Page 71 of Even Vampires Bleed
“What makes you think that?” Léandre asks, suddenly a little scared for his own mind.
Yeah, you’ve already been there and done that, I think to myself.
“The microchip is still here and from what I saw, it looks intact. What I mean is it doesn’t look like all the energy it contained got released in a burst or something. That means it could possibly be still working,” I answer.
Now they all look at me like they’ve seen a ghost.
“I need this shit to be double-checked,” Léandre bursts out.
34
Léandre
Cassiopé just said that the thing that made me forget all of my memories—my first life—might still be able to do the same a second time, and that’s all I can think about now.
I don’t know how I reacted the first time I discovered that, but I’m slightly freaking out.
Okay, not slightly. I’m totally freaking out.
But who wouldn’t?
At least it’s decided quickly that this electrician needs to be back to examine the chip. In under a minute, Elhyor scrolls through Brice’s holo that he stored in his desk drawer to find the right number.
It’s another half hour before she gets there, too.
I’m thankful Elhyor ordered her a flying taxi so she could be here earlier because I don’t know how I could wait any longer with the kind of storm that is brewing inside my head.
A half hour is already too long.
And to think I already had to go through this just a few weeks ago… It’s unsettling.
I know I don’t have so much to lose now. I’ve barely made memories for a few weeks; I don’t feel strongly about anyone who I know now. Yes, Elhyor and Angélique became my friends easily, and my father seems to be content when I spend time with him, but that’s all I have.
And yet, I don’t want to give up the little slice of life that is mine now.
I imagine that my past self had so much more to lose and it makes me freak out even more.
Because I feel like a fraud right now.
Why should it matter if I lose my memories again now? I’ve barely lived since the last time it happened.
This past me had friends—family he shared a past with. He might have had a lover, maybe multiple lovers. I doubt that last part, though, because no one has tried to get in my pants since I woke up again.
There is also the fact that it doesn’t prevent me from being able to function. I woke up one day, and I knew what to do, how to eat, and take care of my hygiene when I was supposed to. I knew everything.
I just didn’t know anyone.
It more or less felt like I was arriving somewhere new.
Except I don’t want to go somewhere new—again. I just want to keep living the life I’ve started living.
I want to keep livingthislife.
I’m pulled out from my mind when a young woman barges in Notre Dame without even knocking and makes a beeline for Elhyor’s office.
She’s small and curvier than female shape-shifters usually are, and I realize why when she gets closer. She’s human.
She moves her red curls behind her ear and scrunches up a heavily freckled nose before speaking.
