“Would you be heavier? If I lifted you?”
“I imagine. I just emptied a deer.” I glance over at him; he still looks like something I want to eat. “Don’t try.”
“How does it work?” he asks.
“I don’t know… Magic, blood magic. Virus, magickal virus. I don’t know.”
“How often do you have to drink?”
“Every night, to feel good. Every few nights, to stay sane.”
“Have you ever bitten anyone?”
“No. I’m not a murderer.”
“Does it have to be fatal every time? The biting? Couldn’t you just drinksomeof a person’s blood, then walk away?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this, Snow. You, who can’t walk away from half a sandwich.”
“So you don’t know?”
“I’ve never tried. I’m not… that. My father would kill me if I touched a person.” (I think he really would, if I bit a person. He probably should, anyway.)
“Hey,” Snow says, wrinkling his forehead at me, “don’t.”
“What?”
“Think. Whatever you’re thinking. Stop.”
I exhale, frustrated. “Why doesn’t this allbotheryou?”
“What?”
“I’m avampire.”
“Well, it used to bother me,” he says. “Back when I thought you were going to drain me dry some night—or turn me into a zombie. But the last few days have been properly educational, haven’t they?”
“So now that you know I’m a vampire, for certain, you don’t care?”
“Now that I know that you just sneak around, drinking household pets and legal game, yeah, I’m not too bothered. It’s not like I’m a militant vegetarian.”
“And you still don’t believe that I’m dead.”
He shakes his head once, firmly. “I do not believe that you’re dead.”
We’re at my driveway now, and I turn in. “Sunlight burns me,” I say.
He shrugs. “Me, too.”
“You’re an idiot, Snow.”
“You called me Simon before.”
“No, I didn’t.”
SIMON
I’m not sure why I’m so happy. Nothing’s changed.
