“Please,” I beg. “I really need to go to the restroom. I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
Eyes widening in terror, he says something curt into a microphone attached to his chest and waves me forward, and I follow him in a hurry to a door at the end of the hall. It’s just a swing door—no lock or anything that would make me feel even remotely good about going into a supposed bathroom—but I don’t hesitate for fear that he’ll rescind the offer.
Moving quickly, I take the trash can from the corner and prop it in front of the entrance when it closes behind me just for somemodicum of comfort. I know in reality that the strength of a trash can is nothing against the strength of a vampire—or worse, many vampires. If they want in here with me, they’re coming.
Still.Maybe they won’t come in if they hear me cry.
Gripping the vanity with mottled hands, I do the kind of deep breathing I learned in Pilates.
Long-count inhales, hard, audible exhales. It’s like I’m in labor and Lamaze-ing it up.
But I’m so fucking overwhelmed it’s not even funny. To not want to be here in the first place was enough. But to be slapped with the reality of those racks ofnothingnessthey’re trying to pass off as clothes is worthy of all-out panic.
My heart pounds and my ears whoosh as I work to find some semblance of calm in the chaos.
Okay. Okay. It’s okay. I don’t know how it’s okay, but it’s going. To. Be. Okay.
It has to be.
Breathing in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, I take gulps of air and do my best to hold on to the nourishment of oxygen as they move through me.
I consider myself in the mirror—my makeup and curled hair and too-low-cut dress—and try to filter through the emotions that got me here.
Disgust.Obviously.
But more than that, it was intuition.
An overbearing feeling that sent me running for this bathroom for a moment of clarity and the, possibly naïve, hope that I could find some level of comfort in what’s happening.
I don’t know why I thought any of those things or why the gut instinct persists now, but when the ogre outside the bathroom bangs a comically gentle fist on the door, I move my ass. First to the toilet to empty my bladder and give my stomach the chance to settle, and then to the sink to both wash my hands and splash a minuscule amount of cold water on the back of my neck.
Moving the trash can carefully back into place, I pull open the door and step outside to find the man blissfully gone. He’s down the hall now, wrestling a final rack of lingerie with another dude, and it takes everything inside me not to take off in the opposite direction of the big, fancy, and now risqué-bra-and-panty-filled ballroom at a dead run.
Short-term, it sounds amazing.
Surely there’d be a door to the outside and a patch of woods I could navigate to a road where I can hitchhike.
But I’m too smart to pigeonhole myself into a scary movie outcome where the woman blindly runs right at danger while the whole audience is chanting for her to stop.These are vampires, Romy. Compared to theirs, your run is the equivalent of a legless crawl.
With one last huff, I adjust my dress and take a step back toward the ballroom. But a door across the hallway opens and pulls me up short.
It’s a man—dressed in formal attire and a far sight more important-looking than the ogres working security—and thedoor swinging closed behind him is the male bathroom mirror of my own.
Adjusting his jacket and buttoning it with one hand, he looks up from the carpet and straight into my eyes, and I’m transported to a simpler time in the blink of an eye.
To playgrounds and colored pencils and plaid-skirt uniforms. To fantasies of noble princes and castles in the country and a fairy tale of my own.
I’m not in Dracula’s scary lair anymore—I’m back in my adolescent days at the Boston Preparatory Academy in Massachusetts.
To the days when I was a little girl with a big crush on an older boy, and the stars in her eyes to prove it.
He’s all grown up now, but he’s the same boy I fawned over back then. I’d bet on it.
“Cal?” I ask, my whole being incredulous beyond belief. “Calloway Slater? Is that you?”
His eyes snap up into a scrutinous scan of my face and then body, widening noticeably as he takes me in. It’s the weirdest feeling—it’s as if he saw me before, but seeing me now that I’ve said his name, he’s seeing me for the first time all over again.
“No fucking way,” he murmurs in answer, which, completely despite myself, makes me laugh and nod at the same time.
