Seth scoffed. “Riley.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me say it. It’s embarrassing.”
Riley’s frown deepened. “Say what?”
Oh God. Seth was gonna have to do it. Riley was forcing his hand. Seth steeled himself. “Riley. How long have youbeennineteen?”
Riley looked no less confused, but he shrugged. “Like a few months? My birthday’s the end of October.”
Right. Well. Seth ignored the new warmth in his face. So Riley was still too young—that wasn’t the point of this conversation. “Were you born a vampire, then?”
“No. That’s not a thing.”
Seth gazed at him expectantly. Riley sighed, taking the empty Tupperware out of Seth’s hand and placing it on the attic floor. He tucked Seth closer to his chest, denying Seth his hard-won view of Riley’s face. “It’s a whole story. Are you sure you want to hear?”
Seth rolled his eyes. “Oh, well, if it’s a wholestory,” he drawled. “Jesus, Riley, of course I want to hear.”
Riley ignored his sass. Instead, he tucked his chin over the topof Seth’s head, as if maybe he needed the extra comfort. “I was turned when I was a kid.”
Seth’s breath caught. Riley had been changed into a vampire when he was still achild? Seth couldn’t imagine. He really couldn’t. “Your…moms?” he asked.
“No,” Riley told him fiercely. “No. They would never. It was some drifter vampire, trying to give his estranged wife the so-called gift of a child. I wasn’t the first he took, but I was the most…successful.”
“What do you mean?” Seth asked, forcing the words through the new lump in his throat.
“It isn’t done, turning kids,” Riley explained. “It just doesn’t…work well. We get too hungry and rampage, have to be put down to keep the secrecy. Or we won’t feed right and starve, which usually also ends in a rampage. And there’s, like, a presence, when you’re turned. The vampire part waking up or something. And from what I know, you’re usually pretty entwined. But me and my voice, we’re…separate. We’re all wrong. Abnormal.”
Seth thought of the presence he’d seen, looking into Riley’s black eyes. The Not-Riley of it all. He hadn’t been sure if he’d been correct in categorizing it as some separate entity, but apparently he’d been spot-on.
His chest ached. Poor Riley.
“I ran from him, the vampire who turned me,” Riley told him. “Twice. The first time… Well, he got me back eventually, and then the second time, other vampires found me. They took me in before I could hurt anyone and fed me blood bags, called two vampire women they knew who wanted kids of their own. My moms adopted me, and we moved here, where there are lots of elk and not too many people. I can feed on animalsandhumans. Most vampires can’t. My moms kept me full. Kept me safe.”
Riley told Seth more then. About being stuck here in this house, in these woods, for the remainder of his childhood, afraidto so much as spot a human. About growth spurts where he’d felt like a monster, so hungry he was afraid he’d eat the world. About his first trips into town this past year, the thrill and the fear and the hope that he might be able to act somewhat normal.
There was so much to take in, so much to feel. ThelifeRiley had lived. Taken from his family. Taken from his humanity.
“So youactuallywanted to eat me that first night,” Seth eventually joked, because everything else felt too big to say out loud. “Like I was some sort of…strawberry tart.”
“Orange cake,” Riley corrected.
He really seemed to have a thing for orange.
“I met your vampire,” Seth told him. “Just now.”
“I know.” Riley didn’t sound happy about it.
“Were you there? Watching from inside?”
“Not really. That’s part of what’s wrong with me, I guess. When I change…ittakes over. Sometimes I have flashes of awareness. Sometimes I can’t remember at all. It’s not supposed to be that way.” Riley’s voice roughened. “And it’s not fair, because I can hearitwhen I’m me. It’s always here. I’ve spent my whole life since the day I turned trying to live with it, its hunger and its rage. It’s not the sort of presence that should be in a child’s mind. It—itchangedme. Ruined me. I don’t know who I am without it anymore, and sometimes I hate that so much it burns me up from the inside out.”
There was so much anger in his words. A deep, unrelenting bitterness. And it broke Seth’s heart because he didn’t think Riley was a bitter person by nature.
But maybe no one was. Maybe people simply reached the limit of what they could tolerate from what life gave them. Maybe Riley had reached his limit a long time ago.
“I don’t know who you are without it either,” Seth said softly. Carefully. “But I know who you are now. And I like that person a lot.”
