I smiled at that. “I’m not leaving.”
“You think you can make him change his mind?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him like this. He keeps talking about how dangerous it is for me here. But he can’t make me go back to Portland.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, he’s right; it is dangerous here. Aren’t you afraid of Le Bec?”
“Le Bec can’t hurt me.”
“Tosh. He almost killed you. He’s still—” He squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath. “I’mafraid of him. What if he found you again?”
“He already has.”
“What?”
I took a breath. Paused. Then plunged. “I’m a vampire.”
He shook his head. “What are you talking about? This vampire thing is out of control. You know it’s just a word that people use because it gets clicks, right? Something bad happened to you, but it didn’t turn you into a monster.”
“Nick, I—The other night, late, I had to get out of the apartment. I was going crazy. So I went out for a walk. Out in the city.”
“What? Why? That’s dangerous.”
I shushed him. “Le Bec found me. Tracked me, I guess. He told me he was a vampire and that he’d made me one, too, when he attacked me.” Nick scoffed. “That’s not the only thing. I almost—” I stopped. I didn’t want to tell him about the unhoused man. I didn’t want that to be how he saw me.“Remember the necklace I was wearing when we went to Le Shopping?” He shook his head. “Well, it was a silver heart, and Madame Dupuy had told me that silver burns vampires, so I touched it. To see if what Le Bec said was true.” I held up my index finger with the filigree pattern branded onto it. “The silver burned me. I’m a vampire.” He stared at my finger. “It’s real, Nick. I’ve been fighting urges for days now. I almost attacked my dad tonight. I can control it when everything’s going okay, and I thought that would be enough. But it’s not. If there’s too much stress, I’m not really safe to be around.” He didn’t reply, just started walking. “Nick?” I said, hurrying to catch up. He stared straight ahead, his jaw set. I couldn’t catch his eye. We left our neighborhood and turned onto Boulevard de Grenelle. I felt shaky and headachy and irritable. And panicky. I took out a cigarette, fast. Nick tutted when he saw the pack. “What?” I said, unable to hide the irritation in my voice.
“I can’t believe you’re smoking. Just because Martine does it doesn’t mean it’s not disgusting.”
“I know.” I lit the cigarette and inhaled. The headache vanished, and my mood evened out.
“Then why?”
I blew a stream of smoke away from him and made a flapping, futile movement with the hand holding the cigarette. “It’s the only thing that really controls my…episodes.” He looked skeptical.
“It’s a lot, I know, but I’m telling you the truth.”
“Noor? Is she one, too?”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“What’s she going to do?”
“I don’t know. We thought we had more time to figure it out.” The worries of the past couple of weeks climbed onto my back, their weight pressing me down. I imagined them as the chimeras from Notre-Dame: the despondent elephant, whose sad ears brushed the back of my head; the anxious monkey-bat who couldn’t settle but swung itself from shoulder to shoulder; and the murderous heron, who drove its bill obsessively into me. Nick looked at me, waiting for an explanation. I felt so tired. “Can we sit somewhere?”
I followed him down a quiet street lined with apartment buildings. One of them had a sort of entry alcove, with three wide steps leading to chipped green double doors. We settled on the second step. I shrugged out of my backpack and put it on the step below, between my knees, then leaned forward, cradling my head in my hands. How did I even start to explain this?
He put his hand on my back between my shoulder blades, right where I could feel the weight of the chimeras, and rubbed slow circles. I relaxed into his touch, focusing on the moment. We sat in silence until I could tell him how close I’d come to attacking Dad tonight. “There’s more,” I said softly. His hand kept moving over my back, warm and steady. “Madame Dupuy’s family are vampire killers.” His hand stopped moving. “I know. It’s like something in a novel—a really horrible one. I can hardly believe it’s happening. Except I’ve felt things, Nick—things that aren’t normal. And I’ve seen things that I can’t unsee, and—” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears leaked out anyway. “Madame Dupuy basically said she’d kill me if I was a vampire.” I drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t go back home. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want todie.”
He was silent for a long time. “That’s…a lot,” he said. I leaned my head onto his shoulder. “Vampires are real?” I nodded. “And you’re really one?”
I nodded again. “Because Le Bec bit me. It’s like an infection, I think.”
He put his arm around me. “Is there a cure?”
I squeegeed the tears off my face with my hands. “I don’t know. I hit it with all my research skills and didn’t find anything useful.”
“What will we do?” he asked after a minute.
“I have to disappear.” He shook his head. “What choice do I have?”
