The cafeteria smelled like death.
Not literally – though with my enhanced senses, I could pick out every individual scent in the massive dining hall. Grease from the fryer. Disinfectant from the mop bucket. The artificial strawberry smell of some girl's shampoo three tables away.
And under it all, the warm, metallic scent of eight hundred beating hearts.
I sat across from Sarah at our usual table by the windows, staring down at a plate of spaghetti and meatballs that might as well have been concrete and rubber balls. The smell alone made my stomach turn.
"You're not eating," Sarah observed, pushing her glasses up her nose. She'd ordered the same thing as me, but was already halfway through her portion.
"Not that hungry, I guess."
"Since when are you not hungry? You're like a human garbage disposal usually." Sarah twirled more pasta around her fork. "Plus you missed breakfast this morning. And lunch yesterday. Are you on some weird diet or something?"
I picked up my fork and managed to get a single strand of spaghetti into my mouth. The marinara sauce tasted like nothing, and the texture made me want to gag. I forced myself to swallow.
"Just stressed about midterms."
"Bullshit." Sarah set down her fork and leaned forward. "Something's wrong. You've been acting weird for days. Pale, jumpy, avoiding food." She paused. "Are you sick?"
If only it were that simple.
"I'm fine, Sarah. Just tired."
"When's the last time you slept? Like, really slept? Because you look like you haven't closed your eyes in a week."
She wasn't wrong. Sleep had become impossible. Every time I tried, the hunger woke me up. That gnawing, empty feeling in my stomach that no amount of regular food could touch.
I managed another bite of spaghetti, but my body rejected it almost immediately. I grabbed my napkin and spit it out as discretely as possible.
"Okay, that's it." Sarah reached across the table and pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. "You're freezing cold. And you just spit out food. You're definitely sick."
Her hand was so warm against my skin. I could feel her pulse through her palm, steady and strong. The rhythm was hypnotic, and for just a moment I imagined how easy it would be to grab her wrist, bring it to my mouth...
I jerked back so fast I knocked over my water glass.
"Sorry," I said quickly, grabbing napkins to clean up the spill. "You startled me."
"I startled you by checking if you had a fever?" Sarah was looking at me like I'd grown a second head. "Ella, what is going on with you?"
"Nothing's going on. I just—"
"Don't say you're fine. You're clearly not fine." Sarah's voice was getting louder, drawing attention from other tables. She lowered it to a whisper. "Look, if this is about Mark, if he did something—"
"It's not about Mark."
"Then what is it about?"
I wanted to tell her. God, I wanted to tell her so badly. Sarah was my best friend, the most loyal person I knew. If anyone would help me figure out how to deal with being a vampire, it would be her.
But how do you tell someone that you're slowly turning into a monster? That every time you look at them, part of you is calculating how quickly you could overpower them, where the best place to bite would be?
"I think I might have mono," I said finally. "You know, the kissing disease? It would explain the fatigue, the loss of appetite, the fever."
Sarah's expression softened with concern. "Oh shit. That sucks. Have you been to the health center?"
"Not yet. I was hoping it would just go away on its own."
"Mono doesn't just go away, Ella. You need to see a doctor. And you definitely shouldn't be around other people if you're contagious."
The irony wasn't lost on me. If Sarah only knew how contagious I really was. How dangerous.
"You're right. I should probably go back to my room, get some rest."
"Good idea. I'll walk you back after we finish eating." Sarah gestured to my untouched plate. "Though you should try to eat something. Even if you don't feel like it."
I forced myself to take another bite, then another. Each mouthful was torture, but Sarah was watching me with those concerned eyes, and I couldn't disappoint her.
The cafeteria was getting more crowded as the lunch rush picked up. More heartbeats. More warm bodies. More blood pumping through veins. The combination of scents was making me dizzy.
"I need some air," I said, standing up too quickly. The world tilted slightly.
"Ella?" Sarah was up in a second, her hand on my arm to steady me. "Are you okay?"
Her touch sent electricity through me. Not the good kind – the predatory kind. I could feel her pulse through her fingertips, could smell the blood rushing just beneath the surface of her skin.
"Just dizzy," I managed.
"Sit back down. Put your head between your knees."
"I'm fine—"
"You're not fine. You look like you're about to pass out." Sarah guided me back into my chair, her hands gentle but firm. "Stay here. I'm going to get you some juice or something."
She hurried off toward the beverage station, leaving me alone at the table with my plate of inedible food and my growing hunger.
I watched her navigate through the crowd of students, her short black hair catching the fluorescent lights. She was so small, so trusting. She had no idea she was friends with a predator.
A predator who was getting hungrier by the hour.
Sarah returned with a bottle of orange juice and a concerned expression. "Drink this. The sugar will help with the dizziness."
I unscrewed the cap and took a sip. The juice was cloyingly sweet, and my stomach immediately rebelled. But I forced myself to drink more, because Sarah was watching.
"Better?" she asked.
"A little."
Sarah pulled out her phone and started typing. "I'm looking up the symptoms of mono. Says here you might also have a sore throat, swollen glands, headache..."
"Sarah, you don't need to—"
"Muscle aches, sensitivity to light, loss of appetite." She looked up at me. "That's like, all of your symptoms. You definitely need to see a doctor."
Sensitivity to light. That was new. But now that she mentioned it, the fluorescent lights in the cafeteria did seem brighter than usual. Harsher.
"I'll make an appointment," I lied.
"Good. And you should probably call Mark, let him know you might be contagious. Though if you have mono, he's probably already been exposed."
Mark. Right. My boyfriend who was also a vampire hunter. Who would probably be very interested to know that I was developing more vampiric symptoms.
"I'll call him later."
Sarah went back to her lunch, but I could tell she was still worried. She kept glancing at me between bites, probably cataloging every symptom for further Google research.
I tried to drink more juice, but it was getting harder to keep anything down. The scent of food from the kitchen was making me nauseous, but underneath it all was that other smell. The one that made my mouth water and my fangs ache.
Blood. Fresh, warm blood pumping through hundreds of veins all around me.
I gripped the edge of the table, trying to anchor myself. The plastic was slick under my sweaty palms.
"You know what," Sarah said suddenly, "I think I'm going to take the afternoon off. Come back to the dorm with you, make sure you're okay."
"You don't have to do that. You have that computer science lab."
"I can skip it. This is more important." Sarah smiled at me, and I could see genuine affection in her eyes. "That's what friends do, right? Take care of each other when they're sick."
Friends. She thought we were friends. She had no idea that I was sitting here fantasizing about sinking my teeth into her throat.
"Sarah, really, I'll be fine—"
"Nope. I'm not taking no for an answer." Sarah started gathering up her things. "Let me just throw this stuff away and we can go."
She stood up with her tray, but as she turned toward the trash bins, her elbow caught the edge of the table. Her phone went flying, hit the floor, and slid under the chair of the guy behind us.
"Shit," Sarah muttered, setting down her tray. She knelt down to retrieve the phone, but the guy's chair leg was pinning it down. "Excuse me," she said to him, "could you move your chair just a little?"
The guy – a linebacker type with headphones on – didn't hear her. Sarah reached under the chair anyway, trying to wiggle the phone free.
That's when it happened.
The chair leg scraped across the back of her hand as she pulled the phone out, leaving a thin red line across her knuckles.
It wasn't a deep cut. Barely more than a scratch, really. Just a few drops of blood welling up on pale skin.
But to me, it might as well have been a neon sign.
The scent hit me like a physical blow. Rich, warm, metallic. But underneath that was something else, something that made every cell in my body light up with hunger.
Human blood. Fresh human blood.
Sarah's blood.
I was moving before I realized it, drawn across the table by an instinct older and stronger than conscious thought. My fangs extended fully, aching with need. All I had to do was grab her hand, bring it to my mouth, let those few precious drops touch my tongue...
"Ow." Sarah was examining the cut, completely unaware of the predator stalking toward her. "That stings."
She looked up just as I reached for her hand, and something in my expression made her freeze.
"Ella?" Her voice was uncertain. "Are you okay? Your eyes look..."
Different. My eyes looked different because the red was bleeding into them, because the vampire in me had scented blood and woken up hungry.
I caught myself just inches from her hand. Just close enough to smell the copper-sweet scent of her blood, to see the way it beaded on her skin like tiny rubies.
"Sorry," I said, my voice coming out rougher than usual. "I thought I saw something. On your hand."
"Just a scratch." Sarah dabbed at it with a napkin, and I watched the white fabric turn pink. "Nothing serious."
But I could still smell it. Could still see the thin line of red on her knuckles. Could still feel the hunger clawing at my throat, demanding I take what I needed.
"Maybe we should get you a band-aid," I said, my voice tight with the effort of staying in control.
"For this little thing? It's barely bleeding." Sarah laughed, but there was something nervous about it. "You're acting really weird, Ella. Even for being sick."
I forced myself to step back, to put distance between me and the scent of her blood. But I could still smell it. Could still hear the way her heartbeat had sped up, probably from concern about my strange behavior.
"Sorry. I guess I'm more out of it than I thought."
Sarah studied my face for a long moment. "Your eyes," she said quietly. "They looked red for a second there."
My blood turned to ice. "Red?"
"Like, bloodshot. Probably from being tired." But she didn't sound convinced.
I forced a laugh. "Yeah, probably. I really should get some sleep."
"Definitely." Sarah wrapped the napkin around her cut knuckles. "Come on, let's get you back to the room."
We left the cafeteria together, but I could feel her watching me out of the corner of her eye. Could smell the lingering scent of blood on the napkin she was carrying.
Every step away from that scratch was torture. The hunger was stronger now, awakened by the proximity to what I needed. My whole body ached with want.
By the time we reached the dorm, I was shaking.
"Jesus, Ella, you're really sick," Sarah said, mistaking my tremors for fever chills. "Get into bed. I'll make you some tea."
"You don't have to—"
"I'm making you tea." Sarah's voice was firm. "And then I'm calling the health center, making you an appointment for tomorrow."
I couldn't argue. Couldn't trust myself to speak without my voice giving away how close I was to losing control.
I lay down on my narrow bed, listening to Sarah move around the tiny kitchenette we shared. The sound of her heartbeat was like a drumbeat in my ears. Steady, strong, alive.
When she brought me the tea, her cut hand was carefully bandaged with a Hello Kitty band-aid from her first aid kit.
"Thanks," I managed.
"No problem." Sarah sat on the edge of my bed, her expression concerned. "Are you sure you don't want me to call Mark? He should know you're this sick."
"I'll call him later."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
But I was lying. I couldn't call Mark. Couldn't risk seeing him while I was this close to losing control. Because if I could barely resist the urge to attack my best friend over a tiny scratch, what would happen when I was around him?
What would happen when the hunger got so strong that friendship and love weren't enough to hold it back?
Sarah stayed with me until I pretended to fall asleep, then tiptoed out to her afternoon classes. But I didn't sleep. I lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the dorm around me.
Heartbeats. Everywhere. Students walking by in the hallway, their pulses strong and steady. Blood flowing through veins, warm and alive and calling to me.
And all I could think about was the way Sarah's blood had smelled. How easy it would have been to grab her hand, just for a taste. Just a few drops to take the edge off this terrible hunger.
The worst part wasn't that I'd almost attacked her.
The worst part was that I was already planning how to do it better next time.
End of Chapter 7