QUINN MILLER
We’re still seeking volunteers to join the committee planning this year’s annual NEW ENGLAND VAMPIRE BALL! The vampire ball is the one night each year where the New England clan can gather in person and party our faces off, so join me in making this a night to remember!
Either way, save the date for this March 1, 2025 to dance the night away with your fellow vampires!
12 comments / 28
> MAX: wouldn’t miss it for the world
> EDMUND: um you better put me on the planning committee, no way we’re getting a terrible DJ like last year
>> CRYSTAL: Agreed, let’s do live music. So much classier.
>> QUINN: Love this energy! Please DM me!
Brennan had been to three elementary schools, two middle schools, and five high schools in almost a dozen different cities, and if there was one thing he’d learned, it was how to recognize when someone with authority was going to give him a talking-to. Many a well-meaning school guidance counselor had tried to check in on the new kid who moved around a lot, but by the fourth move, Brennan had realized the best approach to school was to be invisible and stay out of people’s way. By age twelve, he’d gotten skilled at dodging concerned questions from adults, and with his good grades, they let him.
Nellie walked next to Brennan in silence as they left the café and walked down a busy street. The jumble of conversations and noisesfrom traffic made Brennan’s headache stab a steady rhythm into his temples. He felt like he was being walked to his execution, and each passing moment of Nellie’s silence made it worse.
She turned down a less busy side street and Brennan followed, weaving around a group of students in Boston University gear eating tacos from a truck. She turned once more and stopped near a quiet subway entrance.
“Is this where you kill me?” Brennan joked. But also, did not joke. He wondered how quickly he could get to the silver knife if Nelliedidtry to kill him. He still didn’tknowthese people, and they talked so easily about death.
“You’re hangry,” Nellie said.
“Uh.” Brennan blinked. Nellie started digging inside her jacket. “What?”
“Hangry? Did I say it wrong? Sunny taught me that. Hungry and angry. You need blood.”
Brennan shook his head. He’d been taking his daily rationed amount, and he hadn’t felt anywhere near approaching the overwhelming thirst that had taken over before.
“I’m nothangry.I’ve been drinking.”
“Not enough.”
As soon as she said it, Brennan knew she was right. His senses had been dull and slow, in between asleep and awake. His head had been out of sorts in a fog he’d thought was anxiety for days, but when he thought about it, the hazewasdifferent, had a sharper edge to it.
“I was rationing,” Brennan defended. But the thirst, now that he’d identified it, burned. And Nellie had picked up on it effortlessly. The idea that Brennan could handle this on his own suddenly seemed absolutely batshit, but the idea of accepting help terrified him even more.
Nellie’s hand emerged from her jacket with a simple metal flask, and she presented it with an encouraging smile. Brennan felt frozen. What if this was a trick?
Something about her reminded him of one of his old half-friends triumphantly presenting a flask of cheap vodka with a grand flourish back when they were freshmen. Something about the familiarity of it—or thesharp smell of blood filling his nostrils as Nellie twisted off the cap—relaxed him.
He took the flask, and he drank.
It never stopped being strange, how utterlynotstrange it was to drink blood. Each time, in the moment, felt right. Warm and thick and sticky and delicious, consuming him with the fervor of a child with chocolate. It was only afterward that the shame would kick in, the reality ofYou just drank human blood, you absolute freakringing in his head. (Intrusive thought, his therapist would say. Recognize it, but don’t engage with it.)
Even with the shame, it was impossible to deny that Nellie had been right. A few swallows, and he felt a warmth settle over his body like a cat stretching out in the sun, the fog in his head clearing until everything was crisp and sharp andreal.Brennan nearly gasped with it. It was like the first day of not feeling like crap after a weeklong depressive slump: he hadn’t realized how heavy he’d felt until the weight lifted.
“Good stuff, is this organic?” Brennan tried for a joke as he handed the nearly empty flask back to Nellie. His hands fell to his sides with nothing to hold and fiddle with, and he felt bare and exposed under Nellie’s watchful eyes.
She kept looking at him, concern twisting into wide eyes and dawning horror.
Brennan cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
The lack of thanks was not what Nellie was afraid of.
“You were starving,” she said. “You didn’t RSVP or get the welcome package, so you didn’t know about the blood caches.”
