Rahil smiled for her.
She nodded slowly and looked him dead in the eyes. “I need you to turn me.”
Rahil couldn’t help himself: he laughed. It was too ironic, too much of a knife in the gut. How many times would the universe try this? He bared his teeth wider and said, bluntly, “No way, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” She held her chin high as she marched closer. “I need this.” It amazed Rahil how little she sounded like a child as she said it, something tough behind her gaze—a sharp mix of rage and resolve. He’d seen that in his youngest son in the decade when it was just the two of them left; seen it destroy him.
“You don’t knowwhatyou need.”
“I’ve done my research,” the girl countered. “I know everything about vampirism. Not just the strength and the speed, but the sun poisoning, the garlic allergies—and garlic is in loads of premade things, I know that too—and how bad the change hurts and that it doesn’t heal you, it just makes you better at healing yourself and halts certain types of progressive diseases and cancers and—and seizures.”
Rahil had to force himself not to flinch at that six-letter c-word hidden in the mix. He had no right to the grief it stirred, only the guilt. He focused on that guilt, one brow still lifted as he sneered at his tiny opposition. “Then, you know the change has half a chance of killing you, too?”
“Not half.” The girl moved closer, coming right up to the edge of the porch. “Thirty-one point seven percent. According to a two-hundred participant epidemiological study conducted over the last five years. That’s not even athird.”
The exact statistic made it sound worse to Rahil, not better. He had been the sixty-nine percent. If the universe, or science, or the God much of his family still followed—whose existence Rahil had, at best, only a wavering hope in, which he decided he couldn’t quite classify asbeliefanymore—only allowed so many successful turnings, it made him feel very much like he’d taken one away from someone else. Someone who’d actually deserved it. He narrowed his eyes at the girl. “Why’s this so important to you that it’s worth that risk, huh?”
Instead of answering, she took the two steps up to the porch, her fists balled at her sides. “Turn me.”
When Rahil tried to step back, she only closed the distance, twisting to stay at the center of his attention.
“I’m telling you I want this,” she said. If the data couldn’t scare her, maybe the physical reality would.
“Youwantthis, huh?” Rahil hissed. As quickly as he could while ensuring he only shoved her hard enough to hurt momentarily, he grabbed her by the front of her loose jacket and pinned her against the nearest porch column, fangs bared and mouth wide. She was so much smaller and lighter than him—clearly just a kid, no matter how much she was trying to act the cool, full-fledged teenager.
But instead of shrinking like a child or struggling away from him, she barely flinched. Immediately, she grabbed for her own collar. She pulled it down and pushed away the brown plaits that fell from beneath her beanie, tipping her head to the side. Baring her neck.
It was almost comical how unappealing that view looked to Rahil. He let her go with a scoff and a final directing shove toward the street. “Gohome, kid.”
Rahil didn’t give her a chance to protest, wheeling on his boot heels and storming back into the house. The door rattled behind him as he slammed it.
It immediately opened again.
“I’m not leaving!” the girl shouted, stalking into the entry hall.
To the left of them, Sheanna, Avery and Jim all awkwardly peeled back from where they’d been snooping through the front windows. Tal popped the second half of the gummy she’d bitten into her mouth and waved at the girl, grinning. The girl didn’t seem the least bit fazed.
Goddammit.
“Stay, then.” Rahil shrugged dramatically, like he wasn’t currently trying to calculate all the possible crimes he could be charged with for letting a minor into his house like this, and comparing them to those for forcibly removing said minor by slinging her, bound and gagged, over his shoulder and dumping her on the sidewalk.
For the first time, she hesitated. She scowled at him, her nose ring twisting as her lips pinched up. “Really?”
Rahil grinned. Finally, some kind of progress. “Sure! For the daylight hours, at least. If you truly want to be a vampire, then you might as well see how one lives. I could use a part-time thrall.” If he was lucky, then by the end of the week she’d have written the idea off entirely. Maybe the bike commute alone would annoy her out of coming.
Slowly, the girl nodded. “Vampires don’t actually have those, you know.”
“I’m not all vampires.”
“Getting those vibes, yeah.” She crossed her arms. “Okay, but, so you know, I won’t like, do sexual favors for you or anything. I’m too young to give consent to an adult.”
Good fuck, maybe sex ed was a bad idea after all. “Kid, if you ever so much asmentionsex to me again, I swear on the sun I’ll turn myself in to the cops then and there. Got it?”
She nodded. “That’s fair.”
“Good.” Dear god—what had he gotten himself into? “You have a name?”
The girl hesitated, but when she extended her hand, she looked as confident as ever. “Violet Demondza.”
