, but for every answered question, another ten popped up. Leaving the island was not a decision that I could make without informed facts.

I asked myself if I thought he was dangerous? Yes, I did. He exuded danger. But I didn’t really believe that he was a danger to me. It was the opposite, he made me feel safe.

Did I think he needed me? Yes, without a doubt.

Did I need him? Obviously.

Was he a killer? I got stuck on that one. Vampires drink blood, they kill people, but I couldn’t imagine him wandering around murdering people.

Was I insane, was there something wrong with me for what I was about to do?

Yep. But I had to go back, and he would damn well talk.