The Night House (4 page)

My eyes slide open, and I don’t know where I am.

James

“James!”

My gaze is drawn to the source of the voice. Shell is walking up to me, taking my hand. The lights are crazy. Her face is a blur of shadows and a huge grin. I get a jolt of excitement when she touches me. A pounding heart and a sheen of sweat. She looks great, or maybe it’s just great to see someone who wants me around. But the good feelings fade all too soon, and now I’m not entirely sure if I can do this.

“I’m so glad you came,” she shouts into my ear, because it’s the only way I could hear her. Her breath is warm and smells like sugar.

I’m laughing like an idiot. “This is nuts!”

“I know, right? Come dance with us!”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

But she doesn’t hear me. She’s pulling me into the fray. Bodies are brushing against me from every angle. I am happy—sad—nervous—drunk—sore. I am male and female and young and old.

Shell takes my hand and puts it on her hips. Her back is against my chest. She is having the time of her life. She is so glad I came here, and now I’m starting to think I’m glad that I came. The shape of her is intoxicating, and I let my fingers wrap around her waist. Before I have time to think that I have no idea what I’m doing, we’re moving. I want to turn her around so I can see her face, but I also want to flee, because I know I’m going to screw this up. Amazingly, she doesn’t seem to think so. She moves closer to me, and my head spins.

But there is no stopping the flood of other minds. The lights are blurring around me, and I’m dizzy with the high of this room. The music is madness, some electronic mess of synth and bass. The highs and lows are driving me crazy.

Everyone wants something, and I’m filled with their needs. My head is going to burst if I stay here too long. I’ve gone completely numb. I don’t know what I’m doing, if I’m moving or just standing still. I can’t find myself through it all.

Shell turns to me, smiling. She puts her hands on my shoulders, guiding me. She’s so pretty, grinning up at me. I want to smile back, but I can’t focus on her.

I need to get out of here. My head is starting to throb. I search the room, to find Ally, but I don’t see her. I’m sick. I’m done. I can’t breathe.

“Shell!” I try to shout, but my chest is tight and it comes out as a strangled yelp.

I reach for her again, but my arms go around her middle, pulling her against me. She freezes up. I’ve gone too far.

“What are you doing?” She is trying to joke, to ignore the mix of nerves, good and bad, that just shot through her. This is way too forward.

I shout, “I have to go! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

I let go of her and start fighting my way out of this place. Every person who touches me takes another piece of me. It’s like they’re all shoving their way into my mind and eliminating my own feelings. It’s making me top heavy, like my head weighs a ton, and I’m going to collapse. Before I know it, I’m running. I can’t feel my own legs moving, but I know I’m shoving past people and opening doors until I feel the night air cooling the sweat on my skin.

I can’t stop running. The streets are a blur.

When I do finally stop and catch my breath, I’m seeing double. My head is stuck in the club. A hundred people are stomping through my brain. I can barely stand, so I collapse on the sidewalk, gasping for air. My chest is pained. Maybe I’m having a heart attack.

When I open my eyes, I have no clue where I am.

Bianca

I try to find a street sign; instead, I find a boy. He’s across the street, sitting on the ground. Panting heavily. I think he’s panicking. I feel so sad for him. That he doesn’t feel the way I do. Poor thing. Maybe I can help.

So I cross the street. He is slightly dazed but also slightly terrified. Boring brown hair and a little zip-up and jeans. He’s attractive, but he clearly doesn’t know what to do with himself. I see my bag on the sidewalk next to me. It slid off my arm while I was staring.

“You look so sad.”

“It…it’s okay,” he stutters.

Then I remember Micah. I’m wasting time. But I can’t just leave this boy here. He’s clearly human, and this is a bad area for him to be in. I wonder if he’s homeless. Immediately, I am stricken with grief for him. I squat down.

“It’s not safe here,” I try to tell him, so he knows he has to leave. I make the mistake of staring into his eyes.

They are like the ocean at night. Deep, dark, infinite blue. But there’s something magnetic about his gaze. I can’t stop staring. His hands begin to tremble. He lets out a gasp of pain, and I let go of him.

“I’m. I’m no good at this.” I want to explain that I’m not used to helping people. I didn’t mean to freak him out.

He’s making my wrist hurt—the one Jeremiah just paid for. It aches. And it’s because of the boy, I know somehow. The pain radiates, and I visualize it like a red light glowing under my skin, growing hotter and hotter. I realize it’s exposed. I was so high, I forgot to wrap the wound. The skin is bruised. The bite mark is still weeping blood.

“You’re in pain,” the boy says quietly. “How are you alive?”

How am
I
alive?
He’s
the one who isn’t living. He’s the one who doesn’t feel this way. The one who’s sad and lost and hurt. I touch his face, because I think I’ve found the person I can help.

I whisper my secret to him: “I can feel everything.”

And I kiss him, because that’s what people do in fairy tales and Jane Austen novels.

Then Micah comes back into my head. So I stand up, take my bag, and tell the boy, “I have to go help my friend.”

And I walk away.

James

The girl is still walking away, and every one of her movements causes more pain to shoot through my body. As she gets farther, my awareness returns. As soon as the girl is out of view, I text Ally. She says she’s coming. I don’t have the energy to try to meet Ally. I close my eyes and try to feel my own body. But the girl is still there.

It’s not supposed to work like this. I have to have an emotional connection with someone before I feel every little thing that they do. With strangers, I always just get little passing glimpses into them. I get whatever is most prominent. This emotional connection has never happened with a stranger.

That girl hit me like a wrecking ball.

There are scars all over me. I feel them like scabs that itch so slightly. My wrists and neck are burning with this awful desire to be hurt. My vision blurs as I try and work it out. Some kind of drug rushes through me like ice water. I feel everything. So much to feel. I’m not strong enough to take it all. This pain is going to kill me if I don’t stop now.

“Jesus Christmas, James,” Ally’s voice is a welcome, yet high-pitched, distraction. “What is wrong with you?” she asks.

I can’t tell if she’s asking out of concern or because I pulled her away from the party. This is the first time I don’t know exactly what Ally is feeling.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Bullshit.” This time I can hear the concern. She can see something is wrong with me.

“There was a girl…She was on some kind of drug, I think.”

Street lights ebb into view, and I shield my eyes.

Ally’s face is twisted in fear. “What the hell just happened?”

I hold up my hands, to make sure they’re mine.

Ally nudges my shoulder. “James?”

“I’m fine.” I rub my face. “That girl was just really messed up. I felt the drugs she was on.”

“So you were high for a second?” she asks, trying to be funny and not laughing.

“I guess.”

“Well, there goes Shell’s party, huh?” She tries to get me to stand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“Hold on.” My voice quivers. “It’s not quite gone.”

I can’t tell her how much pain I’m still in. I can’t tell her that I’ve never felt this kind of mark, almost like I’ve been bitten by a wild animal. I
really
can’t tell her that there is some part of me that likes this pain, even needs it.

I have to remind myself that this isn’t actually how I feel. That this is the girl’s feeling. She is the one with the scars and the problems and the pain.
She
feels completely trapped and lost at the same time. Not me. Not me.

Ally sits down next to me and lays her head on my shoulder. Even though it hurts, I’m glad she’s here. I try to focus on Ally, to feel her instead of that stranger, to ease this pain. It doesn’t work.

“Just tell me when you’re ready,” Ally says.

I’m reminded why I told Ally what I am in the first place. She will drop everything for me, as I would for her. She may not be my biological sister, but I love her just the same. I know she would fight for me if she had to. Ally makes me feel alive. And she, more than anyone, pushes me to be a regular kid. Sometimes she pushes too hard. But I’ll always forgive her.

“Do you want to talk?” she asks quietly.

“Sure.” I agree mostly to make her feel better.

“Do you think you’ll see Shell again?”

I make a noise in my throat. “I don’t think so…”

“Too bad,” Ally sighs. “It’s okay, though. She’s spending the summer in Florida anyway.”

“Shame.” Though I’m pretty okay with that. I’d be too embarrassed to see Shell again. A few states between us feels safe.

“Hey, James,” Ally says.

“Yeah?”

She pulls her feet closer, scraping her boots across the sidewalk. “Do you still think about your bio parents?”

This question catches me off guard and for a minute all the pain disappears, replaced with my own confusion. I feel wholly like myself as I think about them.

“Of course.”

“You think they were like you?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” After years of thinking about that question, that’s the only answer I have. “Sometimes, I think so. Sometimes, I think I just have some kind of genetic mutation.”

“Maybe you’re some kind of mythical creature. Like…a vampire.” She says the word with a bit of reverence. Ally’s always been obsessed with vampires.
Dracula
was her favorite book in middle school.

I kick away an old cigarette butt. “Or I’m just nuts.”

“Hush, big brother. Let me dream.”

I close my eyes, but all I can see are the girl’s bright green ones staring back at me.

Bianca

Micah lives in a ramshackle building a few blocks away. It’s the most he can afford, pretending to be a human living on disability. Vampires have a lot of scams like that to get money out of the human government. He
is
disabled after all. Just not in a way that humans would recognize.

He opens the door for me, and I try not to stumble into him. I hide my wrist behind my back, pulling my sleeves back up. The usual wave of joy and terror overcomes me when I see him. He’s like a best friend, a brother, and a patient all rolled up into one.

“Hey,” I say. My nerves are still tingling, but it’s getting better. I can’t shake that boy’s face from my mind. Part of me thinks I left him to die.

“Bumble Bee.” Micah reaches a flimsy hand over to me, and I meet him halfway. His skin is sickly white, like cement. He looks so used. And he’s always so thin. Like me. “You made it.” He has a slight lisp. He’s missing two of his teeth: his fangs.

“Sorry I’m late.”

He smiles and pulls me inside. The apartment consists of one tiny dining room/living room/kitchen, a bathroom, and Micah’s room. We are both drawn by exhaustion into his bedroom. He returns to his usual place on top of the covers, blending into the sheets, until all I can see are his eyes. I sit on the edge of the bed and let my bag drop to the floor.

“Finn catch you?” Micah wonders with a strained voice.

“Everything’s okay.”

“You can stay here tonight, if you want.”

“That’d be nice.”

A beat of city silence passes. Micah meets my gaze with a little more steadiness. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

This always happens. Micah has been trying to get me to stay here with him for months. Micah saved my life once, a long time ago.

I let out a sigh. “I can’t live here.”

“Actually, you could. There’s really no reason not to.”

I reach out and shove his arm as lightly as I can. “You’re so annoying sometimes.”

“Really,” he presses on. “You can get a job at a restaurant nearby. I can’t give you any nauth, but I have old friends who might be able to help you get clean.”

Now I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m
fine
, Micah. Enough, okay? I’m staying at the Night House, that’s final.”

He falls silent, realizing his mistake. “Sorry. I just hate not knowing if you’re okay.”

“Same here. Speaking of, we should get on with this.”

He nods and does his best to sit up. I go to the crooked shelf on the wall and pull down the kit. Inside are an old black tie and a needle. With Micah’s help, I secure the tie around my upper arm and use the needle to draw my own blood. Then I inject my blood into Micah’s arm. We repeat this process two or three times. This is how Micah has to feed. It hurts, but there is still enough nauth in my system to block out most of the pain.

Micah used to be an officer. He served the vamp equivalent to the mayor of Philadelphia, which meant free trips to the Night House. Micah hated it there, but official vamps are supposed to go. The worst thing a vamp could possibly be is compassionate to humans. Vampires see it as a weakness to care about us. They’ve survived this long without integrating into human society. So when Micah refused to kill a human, they pulled his fangs out.

I remember when I found out how vampires feed. I thought they just drank it like water. It has to go directly into their blood stream, which is why their fangs are necessary. They are like hypodermic needles that connect to their veins. They can eat food, technically, but their stomach is more of a decoration than a necessary organ.

I’m wilting as Micah gets more alert. His eyes focus, and he sits up just in time to catch me when I nearly pass out.

“That’s enough.” His voice is sharp. Back to normal.

I’m too weak to do anything as he puts me in his place in the bed. I want to object because it’s his bed, but I’m so tired I forget that vampires don’t sleep at night.