Page 51 of The Witch They Crave

Something loosens in my chest. The held breath. The weeks of keeping everything compressed. With Nellie it just comes out.

"I missed you," I say.

"Cal." Her voice goes soft. "I was right here. If they'd let me anywhere near that cellar—"

"I know." I do know. "I'm not—I know."

She bumps her knee against mine and holds it there. I look at the yard—rusted cart, dormant irrigation, late-November dirt somebody is pretending to tend. The most boring view on campus. Perfect.

I don’t want a reminder of how insane my life is.

"How are you actually doing," she says. "Not the polite version."

"I'm behind." I gesture at my own chest, where the magic lives. "Academically and here. The cellar wasn't nothing. Two weeks underground and then a house where I don't trust a single surface." My hands have been carrying the same weight for so long they've gone numb, is the closest I can get to it. "Like I'm about to drop something and I don't know what it is yet."

She nods. Takes it in without trying to fix it, which is exactly right.

"You won't drop it," she says.

"No," I agree.

She's quiet. Then: "I need to tell you something about Shandy."

Something in her voice shifts and I sit up a little straighter.

"She's been off." The words come out careful, like she's been holding them for a while and is still deciding how to say them. "Before the Revel, even. I thought she was just going quiet—you know how she gets when something's eating at her, she goes internal for a few days and comes back out. But it's been weeks and she's not coming back out."

"Off how?"

"Skipping meals. Not sleeping right. She showed up to study group in long sleeves last week." Nellie's mouth presses flat. "This is Shandy. In November. She'd wear a sundress to a blizzard just to make a point."

I think of Shandy starfished across her mattress at the slumber party, taking up exactly as much space as she wanted. "Has she said anything?"

"That's the thing. Every time I try she just—" Nellie makes a small, frustrated gesture. "Fine. She's fine, she's tired, she's busy. I can always feel it when she's lying to me, it's like a little snag, but now I'm not getting anything. There's just a wall." She picks at a loose thread on her sleeve. "I don't know. Maybe I'm reading into it. But my gut's been loud about this for two weeks and my gut is usually right."

"Yeah," I say. "It usually is."

She's quiet for a second. Then: "I have a theory. And I need you to tell me if I'm being paranoid."

"Okay."

"Venom dependency." She says it and then winces. "It's—vampire venom, when it's not predatory, it's—" She pauses, searching for the right words. "It feels good. Really good, apparently. And if someone keeps coming back for it, keeps getting bitten, the crash gets worse each time. You start needing it to feel okay. Skipping meals because nothing tastes right. Not sleeping because nothing's—" She stops. "There are students who get into these arrangements. A vampire, a non-vampire. It looks like a social thing from the outside. Usually it's not."

I sit with that. “Is she–”

“What?”

I shake my head. “I mean, do you think she’d actually get into one of those types of arrangements with a vampire?”

I think back to the girls’ collective reactions to me admitting my developing feelings for my own vampires…

Nellie shrugs. “I really don’t know. But she'd be furious if I said it to her face and I was wrong," Nellie says. "And if I'm right—" She doesn't finish it.

My magic shifts against my sternum, slow and uneasy. I press it still.

"Come over tonight," Nellie says. "Margo's stress-baking again and Tess found a new horror movie she's convinced is actually good this time, so." A pause. "Just—come. Be there. Tell me if you notice anything I'm missing."

"Yeah," I say. "I'll watch."