Page 108 of Lucy Undying

I’m about to block the texts when I look closer at the photo. The squirrel is in the mountains behind me. I’d know that landscape anywhere after all my time spent on those stupid trails waiting for Dracula. Which means this text is from…

Are you Lucy’s friend?

It takes another agonizing minute for the reply to come.

Am I? I can’t ask her because she’s sleeping

Did she get my letter last night? Is that why you’re texting me?

I just thought you’d like the squirrel

My finger hovers over the screen. I have a way to contact Lucy now. It’s a very nice squirrel thanks. Tell Lucy to meet me on the trail tonight. We need to talk.

Tonight. I’ll talk to Lucy tonight. Which means I don’t need to read these papers anymore. And I shouldn’t. Not without her permission. Even though I’m totally invested. Now it’s World War Two, and Lucy’s in Istanbul to be a spy. Why does she even like me? She’s so much more interesting than I could ever hope to be.

I lower the papers, staring down at them. Itching to devour every story Lucy’s ever lived. But I don’t want to read about them. I want her to tell them to me like she told this Vanessa. Missing her fiercely and feeling insecure, I pull out her two most recent letters.

I should feel better. I have a way to contact Lucy. I’ll see her tonight. But there’s still something about the letters that’s bothering me. Unease whispering a threat in a language I don’t understand, I just feel. I trace Lucy’s handwriting. The ink fades in and out—I don’t know where she got a pen, but it’s not high-quality, which I’m sure bothers her. It’s not just the ink, though. It’s the words. It feels like—

Oh god, it feels like she’s fading. These aren’t love notes at the beginning of a relationship. They’re love letters at the end of one. These letters are a goodbye.

Maybe I’m reading them wrong. Maybe I’m—

A shadow cuts off the sun. But the chill it brings is far deeper than it should be. I know before looking up who is looming above me.

Dracula wasn’t supposed to find me during the day. I thought I was safe here, so I let my guard down. Idiot, idiot. I stand and start to stammer a suggestion that we go for a walk. Anything to delay so I can text Lucy’s friend.

He grabs me and smashes his mouth against mine. I can’t move. I’m too panicked. Then he bites my lip, and the pain shocks me out of my terror. I push against him, but I can’t create any distance. His arms are like metal bars. He kisses me again. I try to scream but he swallows the sound, devours it. It doesn’t matter that I’m on a college campus in broad daylight. No one notices he’s a monster, because he looks just like them.

He angles his mouth toward my neck, and I can’t stop him. I can’t save myself. I can delay him, though. Give him something he wants even more: an invitation.

“Not here! Come to my house tomorrow.”

His eyes turn from red flames to smoldering coals, and he smiles. It’s the most stomach-turning thing I’ve ever seen. But he lets go of me, satisfied that I’m offering myself up to him.

I walk away. It’s all I can do not to run, but I’m worried it will trigger some sort of predator instinct in him. I imagine him pouncing on my back, dragging me into the bushes and killing me mere feet from the sidewalk. It would be my own damn fault for being so confident I knew what I was doing.

How often will the monsters have to show me they always win before I finally get it through my thick skull?

I wipe my lip, disgust churning thick with shame inside me. Why did I freeze? Why didn’t I scream sooner, or try to fight him off?

I’ve been used so much, my body drained and cut into and taken advantage of. Maybe I don’t know how to do anything but accept it until the danger is past. To delay so I can find a way to fight after. But I hate it. I hate what he did, and I hate what I didn’t do, and I hate everything.

At last I dare to glance over my shoulder. No sign of him. I lean against a building, hands trembling. I drop Lucy’s pages on the ground and call her friend.

“It’s chirping at me, like a little bird!” a voice says from too far away. She’s not holding it to her ear.

I shout to be heard. “Tell Lucy that Dracula just showed up at my school. I need to see her!” Somewhere safe, though. Somewhere Dracula wouldn’t go, somewhere any useless Goldaming guards trailing me wouldn’t want to be, either. “I’ll meet her at the big shopping center by the building with all the spires!” I don’t know how else to describe the Mormon temple nearby.

“Oh, the strange castle with the golden man on top! Is that where Dracula is living? He does like castles.”

“I really doubt it, but then again, who knows. There’s a perfume store in the mall. Lucy will find me there. I’ll wait as long as she needs.” No other vampires will go inside. Ford couldn’t even handle the smell of coffee; perfume is a full artillery barrage to vampire senses.

“I’ll tell her! I’m glad you’re not dead!” There’s a clattering sound like she dropped the phone rather than ending the call. I give it a minute in case she picks it up again, then I hang up.

I crouch down to pick up the pages I dropped. They’re out of order now, and my eyes catch on a sentence that casually destroys my life.

I read the entire Istanbul section. Then I pull the rest from my bag and skim to the end of the transcript. I put it together with what the Doctor told me, barely noted amidst so much other information. I hope she kills him and puts us all out of our misery in one merciful strike.

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