Page 7 of Watch Me Turn
"I'll...erm...leave you to it," I say, backing away and clicking the door shut behind me.
After a few awkward minutes where I curse my heightened hearing, Angel's voice drifts under the door, sounding oddly calm. His voice echoes off the tiles, slightly masked by the sound of the tap running.
"So are you gonna tell me what they did to me? What this is all about?"
I lean against the doorframe. "Are you sure you're ready to hear it?"
"I think I have a right to know."
"Rights are kind of a flexible concept in your current situation."
"Just tell me," he says, and there's something raw in his voice now. "Is it some kind of disease? Is that what they injected me with? Am I dying?"
I close my eyes, weighing my words. "It's not a disease."
"Then what?—"
"You're half right. You are dying."
The tap shuts off abruptly, leaving only silence. Then: "What the fuck does that mean?"
I chew my lip, measuring my words and delivering them as carefully as I can. "It means the person you were is dying. The human part of you. What's being born in its place is...something else."
"Something else like what?"
"Come out, and I'll explain."
An eerie quiet is followed by the sound of feet shuffling, and then the door opens. Angel emerges looking even paler than before, his eyelashes clumped together and his face wet but no longer from sweat. But there's something different in his posture—a restlessness that wasn't there before.
"Come sit down," I say, gesturing toward the bed.
"I'm fine standing."
"Angel, you're shaking like a leaf. Sit. It's safer."
He moves toward the bed, but instead of sitting, he stops just out of arm's reach. "Tell me what the fuck is happening to me. No bullshit."
I realize the kindest thing I can do is rip off the Band-Aid and let the whole truth out at once. He's got to hear it sooner or later, and there's no perfect way to deliver the kind of news that changes everything in an instant, so I woman up and take a deep breath.
"You were turned. Bitten by a powerful supernatural creator. Your human blood is slowly being replaced with something...more special. More powerful. It hurts like hell, I know, but in a few days, you'll be stronger, faster, and a hell of a lot harder to kill than you are now."
His eyes narrow. "What is that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about vampires."
He shakes his head. "You're insane. Vampires aren't real."
I smile, letting just a hint of fang show. "Aren't they?"
That's when he moves.
The knife appears in his hand like magic—small, sharp, and very discreet. He must have had it hidden in his sock, and when I helped him to the bathroom...
Smart boy.
He lunges faster than I would have anticipated, grabbing me around the waist and spinning me so my back is pressed against his chest. The blade finds my throat, and he digs the sharp point into my skin and tears the balaclava off my head.
"Now," he says, his breath hot against my ear, "we're going to have a different kind of conversation."
