Page 70 of Blood Moon
I could only hold a smile for so long before I felt the tremor building in my lips. My jaw quivered incessantly as we rode the elevator up to the sixth floor of Bryton Hall—one of the newer dorms on campus—and in my periphery, I saw Julian regarding me. He didn’t say anything as I held back a sniffle, and I didn’t want him to.
When we got off the elevator, I sprinted across the lobby, exclaiming I needed a second as I hurried into the private bathroom next to the stairwell. The tears were scalding and already streaming down my face as I closed the door and locked it. My sobs hailed from a place deep within. Air deserted me as I gasped for it, reaching, hoping this sadness would go away.
I couldn’t believe this pathetic, sagging thing was my life. How had it ended up here? In the span of less than twenty-four hours, I had learned that vampires and werewolves were real. That those creatures were hunting me. That I was part of a family with cursed blood,apparently, and that my mother left to protect me, her only child. At last, I’d obtained the answers I longed for, and I wasn’t ready for a single one of them.
The tears came harder, and I covered the sounds of my cries with the sleeve of my crewneck. I didn’t want to make an even larger scene, but I couldn’t help myself. How does one exist in a world like this, and not be battered and bruised with fear?
I sat with that for minutes more, and when I could breathe without crying, I stood before the sink and scrubbed at my skin.
The reflection in the mirror depicted a girl with crimson flushing her cheeks and nose. Shadows lingered in circles beneath her dark brown eyes, as if sleep had become poisonous. She appeared so feeble, foreign.
I flicked water across the mirror, blurring the details of her before exiting. When I resurfaced, Julian was leaning against a far wall. There was a tenderness in his gaze as he held his phone in his hands. He placed it in his pocket when I got closer, and I knew if we stayed in this silence for too long, he’d ask me if I was okay—a topic I didn’t have the energy to dive into because I was everythingbutokay.
I passed him hastily with my arms crossed, my hair blowing behind me. “I take it you like being in charge,” he said, following me now. As if that was news.
“Very much,” I muttered.
Julian made a clever statement, but I missed it. Then, “You don’t know where you’re going,” he said. He sped past, and before I knew it, I was following him down a long hall, making a right turn. We stopped at a door, and when he unlocked it, he held it open while reaching for the switch to a lamp.
Inside, the first thing that grabbed my attention was the large double-paned window, overlooking the west side of campus. We could see the lake from here, murky water rippling as it held the reflection of the moon. The sight nearly knocked me off my feet.
A single bed was stationed before it. Closer to me, a sofa, and a TV with a console connected. To my right, a kitchenette, complete with a full sink, cabinets, and a fridge. By the entry, a private bathroom. And everywhere, leafy green plants.
Another thing I noted were the maps. They were old, some of them frayed at the edges, but they were enclosed with intricately carved wooden frames, hanging throughout the room.
I turned in a small circle, gawking in incredulity. “No roommate?”
Julian brushed his hair back while he flipped on another lamp. “Nope. I got a single.”
I found myself summoned to his bookcase, pressing my fingers across the spines of books while skimming the titles:Monsters of The Gevaudan: The Making of a Beast;Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus;The Vampyre: A Tale;The Werewolf of Paris …“How’d you get your own studio? Is this even a freshman dorm?”
Julian plugged his phone into a charger by the microwave and flicked on a kettle. “Let’s just say … being a paranormal creature comes with a fewpersuasiveperks.”
“Persuasive?” I said, pausing at a wooden end table with a framed photo.
Portrayed was a toddler version of Julian with chunky legs and a puffy face as he squealed with laughter in the arms of a woman with olive skin and waist-length brown hair.
I turned my attention back to grown-up Julian. He poured water into a plant by the sink and set two mugs on the counter before leaning against it. “While I don’t have the ability to read minds, I am exceptionally influential … apart from you.”
I narrowed in on him. Influencing someone was just a fancy version of manipulation. “Apart from me, in that you’ve tried?” I clarified, while also trying to decipher when he’d attempted to do such a thing. But also … special abilities? Since when could werewolves do that?
“I’m not proud of it, but yes. Only, with you, there’s a blockage preventing it from being effective. It might be caused by the differences in your blood, but I don’t know for sure.”
I shifted my weight, hands going slack. I wondered how many times Julian had tried to will me to leave this place. It had to have been countless. Perhaps there was a slight advantage to this curse.
“What are you thinking?” Julian said after a second.
“I’m trying to decide if I should be upset with you.”
“You have every right to be.”
“Of course I do,” I said bluntly. “But now I need to know which times you tried.”
He didn’t hide the way his mouth slipped into a smirk. “Our first meeting,” he said, offering up the answer. “I wanted you to leave, but well, here you are, in my room … so that worked out great.” The kettle whistled before the next part came. “And then I tried again in the forest, after the incident. That was the last time.”
“Can all the wolves do this?”
“Only a select few. It’s not a common trait.”
