Page 5

Kenny held up a small device. Black and metal.

“What is it?” Owen asked. He stepped closer as well.

“Sunlight!” Kenny announced with pride.

“What?” Carver questioned nervously. Just hearing the word sunlight made him sick to the stomach. He still remembered the experiments that he’d performed on himself after he’d turned and how much they hurt.

Curling into himself, with his back to the corner of his bedroom, Carver moaned. That had been a bad idea. A very bad idea. Note to self. Do not open the fucking curtains in the middle of the day. His arm still felt like it was burning.

Carver rocked himself, attempting to self-sooth. He was a monster. A bloodsucking creature that lived in the night. In the shadows where Carver would never be normal again.

Why had he even lived? Carver should have died in that alley.

He’d barely made it back to his small apartment. Almost hadn’t survived.

With the streets filled with screaming people running in fear and monsters, real-life monsters attacking them at random, Carver hadn’t known which was to go. Indecision was a killer. Literally.

Out of the shadows of an alley a man had come for him.

Carver had tried to fight him off but the man, monster, vampire had been so much stronger than him. The monster had attacked Carver, with sharp teeth tearing into Carver’s neck and drinking down his blood.

He couldn’t even scream. Not with the lifeforce being drained from him.

And Carver was sure he would have been drained dry if it wasn’t for an explosion causing the vampire to pull back with a hiss. Someone threw something, lighting the vampire on fire.

Hand to his neck, Carver had sunk down to the dirty alley ground. The man that had rescued Carver had stood over him, shaking his head. Then turned and walked away. Leaving Carver bleeding out in that cold alley.

Hours must have passed before Carver had managed to gain his feet and drag himself home. Home. His small house on the edge of city just blocks from the port had once been his sanctuary. Now it was his prison. At least during the day. He’d chanted to himself that he’d be safe once he got home. He’d just needed to get home. The streets had been empty by that time. Old burnt cars, windows busted, and bodies. So many bodies.

Carver hadn’t looked at the faces as he dragged himself across the broken and scarred concrete. He’d been terrified he’d recognize someone. Just when Carver thought he wasn’t going to make it, he found himself on his front porch.

Inside the door, Carver had passed out.

He had no real memory of the next three days. Just flashes of him screaming and pain. So much pain.

When he woke enough to finally move, it was to a horrible hunger. And he had known. Known that he was a monster too.

And the rest of the world was acting like that night had never happened.

The streets had been cleaned up. The burning buildings and cars repaired or removed. The bodies that Carver had seen littering the streets missing. No news reporting what had happened. Everything was back to normal. Except it wasn’t normal for him.

Finding blood ended up being easier than Carver had suspected.

With his new vampire strength, Carver had gone into the center of the city and broken into a medical clinic. He had stolen every bag of blood they had in stock. He’d lugged the bags home, waiting for the cops to come. For someone to come. No one did though. It was like the rest of the world didn’t remember. That he wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things.

That was when Carver had decided on the plan.

His mission.

Carver wouldn’t let himself turn into one of those things. He refused to ever hurt someone like what had been done to him. He started the process of finding out everything he could. Looking for people who remembered the night like he had. The dark web had the answers he’d been searching for. And the best friends that he’d ever have.

While he searched for answers, Carver had started to learn more about what he was becoming. Testing out the garlic, reflections, and breathing thing had been simple enough.

The sunlight lesson had been the most painful.

And blood. Carver had gorged himself those first few days, going through the supply he’d stolen. It was harder now. Finding what was essential for survival. Still Carver had a code. He never took what wasn’t offered. Unfortunately, his friends were too giving.

“Carver?” Owen rubbed a hand down Carver’s arm.