Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
QUINN
It’s a little after one in the morning and I should definitely be asleep. But, as is happening more and more these days, I’m definitely not.
It’s difficult, now that I know about the whole partial vampire business, to know which new symptoms are down to that and which come just from worrying about it. The insomnia could go either way.
Some nights I lie awake wondering if it’s all a big mistake, one big, bad dream, and I’ll wake up one day soon and laugh about how realistic it was.
Other nights – darker nights – I wonder how long I have left and I feel the darkness creep up on me slowly, sucking me further and further down with every day that passes.
But I’m not thinking about either thing now.
I’m thinking about Florence.
It’s been five days since I saw her at the clinic. Five days since I tapped my phone number into her contacts, adding my name and a single black heart emoji. Five days since she added hers to mine. Four days since I reasonably expected she might use it.
There was a vibe in the room, I was sure of it. There was more than one moment when my gaze snagged on her lips, when I thought about dragging her towards me and kissing her. I had, perhaps naively, thought she was feeling it too, but now it’s been five days of radio silence, so I guess not.
Fine, ok, I could text her first. Once upon a time I would have – I’d have done it before I even left the clinic, but I’m trying not to be that guy anymore. Things never worked out well for him.
And Florence? Florence is a woman worth waiting for. And, if she was willing to abandon her no-dating-humans rule, which admittedly is a bit of a roadblock, we could still work it out.
We could slow burn the hell out of this.
I sink down into my pillow, my mind flicking through its catalogue of Florence moments that have made my blood feel like it’s boiling in my veins, and I reach for my phone.
I’m just about to conduct some google searches that I’ll definitely have to scrub from my history later, when, as though I’ve summoned her, her name lights up my screen.
FLORENCE
Tap.
Not what I was expecting, but I can work with that. After all, I’d tap—
FLORENCE
Tap.
FLORENCE
Tap tap.
What?
FLORENCE
TAP.
Wait.
I slide out of bed and when I fling the window open, I find Florence in my yard again, texting furiously.
My phone vibrates in my hand just as she looks up at me.
FLORENCE
ON YOUR WINDOW.
I smile so widely that it makes my cheeks burn. ‘Yeah, I got that.’
‘Good,’ she says. Her mouth twists into that soft smile that’s doing a terrible job of not implanting itself in my consciousness. ‘I didn’t want to have to spell it out.’
I pull on the hoodie that’s hanging on the end of my bed frame so I can properly lean out of the window. I feel like I’m Juliet and she’s Romeo, a reference I hadn’t even realised my brain had retained from year eight English lessons. God knows it didn’t retain much else.
‘Florence,’ I say, revelling in the way saying her name makes me feel somehow lighter. ‘I gave you my number so you didn’t have to throw stones. Not even digital ones.’
I can see the twinkle in her eyes even in the darkness of the yard.
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ she asks, and there’s a new tone to her voice, something playful and warm that I can feel resonate deep in my chest. ‘Get dressed and meet me down here,’ she orders.
Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Oh, and keep the glasses.’
Florence is into the glasses. Noted.
I pull my clothes on so quickly I surely must break some kind of record, and then I head down the stairs and out into the yard. She’s perching on the edge of an upturned crate, her legs stretched out in front of her, but she pops to her feet as she hears the door close behind me.
‘Come on,’ she says through a smile. ‘Let’s walk.’ And I follow her through the alley and out onto the deserted street without a second thought. All the thoughts that were spiralling in my mind are suddenly silent, and in their place, two syllables play over and over.
Florence. Florence. Florence.
She leads me down the hill and through the narrow passageway that leads to the harbour front. I wonder if she’ll take a right and head back up towards the abbey again, but she heads left instead, out towards the west pier.
It’s a calm night, mild even for early June, with a light breeze and a smattering of stars in the sky.
I don’t often see Whitby at this hour – not unless it’s the inside of the bar – and it’s surprisingly peaceful.
There are a couple of drunk men leaning over a wall near the pubs on Pier Road, but once we’re past the bandstand and onto the pier itself, there’s no one else around.
When we’re facing this way – out into the vast darkness of the North Sea – it kind of feels like we’re the only two people in the world.
We haven’t spoken since we left my yard, but it hasn’t felt strange at all. There’s a comfortable silence that rests between us. I’m not normally a person who likes silences, but this one felt like it was there for a reason, a moment of calm in the midst of a storm.
I think Florence might be heading for the pier extension, but once she reaches the lighthouse she grabs my sleeve lightly, pulling me towards one of the benches positioned against the harbour wall.
She takes a seat and I follow suit, making sure to leave a respectful distance between us even though the gap feels like a vast chasm.
I wonder what it would feel like to have the weight of her resting against me but then I mentally scold myself.
She turns to face me, tucking one leg up to her chest and draping her arm over it. She’s beautiful there, her delicate features picked out by the silver glow of moonlight, her hair loose in dark waves that cascade over her shoulders.
‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ I say, meaning it as a joke, but Florence’s small smile doesn’t waver.
‘Do we?’ she asks.
I don’t follow at first and my confusion is obviously apparent, because after a moment she takes pity on me and continues.
‘Do we have to stop meeting like this?’ The wind whips a lock of hair into her face and she swipes it away, tucking it behind her ear. ‘I had a good time with you, before…’ She doesn’t say it, but we both know what she means.
‘The incident of which we shall not speak?’ I offer.
‘Yes.’ Her smile softens. ‘That.’
One of her hands flexes, and for a moment I think she’s going to reach out for me, but then it wraps around her knee instead.
‘How are you handling it?’ she asks, and I see the wince in her expression even though she tries to hide it.
Badly. That’s the answer. I’m handling it badly.
Who wouldn’t be? I’m young – relatively, at least. I thought I had all the time in the world.
And now suddenly I’ve been dragged into this supernatural shitstorm where there’s a chance I might float on the waves forever, but there’s also a very real possibility I’ll drown. And soon.
Months, Cam said in the consultation room. Best case.
So potentially less. Potentially weeks.
Every time I so much as think it, my stomach turns over. I haven’t finished with my life yet. I’ve barely started. I need more than weeks.
‘Not well,’ I admit, looking Florence straight in the eye, hoping I can somehow telepathically communicate the burning ball of anxiety still lingering in my chest.
She hums softly. ‘Yeah, I get it,’ she says. ‘But you know, you have an advantage here. You’re getting something most of us don’t get.’
‘My very own vampire spirit guide?’ I quip, desperate to feel like myself in this new haze of vulnerability. The joke is weak, but it does make me feel better.
She shakes her head at me but her smile doesn’t fade. ‘Time,’ she says, and then, after a beat. ‘Fine. And your very own vampire spirit guide.’
That finally makes me smile. Florence studies me, her whisky-coloured eyes looking so intently at me that I feel like she can read every one of my thoughts.
‘I mean it,’ she says, a quiet importance to her words that compels me to listen.
‘I think this time is a gift. I know that months or weeks doesn’t sound like a long time, but for most of us, it’s minutes.
Seconds, even. When I was turned, I was human and then all of a sudden I wasn’t.
I never got to say goodbye to the parts of me I lost that night.
I didn’t get to live any of my human moments with intention, to really appreciate every second, knowing as I did that any of them could be the last.’
Her words punch a cavernous hole in my chest. I’m thirty. I shouldn’t have to think about my last moments, in any capacity. Deep down, I know she’s right, but God, I wouldn’t know where to start.
She shifts on the bench and her knee makes contact with mine, sending a ripple of electricity through me. ‘So, I want you to think about it now.’
I frown, dragging my gaze back up to hers from where our knees are touching. ‘Think about…?’
‘Five things,’ she says, her gaze boring into me. ‘Five things you’d miss if you woke up tomorrow and you’d fully turned.’
‘Garlic bread,’ I reply without missing a beat, and she responds with a look of such horror that I laugh out loud.
Her brow furrows. ‘Be serious.’
‘I’m being deadly serious,’ I say. ‘I don’t know if you had it back in the 1600s—’
‘In the 1870s,’ she corrects.
‘In the 1870s, fine.’ I wave her away. ‘Anyway, I don’t know if it was around then, but all I’m saying is that it’s the food of the gods and I’d miss it.’
The groove in between her brows eases a little. ‘Fine, what else?’
‘Looking at myself in the mirror,’ I say, only half joking. This time she doesn’t frown at me, but instead I see the smallest hint of a smile catching at her mouth.
‘The mirror thing is a myth.’
I almost fall off the bench. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah,’ she says, pulling her coat more tightly around herself. ‘I mean, the mirror’s not magic, it just reflects what’s there.’ Her shrug is barely there – not much more than a slight hitch in her shoulders. ‘And I’m there.’
I ponder that for a moment. What else do I know about vampires?
To be honest, knowing Bram and the others, my knowledge on the undead has been somewhat updated.
I know they’re not actually feral creatures who dissolve into dust at the merest hint of sunlight, but some of the legends surrounding them are actually true. Like…
‘How about being able to go to people’s houses when I’m not invited?’
Florence looks at me like I’ve grown another head. ‘Quinn, I don’t want to go to people’s houses when I am invited.’ She sighs out a breath that seems to come from very deep inside her. ‘Think bigger things. Things that define human existence.’
Well, that feels like a lot of pressure.
I’m not sure I can even think of things that define human existence, much less be able to say which I’d be sad to lose to immortality.
The vampires I know have always seemed much more human than not, save for the photosensitivity and occasional poorly timed blood lust.
‘How will I know what I’ll miss until I miss it?’ I’m frowning again. That groove between my eyebrows is going to be permanent at this rate. ‘What do you miss?’
She almost winces at my question and her face falls. I wonder what I’ve reminded her of, which long-lost joys she’s thinking of, and the sudden feeling of protectiveness takes me by surprise.
‘Sorry,’ I say quickly. ‘You don’t have to answer that.’
But she only shakes her head. ‘It’s just … it was 150 years ago.’ Amber eyes dart to mine, looking so intently at me that I feel like she can see all the way into my brain. ‘I barely remember what it was like, much less what I miss.’
I nod and it makes her smile return, small and cautious.
A gust of wind comes from nowhere, cool air rushing at us from the sea, and I see her shiver, ever so slightly.
I honestly don’t even know if vampires can feel the cold, but my body acts on instinct, moving closer to her and draping one arm around her shoulders.
I worry she might resist it, but to my surprise – and delight – she relaxes into me, resting her head against my shoulder.
I feel something tighten in my chest. It’s a foreign feeling, like I’m in free-fall and I can’t quite catch my breath, but the longer I sit with it, the more I realise it’s a good thing.
Florence has dropped her guard, just a tiny bit, and I absolutely plan to make the most of it.
‘Can I ask you a question?’
I hear her hum softly beside me. ‘Of course.’
‘Why don’t you date humans?’