Page 192 of The Last Vampire
“I could not risk William’s exposure. It was important to keep him cocooned here while he worked everything out on his own. Now I will go so that you can say a proper goodbye to the last vampire.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “He’s still awake—?”
The door to her office opens, and I turn eagerly toward him.
Only it’s not Will.
“Hey, Lore.”
I run into Salma’s arms.
The first thing I register is how cold and hard her skin has become and how much taller she has grown—I only come up to her collarbone. The cast on her arm is gone, as is any weakness in her constitution.
Her hands don’t press in when she hugs me, and I wonder if she’s not sure of her strength. When we pull apart, I look to Minaro, but she’s gone.
“How do you feel?” I ask Salma. She seems like herself, and yet she doesn’t. Her skin has taken on this ageless quality that makes her appear at once youthful and older. It’s hard to describe.
“Physically, indestructible,” she answers. “But emotionally… I feelless. I still miss my mom, but it’s like the grief I was carrying for her has lightened enough that it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Someone else might be relieved for the reprieve, but I hear what Salma’s not saying. The pain was a reminder of her mom.
“Why didn’t you go into hibernation with the others?” I ask.
“Minaro said that because I wasn’t part of the original spell, I didn’t have to. It was my choice. Death-sleep sounded too close todeath. Like Mom. William and the others were born centuries ago and take time for granted, but I’ve never had enough of it. And, well… you’re everything I have left. It felt wrong to not be around as you grow older and live your life, even if I can only watch from a distance.”
Tears burn my eyes. “What do you mean? There are no other vampires around, so you can do what you want—”
“The Legion,” she says. “When William and I both disappear suddenly, it could raise red flags to them. Especially when no one ever finds a body or anytrace of us again. Minaro said if I’m discovered, this whole spell, everything the vampires have sacrificed, will be for nothing. So the only way I can stick around is if I’mdead—with no connections to my past.”
Sadness claws at my chest, and all I want is to find a way to keep her with me. But Salma is beyond my protection now.
“Where will you go?” I whisper.
“Everywhere,” she says, her face illuminating with excitement. “You know how much I’ve always wanted to do and explore, but I didn’t want to give up the time I had left with my mom. And I’ll send you postcards from everywhere I go.”
The tears feel like they’re flooding my face and clogging my throat. “I never got to tell you about our moms’ biggest fight,” I say, the memory coming back to me. “It was overyour dad!They met him on the same night, and they both liked him, but he chose your mom, so my mom didn’t speak to yours forsix months!”
“Wow,” says Salma, and even though she makes a face of surprise, she doesn’t grip my arm or squeal or do any of the things she would’ve done as a human. And I realize what William meant about the dulling of emotions that comes with immortality.
The old Salma is truly gone.
I wish I’d told her this story when she was still alive.
“Will didn’t erase our friends’ memories,” says Salma. “He thought it should be our choice, yours and mine.”
It takes me a moment to decode what she said, like my brain has little processing power. “Okay,” I say, and this should be easy, since we’re used to running all our decisions past each other.
Except, for some reason, it feels hard.
“Do you want them to know?” she asks, and the question almost hurts because if she was still human, she wouldn’t need to ask it.
We both know that Tiffany won’t keep the vampires’ secret forever. Zach won’t, either. And Trevor is likely to follow in his father’s footsteps, because since learning William’s secret, he’s only grown more loyal to the Legion.
And yet—is any of that wrong? William and Salma may be special vampires, but will the rest of the species be like them when they return? Isn’t it right thatsomehumans should be working on a vampire defense system?
“I don’t want to keep lying to my friends,” I say to Salma. “It’s going to behard enough to live without you, but if I also have to carry these memories alone, it will crush me.”
The expression on her face is new, and in this moment, she has become a stranger to me, because I can’t read her reaction.Will her love for me win over her own interests?It saddens me to even be asking the question.
