“No.”Lucy didn’t feel like standing, but suddenly, she had to. Her legs shook dangerously under her. “This is insane.”
But Mila’s jaw was set. Lucy had learned that when Mila made that face, she was not interested in listening to counterarguments. “Insanewould be letting you die in my dorm room.”
“Just a few nights ago you told me to try to understand if you had to kill me,” Lucy said. “Is this not the line you were waiting for me to cross? Hurting someone?”
“It was. It was when I said it then,” Mila said. “But a few hours ago, you told us that you believed Whitney wasn’t totally gone. You begged us to consider that Sadie and Addison might not be lost causes, either.”
“I was angry.” Lucy started to pace. “And apparently, I was starving! Maybe I had no idea what I was talking about.”
“I hope you did,” Mila said. “You convinced me.”
Lucy gripped the bed frame for support. Mila looked up with that usual evenness. That controlled calm that made Lucy want to cling to her and throttle her in equal measure.
“Then I’ll get a bird,” Lucy said. “Or a squirrel, or something.”
“It’s getting dark,” Mila said. “Neither of us should be outside.”
“Mila,”Lucy said. “You can’t be suggesting that I drink from you.”
“I didn’t get to that yet,” Mila said. Lucy wanted to reach out and shake her until she sounded as frenzied as Lucy felt. “But I guess you’ve come to the same conclusion I have.”
“You could end up with the infection, too,” Lucy said. “Then what?”
“I don’t think so. You’re not a vampire yet. And if it happened anyway…” She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be so bad, being your thrall.”
“I swear to God, if you don’t take this seriously—”
“Who’s not taking it seriously?” Mila said. “I’m being completely sincere. I’m conveniently available. I’m not going to run from you. And not to brag, but I take iron pills every morning with breakfast. I’m your best option. Your only option, if I’m being frank.”
“And you’re the only one of us who doesn’t care if she lives or dies!”
The realization was barely formed in Lucy’s mind even as it left her mouth, but as soon as she said it out loud, she knew it was true.You promised me no more of this, Athena had said. Mila had probably meant that promise, or tried to mean it. But Mila had never really learned caution the way she tried to. The second Vanya was finally in her reach, she was right back to the old strategy: Stick her neck out and see if he’d bite.
Lucy knew what fear of dying was. She’d seen it in Athena and in Natalie. She’d lived with it all her life. That composure that Mila carried like a cloak was only shaken when someone else was in danger. Mila never lost her composure for herself.
“I…” Mila said. She looked a little stunned. “I don’tnotcare.”
Lucy sank onto the bed next to her. Just a few short minutes of pacing had her exhausted. Maybe Natalie had a point about being able to take her right now.
“I worry that your best-case scenario isn’t that all of us survive,” she said. “I specifically worry that your best-case scenario is that you’re the only one who dies.”
“I mean, maybe a little,” Mila said faintly. “But only because I’m a realist.”
“God, you really don’t know when to quit sometimes,” Lucy said. She could barely summon any heat to it. “If you hadn’t met Athena, you probably would have died long before you meant to.”
“Lucy,” Mila said. And now, finally, she looked a little angry. “I’m not suicidal.”
“I never said you were,” Lucy said. “I said that you don’t care, and right now that’s not any different to me. You’re asking me to do something that I may not be able to stop when I start. If I—if you want me to do this, then you have to promise me that you’re going to fight me off if I lose control. I have to trust that you’ll fucking care if I kill you.”
Mila let out a sigh and folded her long legs onto the bed.
“It’s not mybest-case scenario,” she said. “I’d love to live, actually. Be really pleasantly surprised if I did. I’d have liked a year and a half left to actually fuck around in college. Get some failing grades for fun reasons. Maybe go off campus, for once. Did you know there’s an entire mountain out there? I’ve never gone hiking. Every moment I’m at Rollins, I’m waiting for something to happen. When I decided that I was going to come here, I didn’t know I’d spend most of my time waiting.
“So if it helps,” she said, “I care most of the time. At least ninety percent of the time. And for the other ten…I care about being here for the end of it. You can trust that.”
Lucy sat back as she looked at Mila. The bed was starting to feel so familiar under her. It smelled more like her now than it smelled like Mila. “That’s not really what I was hoping to hear.”
Mila’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Sorry, babe,” she said. “Tonight, that’s what you get.”
