A light breeze and warm rays of sunlight woke Sophie from her slumber, and the first thing she knew upon awakening was pain.

It was all over her body; she felt weak and achy everywhere. Her right hand pulsed from what she assumed was an angry wound and her neck throbbed—she could hardly move her head without terrible punishment for her efforts. She felt cold and hot at the same time, her hands clammy and her forehead heated. She had a fever, but why?

What had happened last night?

She recalled Kenneth calling her up about the bar that had the best happy hour prices in Canton and had shown up at nine, as they had agreed upon, but Kenneth had been late. They had met up and then her friends had gotten ridiculously drunk, which had been very annoying at the time. She remembered a feeling of discomfort from being at the club, something she had done nothing to alleviate with alcohol. But if she hadn’t had anything to drink, why did she feel this way?

Red eyes flashed in her memory and Sophie let out a startled yelp that made her cringe from the sudden movement of her neck. She remembered now. It was the vampire-wannabe who seemed more authentic than was probably appropriate.

Lifting a hand to her neck, she gingerly touched the part that hurt the worst. Two small scabs, evenly placed apart, were at the center of her pain.

Her eyes widened in fear and she couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine. Just how much had been real about the impossible encounter with a play-pretend vampire?

Trying to move as little as possible because doing so was painful, she lifted her other hand, which had been holding her cell phone as it had been crushed. She winced at the jagged gash that had resulted from the destruction of her phone and the aching in her bones that the movement caused. Looking back, she was lucky nothing her in hand had been broken. She remembered it had been bleeding, but the man—no, vampire­—had licked it clean before he had bitten her.

Oh dear god.

Sophie leaned over the side of the bed, awkwardly rolling off, before staggering to her bathroom despite the prompt wave of dizziness and barely made it in time to vomit into the toilet. Even as her body screamed at her for the sudden, unwanted movements, she couldn’t help but empty her stomach heedlessly. It made her neck pulsate with pain, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Was this what they called shock after a traumatizing event? She didn’t know because she had never had something so horrifying happen to her before. There had been the time she had heard about her mother’s death, but that did not compare to this in any way.

Forcing herself up from the toilet seat and flushing last night’s dinner down the drain, she stood shakily and inspected herself in the mirror, but only after leaning on her sink to wait out the dizziness that had overcome her upon standing so abruptly.

She was, putting it lightly, a mess.

Her light blonde hair was mussed and bedraggled, and there were dark bags under her eyes. It appeared that half her neck was a mottled purplish-blue, the bruise darkening on all sides until it met with two small, circular scabs, though she absently noted that they were bigger than the vampire’s fangs had appeared at first glance.

Her clothes were rumpled and dirty and her feet ached from running in her heels, which she noted she still wore. It was a miracle she hadn’t tripped and fallen on her way to the bathroom. However, the worst part of everything was the overwhelming weakness she felt in her body. She stumbled towards her medicine cabinet to procure some aspirin for her pain and fever before walking back into her bedroom after she quickly removed the heels. The endeavor made her lightheaded.

She collapsed on her bed, trying to ignore the terrible pain that her neck emanated with every inhalation of air. It was then, when a gust of warm air came through her window that two things that she had not noticed before clicked into place.

Firstly, the last thing she knew was the strange man—no, vampire—biting her. She assumed she’d fainted at some point, which meant there was no way she had made it home by herself. She had no recollection of anything from the point when she had passed out until she’d awoken just a little while ago.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, the window was open—an unorthodox escape route for anyone. Most people couldn’t nonchalantly jump down from the second story of a building, but she wasn’t sure about supposed vampires. She had very little knowledge of what they were capable of.

She could only imagine that the vampire had been who brought her home. Her eyes widened in abject terror.

That meant he knew where she lived.

Sophie’s stomach churned, horrified to come to such a realization. Did all vampires take their victims home after… whatever it was that he had done? Eating? Feeding? Draining someone of their blood?

She hoped so, because the mere thought that whoever he was had gone to extra lengths to do take her home, incidentally finding out where she lived—well, it didn’t seem like such a good thing. Sophie decided that she was lucky to be alive, but she was alarmed that anybody as dangerous as this person knew where she lived.

After the shock of realizing what had happened started to wear off enough that she was functional again, she found that she was ravenously hungry. Slowly making her way from her bedroom, down the stairs, and to the kitchen proved to be quite difficult, given that her head started spinning if she moved too quickly and her knees threatened to give out if she didn’t lean heavily on the banister. However, soon enough she made it to the kitchen and the first thing on her agenda was to get a nice, cold glass of water.

The cool liquid was refreshingly wonderful. Sophie didn’t think she had ever had a glass of water that had tasted so good in her life. Next up was a bowl of cereal—she was too weak to make anything fancy and she simply needed to get something to assuage her empty stomach until she could think more clearly.

Then, of course, she would contact the police. Or Kenneth. Or Dean. Or Vikki—anybody who could help her. She wasn’t sure if they would believe the vampire part of her story, but she assumed the giant bruise and two bite marks on her neck would be telling enough.

She had pulled out the cereal, a bowl, and a spoon before going to the refrigerator for milk. Upon seeing a piece of paper taped to the door, however, she froze. That had not been there before and that jagged but somehow neat handwriting wasn’t familiar to her.

With trembling hands, she pulled the note off the refrigerator and uneasily began to read.

Sophie—

I’ve gone to the trouble of keeping you alive, fortunately for you. You have had most of your blood drained. I expect you to go to every length to replenish it as quickly as possible and I’ve listed foods that will speed up the process. If you want to stay useful to me and thereby alive, I suggest you follow my instructions.

By keeping you alive, you are consequently a liability. I have no time to deal with liabilities, so when it comes to anything regarding our meetings, you will not say a word to anyone. Should this become an issue, I will kill anyone you have told indiscriminately—and your friends will suffer, as well. Your black-haired friend—Dean?—will die first should you tell anyone. If I recall correctly, he lives at Terra Costa Apartments. I assume that you value their lives, so I trust there will not be a problem?

I will see you at 9pm at your home Tuesday. I expect you to be there alone. Should you bring anyone uninvited, I will kill them.

It is your choice whether or not to believe me, but remember that I will not be responsible for my actions if you make the wrong decision.

Regards,

Mikhail

She dropped the note in horror at the same time as it felt as though the floor was dropping out from beneath her. She stood there, frozen, suddenly hoping with all her might that this was just a horrible dream and that she would wake up right now, and that her neck wouldn’t hurt, her body wouldn’t ache, and her hand wouldn’t throb.

She was suddenly leaning heavily against the refrigerator with tears pouring from her eyes. She sobbed helplessly, completely at a loss as to how she was going to handle this sudden upheaval of her life.

Contacting the police, contacting her friends, contacting anyone was completely out of the question now. Even if she did have her phone there was nothing she could do with the information she had suddenly had dumped on her.

The thought was still having difficulty settling in her mind. Vampires existed? There was no way. It was impossible, despite the evidence to the contrary.

The pain in her neck didn’t lie. The weakness of her body didn’t lie. The note on the refrigerator, now settled on the floor by her feet, did not lie.

Even if there was a way to justify everything else about the situation, she couldn’t forget his strangely enhanced speed and his otherworldly strength. With just the flick of his wrist he had slammed her into a wall—lifting her hand to the back of her head, she noted that yes, there was a small bump there from where she had collided with the brick building. It didn’t hurt unless she touched it, however, and given all the pain she was in otherwise, she found she wasn’t particularly interested in provoking the little wound. Dropping her hand, Sophie tried to figure out her next move.

Slowly, she picked up the note again, forcing herself to reread it and analyze every little detail—maybe there was a clue or something hidden within the handwriting, but she could find nothing other than terrifying threats. On the back of the note she found the list of foods he had instructed her to eat and found that spinach, tofu, lima beans and chickpeas were all there, as well as kale, which was underlined several times. Of course, because they were a good source of iron, which was clearly important for blood and its production. Lean meat was also on the list, as well as other foods that would help her regain her strength.

She didn’t have a lot of what was mentioned available to her in her home, so it was decided that after she ate her bowl of cereal, she would go grocery shopping and also replace her phone. She had to distract herself from what had happened, even if her body protested every movement; she didn’t want to dwell on such dark thoughts lest they drag her under.

If she remembered correctly, she had a warranty on the phone, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a new one. She had lost a lot of numbers though, and they would be a little more difficult to get back. As far as she knew, her phone was a mangled piece of metal and wire that was useless to just about anybody, so if it had been found it had either been thrown in the garbage or ignored altogether.

It was a good thing she had made it a point of memorizing Kenneth, Gray, and her best friend Ashley’s phone numbers.

Then, after all the menial things were done, she wound figure out a way to deal with the vampire who insisted on seeing her again—Mikhail. She wasn’t ready to consider her options just yet as she had to take care of the basics first. But she absolutely would find a way to deal with him. There was no other option—she couldn’t allow her friends’ lives to stay in danger and she really didn’t think she could handle seeing him again. He had decided to keep her alive so far, but what if that changed? What if he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble? More than ever, her run-in with him the night before had proved to her one thing.

She wasn’t ready to die just yet.