My legs carry me up the stairs before my brain catches up, and I swear I don’t breathe until I’m safely behind my apartment door, the chain and deadbolt firmly locked.
I stand panting, my back pressed to the door, chest heaving. My eyes catch on the entry table mirror, and I freeze.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I’m... gone. The mirror shows the entry table, the door behind me, the scuff marks on the floor—everything but me. Yet when I look down, my hands are there, solid and real, shimmering with a faint purple light, like my whole body is wrapped in a strange, colored static.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Make it stop! How do I get back to normal?
I chant that over and over in my head until?—
“Good, you’re home! I was about to reheat some spaghet?—“
Casey stops short and stares at me. Right at me.
“Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet and your hands are shaking.”
Wait. He can see me?
My gaze swivels to the mirror and I find that I am, in fact, visible again.
The breath I was holding punches out of me in a ragged gasp. My hands fly over my own arms, my legs, a frantic inventory confirming I’m all here. Solid. Real.
Fucking hell. What was that?
Casey is still staring, his brow furrowed. His green-hazel eyes, the ones I know so well, are filled with a concern that feels a hundred miles away from what just happened.
I’m about to tell him the weirdest tale ever when there’s a firm knock at the door.
I squeak and jump away from it, like it might try to eat me. That is until I hear, “It’s Alek, Kallie. Open the door!”
I let out another breath and rub my face.
Alek knocks again, urgently, so I unlatch the chain and open the door.
His trench coat is torn at the shoulder and a dark slash of... something... across his cheek. His frantic eyes land on me, searching for injuries.
“I’m okay,” I say, though the words sound thin and reedy even to me.
That’s when I see them. Just the tips, peeking past his lips.
Fangs.
My mind goes very quiet, the way it does right before something breaks.
It’s real.
Vampires are real.
Oh, shit.
“What the fuck happened tonight?” Casey’s voice behind me takes on an edge of anger. He’s so close, his breath ghosts across the back of my neck.
“Let me in and I’ll fill you in. Kallie will need extra protection from now on.”
