The next evening, I return to the bookstore.
I tell myself it's coincidence. That I've come for a volume on medieval medicine. That I'm restless, not obsessed.
But when I step inside and see her again, in the same seat, same scarf, same quiet way of existing, something inside me settles.
Or maybe it unravels.
She doesn't look up this time. Not at first. She's reading again, her thumb against her mouth, a red pen looped between her fingers like a weapon of thought. Her hair falls forward in loose, unbothered curls.
I move to the far wall, pretending to browse.
I know this game. I've played it before. With humans, it's always a dance of distance. Push too hard, and they run. Stay too far, and they forget. You have to thread the line like a needle in the dark.
But she surprises me.
"Back so soon?" she says without looking.
I freeze, then glance over.
Her voice carries no judgment, no surprise, just quiet recognition, like I've always belonged in her periphery. I study her a moment, caught off guard by how easily she speaks to me, how seamlessly I fit into her rhythm. There's no flutter of nerves, no hesitancy. Just calm, collected ease.
Most mortals fear the unfamiliar. Even if they don't know why, they recoil. Instinct, I suppose. But not her. Her presence is something else, measured, almost deliberate. Like she's not just surviving the world, but shaping her place in it with every breath.
I don't know why I find that compelling. Maybe it's because I've seen centuries of people stumbling through life without ever waking up to it. And here she is, completely awake.
It pulls at something I don't have a name for.
I glance around the shop. It's quiet, the shelves lined like soldiers standing at attention. One old man in a hat flips through a travel guide near the window. A young couple whispers by the poetry shelf. Nothing about this moment is extraordinary, except for the part of me that can't stop watching her.
I cross the room, slowly. My hand lingers on a book I don't read. I'm not ready to speak. Not yet. I want to watch a little longer. She makes a small note in the margin of the page she's reading, red ink, sharp and confident. Her fingers move without hesitation, like she's editing the world to make more sense.
She chews her thumbnail absently. My eyes seemed drawn to her lips around it.
"I remember most things," she replies, eyes still on the page. "Especially strange men who don't buy books."
"Then I must be memorable."
She glances up. Her eyes are a kind of grey I haven't seen in decades. Not dull. Stormy.
"Or suspicious."
I smile, just enough to seem human. "Suspicion keeps people alive."
"Do you think I'm in danger?"
"I think you live like someone who doesn't care."
That makes her pause. She studies me more closely now, pen tapping the edge of her lip.
"And what makes you say that?"
I shrug. "You read late. Alone. You don't look up when strangers walk by. You don't check the door. That's either bravery… or apathy."
A faint smile ghosts across her mouth. "Or trust."
I tilt my head. "Trust in what?"
She closes her book and leans forward slightly. "That the world isn't as dangerous as everyone wants me to believe."
I stare at her for a moment, struck silent by the simplicity of it.
And the foolishness.
"You're wrong," I say.
Her smile fades. Not offended, curious.
"Then what is the world?" she asks.
I answer without thinking.
"A feeding ground."
She blinks. For a second, I wonder if I've said too much. But she just laughs, soft and amused.
"God," she says. "You sound like you've seen too many wars."
I look away. "More than I care to count."
There's a silence between us then, not awkward, but weighted. Like the pause between heartbeats before something important is said. I could walk away. I should.
But she speaks first.
"My name's Evelyn."
I don't react outwardly, but her name strikes something deep and low inside me. Evelyn.
It feels old. Lovely. Like it should be spoken in candlelight, or written in letters that get hidden in drawers.
"August," I say after a breath.
"I figured," she replies.
"Did I tell you?"
"No. But it suits you."
She's sharper than I gave her credit for. Dangerous in a quiet way. The kind of person who asks questions with her eyes instead of her mouth.
"I was going to get coffee," she says after a moment. "You don't strike me as the latte type, but…"
Her voice trails off into the air between us. An offering. A choice.
I haven't sat with a mortal in years. Haven't let one see me, really see me, in far longer. It's too risky. Too easy to get close. Too hard to stay distant.
But something inside me answers before my fear can.
"I'll walk with you," I say.
And just like that, the shape of the night changes.
We don't talk much as we walk. The city feels smaller beside her. The silence is companionable, not strained. She tells me she's a writer, though she won't say what she's working on. "It's not ready," she says. "Nothing's ever ready when it's real."
I understand that too well.
She asks nothing about me. It's unnerving. Most people itch with curiosity, eager to dissect what they don't understand. But not her.
It's like she senses the edge of something sharp and chooses not to touch it.
When we reach the corner café, she stops and turns to me.
"Would you like to come in?"
The question hangs there, fragile and warm.
I should say no.
But I don't.
"I'll wait out here," I say.
She nods, unfazed, and steps inside.
While she's gone, I scan the street. Nothing unusual. No eyes watching. No breath that doesn't belong.
But the air feels off. Too still.
A shift is coming. I can feel it. Like a storm that hasn't broken yet.
She returns with two cups.
"This one's just tea," she says. "Didn't peg you for caffeine."
I take it, careful not to brush her fingers. "You're observant."
"Occupational hazard."
She sips her drink, eyes on the sky. "Do you ever get the feeling that something's about to change? That your life is on the edge of… something?"
"Yes," I say.
And I don't tell her that it already has.
That night, I don't feed.
The blood in my fridge sits untouched.
Instead, I sit in the dark, her name echoing behind my ribs, and I wonder what I've started.
I feel it now, like breath on the back of my neck.
The past is waking.
And it's coming for both of us.