Being arrant in a world of dragons and vampires and elves and witches wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but it was who she was. Who her family had always been. They didn’t have much, if anything, to be proud of except for the fact that they were scrappy survivors living in a harsh world.
Even if Dahlia hadn’t spent five years working in a vampire bar and witnessing some of the worst of them, she wouldn’t have wanted to be a vampire. Shelikedwho she was.
Or she had, until one bad night ruined her life.
The doctors sent her home with numbing gel, an ice pack, two fewer teeth, and entirely new identity to grapple with.
Well, maybe that’s not fair,she thought, eyeing the small stack of glossy paper sitting on her kitchen counter.They also gave me pamphlets.
After they’d pumped her for as much information as possible, they’d sat her down for a disturbingly nonchalant rundown of what her life would be like. The biggest and most obvious change was that she’d be on a strict synth diet for the rest, but there were others.
No more sunlight. No more junk food. No more casual dating.
She had to worry about things likedrinking from peopleand venom and how complicated it would be to have kids. That last part stung the most. She’d hadn’t even begun to process it yet.
That was on the list,she thought, touching her finger to a brand new fang. It was damn sensitive, but the doctor assured her any discomfort would go away within twenty-four hours.
Dahlia had it all planned out. She and Cecilia would move to San Francisco together. She’d get her degree. She’d start a business. Then she’d have a couple cute kids around the same time as Cecilia.
Her kids would have a soft life and never have to worry about whether someone would be around to help with homework.
But how would she have kids now? Everyone knew vampires were infertile until they found an anchor. It wasn’t like finding a regular partner to hopefully stick around after knocking you up. It took months of injections of a vampire’s venom to make their bodies compatible, and that was onlyafterconvincing a person to be your personal buffet for life.
Maybe another person would’ve been initially more upset about the horrific diet change, but Dahlia had been around synth and blood for so long that it only made small ripples in her mind. What she really cared about was her future, which now appeared almost unrecognizable.
Cecilia was the only person in the hospital who seemed to understand. While the doctors and nurses went on and on about the dangers of too much sunlight or the risks of being reckless with her new venom, Cecilia held Dahlia’s hand and looked at her with so much sympathy it made her want to sob all over again.
They’d spent the rest of the day and most of the night curled up together in Dahlia’s bed. They didn’t talk. They just put Dahlia’s tablet between them and watched several episodes of asoap opera about a coven of witches embroiled in several torrid love affairs.
Cecilia had asked if she wanted her to stay over, but Dahlia knew she needed time alone to process, so she’d sent her friend to her own apartment around two in the morning. They were used to the nocturnal life, but Cecilia had been up to take her to the hospital since noon. By the time she shuffled off to her own bed, she looked almost as tired as Dahlia.
Left alone, her mind spun in circles of denial, anger, and acceptance.
A shower helped. So did another bottle of synth. Finally clean and full after weeks of illness, she forced herself to crack open her windows to air out her tiny apartment.
“You can grieve,” she muttered to herself as she sat on her floor. The guts of her tiny closet were spilled out around her in piles of vintage silk, fur, chiffon, and wool. “Some bad shit happened to you. You’re allowed to be upset. But you can’t let yourself drown in it. Dahlia McKnight doesn’t throw pity parties.”
Cool, wet air blew into her apartment as she sorted everything into piles. She should’ve been resting, but after weeks of sickness, she rode the wave of renewed energy the synth had given her.
Reorganizing her closet gave her something to do with her hands while she muddled through her feelings.
She hadn’t wanted to give the doctors more information about what happened to her, but she’d been given little choice. Dahlia wasn’t reckless enough to give Patrol the names of those who’d been in the rooftop lounge that night and they hadn’t asked, assuming an insignificant server probably wouldn’t know, but she’d been convinced by the doctor to spill the details.
“It’s important for your health that we know who donated the blood,”he’d cajoled her.“If there’s some sort of problem orrejection, we can consult their records. You never know — it might just save your life one day.”
Even then, it’d taken his assurance that nothing would get leaked back to Patrol before she coughed up the name.
Dahlia gently rolled up a silk scarf, a treasure she’d found at an estate sale, her thoughts on what it meant to have someone else’s blood in her. She knew more about vampires than the average person, certainly, but there was plenty she’d never bothered to learn.
I have no choice now. How fun.
She wondered if it would mean anything to Mr. Bowan if he knew he’d accidentally turned her. It seemed unlikely. She was just a server he’d had the misfortune of meeting once. What would he care?
Dahlia stood up from her cross-legged position and began hanging her clothes back up, this time by color rather than occasion as she’d done the last time she reorganized. Growing up with next to nothing, there was little she treasured more than her wardrobe, which was painstakingly assembled via thrift stores, bargain shops, estate sales, and swaps.
The rich colors, the sumptuous fabrics, the vintage craftsmanship… All of it made her feel special in a way nothing else in life had. When she wore her beautiful clothes, she was more than just a girl from a broken home. She was a beautiful woman making her way in a glamorous city.
I can still be that,she thought, trying to summon some sort of positivity.Things will just look a little different.
