Page 14 of Shut Up and Bite Me

She sucks the bottom of her lip between her teeth. “Did you receive a personal invite to the Culling?”

I don’t want to lie to her, although, for some reason, I feel like the truth could potentially harm the outcome of my situation. “No. I didn’t.”

Her eyes squint ever so slightly. “Then how did you get in?”

Scoffing nervously, I tell her the truth. “I overheard a few girls talking about an auction where you are basically just a servant to rich people for two weeks and you make a fuck ton of money. They dropped a paper with the address, and now I’m here in a room waiting for some lady to come in.”

She glances down, fighting the smile tugging at her lips. “You thought you were going to be a maid for two weeks?”

I nod.

She smiles humorously. “You were prepared to wait on this person hand and foot?”

I nod again, a pit forming in the bottom of my stomach as my nerves begin to pick back up.

“Why?” She asks one word that seems to have a never-ending answer.

Holding her stare, I take a deep breath as I decide what to say. And I respond honestly, “Because I’m tired of barely getting by”

“Are those the only reasons?” She pushes me for more.

As if she pulls the words from my lips, I tell her the feelings I’ve kept hidden from even myself. “Because I don’t even really feel like I’m alive. I’ve lived my life making the decisions that I thought I should rather than what I wanted. I want to feel like I matter. Like I exist. And this is the start of that.”

“Good to know.” She looks up through her lashes and asks, “So you don’t know why you’re really here?”

“What do you mean?” My words are a soft whisper.

Reaching out, she runs her thumb along my bottom lip. “You don’t know what I am, do you?”

“Whatyou are?” I repeat her words as a cold breeze skates across my back.

She slides across the bed, pressing her thigh against mine as she turns into my body, cupping my jaw with her hand. “It might be easier to show you rather than tell you.”

My gaze bounces back and forth between her eyes, desperate to learn the information that lurks behind them.

Is she a serial killer? Is that thewhatshe was referring to? Is she… I don’t know. My mind is running rampant with ideas. But right now, melting beneath her touch, I don’t care what she’s about to say. I just want her to keep touching me.

“Then show me,” I whisper, leaning down and closing some of the distance between our faces.

Slowly, she inches forward, quickly placing a delicate kiss on my lips. “Your world is about to change forever.”

Sitting up, she brushes her hair back from her face and closes her eyes. The air seems to chill around us, goose bumps breaking out all over my body from the anticipation, and I sit forward, preparing for anything.

But nothing could have prepared me forthis.

She opens her eyes, and my mouth instantly dries as I suck in a sharp breath. Long gone are the beautiful hazel depths of her eyes; instead, they are now a deep red. Not the color of a firetruck or an apple but the dark shade of blood.

And then she smiles, and I see them.

Fangs.

She runs her tongue along the sharp, stark white points protruding from her gums, positioned where an animal’s canineteeth are. The very two reasons that I’m starting to believe in the stories of monsters and myths.

“Are you scared?” she asks, studying me intently.

I probably should be. I should want to run away and never turn back.

But I won’t.

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