Page 8 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
“Defamation!”
Shane leaned in, lowering his voice. “And he’s not even particularly great in bed.”
“Now Iknowyou’re lying.” The stranger was smiling now too, a soft, timid expression on his teary face. Even with the redness of his puffy eyes and the smears in his mascara, he was lovely. If Shane didn’t have an article to write, and his vampire to find along the way, his heart already tied up in someone with fangs and the softest of lips…
As though to drive that point home, his phone vibrated.
He pulled it out, the only notification popping up automatically. A text from his lead. Just an address, nothing more.
Shane’s heart fluttered with anticipation, his head a little light but his hands surer than ever as he opened the location in his mapping app. It gave him a point in the inner city, a few side streets off the main road, where the tired, weathered apartment buildings always seemed to form a maze around the little gravesites that San Salud was known for. The spot held none of the charm or safety of the other places Shane had tracked vampires back to, not the gothic brick elegance of the touristy areas, nor the quaint creativity of the south end, or even the homely appeal that the oldest neighborhoods like Ala Santa boasted. This place was one of the few truly menacing parts of town; perfect for selling black market blood without anyone batting an eye.
Which also made it the perfect place to abduct a lonely, diabetic journalist and beat the shit out of him.
The flutter in Shane’s chest dropped into his stomach. Despite all the effort he’d had to go through to reach this point, he’d still assumed that this interview would be akin to the others he’dinstigated: decent people, who happened to have fangs, just trying to get by. Some had been annoyed with him, sure, others outright scared, all more likely to run from his questions than turn to violence. He’d never felt any more unsafe than previous jobs.
His worry now was ridiculous—and biased—making a rash judgment as to the blood seller’s morals based purely on location. And Shane needed this interview. Danger or no, if he wanted the Star to publish him, he didn’t have a choice.
Shane put back his phone and—the stranger, shit.
He’d taken to swirling the remaining alcohol in his glass around, now that his water was gone, and he gave a half-hearted smile when Shane stood. “Leaving?” He sounded genuinely disappointed. But then, he’d just gone from sobbing over a spilled drink to looking like he was almost enjoying himself, and here Shane was, abandoning him without explanation. It couldn’t be helped, not this time.
“Yes, sorry. Do you... want to trade numbers?” Shane asked. That sad look turned to something almost like hope, and he immediately backpedaled into, “I don’t have enough friends.” Or friends, plural.
And friends was all he would ever likely be with this odd stranger; all he wanted, until he knew for certain that the kiss he’d been given at the gala four months ago was the last he was going to receive from his vampire.
But hedidwant to see this stranger again, like a soft nudge at the doors of his heart. If the childish excitement he felt over his new friendship with Nat was proof of anything, it was that he desperately needed to talk to people he wasn’t trying to interview.
The stranger’s expression was hard to parse through the tear-stains and the dim lighting, but he nodded. “Yes—please.”
When Shane offered over his phone, he took it delicately, his painted nails tapping against the screen with every click.Andres Serrano,Shane read over his shoulder, followed byhe/they. The sight of those pronouns relaxed something in Shane’s chest that he hadn’t realized he was holding onto: that permanent, instinctive worry that, queer or not, any stranger’s opinion of him could shift radically once they realized he was trans. In its place burst a sparkle of joy—of understanding and kinship.
As Shane took the phone back, Andres’s gaze met his again for that one breathless second, then darted away. It left an odd cascade of butterflies in his stomach. He tried to ignore them as he left, but the only way to quench the sensation was to think of the interview ahead of him.
That sparked an entirely different feeling. He tried to tell himself that none of it was fear, and failed.
The location Shane’s lead sent him to was exactly as he’d imagined it: gray walls, tight alleys, and micro-cemeteries bare of plants and flowers, their trashed picket fences and headstones looking as though they hadn’t been upkept since the city first decided to turn their grave-site problem into a tourist trap in the 70s. He was pretty sure the woman who hissed at him from a half-caved overhang was a vampire with her fangs tucked in, or else a human high enough to believe she was.
Shane tried not to let it rattle him. This didn’t have to be any different from his previous encounters with vampires. Still, part of him couldn’t help but wish he’d brought some sort of a weapon—he swore somewhere in the back of a disorganizeddrawer he still had a can of mace given to him by his mother pre-transition.
But he couldn’t turn back now. And he had no real reason to yet; none but the darkness of the night, and the way his nerves tingled every time a streetlamp flickered.
The empty alley his map finally led him into was wide enough for a car to pass down and cleaner than most, at least from what his phone light could reveal. He skimmed along the doorways, past a break between two buildings, a rusty shed, then there—the chalk drawing of a droplet that signified the blood dealer’s setup. Despite his fear, a little bundle of giddiness welled inside him. He was here. He was doing this.
His article would be exceptional.
Shane knocked. As he waited for an answer, the muffled sound of soft commotion came to him from the end of the alley. His heart skipped. It was probably nothing—possibly the very people he wanted to talk to. He forced himself to creep closer, peeking cautiously around the corner. A van was wedged into the space, its back open as two people unloaded a black container, handing it off to a third who stood at the building’s back door.
“This is all for now,” the person said, so soft Shane could barely make it out. “We’re restocking tonight though, so if you run out we can have another batch brought around—”
Behind Shane, someone called to him, “Hey? You knocked?”
The three at the van turned toward him. He aimed his light at them instinctively, and in unison, their lips lifted. Fangs.
Well, at least he’d come to the right place. “Yes, sorry, I’m here to speak with a man—a vampire—a Mr. Frederick Maul?”
“He’s human,” one of the vamps from the van transfer hissed, and Shane almost thought they were referring to Mr. Maul until another echoed him.
“Human?”
