I said, leave!” Micki yelled at Emery.
     “I’m staying right here.” He stood by the door, fists on his hips and guarding the only exit. “You’re not leaving this room until you see the truth.”
     “What? That you all are a bunch of thrill-seeking psychos?” She plopped down on the bed and crossed her arms. “Say whatever you want. You’re not fooling me.”
     “I have nothing else to say.”
     Lunging forward, Emery threw his fist into Micki’s jaw, the explosive attack knocking her from the bed. Stunned, she covered her face with her hands and curled up on the floor. She was certain that more abuse would follow.
     Emery stood over her. “Get up.”
     Underneath her hands, Micki began to cry.
     “Get up!”
     “Leave me alone,” she sobbed.
     “No.”
     Reaching down, Emery grabbed her arm and forced her to stand. Micki shuddered within his hold as her legs buckled. She heard herself screaming.
     “Don’t touch me!”
     “Then make me stop. You have the power to stop me. Use it.” Emery’s hand wrapped around her throat. He began to squeeze.
     Micki’s screaming stopped. Her fingers clawed at hand, trying to pry herself free. He let go, dropping her back to the floor. Attempting to crawl away from him, Micki felt his hands on her once more, pulling her back and pinning her face down.
     “Are you too pathetic to fight back?” he hissed in her ear. “Or is this the reason they chose you? Too weak to fight back—too weak to fight them off.”
     Micki cried louder. “Stop. Please, stop.”
     “Fight back. I know you want to hit me. How long do you want this to go on?”
     She began to squirm underneath him. Her body quieted.
     “Is that all?” he dared. “I could do whatever I want with you and you won’t fight back? Pathetic.”
     A burst of energy found its into Micki’s body. She pushed against him and twisted around, throwing her elbow into the side of his head. She was impressed with her own strength, but the achievement was short-lived. Emery grabbed both of her wrists and pinned her to the floor, facing him this time. He straddled her waist and laughed.
     “Now this is more like it,” he mocked with a wiggle from his hips. “I’m sorry that I have you at a disadvantage. But like I said, you’re not leaving this room until your eyes have been opened.”
     As he talked, Micki saw his teeth. Two of them doubled in length before he finished speaking. She found herself unable to breath. This was no trick. What she was seeing was real.
     Emery moved in fast, his teeth breaking the skin of her neck without any effort. He bit twice, once to open her skin and the other to anchor himself incase she struggled.
     Micki’s body cried out as her blood was torn from her. The sharp pain left her neck and traveled deep within her. She knew this was wrong. Her body needed this blood. Her body begged for his. A new pain, dull at first, increased within the top of her mouth. As the pain and pressure reached its apex, it subsided.
     Using all of her strength, Micki pushed against Emery and blindly went for him. A rush of blood filled her mouth. The pain in her body quieted. Opening her eyes, Micki found herself holding onto Emery, her mouth eagerly sucking at his neck. Horrified, she pulled away, her hand over her mouth. She backed up against the wall.
     “Are you going to deny it now?” Emery said.
     Micki lowered his hands and saw the blood on her palms. Her fingers slowly lifted to touch the new teeth. Upon contact she withdrew her hand and plastered her body further against the wall, hugging her knees. Her body began to shake.
     “This… this isn’t happening,” she whispered, her voice shaking, as well.
     Emery crawled over to her and sat down. “This isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you. The one who did this; you were a game to him. Once they were finished with their fun, they would find some creative way to kill you. I’ve seen this before. You were the lucky one.”
     Her tear-filled eyes lifted to him. “Lucky? You call this nightmare luck? This isn’t suppose to exist in the real world. None of this is suppose to be real.”
     Emery tilted his head to show her the bite. “This is your work. It’s very real to me. If you want more, I won’t stop you.”
     Micki stared at the torn skin. Her tongue then moved over her new teeth as the fictitious world came smashing into hers. She could still taste his blood. It wasn’t as sickening as she imagined. Diving into the unknown, she listened to her body and felt herself moving toward him. Her lips touched the warmth of the bite, then parted as her tongue licked at the escaping blood.
     Feeling her latch on once more, Emery placed a hand to the back of her head and lightly stroked her hair. In retrospect, this wasn’t much of a challenge. He managed to open her eyes in less than ten minutes. Gabriel’s impatient nature was no match to Micki’s stubbornness. When all else fails, a mirror is the only thing needed.
     Micki pulled away and hid her face under her dark, cascading hair. “You can go now,” she whispered.
     “Do you really want me to leave?”
     Moving from him, Micki crawled onto the bed and curled into a ball. She then grabbed the nearest pillow and place it over her head. Emery followed her as he sat by her side.
     “You may be dead,” he began, resting a hand to her hip, “but this isn’t a death sentence.”
     “I don’t feel like talking.”
     “You can ask me anything.” He waited for an answer.
     Micki finally spoke. “How old are you?”
     “Um, that’s one I haven’t thought about in a while. I was twenty-six when I died. That was in ’76. You can do the math.”
     She raised the pillow to look at him. “You were in your twenties during the 70s? I guess that explains the whole Sex Pistols vibe.”
     “Fuck the Sex Pistols. Any self-respecting worshipper of punk quickly goes beyond that gateway drug. And how about you, Morticia? Recite much Edgar Allen Poe these days?”
     She narrowed her eyes. “Touché. And what about the others? How old are they?”
     “Evonne hasn’t even reached her first birthday yet. And Gabriel… I think he’s somewhere around the big eight-o-o.”
     “Eight hundred? You mean he’s eight hundred years old?” The number carried a flash of history it encompassed.
     “He was a blacksmith back in the day,” Emery recalled. “That’s all I really know about him.”
     “And he’s with her? That’s beyond robbing the cradle.”
     “Age doesn’t apply there,” he corrected.
     “What, love?”
     “I don’t think so. If there is, they hide it well. It’s more like a ‘friends with benefits’ deal. He’s her sire, and she’ll remain with him until they both feel it’s safe to go their separate ways.”
     A word stuck out from his explanation. “Sire?” she repeated.
     “He’s the one who turned her.”
     “And she let him?”
     “They had no choice,” he said. This was one story he knew as the truth and felt confident enough to share. “It was forced upon both of them.”
     “Was she dying?”
     “No, nothing like that. Think of it as a political move.”
     Micki looked at him oddly. “Vampires have politics? God, I can’t believe I just said that with a straight face.”
     “The older vampires can be very political. But Gabriel’s interest in other vampires is next to nonexistent. He prefers the life of a loner. Enter Evonne. She is the daughter of a man whose family goal and lifelong dream is to rid the world of our kind. Keelan, Gabriel’s first child, made it his own goal to take Evonne from her father. She, of course, went willingly. Stuff happened, and then Saros… Wait a minute. There’s a lot more you need to know to fully understand what I’m saying.”
     “Pretend I do.”
     “Alright,” he said, sitting back. “Saros, one of the original vampires, ordered Gabriel to become Evonne’s sire. It was more of a tactical move against Alexander, Evonne’s father.”
     “Why don’t they just kill this Alexander guy?”
     Emery shrugged. “He’s not a real concern to them, I guess. If you think about it, it wouldn’t take much effort on their part to storm in there and kill everyone.”
     “But why mess with him like that?”
     Shaking his head, he answered, “I don’t know why. Maybe Saros wanted to get to Gabriel, as well. I said he was a loner, didn’t I?”
     “What about the one who did this to me?” she dared to ask.
     “SEVEN was all over that place. Gabriel said that the nest was cleared out, and that the ones responsible were killed.”
     “What’s ‘SEVEN?’ ”
     “It’s an organization started by Alexander. They’re everywhere it seems.”
     The idea of this shadow-like organization seemed more like a secret, government project. “An organization that kills vampires?”
     “And werewolves,” he added.
     “Werewolves are real, too?”
     Emery laughed. “There’s a lot you need to learn. But I’m up to the challenge.”
     She rolled onto her back. “You’re calling me a ‘challenge’?”
     “A challenge, project, student, adventure.” His eyebrows raised on the last word. “A ball of fun all rolled into one. Really think about this. We are the outsiders looking in. Human society is our entertainment now. We get to live on the edge of what they believe to be reality. It’s fun to know the truth when they walk around, oblivious to the real world.” He stopped as his ears picked up on faint sounds a few rooms away. He smirked. “Figures, now that they have a room to themselves.”
     Micki listened as well. “Are they…?” Realizing the answer for herself, she threw the pillow back over her head.
     Emery playfully tugged at the bottom of her shirt and smiled. “Care to give them a run for their money? I don’t think they’ll be expecting it.”
     She answered through the pillow, her voice muffled. “Go away.”
     Emery rested his head on her stomach, his eyes on the pillow. “Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. No strings. Just two cold blooded creatures taking their aggressions out on each other. You may even learn a few things.”
     The pillow moved as she bought it down on his head, smacking him. She then rolled onto her side, the pillow covering her once more. “I just want to sleep.”
     Emery rested his chin on her hip this time. “That’s the sun you’re feeling.” With a sigh, he grabbed an extra pillow and left the bed. “As for my promise, I’ll leave.”
     Micki heard him exit the room but he didn’t go far.
     Outside, Emery chose to sleep by the door. He recalled her earlier threat of leaving at dawn. Though she now knew the truth, he wondered if she still planned to leave. But he wouldn’t let her. Emery was beginning to like this new adventure, and there was plenty left to explore.