“Not since she went back to her dorm.” Athena studied her for a moment, then added, “She stayed up most of the night while she was here. She’s probably just resting. She’ll be in touch when she’s ready.”
“She probably shouldn’t be in touch at all,” Lucy said.
“Probably not,” Athena said. “But let her decide.” With a sigh, she unfurled her long legs in front of her. There was still something coiled about the way she sat, though. She never left herself completely exposed. “You know,” she went on, “I thought your library vampires were trying to scare you when they said our friend was enabled to be here. I could understand no one believing me, even if it was negligent. But to know what’s happening and let it happen…”
“Laurentius told me something,” Lucy said. “About vampires needing to rely on the ‘generosity of humans’ to survive. He was talking about people who hoped to become vampires themselves. But I guess there’s more than one way that a human can benefit.”
Athena’s gaze remained neutral, but by now, Lucy was good at catching those moments when her eyes sharpened. She and Mila were alike in that way. “So your meeting today was productive. That’s good.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology came straight from Lucy’s gut. “I should have talked to you about it myself. But I know I scared you yesterday, and I thought maybe if Mila was the one to explain—”
“Lucy, I promise, I’m not upset.” And she didn’t sound upset anymore, really. Not her voice, and not her body. Her breaths, the delicate pumping of her blood, it all sounded as exhausted as Lucy felt. “At the beginning—my only concern was finding you. Helping you however I could. I knew you were going to have questions I didn’t have answers to. But I didn’t realize I was going to be so…ill-equipped, I guess. I know the vampires can explain things to you that I couldn’t even begin to understand.
“And I understand why you didn’t want to talk to me,” Athena added. “I know you’re well aware that it scares me. I know you probably don’t want me to be scared of you, too.” She took a deep breath. Lucy heard the way that it caught. “I wish I could say there was something you could do to make me less afraid. But…yeah.”
“Yeah,” Lucy echoed, her heart plummeting like a stone. Of course she’d known that. Of course. Athena was too smart. And being afraid of Lucy was the smart thing to do.
At least Vanya was predictable. No one could say for sure what Lucy was going to do. Least of all Lucy herself.
“I understand. You’re probably right to be afraid of me,” Lucy said. “But I really don’t think the library vampires have any interest in hurting you. And if nothing can be done for me, then—then I really think you should go to them for help.”
Athena was quiet for a while. Once again, Lucy had to marvel at the utter uselessness of her heightened senses sometimes. She could hear that Athena’s breathing had changed. She could hear that her heartbeat had quickened. But she had no access to what had just crossed Athena’s mind. Like any human, she could only guess.
“I came here to be a neuroscience major,” Athena finally said. “That doesn’t really mean as much to me as it used to. But it still informs the way I see the world, in a lot of ways. Habits. Instincts. Associations. The brain is such a complex thing. But no matter how complicated a living thing can be, any higher thoughts or higher reasonings can be overridden by a few simple biological imperatives. Thirst. Fear. Hunger.
“I knew that from the beginning. But I still wanted to believe there was something human about vampires, at first,” she said. “They looked human. Theywerehuman. I thought,Maybe at least part of them still thinks like a person thinks. But there’s no human framework for the life they live. Humans are omnivores. Humans rely on community for survival. But the vampire needs just one thing to live: life itself. And once your community is the food source you need to survive, how can you possibly view them the same as you did before?”
“But theydohave other ways they can live,” Lucy said. “Hiro—one of the library vampires—he told me there are people who will pay vampires to feed on them.”
“And I’m glad that works for him. But I wonder—if you asked him, do you think he would say that satisfies him?” Athena said. “That night, when I was hiding behind that caution tape. Our friend with the cold hands figured out fast that he wasn’t going to get in. If he was just hungry, he could’ve found other food, couldn’t he? But he waited. All night, he tried to manipulate me into leaving. The things that he said…”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t call him Vanya. I’ve never thought of him as Vanya. I think you’re all probably right, that it was his name once. But I’ll never know Ivan Volkov the person. All I know is the thing that lives in his body now. The thing that chased me half a mile and has chased me ever since. It’s not just that they need our blood to live. It’s that he needs thehunt. Maybe that’s not true of your library vampires, but it’s true of him.”
Lucy pulled her legs a little closer to her. She was getting cold, here on the floor.
“Maybe that is true,” Lucy said, thinking of what Hiro said back in the library. “Or maybe the cruelty was always there, and what he became was just an opportunity.”
Athena’s smile was tired. “And maybe you’re right,” she said. “But I don’t know. I’ll probably never know for sure. All I can say is that if I’m right? I don’t think vampire Lucy would be capable of seeing me as her friend anymore. Just something she could choose to eat, or not eat. I’m not sure either of us can afford to forget that.”
All Lucy could do was nod. Not a nod yes, exactly. Just a confirmation that she’d heard.
She thought of Laurentius’s face as he offered to turn Lucy into what Athena feared most in this world. He hadn’t looked at her with disdain, or like something he was deciding whether or not to eat. He looked at her with understanding.
But she also remembered the red-hot spark his words had lit. The one that sat waiting for her decision, even now. It would have scared Athena to know about it. Maybe it should have scared Lucy, too.
“Do you want me to stay away from you?” was the only thing Lucy could think to say.
“Don’t you dare,” Athena said. “I said I’d help you, and that’s what I’m going to do. Being afraid is one thing. But I can’t let it make me run.”
Lucy squeezed her hand and bit back a laugh. They had just agreed, moments ago, that Natalie should run. They’d probably agree that Mila should run, too. And while Athena hadn’t let herself leave back then, she still could. Maybe, if she went far enough, he’d never even find her.
But she was a scientist. And Lucy didn’t have to be one herself to see whymaybewasn’t enough.
“Well. I’m with you, for now.” Lucy smiled shakily. “Lucy Easting thepersonisn’t dead yet.”
There was a glint of ferocity in Athena’s usual calm. “And I’ll do everything in my power to keep it that way.”
Lucy’s mind felt uncomfortably full by the time she returned to Quincey Hall that night. With sunset quickly approaching, she knew that she needed to use the brief pocket of calm to sort through her thoughts. She certainly had enough of them to put in order. And probably not a lot of time left to do so.
