“You leave for New Yorktonight,” she blathers, working herself into a fluster all over again with clout-chasing excitement. “If we don’t find something here, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“Hey, I know!” I snap excitedly. “I’ll just skip it. I’m too young to die anyway.”
“Romy Spencer, stop it right now,” she barks. “Stop complaining about this privilege and belittling the process that’s beenveryimportant to our family for generations. And for the love of God,stopreferring to it as your funeral. You’re on my last nerve with that one.” She lets out a long sigh. “Let’s not forget that, despite my better judgment, I let you skip the Choosing Mixer.”
Oh yeah.The Choosing Mixer.The big event where all the vampire men get to see what human women are on the menu.
When she turns to hurry down another aisle of high-slit-bearing dresses, I stick out my tongue behind her back.
I know it’s an immature move for a woman in her early twenties—childish, even—but the whole context of the fight we’re having calls for a little ridiculousness, if you ask me.
I mean, comeon. In just five hours, I’m being shipped off from my home in Massachusetts to New York andsoldto the highest bidder like a cow, all because my generationally passed-down blood is somehow valuable to a bunch ofvampires.
And lucky for me, my family, the Spencers, are one of the last lines of blood belonging to theblood of the three—a powerful, biological makeup that somehow enhances the vampirical abilities of a whole secret group of paranormal or supernatural orwhatevercreatures that live among us.
Not to mention, I have one of only three human bloodlines in the world that vampires can reproduce with—not exactly an exciting scenario when you’re about to be auctioned off to some unknown fangy man to have his fangy babies.
It’s batshitcrazy, and voluntary, but only in the sense thateveryoneis supposed to want to do it. Being that I’m an only child, the options in the family gene pool are limited—aka me, myself, and I.
And instead of shrieking in terror and plotting an escape plan worthy of James fucking Bond—like I would ifmydaughter had the special bloodline sauce—my mother is shopping for the perfect dress to market me in.
The snarky attitude, comparative remarks to my funeral, and juvenile tongue are theleastI’m due.
“What about lavender?” my mother suggests, pulling a sequined, prom-like getup off the rack next to her. “It always goes so well with your blue eyes.”
I sigh, and she returns the favor immediately, adding a frown to jazz it up. “Fine. No purple.”
“It’s not the purple, Mom. Please. This has nothing to do with thecolor,and you know it.”
“Oh, I know, honey. You’ve made that abundantly clear. Howstupidyou think our family’s legacy is. How beneath you the very idea of beingusedfor your…” She lowers her voice to a whisper, ever so diligent about keeping the vampires’ secrets like a good girl. “Bloodis.”
She shakes her head before turning back to the rack to flick through more dresses. “But this is more than that. This is a distinction and an honor given to a very select group of women that affects the very world as we know it. And you’re not being used, Romy. You’re beingselected. You’re beingchosen. Those are very different things.”
I suck my lips into my mouth, bracing for the speech she’s given me a hundred different times in fifty different ways.This isn’t like jury duty, Romy. This is like winning the lottery.
“It doesn’t matter that the existence of vampires is a well-kept secret. Without them, the life you and I and everyone in this place knows…” She circles a finger next to her head in reference to the store and the town and the world, I guess. “…would beverydifferent.”
Some people worship God and Christ, but my mother skipped church and went straight to the elite vampires.
If it weren’t all so tragic, I’d probably laugh. Or, at the very least, turn it into a comedy bit worthy of Netflix’s attention.
“But you’re selling me. You get that, right? That you’resellingme?” I glare at her as my heart rate picks up speed inside my chest. “Some random-ass vampire with a lot of cash is going todecide I’m the blood and body and whatever else he’s looking for, push the one-click button on the website, and pack me up to ship me off to his lair or whatever. It doesn’t matter if I like him or his house or his breath smells. I’m freakingsold.”
“Romy.”She sighs again. “For far from the first time, it’s anendowment. A gift, given both to the family and the Elite Council as a pledge of respect to the process and the woman they’ll be bonding with. It’s not eBay or Craigslist. It’s a charitable contribution to the tradition. A symbol of the significance and a penance of gratitude.” She sucks in a breath of frustration before continuing, “Your involvement is voluntary.”
“Clearlynot.”
“Romy, please. We’ve been over this. You know this is what you have to do. You can’t tell me you’d be better off with somemechanicfrom Amherst or something, for Pete’s sake. These men are the best of the very best.”
“Okay,” I relent. It’s not that I’ve changed my mind—it’s that I know I won’t change hers.
I’ve thought about running away and creating my own version of a new life before; I’m an adult, and this is a big world with a lot of possibilities, even when you’re starting over.
Unfortunately, this isn’t some human organization with incompetency issues and a quiet quitting epidemic. This is a group of highly attuned, highly sensitive, highly freaking gifted vampires who eat this kind of shit for breakfast. I know with every fiber of hatred I feel for this process that I’d be hunted down in no time at all and convinced to participate in ways that make this whole version of the shitshow seem like a walk in the park.
My mom and dad have spent way too many years waxing poetic about the power of the vampires and how intensely superior they are in practically every way for me to assume anything else. I’m no Lara Croft. My basic survival instincts and dependence on Wi-Fi would have me out of the game in a nanosecond.
No. I’m stuck here. Being sold to Vampire Island in New York—whether I damn well like it or not.
