“So you accidentally almost killed me? That makes it so much better. Thanks for clearing that up.”
Mila bore Char’s cutting remarks with downcast eyes, her face emotionless despite the tightness of her chest and the ache in the back of her throat. She didn’t try to respond because there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t just upset the girl more. That, and she had an awful feeling that if she did try to speak, her voice would tremble. ’Let her take her anger out, uninterrupted. Let her punish me in the small ways she can.’ It was the very least she could do. What did she think she deserved? Forgiveness? There was no forgiving what she’d done and what she’d planned to do.
”Next you’re going to say that I was asking for it.”
Mila twitched with a slight, automatic shake of her head, feeling sick behind her mask of silence. Still, she made no retort. And as Charlie scoffed at her weak explanations, her features became unmovable, like marble. But the girl’s snide comment as the vampire reached for her bloodstained hand was almost too much.
"Why don't you just lick it off? Seems like an awful waste to me."
Mila’s impassive face broke a little at that, enough to let a tormented grimace flicker over her features. She would have blushed, if she was able. Instead, she looked miserable for a few seconds and then she gradually recovered, letting her expression become rigid again as she continued to clean Charlie’s hand. The girl’s glare was like a hot iron. As soon as the blood was gone, Mila released her wrist and slowly moved away.
She went over to the open window and closed it quietly, knowing Charlie didn’t need the cool breeze to make her colder. After that she stood there at the far end of the room, arms crossed, looking around listlessly as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. A hesitant glance in Charlie’s direction revealed that the girl was still staring down at her hand.
”What are you going to do with me now?”
Mila watched as Charlie seemed to mull the question over in her own mind. It was clear by the way she covered her face in frustration that her expectations weren’t good.
”It’s not like you can keep me here forever. People will realize that I’m gone, they’ll come looking for me!”
“I don’t doubt that,” Mila replied numbly. She reached into her pocket to take a look at Charlie’s phone, as if she half expected it to be buzzing already with worried texts and calls from Char’s loved ones. There was nothing like that yet, of course. Mila swiped her thumb across the screen and began scrolling through Charlie’s most recent calls and messages. To her surprise, they weren’t all that recent. It seemed like most of them were from work and even those were few and far between. She glanced up at Charlie with a questioning look.
“…You don’t…communicate with your family often, do you?” It was more of a statement. She looked from the phone to the girl again and this time her eyes lingered on Charlie, studying her as she done so many times before. “You’re alone.” Like she herself was. Mila didn’t need the swell of emotion that came along with that thought – she was already feeling more fragile than she had in a couple hundred years. Stiffly, she tucked the phone back into her pocket and sunk into one of the armchairs.
“You want to know what I’m going to do with you?” she asked somberly. “I’m going to sit here until you fall into a deep sleep. Then I’m going to pick you up and carry you to your bed. And then…” She was looking away from her now, down at her hands that were tangled up together in her lap. When she spoke again, her voice came out a little higher and more uneven than she liked, “…And then, I’m going to leave, and you’ll never have to see me again.” She cleared her throat softly. After a tense moment, she opened her mouth again as if she wanted to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it. Her eyes were clouded in thought as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Now she sat silently in the armchair across from Charlie, not looking directly at her but very much aware of her sounds and movements, of her blonde hair catching the light of the moon, the subtle glow of her smooth, pale skin. None of these were to be shriveled away by her after all, and that thought had a calming effect on her. Mila sat so still, she might have been frozen in time. She was imagining Charlie waking up sometime tomorrow to an empty apartment, feeling groggy but better. She’d be hungry. Mila would leave her something to eat. Then she pictured Charlie throwing it away in disgust and the faintest crease appeared on Mila’s brow. She resolved to think of something else. Something like, her next destination. …or her next meal. She shuddered and pushed that out of her mind too. For now at least, while she was still full and feeling more human than she did at any other time in her feeding cycle, let her forget about her ungodly thirst.
How had she let this slender girl disrupt everything. There had been a time in the beginning, after that initial craze, when it had been difficult to come to terms with what she’d become and what she had to do. But she’d gotten over it a long, long time ago. She’d become good at it. She’d enjoyed it. And now it was as if Charlie had held a mirror up to her soul - or lack there of - and had shown her just how deplorable she really was. Terror, leech, parasite…
“…but I didn’t choose to be a monster…” It came out soft and breathless, and Mila blinked because she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She looked at Charlie and thought that the girl must have been asleep by now or at least too drowsy to really comprehend anything. She let her face break into an anguished expression and raised a shaky hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she apologized wretchedly. Her murmur was almost swallowed by the silence.