With a strangled laugh that was mixed with a sob, Samantha shook her head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. How much longer do you think we could isolate ourselves from the truth?”

Tilting her head, Amaliya scrutinized the tear streaked face of the woman beside her. “What do you mean?”

“It was all going to fall apart anyway. I can see it now. I mean...what would’ve happened? Cian and I would have had our pretty candlelight wedding and then what? Be happy for a few years? And then what would happen? I told him I didn’t need to have kids to be happy, but that’s only because I had this glamorous idea about one day being a vampire, too. He’d change me on my twenty-ninth birthday and I’d be fabulous forever. I was in love with the whole fairytale of living forever with him. Being forever young. Never dying.”

Amaliya finished off her cigarette and reached for another one. “But you were happy.”

“I didn’t know him, bitchface,” Samantha said wearily. “I know that now. In fact, I have known since you showed up that we weren’t meant to be. If Cian and I were really as solid as I thought, you wouldn’t have landed in our lives like a nuclear bomb.”

Amaliya couldn’t argue with that point. She had shattered the illusion that Cian and Samantha had constructed by their mutual desires. Cian’s to be human again; Samantha’s to be an eternal creature.

Glancing back into the apartment at Cian, who was talking on the phone, Samantha sighed. “I still believe Cian’s a good guy, but I look at him and it’s like I’m seeing a different person. I miss the image I had of him in my head. The fantasy I was in love with. I don’t know him. Who he is now...he’s yours.”

Lighting up, Amaliya shrugged. “For now.”

“What do you mean ‘for now?’” Samantha narrowed her eyes.

“We live forever. Maybe one day we won’t be able to stand each other.” Amaliya lifted her shoulder dismissively. “We have the now. The future is...” She waved her hand toward the horizon. “The future is unknown.” Cian and she had made no promises to each other. What they had now was great, but they didn’t talk in terms of forever like mortals did.

Samantha stared at her with disbelief, then gradually understanding bloomed in her eyes. “It really is different for you, isn’t it? Being what you are?”

Amaliya gave her a brief nod. “We could possibly live forever, or get murdered brutally tomorrow by Santos and his crazy half-sister. Fuck, The Summoner’s favorite kid is sniffing around. We could be fucked so many different ways. Why talk about forever? I want the now. Whatever it is that Cian and I have, I want it for the here and now. It could be gone tomorrow.” It felt good to say the words, to acknowledge the truth. No matter how desperately she wanted to run away, she also wanted to stay.

Watching Amaliya with a very thoughtful look in her eyes, Samantha was silent for a few minutes. Amaliya left her to her inner musings and enjoyed her cigarette. Surprisingly, talking to Samantha was making her feel better, but she had more yet to say.

“Did it hurt a lot when you died?”

Samantha’s question was unexpected. Amaliya responded with a quick incline of her head.

“In the movies, the bite doesn’t usually hurt.”

Amaliya laughed. “The Summoner ripped my throat out. It hurt like hell, but what was scarier was my blood pouring out of me. I remember thinking that I needed to stop the flow of blood. But there was no way to stop it. I knew immediately, even though I didn’t want to accept it, that I was about to die. And he...was so happy to watch me die.” Amaliya shuddered at the memory. She distinctly remembered the kiss he had placed on her forehead as the world had grown dim. “He told me I was pretty when I died.”

“That’s messed up. When I was dying, it hurt, but it felt peaceful, too. Like the world was just growing dimmer.”

“I felt that, too.” Amaliya hated the memory of The Summoner forcing his blood into her, watching her with delight as she choked. “But he ruined it.”

“Do you wish you had stayed dead?”

“No.” That was one thing Amaliya was sure of without a doubt. “No, I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I found Cian. I know we hurt you, but I do...love him.”

“You’re such a whore,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes.

“Fuck you.” The words didn’t hold the malice they usually did.

“I’m glad I’m alive, too. I’m...scared though.”

Leaning her elbows on the railing, Amaliya stared out over the hills in the west. “I am, too.”

“What am I?” Samantha asked fearfully. “Do I belong to you now or something?”

“I don’t think so.” Amaliya glanced over at the other woman. “I honestly don’t know.” She was secretly terrified that she was now somehow responsible for Samantha.

Samantha rubbed her face with her hands and let out an exasperated sound.

“Sam,” Amaliya said, trying to gather her thoughts and fashion them into a sentence that would make sense and not piss off Samantha. “Sam, I’m sorry that you’re different now. I know how fucked up it is. I fucking hate The Summoner for making me into a vampire the way he did. He didn’t give me a choice. He just killed me. But I’m okay with what I am now. I like being a vampire. Now, ironically, I have made you into something...different...against your will. I feel like an asshole.”

Amaliya tilted her head downward so she wouldn’t have to see the speculative gaze of the other woman. She did feel guilty about a lot of what had happened, but at the same time it wasn’t really her fault. Their lives were all totally fucked up because of The Summoner. He had abandoned her to struggle to survive. Now Samantha was transforming into something new and Amaliya instinctively wanted to duck any responsibility that might land on her shoulders. Yet, how could she do that? Wasn’t that what The Summoner had done to her?

“I can call my grandmother to come and help you,” Amaliya added.

“I’d like that. Even if she hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t like it when you call me names.”

“Well, you deserve it,” Samantha sniffed.

“I am sorry.”

“You’re still a whore.”

“You’re still a bitch.”

They both laughed and smiled. Samantha rubbed her brow wearily and turned her focus toward the interior of the apartment, where Cian was on the phone.

“It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”

Amaliya nodded. “Yeah.”

“Will we live through it?”

“We’ll try.” Amaliya answered with grim determination in her voice.

“I’d like to fall in love, get married, and have a family one day,” Samantha admitted. “I’d like to not be always afraid.”

“You and Jeff dating still?”

“Kinda.” Samantha sighed.

“Rebounding is a bitch.”

“Not for Cian,” Samantha said, sadness more than bitterness filling her words.

“We’re vampires. We’re...” Amaliya shrugged. “We’re assholes.”

Samantha busted out laughing. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

The door opened behind them. Amaliya twisted around to see Cian. His expression was grim.

“What’s up?”

“I plugged in your new phone and there are around thirty messages from your cousin and grandmother. You better check it out. The phone is still charging.”

“Shit!” Amaliya shoved past him and ran to the kitchen where she always plugged in her phone. A shiny new one was sitting on the counter next to the box it had come in. Snatching it up, she quickly scanned the list of missed calls, then hit the screen to dial voicemail. Listening to the first message, fear punched her in the gut.

“Something is going on. Grandmama had a visitation,” Amaliya blurted out to Cian and Samantha who were standing nearby, but not so close as to be obviously eavesdropping. Amaliya quickly dialed her cousin’s number.

Sergio answered on the second ring. “About damn time.”

“Sorry. My phone was busted in a...in an accident. I just got my new one. What’s going on?” Amaliya’s fingers were trembling. One sentence from the voicemail had stabbed her through with fear.

“Let me get Grandmama,” Sergio answered.

Amaliya heard him calling out for their grandmother. The TV was playing in the background and his kids were talking loudly. It reminded her of the better times in her childhood when her mother had still been alive. That sort of normalcy was a dream of the past. It made her rather sad for just a moment.

“Amaliya,” her grandmother said breathless. “You’re in danger!”

It was so like her grandmother to cut straight to the point and ignore the small talk of conversation.

“Tell me about her,” Amaliya said in a worried tone.

“She was very pale, not just because she was a ghost, but because her hair was that blond that is almost white. She looked young, maybe in her late teens. Blue eyes. Very fair.”