Page 17 of The Monster and the Last Blood Match

“We don’t care what his name is,” Drew spat. “We care that he’s drinking blood from our sister.”

Reyna flinched. “He hasn’t… Well, I guess not yet.”

“How could you do this?” Brian asked.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Reyna said, pointing her finger at her brothers. “You two work day in and day out to make scraps, and for what? This one-bedroom apartment? Barely enough food to feed ourselves? Half the time, we don’t have electricity or running water. You work too hard for too little, and I couldn’t sit around and let it happen any longer.”

“So, you decided to feed those bloodsucking bastards?” Brian yelled.

“I looked for work. You bothknowI looked everywhere for work. But no one would hire me.” She threw her arms out wide. “I’m nobody. I’m nothing. I’ve no education. No skills. There was no other choice.”

“There’s always a choice. And you knew it was the wrong one, which is why you didn’t tell us,” Brian said.

“Don’t judge me, Brian.” She had made her decision, and she was sticking to it. “I did what I had to do. And better yet, I got put into a system where I make double the average employee.”

“Call it what it is, Rey. Blood escort,” Drew said.

She couldn’t look him in the eye. She was too ashamed of that word.

“Why are you making double?” Brian demanded. His arms were crossed, and he looked pissed. This wasn’t the happy reunion she had been hoping for.

This was the part she had been dreading. Most Visage employees rotated monthly, with time off with family when they weren’t needed. Her situation was different, and her brothers were going to hate it.

“Because I signed up for a new position. One of the doctors has been developing a new match system,” she said carefully.

“Isn’t it done by blood type? How can it be new?” Brian asked.

“Well, they’re trying to find individuals who are interested in a longer-term position.”

Brian furrowed his brow. “How much longer?”

“Um…indefinitely.”

Drew stalked away from her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“They want to keep you as a feeder forever?”

“No, it’s just a permanent living situation. Once I have enough money, I’ll come back home. We’ll be able to afford a better place. I could go to college. We could make something of ourselves.”

“You think those bloodsuckers are going to let you leave once they have you trapped in their system?” Brian asked. His eyes were steely.

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. That’s not what they’re doing.”

“You can’t do this, Rey,” Drew said.

“It’s already done,” she told them. She took a step back. They weren’t making her budge on this. She had already weighed the pros against the cons. There was nothing they could say to change her mind. “I’m living in the city now. I’m staying with my Sponsor. He gave me all these new clothes and access to a driver. I can’t leave.”

“He bought you,” Brian said softly. “Our little sister is enslaved to a vampire.”

“Oh my God, I am not enslaved.”

“He gives you money, buys you new clothes so that you’re completely unrecognizable, and lets you stay in his place. He is making you completely indebted to him. So when he takes your blood, you feel like you owe it to him. You feel like your place is beside a monster, when your place is here.” Brian grabbed her hands in his. “With us, Reyna.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Drew said. “Come back. Let us take care of you. We were doing fine.”

She pulled her hands away from her brothers. “Fine? This is your idea of fine? We deserve better than a shitty apartment. We deserve better than a moldy, drafty bedroom that makes us sick. We deserve jobs that pay us fairly and that don’t work us to death. We deserve real food, a livable wage, access to health care, and so much more. You can’t sit here and tell me that we’re fine. Because we arefarfrom fine.”

Her brothers looked away from her. They couldn’t deny the things that she had said. They really needed the money.

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