“I was… existing,” I said, but she was already gone.
I was left alone with the echo of their laughter and the gnawing emptiness in my throat.
A half-eaten sandwich sat on the counter. Just one bite missing. Did she forget it? How could someone so attuned to everything forget to feed herself?
I wished I could forget my own hunger.
I stared at the abandoned sandwich, the warmth long faded from it. I threw it away. The waste offended me.
Opening the cold box—the refrigerator, as she called it—I found something resembling food. I studied the small metal machine that heated things instantly, pressed a few buttons, and was rewarded with an alarming buzz. I decided not to risk immolation.
Instead, I placed the cold plate before the women in the living room without a word. Neither noticed. Then I retreated to the guest room.
The house grew quiet as night deepened. Lena’s laughter eventually faded, followed by the sound of the front door closing. Nadia’s steps crossed the hall. A door shut.
Her room.
I stood outside it far longer than reason allowed, listening. The steady rhythm of her breathing filtered through the wood. So human. Soalive. It soothed and tormented me in equal measure.
Sleep was unnecessary. I had done enough of that.
The hunger pulsed through me like a curse.
If I bite her, I will ruin everything.
If I do not bite her, I will lose myself.
The choice felt impossible, and yet it would come soon.
I looked toward her closed door and said quietly to the dark, “She has no idea what she has awakened.”
I exhaled. The hunger coiled tighter, hotter.
“Neither,” I admitted, “do I.”
Chapter 7
Nadia
The doorbell chimed, bright and fake-cheerful, as if it didn’t get the memo that it lived in a haunted mansion.
I froze as I placed another sticky note. “That must be my Instacart grocery order.”
Cristian looked up from where he was intently studying one of my affirmations. “An… Instacart?”
“Yep.” I opened the door, already smiling for whoever was about to see me in watermelon pajamas and a cardigan. “Groceries delivered to your house. The greatest invention of the modern world.”
A young guy stood on the porch, earbuds in, holding his phone. He nodded toward the line of bags at his feet. “That’s all of it.”
“Perfect. Thank you so much!”
Before I could reach for the bags, Cristian appeared beside me in that unnervingly silent way of his. He looked the driver up and down, expression regal and unimpressed. “This is your servant?”
“What? No. He’s a delivery guy.”
Cristian tilted his head, frown deepening. “A low-born courier, then.”
The Instacart guy blinked. “Uh… what?”
