He exhales. It’s a long one. “I didn’t create this game, OK? It wasn’t me. I’m just stuck in it like you are. I’m trying to?—”
“You’re trying to get me to accept the fact that you’re going to implant a demon baby inside me while your blood brothers drink my soul. That’s what you’re trying to do, Ryet.”
He shrugs. “Fine. If you want to see it that way, then fine. But I would like to see it another way.”
I laugh. “Oh, I’m sure you would.”
“I would like to see it as us saving each other.”
“I’m going to be impregnated with ademon, Ryet.”
“It’s not a demon, Syrsee. It’s a vampire. Like me. It’s like us. It’s ours. It will beours.”
I’m repulsed. Just thinking about a vampire growing inside me makes me want to vomit.
“Paul is not going to take it to feed on. And let’s face it, if this wasn’t happening to you, then that would be the other outcome. You’re a Black witch. I didn’t make you a Black witch. Someone else did.”
“Paul?”
“I don’t know, Syrsee. I don’t have all the facts. I don’t have all the answers. All I can tell you is that we don’t have a choice. It’s either… you get pregnant. Like…now”—he points at the ground when he says that last word—“or we’re both gonna die. Because if you don’t get pregnant, you die. And if I don’t have your blood, I die. This is the sick, sad reality of our lives.”
“Maybe weshoulddie?” I shrug. “Maybe we’re supposed to die? Did you ever consider that maybe this is just a test and if we refuse to give up the last crumbs of our souls, perhaps there is a better future waiting for us?”
Ryet guffaws. “A better future where?Heaven, Syrsee? Are you really trying to convince me that if we kill ourselves tonight, we’ll save our souls and go toHeaven?” He laughs again. “You’re not that stupid. I know you’re not.”
I want to fight with him. I want to scream at him. But I’m sick. And my head is not spinning now, it’s pounding. And even if I had the strength and fortitude to give up my life for my eternal soul, they’re not gonna let me.
He’s not gonna let me. I know this because he’s holding up the mirror. Right in front of our faces. I recoil at my reflection. I’m pale with black circles under my eyes. I look old, and worn down, and ugly.
That can’t be me. It can’t be.
“Just stare into it.” We lock eyes in the mirror.
And the moment we do this, reality shifts.
The bedroom is gone and in its place is the snowy clearing in the woods. Paul is right where he always is.
Sitting on the fallen tree trunk holding that baby.
