Chapter Text
The door was locked.
Ezra raised his fist and frantically pounded on the wood as hard as he could manage. He glanced back over his shoulder, scanning the empty street for any sign of movement. The woman had said she’d been watching him, so she had to know where he lived. If he could just get into the house, his parents would keep him safe.
It was far too long before he heard the scrape of the lock. He stepped back as the door opened and nearly began crying again when he saw his mother standing in the doorway.
“Ezra!” she gasped.
Ezra ran toward her, but just before he crossed the threshold, something slammed into him, knocking him back. He fell down onto the front step, staring up at his mother as he tried to understand what had just happened.
His mother stepped through the door, crouching down and helping him up. Ezra’s shoulders stiffened as she gently brushed his hair aside, revealing the side of his neck where the woman had bitten him. Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced back at the door.
“Mom…” Ezra’s voice trailed off as he stared up at her. She was piecing something together in her head. He could always tell.
“It’s okay, Ezra,” his mother said. “Just come inside.”
“I can't,” Ezra said, his voice breaking.
“Come on.” His mom took his hand and tried to lead him toward the door. “Just try.”
Ezra took a hesitant step forward. This time, as he passed through the door, nothing happened. Once he was safely inside the house, the door shut behind him, he turned and threw his arms around his mother’s waist, clinging to her as tightly as he could as tears began to trickle down his cheeks.
“Ephraim!” his mother called.
As Ezra heard his father’s footsteps coming down the hallway, his mother knelt down and pulled him into her arms, hugging him tightly.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said, running a hand through his hair.
Ezra clung to her, burying his face in her shoulder. He could practically hear her heart pounding. No … he really could hear it, perfectly in time with the pulse he felt in her neck, right beside where he was leaning his head.
Another set of arms wrapped around Ezra. He flinched before turning his head to see that his father was beside him, holding him tightly.
For a few minutes, they stayed where they were, tears streaming down Ezra’s face as his parents held him. At long last, his parents pulled away from him, and his mother’s hand brushed his hair aside once again. Her fingers gently brushed the bite mark on the side of his neck.
“Ezra.” Her voice was gentle, but just like always, Ezra could feel her fear like it was his own, buzzing inside his head. “What happened?”
“S-someone grabbed me,” Ezra said, his voice shaking. He wrapped his arms around himself, his gaze dropping to the floor as he shrank away from his mother’s touch. “She threw me in the trunk of a car and – and I don’t really know where she took me. And then she – she –”
Ezra could feel the sharp prick of the woman’s teeth against his neck, the bitter, coppery taste of blood flooding through his mouth once again. He squeezed his eyes shut as he began to rock back and forth on his heels, trying to drive away the echoes of her hands pinning him down, covering his mouth to keep him quiet.
“It’s okay,” his father said. “Just take your time.”
“She bit me.” The words came out so quietly, Ezra could barely hear them. “And – and then she made me drink her blood and everything started h-hurting and I – I think I passed out.”
A painful silence fell, and Ezra could feel his parents thinking.
“Ezra,” his mother said. “I need you to give me your hand.”
Slowly, Ezra opened his eyes and held his hand out. His mother pressed two fingers against his wrist, checking his pulse. As he looked down at her hand, his stomach growled. The veins in her wrist stood out more and more the longer he stared at them. He wanted to sink his teeth into her skin and drain the blood from her body.
Ezra wrenched his hand out of her grip and took a step back, sheer terror shooting through him. Why would he even think that?
“Mom.” The word came out as a quiet, terrified squeak. “Dad. What’s going on?”
He could tell from the look on his mother’s face that she knew what was wrong, or at least suspected. And that intuition his parents told him he had was telling him that she was scared of being right.
“I think…” she trailed off, her gaze falling on Ezra’s neck and the bite mark again. She swallowed before she spoke again. “I think the person who took you was a vampire, and when she bit you, she made you into one, too.”
Ezra blinked, his eyes widening as he stared at her.
“Th-they’re real?” he asked.
“They are,” his father said.
Ezra shook his head. This couldn’t really be happening. He’d heard things that made them sound real, and he knew that his parents knew about things they didn’t tell him, but this couldn’t be true.
“It’s going to be okay, Ezra,” his father said. “We –”
“No!” Ezra cried. “It’s not okay!”
Ezra turned on his heel, bolting from his parents and their worry that stuck against his mind like needles. He ran up the stairs and down the hall to his room, slamming the door behind him. Hugging his arms around himself, he sank to the floor, pulling his knees up against his chest.
No matter what his parents said, nothing about this was okay.
It would never be okay again.
Ezra hadn’t even realized how tired he was until his eyes opened. He sat up, blinking as he looked around the room. Somehow, he’d ended up in his bed, a blanket tucked snugly around him, though he didn’t remember getting up off the floor.
His eyes burned and he rubbed at them only to find that his cheeks were sticky with dried tears. As soon as he felt it, everything came flooding back. The way his mom had pushed his hair aside to see the bite mark, her fingers feeling for his pulse, that word; vampire. Just thinking it was enough to make Ezra want to curl up under his blanket again and sleep forever.
None of this should be happening. It shouldn’t be real. But it was real, and he didn’t know what to do. His parents seemed so calm and Ezra didn’t understand why. He’d been turned into something right out of a scary story and they were telling him it would be fine.
The soft creak of the door opening jolted him out of his thoughts. The light clicked on and Ezra saw his mother entering the room. There was a scent she seemed to carry into the room with her; something that made Ezra’s stomach growl once more.
“Mom?” he asked, his voice groggy. The growling in his stomach was so powerful he could barely think straight, and even just talking was hard to focus on. “I – I can smell –”
“Blood,” she said. “I know. We got you some.”
“How?” Ezra couldn’t imagine his parents would have hurt someone to give him their blood.
“It’s from a blood bank,” his mother said. “You know, where hospitals get their blood from?”
Ezra nodded.
“Here,” his mother said. She sat on the edge of Ezra’s bed and placed a small bag in his hands. It was so full of blood that to Ezra it almost looked like it was about to burst open.
Not bothering to try and figure out a better way, Ezra bit directly through the plastic, gulping down the blood inside it until the bag was empty. Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared down at the now-empty bag in his hands. He didn’t want to be doing this. He barely understood what was going on and why it was happening to him. But the pain in his stomach was already gone, confirming what he already knew.
Ezra’s eyes stung again as he set the empty bag aside. He never should have left the house in the morning. He should have faked sick. He should have run faster, screamed louder. There had to be something he could’ve done to stop this.
Ezra curled up on his side, clutching a pillow against his chest. His mother reached over and gently tucked a lock of his dark hair behind his ear, her hand travelling down to his shoulder and resting on it for a moment.
“You shouldn’t touch me,” Ezra muttered. “I – I keep wanting to bite you. I mean, I don’t want to, but…”
He drew his knees up toward his chest, curling into a tighter ball. He didn’t know how to explain it. She was his mom, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but pure instinct kept telling him to bite.
“Don’t worry about me, Ezra,” she said, gently squeezing his shoulder. “I’ll be okay, and so will your dad, and so will you. You’re still our son, and we still love you, no matter what.”
Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, his shoulders trembling as every muscle in his body tensed. He wanted to believe her, but everything seemed so hopeless.
“’m tired,” he said, the words barely more than a whisper. He wasn’t, really. Not anymore. He just wanted to be alone.
“Okay,” his mother said. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, and Ezra could hear her heartbeat, the sound pounding in his ears. “Keep sleeping. I’ll check on you later.”
Ezra nodded, pulling his blanket up around his shoulders like he actually intended to sleep. Once he heard the door close again, he rolled onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, barely able to summon the energy to blink.
He wanted all of this to be a bad dream, but he knew it wasn’t. It was all real.
Nothing about his life would ever be the same again.