“In a minute,” Reggie said, in a light singsong. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good show.” He stepped fully into the living room, moving around both Frederick and the large, wrapped package at his feet, and then strode directly to the kitchen, where I still stood rooted to the spot beside the fridge of doom.
“I think I’ll have a snack before I go,” he whispered in my ear, conspiratorially. He opened the fridge with a flourish, then reached inside and scooped up several plastic bags of blood.
My eyes went wide.
With a wink at me, Reggie bit into one of the bags with what looked, to me, a hell of a lot like fangs.
As I watched him drink the bag down, then toss it into the trash—empty in seconds, drained entirely dry—and bite into a second, I felt the room start to spin. I’d never been a particularly squeamish person; but then, nothing in any of my life experiences had prepared me for what I was seeing now.
“Reginald,” Frederick growled warningly. “Get out. Now.”
He pouted. “But I just got here! We were going to have a little party before your roommate got here.”
“Reginald.”
“Freddie.” Reginald rolled his eyes. “Stop being silly. You’re just as hungry as I am. Don’t you want a snack, too?”
Without waiting for an answer, Reggie grabbed another bag from the fridge and tossed it to Frederick—who caught it, easily.
The sight of Frederick—my roommate who stayed out all night for cryptic reasons and slept all day, who dressed in vintage suits and spoke like someone from a different era—holding a bag of blood . . .
The last piece of the puzzle slid into place.
I knew exactly what he hadn’t been telling me.
“Frederick . . .” I began, the floor beneath my feet going decidedly wobbly.
How was any of this real?
Frederick cleared his throat. “It occurs to me that it is long past time I told you several . . . very specific things about myself.” He was glaring at Reginald, but it was clear he was talking to me. He had the decency to sound sheepish. Which . . . well. Good. I was pretty sure he’d been lying to my face about a lot of very important things since I’d met him.
Feeling bad about it was certainly a step in the right direction.
“Go on,” I prompted.
“I’m . . . not what you think I am.”
I snorted. “I figured.” My words came out frostier than I’d meant them to. But come on. Did he think I was an idiot? “What are you, though?”
I knew, though. A person would have to be pretty dim to stumble upon their roommate’s blood stash, and watch his friend help himself to some of it like it was something he did every day, and not immediately realize some pretty uncomfortable truths.
I still needed to hear him say it, though. After a lifetime of thinking people like Frederick only existed in young adult novels and old horror movies, it was the only way I’d believe what I’d seen with my own two eyes.
Frederick sighed, running a hand over his perfect face. He bit his lip, hesitating—and, no, my eyes were not helplessly drawn to the way his white teeth pressed into the soft, plump flesh of his bottom lip. I was done fantasizing about my unfairly hot roommate. That phase of my life was one hundred percent over.
“I am a vampire, Cassie.”
His voice was very quiet, but his words blew through me with the force of a hurricane. I’d already guessed the truth, but I still stumbled under the weight of his confession.
All at once, it felt like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.
I had to get out of there.
Now.
Sam and Scott would take me in. Getting them to believe my roommate was a vampire might be difficult, but—
No. Getting them to believe my roommate was a vampire would be impossible. Sam was a lawyer, and Scott was an academic. They didn’t have enough imagination between them to change a light bulb. And I’d always been the eccentric friend. The one who could throw killer bachelor parties and collected existential crises like Pokémon, but who was perennially messing up in most important areas of her life.
They’d probably think I was delusional if I told the truth.
But it didn’t matter. They’d see I was desperate when I showed up late at night and unannounced. They’d take me in.
I had to laugh over how stupid I’d been. I’d started having feelings for Frederick. Meanwhile, he’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to bite my neck!
“Cassie,” Frederick said, looking panicked. “I can explain.”
“I think you just did.”
“I did not. I gave you some information that I should have shared with you at the outset, but—”
I huffed a breath. “I’ll say.”
He looked chastened, gaze dropping to the floor. “I would still like a chance to explain myself fully. If you will allow it.”
But I was already inching my way towards the front door. “What is there to explain? You’re a vampire. You’ve been biding your time, waiting for your chance to pounce on me, sink your teeth into my neck, and drink my blood.”
“No,” Frederick said, emphatically. He shook his head. “It has never been my intention to harm you.”
“Why should I believe you?”
He paused, considering my question. “I realize that I have not given you much reason to trust me. But really, Cassie. If I were going to feed from you, wouldn’t I have done so before now?”
I stared at him. “That’s supposed to be reassuring?”
He winced. “It . . . sounded better in my head,” he admitted. “But please believe me when I say that for all intents and purposes I have not fed on a living human in over two hundred years.”
In over two hundred years.
The room went all spinny again as the full extent of what he was telling me sunk in.
Frederick wasn’t just a vampire.
He was also seriously, seriously old.
“I can’t do this,” I mumbled. I had to get away. “I’m leaving.”
“Cassie—”
“I’m leaving,” I said, stumbling out of the kitchen. “Throw out all my stuff if you want. I don’t care.”
“Cassie.” Frederick’s voice sounded pained. “Please, let me explain. I need your help.”
But I was already throwing open the front door of the apartment and dashing down the stairs, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.