Page 121 of Heathens

I collapse and toss the gun aside, my eyes fluttering open and shut in pure exhaustion as I hear Dominic begin to drag himself across the room. We’re not that far apart, but it seems like he takes a century to get to me. I reach out for him, tears streaming down my face as I struggle to stay conscious, until finally his arms wrap around me. Somehow I feel safe, for the first time since this all began.

Dominic is all tenderness as the two of us tangle on the floor, with Rene’s bloodied corpse at our feet. When I finally open my eyes, I find him smiling at me, perhaps the first real smile I’ve seen him give.

“It’s over.”

I kiss him, not knowing what else to do as he holds me tight‌. I might be the only thing he has left.

“You need blood.”

“I can–”

“No. Let me.” He drags himself to his feet, one arm still hanging limp at his side.“Rene kept blood packs in the kitchen. I’ll be back.”

“You’d better keep that promise,” I rasp.

My eyes slip closed again and I try to breathe slowly through the pain, but it’s barely working. It would be so easy to fall asleep, to let go.

Suddenly, my mouth is filled with an explosion of flavor. It’s different this time. It feels like cracking a beer in the dead of summer and guzzling it all in one go, or like a rainstorm after a week-long heat wave. I squeeze the blood bag, trying to get everything I can out of it while Dominic strokes my hair.

“Keep drinking,” he whispers. “I have to feed Ruby.”

I nod, my mouth still attached to the top of the bag. Everything is getting sharper by the second, each of my senses reaching their peak, and the hunger slowly subsides. Relief washes over me as I watch Dominic tend to Ruby, who takes to her own bag with even more ravenous hunger than me. He kisses her forehead as she drinks. It’s paternal, a softness that melts me as he coaches her through her first real feeding.

“You’re okay,” he mutters. “I’ve got you.”

She’s still pale, makeup smeared under her eyes like paint, and blood staining her skin.

But she’s alive. We all are.

Well, close enough.

Dominic pushes himself to his feet and stumbles back to where he left his own blood bag, collapsing onto his knees as he slices it open. I gaze over at him. He could have let me die. He could have fought Rene at full strength and he might have won. It would have been so much easier.

But he kept his promise, even if it meant risking it all, and rebuilding his empire from ashes.

“Hey, Duncan,” Ruby coughs.

He tears his mouth away from the blood bag.

“Yeah?”

“You couldn’t have killed that asshole five fuckin’ years ago?”

Dominic laughs, and I crawl over to him, my body still trembling and exhausted. I’m still adjusting to how this whole vampire thing is going to work, and I really just need someone to fucking hold me.

He smiles as I lean against him.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“We eat, we sleep, and we figure it out tomorrow night,” he replies, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. “But first, I think I have one more promise to keep.”

He flicks the lid off of his lighter, holding it out.

“You wanna do the honors?”

I shake my head.

“I think you’ve earned this,” I whisper.

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