Archive of Our Own

It’s cold. It’s cold and the air smells wrong—metallic, and dirty, and rotten.

Ruby’s eyes are closed but she’s pretty sure it’s still dark out. There’s none of the telltale red glow behind her lids. And it’s so cold. For a few long moments after she woke, that bone deep chill was all she could feel and think and breathe. Now, her other senses are slowly breaking awake, but the picture they paint isn’t pleasant.

That smell. The heavy silence, except for a quiet, high-pitched hum that never breaks. Her clothes, stiff and sticky against her skin. She’s still afraid to open her eyes. She’s afraid of what she’ll see.

It’s bad enough to see the memories playing on loop in her mind.

Her ill-fitting sneakers, slapping against the pavement as she ran. The rough texture of the stake gripped in her hand, a splinter beginning to dig into her palm. Cate’s face, pale in the moonlight. The sick, gruesome triumph in Rob’s expression as he forced the boy into the corner of the room, as he raised his own stake. The terror that ripped through her when she saw the—when the—

She opens her eyes only for the hope that she can escape that image.

Her gaze adjusts quickly to the scene in front of her, which isn’t as dreadful as she’d let herself fear, at least at a glance. She’s in a run-down looking convenience store, which makes sense. She remembers that. There’s an upsettingly large red stain on the concrete floor beneath her, like a dropped bucket of paint. Unfortunately, she remembers that, too.

What she doesn’t remember is a little girl carefully picking her way through the discarded snack foods rejected by long-ago shoppers. Ruby starts at the sight, her elbow knocking painfully into the wall behind her, but she doesn’t make enough noise to attract attention.

The girl pulls a crushed bag of chips that looks like it probably no longer contains anything but dust out from underneath a discarded price sign, and places it in her plastic shopping basket, casual, like she’s a 35-year-old mother of three at the supermarket on some random Wednesday morning, like her world’s not falling apart.

She glances over her shoulder, towards the door. The look is slow but purposeful, like she’s expecting something. When her search proves fruitless, she continues her item selection.

“Hey,” Ruby says, her voice rough from disuse.

Instantly the girl whirls, too fast, to face Ruby, eyes landing on her crumpled form. Her mouth drops open in shock, and while she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t scream, Ruby catches a glimpse of two tiny white fangs glimmering behind her lips.

And then the girl spins around again and takes off running, out the door.

“Wait!” Ruby says, scrambling to her feet. “Please—wait!”

She takes off after the girl.

She has to acknowledge as she chases her that maybe running after a little vampire girl sneaking through a convenience store in the dark is a bad idea, but—well, Ruby is pretty well out of other options. Cate and Rob are long gone, and so is—everyone else, and she is so alone.

And something is very wrong with Ruby. Something she can’t let herself put into words, not even in her thoughts.

Ruby follows the girl through the dimly lit parking lot, managing to keep up with her but not overtake her, right up until the girl reaches a beat-up black minivan, rips open the door, and vaults inside, the door sliding shut after her with a loud slam.

“Please,” Ruby says, pressing her hand against the window. It’s tinted enough she can only see the girl a little, but she can tell she’s watching her, wary. “Please, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just—I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know what to do.”

Nothing happens.

Ruby sighs and takes a step back, tears already slipping down her cheeks. For the first time she really looks down at herself.

Immediately the world tilts, and she’s off balance, bile rising in her throat. Her plain green shirt is soaked in blood. Her blood. Her. Blood.

Her head still spinning, she touches the stain tentatively. It’s completely dry, rough under her fingers. It’s mostly red, but some spots around the edges have turned brown. It seems impossible, based on the smear of it all, that there’s any blood at all left in her body.

The longer she looks at the stain the harder it is to push away the memory bubbling to the surface. Her hands shoving against Rob. The flash of the boy’s eyes, turned on her. And pain—so much pain, behind her eyes, in her chest, in her neck—her neck—!

She shoves the thought away, and a sob hitches in the bottom of her throat. Her neck still aches, two pinpricks of heat.

“Shit,” she says, and her voice shakes.

That’s when the van’s door opens again with a low roar. Ruby looks up to see the little girl crouched on the seat, staring at her, inscrutable.

The girl waves her hand, quick, gesturing for Ruby to get in the car. She doesn’t understand why, what changed the girl’s mind, until she’s securely inside and the girl has shut the door again, quieter this time. Wordlessly she points out the window over Ruby’s shoulder.

Across the parking lot, a man and a woman walk towards their car—a big green pickup truck. They move quickly, focused, but they telegraph weariness with every step.

Even if she didn’t know them, it would be clear to Ruby that they were vampire hunters. The Human’s League patch is visible on the breast of Cate’s jacket, and Rob still holds his stake loosely in his right hand, like he can’t bear to be without it. The tip of it, Ruby notices with dread, is now stained with something horrific and awful and dark.

Her heartbeat rockets harder and louder—what a relief, she finds, to still have a heartbeat—and she’s surprised when the little vampire girl places a soothing hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly, as if to say, it’s okay, they can’t see us here.

And she’s right. Rob gets into the car without a glance in their direction, and while Cate takes a little longer, looking around the parking lot and into the nearby copse of trees and back towards the store, her gaze doesn’t last on the innocuous black van. Only a moment passes before she climbs into the passenger seat, and Rob zooms away.

Safe.

Or at least, safe from the League. Safe from the League for now.

The little girl relaxes, settling back into her seat. She picks up a blanket—one of many strewn across the car—off the floorboard and drapes it over Ruby, covering her head.

“What?” Ruby asks, bewildered, pushing the blanket away. “Why?”

The girl shoots her a patronizing look, and insistently pulls it back over Ruby’s head, like, trust me.

Right now, this girl is somehow the only person in the world Ruby trusts, so she stops arguing. Just in time for the girl to shove her sideways, so that she’s leaning against the window, and down, so that she’s slouching in a way that she supposes means she might just look like part of the blanket pile. The blanket is thin and threadbare, made up of loose coils of fabric that leave tiny holes for her to peek through, so she’s covered but not completely blind to the rest of the world.

“I—” Ruby begins, but suddenly the front doors of the van are opening and two boys are tumbling into the small space, talking animatedly.

“—completely impractical, and not to mention disgusting—” the boy in the passenger seat is saying, pushing his glasses up his nose, clearly in the middle of a long diatribe about...something.

“Chubs,” the other boy interrupts, laughing, “No one’s disagreeing with you. We have good table manners in this family, remember?” His smooth southern accent only seems to emphasize his assertion.

The passenger—Chubs? Odd name for such a scrawny kid—makes a face. “Maybe when it comes to blood,” he allows. “But we both saw Zu with those cupcakes last week.”

The driver laughs again, lit up as much by humor as the light from the moon, and this time Ruby catches sight of his fangs. More vampires. It isn’t shocking, not really, but it still sends a jolt of surprise through her.

“You all good, Zu?” the laughing southern boy, the driver, asks, glancing over his shoulder at the girl. His gaze slides right over Ruby.

Ruby feels the girl shift beside her, sees her arm stick out with a big thumbs up.

“Okay then,” the boy says, “Let’s hit the road.” The car shudders as he starts it up, and then they’re moving.

Ruby isn’t sure how long they drive. There isn’t much chatter from the kids around her. The occasional rustle of paper makes her think the passenger might be reading, and the driver quietly sings along to the radio—a classic rock station, and he seems to know every song.

It’s been somewhere between half an hour and an hour when Ruby finally can’t take it anymore. Her discomfort has been growing steadily since the girl hid her. Not just her nerves and confusion, but also physical discomfort. From being wedged in the corner of the car. From being cut off from fresh air. From something deeper, newer, more frightening inside her, starting to peek its head out of some dark hole.

She takes a breath and pulls the blanket off in one movement, sitting up.

The motion catches the attention of the boys in the front, and for an instant, all hell breaks loose.

The car rollicks to a stop, and Ruby nearly topples over. She steadies herself on the door, barely, as the driver’s hand flies up to the ceiling, switching on the interior light without taking his eyes off her.

“Zu, what the hell?” says the boy with glasses, Chubs, in tones of great horror. He was reading, Ruby notes, his book now falling onto the floorboard.

The girl ignores him and shoots Ruby a frustrated look like, come on, what are you doing?

“What was your plan?” the driver asks the girl, looking a little like he’s trying to hold back another of those bright grins. “Did you think she’d just stay under the blanket forever and we wouldn’t notice?”

The boy called Chubs scowls. “She probably thought the further away we got the less likely your southern sensibilities would let you dump her on the side of the road,” he says.

Ruby’s breath catches. Of course. Of course, she can’t stay with them. That would be—she can’t.

The little girl—Zu—scrambles around in the blankets on the backseat, producing a small reporter’s notebook and a pen. She flips it open to a random page and writes out a note, quick but neat:

She’s a vamp!

And underneath that:

She needs help!

“Oh, no,” says the boy in glasses when she shows the notebook to them. “Absolutely not.”

Ruby flinches, inching towards the door, ready to make her escape if he goes violent. She glances at the other boy, the driver, only to find he’s already looking at her.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” he asks.

Ruby swallows, feeling like she’s choking on her fangs. Her fangs. The words Zu wrote are screaming in her head as loud as if she’d spoken them aloud. She’s a vamp!

She can’t pretend it away. She is. She’s a vampire. She’s—

“Ruby,” she says, barely above a whisper.

She’s dangerous.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she continues, her voice gaining strength. “I didn’t mean to—hijack a ride, or anything. I just needed to get away from the store. From the League. You can just—let me out here.”

Chubs pushes his glasses up his nose, expression stony. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he says, but Ruby is distracted by the look on the driver’s face.

“The League? What on earth were you doing with the League?” he asks, brow furrowed, mouth turned down in a way that already looks unnatural on him.

She shakes her head. “I wasn’t...” she begins, but she isn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

Apparently that’s good enough for him, though, because he nods and relaxes.

“Liam,” says Chubs, clearly upset. “She was with the League. You of all people should understand—”

“Understand that running from the League is the noblest cause of vampirekind?” Liam shoots back, and Ruby flinches at his casual use of the word. “Yeah, I do. She’s not with them, Chubs,” he adds, and the other boy rolls his eyes. “She’s a vamp. A vamp kid, no less. And what do we always say, Zu?”

Zu scribbles in her notebook again, but this time she holds the message out to Ruby.

We need to stick together!

Before Ruby or Chubs can react, she’s writing again.

We’re going to a safe place, she’s added, where people can help us.

“That’s right,” Liam agrees. “We are.”

“Lee,” Chubs groans.

Zu looks at the boys with pleading eyes and clasped hands, overdramatic, like a little kid in a movie. Chubs, despite this, looks unmoved, while the other boy looks as though he didn’t need convincing in the first place.

“She’s brand new,” the blond boy says, like this concludes the entire discussion. “Green as the shirt on her back,” he adds, recovering his grin.

“Exactly!” Chubs exclaims, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Meaning she’s gonna need blood, Liam. Blood we can’t afford to give her.”

Liam shakes his head. “Meaning she needs our help,” he corrects. And then his eyes are on Ruby once again, and with his eyes his full attention. She desperately wishes to disappear, but his gaze holds her in place. “We can help,” he insists, and the gentleness of his tone is both a chafe and a balm on her nerves.

Chubs rolls his eyes, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. “Dammit,” he says. “I’m always outvoted by you two.”

Ruby feels a little bit whiplashed at the speed of this exchange, as well as her own lack of involvement. She tries to choke out something, some words, but no complete thoughts are making it to her brain. She inches towards the door, just a little. Just in case.

There’s no way they’re actually going to let her stay. They shouldn’t let her stay. She’s dangerous. The more last night’s events force their way past her suppression into her consciousness, the clearer that is to her.

She’d followed Zu because she was terrified and alone, and she wanted nothing more than to be, if still terrified, terrified and with someone. But as much as she wishes she could belong with them, she doesn’t. Chubs is right. She should go.

She can’t seem to make herself go.

“What do you say, Green?” Liam asks, deep blue eyes meeting hers again. “You with us?”

Ruby opens her mouth to say no, I can’t, I won’t. But the words don’t come.

Before she can help it, she isn’t alone anymore.

~

With the vote made official, Chubs stops arguing, but it’s clear he isn’t thrilled about Ruby’s addition to their little group.

He doesn’t say anything to her directly—he doesn’t say anything to her at all. But when Liam suggests that Ruby swap with Chubs and move up front, the latter shoots her a glare that is clearer than any speech could be.

One screw up, and you’re done. If you do anything to hurt my friends—

Well, the specific threat is murky, but she understands.

When they’re all settled into their new seats, Liam cranks the radio and gets them back on the road, as Chubs settles back into his book with a scowl on his face and Zu pulls out a different, larger notebook and sets to work on a page of numbers that looks like the eight times tables.

Since the others are absorbed, Liam makes friendly conversation with Ruby. He asks her light, lowball questions like how old she is, where she grew up, favorite songs, opinion on pizza with pineapple. She still feels like she’s choking every time she speaks, though, and he seems to register her discomfort, eventually letting them fall into quiet meditation to the melodic twang of the radio.

Ruby closes her eyes and leans against the window, equal parts wishing she could fall asleep and terrified of the nightmares that might lurch through her if she does. Eventually, the steady lull of the car’s motion shifts, the van slowing and then curving to the right. She opens her eyes, gives up the ghost, and checks out the rest of the passengers.

Chubs is still reading, she thinks, or at least—well, honestly, his shoulders are so stiff and his gaze so steady on the page she thinks maybe he’s just pretending. It feels less like he’s looking at the book and more like, now that she’s shifting around again, he’s very purposefully not looking at her.

Zu, meanwhile, is all smiles, shooting a grin directly at Ruby when their eyes meet. She’s as much of a flurry of motion as one can generally manage in the backseat of a minivan, in turns leaning into the back to toss her notebook away, reaching under the driver’s seat to grab the shoes she must have kicked off at some point and wiggle them back on, finally just bouncing eagerly in her seat in apparent anticipation of the stop.

“Hold your horses, Zu,” Liam says, all fond amusement. “Give me a second to park.”

They’re pulling into a little rest area with a scenic overlook, though there’s not much scenic to see at this point, shrouded in darkness. Dawn is coming fast, though, if the haziness at the horizon is any indication. The sunrise will probably look lovely over the mountains.

Ruby can’t help her queasiness at the thought, the pressure of fear and anxiety at her throat. She knows vampires can go in the sun; it was one of the first and only details the League had bothered to give her before dragging her out with them. It was like a sick game of myth or fact.

Their eyes are red. Myth.

They have visible fangs. Fact.

They can’t go in the sunlight. Myth.

They drink human blood. Fact.

They can turn into bats. Myth.

They want to kill you. Fact.

They can run superhumanly fast. Myth.

They can be killed with a stake to the heart. Fact.

The last was delivered with an anticipatory grin from Rob as he shoved the rough piece of wood into her hands, clapping her on the shoulder so hard she almost toppled.

But still, it feels unnatural. Her whole life is on eggshells. She doesn’t know anything about herself anymore, not really. Not if she’s...she forces herself to think it. Not if she’s a vampire.

The rest stop is void of anyone but them, maybe because of the early hour, maybe because of the state of society. Not a lot of folks traveling these days, not a lot stopping in rural areas, risky areas, underpopulated areas.

The whole vampire apocalypse thing isn’t really what you would call common knowledge, not yet. Most people had no idea what had thrown society into turmoil, just that something had and that their lives were in a state of upheaval.

Crime rates skyrocketed. A massive influx of disappearances, of murders, of gruesome serial killers who drained their victims’ blood. Ruby’s dad was gone practically all the time, always at work dealing with double and triple shifts and trying desperately to find justice for victims and put a stop to the tragedies.

But no one did. They just kept happening.

From what Ruby could tell based on the news and internet coverage, the impact of the vampires (whether folks knew that was the root cause or not) varied a lot from place to place. Some communities were devastated, decimated, half abandoned, post-apocalyptical. Others saw little change, probably due to a lack of vampiric subjects and thus vampiric havoc. Some, like Ruby’s town, fell in the middle: shattered, but surviving. Shaken, but holding on.

Some better than others.

This area must have been hit pretty hard, because the rest stop looks like it hasn’t experienced any upkeep in a while. The grass is overgrown and sprinkled with trash. All the lights are burned out in front of the visitors’ center, and one of the windows in the separate building hosting the bathrooms is shattered.

“Alright, y’all,” Liam says, “Let’s stretch our legs, okay? I need a break from staring at the road.”

His words make enough sense on their own, but the way he glances over at Ruby, concern etched on his features, makes her think the stop is more about checking in on her. She tries to push down the aching feeling in her throat, that pre-crying feeling, almost overwhelming in its intensity, and nods wordlessly.

Zu bursts out of the car like a jack-in-the-box, stymied only slightly by the time it takes to fling the van door open. As the others exit the car at a slower place, Zu makes a gesture Ruby can’t decipher in the direction of their driver. Liam grins past a roll of his eyes and produces a pocketknife from his jeans, handing it to her with care.

“Hooligan,” he tells her, and she skips off to a picnic table. “I’m gonna see if there’s anything left in the snack machines,” Liam adds, to the others, and heads toward the visitors’ center, glancing around surreptitiously like he’s waiting for a boogeyman to come and get them.

Ruby glances at the boy left beside her, momentarily out of earshot of the others.

“Look, Chubs—”

Chubs shoots her a look of disgust. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps. “My name is Charles.”

Ruby lifts her hands in front of her, defensive. “Sorry,” she says. “Charles.”

He makes a face at that, too, but he doesn’t change his mind, instead opting to cross his arms over his chest.

She presses on.

“I know you don’t want me here,” she says. “And I don’t blame you. If I was in your position, I’d feel the same way.”

Chubs’s expression doesn’t soften a bit, all hard gazes and tense jaw. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Because clearly it’s such a popular opinion.” He doesn’t look toward Liam and Zu, but it’s obvious where his mind is.

It must be difficult, Ruby thinks, to disagree so fundamentally with people who are clearly so close to you. Especially when you’re disagreeing because you’re trying to keep them safe. It must hurt him, to draw a line in the sand, when all he wants is to keep them close and okay.

She thinks of her mother, like a flash, but she pushes the memory away.

Ruby just shrugs. “Believe what you want,” she says, throat tight. “I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to do anything to endanger you all. I promise. I know you don’t know me, don’t have any reason to trust me, but...I just wanted to let you know. And to tell you I understand.”

His mouth is still twisted like he’s tasting a lemon, but he jerks his head in a curt nod before shoving his hands in his pocket and wandering off to the table where Zu is sitting, carving something into the wood planks with Liam’s knife. He relaxes by inches as he crosses the grass, and when he gets there, he smiles and jostles her shoulder, easy and fraternal, and Zu beams at him.

If there’s still something unsettled in his shoulders, Ruby is probably the only one who can tell. If he’s still watching Ruby out the corner of his eye, distrustful, Zu probably won’t notice.

Something twists, claws, through Ruby’s throat anyway, harsh and aching. She swallows hard, tries to hold back the tears springing in her eyes. She’s going to be stronger than that.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Liam is at her side again, delicately touching her arm with the very tips of his fingers.

She flinches away, and he pulls his hand back quickly. “Ruby?” he says.

“I’m fine,” she rasps. “I just—”

Her vision blurs, flashes to black. She thinks she’s squeezing her eyes shut, but all she can focus on is the pain in her throat. All her senses are heightened, but incomprehensible.

She hears Chubs’ voice from far away. “Blood!” he says. “She’s new, I told you! She needs blood!”

Liam’s voice: “Crap! I’m so sorry, Ruby, I didn’t even think—!”

Chubs: “Screw sorry, just get some fricking blood!”

Liam: “Zu! Can you—?”

Liam: “No, it’s—”

Liam: “It’s by the spare wheel, you have to—”

Liam: “I’m coming, I’ll get it, just—”

Liam: “Chubs, will you—”

Chubs: “Yeah, yeah, just go before she tries to eat us.”

The weight of a hand on her shoulder, hesitant and reluctant. She’s on the ground now, she realizes. She doesn’t remember sinking to her knees.

Chubs: “Just, uh, hang on a second. I know it hurts. But it won’t kill you, okay? You’ll be fine.”

Liam: “Here, Ruby, drink this.”

A ripping sound, and suddenly all she can smell is blood, earthy and metallic. She reaches blindly and somehow manages to get her eyes open long enough to latch onto the bag and bring it to her mouth. She drinks deeply, greedily, feeling the instant relief and draining the bag in moments.

It’s another long stretch of time before she really feels like she’s coming back to herself.

“I—” she says, looking at the boys.

Liam’s face is tight and anxious, but brimming with relief. Chubs won’t meet her gaze, his mouth a hard line. Zu hovers behind them, brow twisted, hands wringing.

“I’m sorry,” she manages.

Liam huffs out a laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Don’t you dare, Green,” he says. “I’m sorry we let you go that long without blood. Just relax, give yourself a minute; we’re not in any rush.”

She more or less believes him, but she still forces a few rough breaths through her lungs, tries to slow the panic rushing across her nervous system.

With fresh blood coursing through her body, though, Ruby’s energy picks up almost immediately, and she can’t help feeling a little foolish, a little ridiculous. Not to mention like a huge inconvenience. Here they are, going so far out of their way, sticking their necks out for her, and she repays them with some screwed-up, vampiric version of a medical crisis.

“Thank you,” she says, folding the empty blood pouch over and over, into a small, neat, square—an idle, nervous habit. “I’m—I feel a lot better now. Don’t, um. Don’t worry on my account.”

She doesn’t mean to assume anything about their feelings, but—well, Liam and Zu very clearly are worried. Concerned about her. And even Chubs was clearly rattled by the incident, even if he may not care about her, specifically.

“Are you sure?” Liam asks. “Everything’s okay. Take all the time you need. Do you need to lie down? Need more blood?”

Ruby shakes her head. “I’m okay. The—the blood helped. I feel better, I promise.”

“Are you sure?” he asks again. “The first few days are the worst, it’s okay if you—”

“For Pete’s sake, Liam, give it a rest,” Chubs snaps, and Ruby feels an odd sense of gratitude towards him for cutting through the bullshit. “She said she’s fine, so listen to her. Don’t ask questions if you’re not going to listen to the answer.”

Liam still doesn’t look all the way convinced, so Ruby forces a smile in his direction. It’s weak, but enough to earn a small smile from him in return.

“He’s right. Don’t worry,” Ruby says.

“Alright then,” Liam finally says. He claps his hands together. “Are we ready to get back on the road?”

Zu waves her hand to glean some attention, and when Liam glances over at her, she reaches out and tugs on Ruby’s shirt, shooting him an are-you-freaking-kidding-me kind of look. In case her message might be lost, she uses her free hand to sweep a wild gesture in the direction of the huge bloodstain.

Honestly, Ruby had completely forgotten about it. Her stomach turns at the reminder.

“Oh, hell,” Liam says. “Yeah, Zu, you’re right, of course. Let’s find Green some clean clothes. What do we have in the back? Anything clean?”

“I think clean might be too much to ask for, Lee,” Chubs chimes in, sort of snide, but with a friendly enough undercurrent. A joke.

Ruby chances a smile. “It won’t take much to improve on my current wardrobe,” she tells him, but he shoots her a glare.

Message received, she thinks. Jokes are still not for Ruby.

Zu has already scurried over to the van and lifted the tailgate. She roots around back there and emerges with an armful of fabric. Skipping back to Ruby, she presents her first selection with a flourish.

The shirt is bright pink, covered with sparkles, and clearly made for a child.

“Oh,” Ruby says. “Um, I...”

Liam laughs. “I think you gotta account for her wearing a different size than you, Zu,” he says, and Zu shoots him another look: duh, I was just checking. Ruby smiles at both of them.

The next option is larger and plain blue—unobjectionable.

“Is that my shirt?” Chubs demands, and Zu rolls her eyes. She tucks it back in the pile without bothering to fight him on it.

The third option isn’t exactly Goldilocks-standard—it’s not going to fit just right, or anything—but it’s workable. It’s obviously Liam’s, a plaid button-up more or less like the one he’s wearing, pale gray and white and soft-looking. He doesn’t object to sharing it, just smiles when she glances at him to make sure he doesn’t mind.

“You might need to roll the sleeves on that one, darlin’,” is his only input.

Zu looks like she’d rather keep playing Project Runway—she has several other colorful items ready to present—but Ruby is beyond ready to change.

“Thanks, Zu,” she says. “This is perfect.”

The young girl smiles brightly and holds up the pink shirt again, wiggling it around in a last-chance way, and Ruby laughs.

“I’m not really a crop-top kind of girl,” she teases, surprising herself with yet another attempt at humor.

Zu grins wider, Liam laughs, and Chubs lets out a derisive huff that seems like it might be covering a laugh of its own. Ruby lets herself smile.

She ducks into the rest stop’s bathroom to change, stuffing the stained green t-shirt into the trash and covering it with paper towels before she even bothers putting the new shirt on. Her bra is bloodstained, too, but there’s not much she can do about that when it’s the only one she has.

Wetting a paper towel, she cleans as much blood off her skin as possible. As she scrubs at the dry rustiness, she imagines she can buff away everything that’s happened in the last few days. The exhaustion, the fear, the pain, the weight of the stake in her hand, the sting of the fangs in her neck, her parents—

Her skin hurts.

She finds she doesn’t know how long she’s been in here, rubbing her chest raw. She makes herself take a deep breath. In, out.

“You’re fine,” she lies to her reflection. The girl in the mirror looks skeptical but doesn’t reply.

Slipping into Liam’s shirt, she tries to relax, tries to ground herself in the smooth coolness, the soft cotton. She picks at a speck of blood on her jeans—almost unnoticeable. Somehow the majority of the denim made it out unscathed.

Buttoning the shirt is easy enough, but Liam is right—the sleeves are comically long. So is the torso, of course, but that doesn’t impede her motor function. Her attempts to roll and button the sleeves are fruitless, so she settles for shoving them up her arms in bunches.

There. Good enough.

She’s already halfway to the door before she realizes this is the first time she’s been alone since meeting the vampire kids. Since the hunt, actually, if you don’t count her time unconscious in the convenience store. Should she take a moment to enjoy it? To formulate an escape plan?

Maybe it’s as simple as walking outside. Maybe they won’t notice if she sneaks off in the other direction. Maybe Chubs has already convinced them to leave without her.

Her heart doesn’t seize at the thought. It doesn’t. It’s good if they’re gone. If they’re safe.

A knock on the door startles her.

“Green?”

Liam’s voice, she’s pretty sure. Low. Soft. Southern.

“I—” she tries to say, but her voice doesn’t quite work, doesn’t make any noise.

“Ruby?” he tries again. It’s a single, one-room bathroom, not a bigger one with separate stalls, so the main door is locked. She wonders if he could use vampire strength to break it open if he wanted to.

“Yeah,” she says, and it comes out audible this time. “One second.”

Taking a shaky breath, she goes to the door and flips the deadbolt, hands mostly steady. When she opens the door, Liam is there, tall and blond and nervous-looking.

“Hey,” he says, like he’s surprised to see her. Like he didn’t see her go in the bathroom, or hear her speak from inside.

“Hi,” she replies.

He’s blocking the doorway; she can’t get past him. She waits to see why. But he just keeps staring at her.

“What?” she finally demands, almost a snap. He’s making her feel self-conscious. Her left sleeve starts to slip down her arm again, and she pushes it back up roughly.

That makes a grin sprawl across Liam’s face. Then he appears to remember his goal.

“I, uh,” he says. “I just was thinking—a new shirt is great and all, but—I’m sorry we don’t have any other pants that’d fit you. But then I thought, maybe some clean socks would take the edge off. My mother always says it’s the little things, right?”

He gets more flustered the longer he speaks, almost tripping over the words, a disconcerting blush rising in his cheeks, as she just stares at him, disbelieving. He sticks out the arm holding a pair of men’s socks, obviously his, folded together, awkward.

Ruby can’t seem to form a response, or make any move to take the socks. Actually, tears start to prick in her eyes. Is it possible that anyone so helplessly, effortlessly kind exists in the world? The dark, dank, monster-ridden world?

“Smooth, Stewart,” Chubs groans, sounding truly agonized, from the nearby picnic table. “You sure know how to treat a lady right. Please, Green, just put him out of his misery and take the damn socks. For my sake.”

The last bit startles Ruby into action, and she takes the socks on autopilot. The feel of the soft fabric under her fingers jolts a smile onto her face, and she’s finally able to meet Liam’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she says, and Liam relaxes.

Incongruent redness still blooms in his cheeks, but he rubs the back of his neck, casual. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Don’t you dare think a thing about it.”

She carries the socks to another picnic table farther away from the building—not the one Chubs is at, she doesn’t want to overstep—and carefully unties her shoes, swapping out her socks and shoving the old ones in the pockets of her jeans.

In the early-morning sun, Zu has taken to practicing her handstands and cartwheels in the least-overgrown patches of grass, giggling silently whenever she tumbles to the ground.

It soothes something in Ruby’s heart, watching her. Seeing the joy she finds so easily in the world. It’s nice, that even amid the darkness of this life, Zu knows how to find the light.

Ruby owes that optimism a lot. She wouldn’t be here—enjoying the sunshine, relishing the cool breeze—without it.

If it had been Chubs picking through the convenience store, Chubs she’d followed to the parking lot, things would have ended very differently.

He wouldn’t have let her in the van.

Cate and Rob would have found her, when they came back for their truck.

And Ruby would be...she pushes the thought away.

Liam settles onto the bench next to Ruby, shooting her a smile when he follows her gaze.

“She’s a good kid,” Liam says, warm and affectionate, like he isn’t just a kid himself.

Ruby turns to look at him, still so curious about their little group. “How old is she?”

“Eleven.”

“Huh,” Ruby says, musing aloud without thinking, too comfortable in his easy presence. “She looks so much younger. But I guess if it’s only been a few years since she was turned...?”

Liam looks at her askance. “What do you mean?”

Ruby blinks, wondering what she said wrong. “I—I just—” she stammers, trying to backtrack. “The whole not aging thing. I’m not used to it.”

Liam shakes his head. “We’re still aging,” he tells her. “That whole instantly-frozen-in-time thing is a myth, far as I can tell. Maybe aging stops at some point—I’ve heard rumors both ways, among vamp communities. About the oldest vampires anybody’s met or heard of. But me and Chubs and Zu have been together long enough, I can tell you for certain we’ve all kept aging, same as we’ve kept needing sleep and regular food in addition to blood. Zu’s just small for her age.”

Ruby flushes, embarrassed, ridiculously, by all the things she doesn’t know. But she doesn’t know how to ask for more information. Not about that. Not about...vampire things.

She looks back to Zu instead. She’s stopped her cartwheeling and wandered over to talk to Chubs. Or, well, Chubs is talking, and Zu seems to be alternating gesturing and scribbling in her notebook.

“Why, um...” Ruby struggles to ask in a way that doesn’t seem rude or nosy. “Why doesn’t she...?”

Liam glances at her with a sad smile. “Talk?”

Ruby nods, tucking an escaped bit of hair back behind her ear.

“We don’t know, exactly,” he admits. “She’s been like this as long as I’ve known her. Sweetest girl I’ve ever met, but she never talks.” Liam sighs. “I figure it’s gotta be...whatever happened to her. Whatever happened when she was turned. The trauma of it, y’know?”

Ruby nods again, heart caught in her throat. She knows. She knows all too well, the memories too fresh in her own mind.

“We found her not long after,” Liam continues. “She was just about brand new. Wanderin’ around this empty building Chubs and I found, all by herself. Thirsty and scared. She was so small.” His voice trails off, a faraway look in his eyes.

Liam forces a smile suddenly, like he’s willing the conversation back to a cheerful place. “And we’ve all been together ever since,” he says. “One big happy, vampy family.”

Again Ruby feels her heart jump at the casual vampiric reference, but she tries to school her reaction.

Before she has to think of a response, Zu scampers up to their table with a grin and grabs Ruby’s hand, tugging her towards off the bench and towards the van.

“Whoa, Zu, where’s the fire?” Liam asks, laughing.

Zu doesn’t answer, of course, but Chubs joins her suit by yelling across the parking lot.

“C’mon, Lee, let’s get moving! Zu and I are starving and the snacks here are terrible.”

Liam laughs again. “As I said, Ruby,” he says. “Blood aside, don’t underestimate a young vamp’s need for human food.”

~

Ruby isn’t sure if it’s meant to be some sort of test, or initiation, but sneaking into a hospital with Liam the next day, on a mission to replenish the group’s blood supply—it feels like something.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Liam says. “Chubs usually does, we need two sets of hands, but I feel better not leaving Zu alone in the van.”

“Why did you bring me?” she asks. “If Chub—If Charles usually goes.”

His brow quirks at her stumble over the other boy’s name, but he doesn’t comment on it. He glances over his shoulder before he replies, like Chubs could overhear them from a mile away.

“He doesn’t like hospitals,” he explains. “Or—stealing from hospitals. Or being in them, I don’t think.”

She tries to hold back the obvious (intrusive, unnecessary) question, but it slips out. “Why not?”

Liam doesn’t seem to think it’s rude. He just sighs, sympathetic, and runs a hand through his hair.

“His dad is a doctor,” he says. “So I think it’s a mix of, you know—he doesn’t like the reminder to miss him, and he also kinda feels like he’s betraying the medical profession by taking the blood.”

Something twists in Ruby’s heart when Liam says dad, but she doesn’t let any change cross her face. “Oh,” she says. “That—makes sense.”

There’s a moment of empty silence, and she presses on. “I’m happy to help,” she says. “If it makes him more comfortable. I just didn’t want to...I mean, if it was his thing...”

Liam shoots her a reassuring smile. “I know he hasn’t been the most welcoming,” he says. “But he’s just stubborn. Not good with change. It’s nothing personal, honest.”

Ruby shrugs, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. “I wasn’t...” she begins, but even she doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. “I mean, I don’t...”

“He’s had a rough adjustment,” Liam tells her. “Not that it’s easy for anyone, really. But he took it real hard. You know...” he trails off.

“Being dead,” Ruby supplies, sharper than she means to be.

Liam looks back to her, surprise spread across his expression. “We’re not dead,” he says, easy, like the words don’t choke him at all. He pauses a beat, considering. He gets the same kind of look he had when Ruby asked about Zu’s age. Thoughtful. Careful. “How much do you know about vamps?” he asks.

Ruby lets out a nervous laugh. “Excluding fiction?” she asks. “Not a lot.”

His smile is painless and free, a flash of fangs. “Not to worry,” he says. “You got lucky, Green. The Black Betty gang is here to serve as your expert guidance in all things vamp. You picked a good ride.”

Ruby’s eyebrows raise. “Black Betty?” she asks.

Color creeps into Liam’s cheeks, and it’s both still a little surprising to see in a vampire (stereotypes, she knows, but she can’t help it) and a little bit adorable. “Oh, er,” he says. “That’s what we call the van. You know, like the song?”

She can’t help the grin that spreads over her face, just for a second, before she wrangles it away. “Oh,” she says. “Yeah. Of course.”

“You’re one of us, Ruby,” Liam says, and his voice is so gentle it burns a little. “We’re here for you. With you. As long as you’ll have us.”

She smiles a little, looking at her feet instead of answering. She doesn’t know what would come out of her mouth at this point, but it would probably be embarrassing.

Liam doesn’t push her, circling back to their prior conversation. “But anyway, Chubs—no one can fault him for being nervous. He’s been through a lot. Seen a lot. He doesn’t trust easily.”

But Liam does. It’s easy to see that. It’s easy to see that he trusts her already, without having any reason to. It’s sweet, and refreshing.

And it makes her scared for him. She understands why Chubs feels like he needs to protect his friends. She wants to protect them too.

Then you should leave, a little voice in the back of her mind says. You know you should leave before you hurt them.

She swallows hard, but her throat only feels tighter, aches harder.

He must misinterpret her expression. “Look, don’t worry about it, okay? He’ll come around. I promise. He’s a real softie when you get past the grumpy exterior.”

Ruby nods, grateful to avoid discussing her real fears. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, sure.”

Liam bumps her shoulder with his. “Now,” he says. “What say you we go rustle up some blood, darlin’?”

They do, and it’s easier than she expected.

They march right into the hospital, through the front door, like they belong.

An unnervingly friendly nurse is manning the reception desk, and Liam spins a sympathetic, weepy story about a sick cousin that gets them visitor badges and access to the other floors, once Liam has assured the lady that he knows the way.

Liam appears to have mastered a very careful way of talking with his mouth mostly closed, deftly blocking any view of his fangs without looking like he’s trying to hide anything going on past his lips. Ruby doesn’t feel great about her chances of replicating it, so she keeps her trap shut for now.

Once they’re out of view of any people, Liam seems to know where he’s going, so Ruby just trails behind him as quickly and silently as she can manage.

In what feels like no time, they’re back in the van, stocked up for Ruby-doesn’t-know-how-long, but Liam and Chubs seem satisfied with their haul, and they quickly set off again.

~

It’s almost a little unsettling, how easy Ruby finds it to settle into this new version of her life—on the road with Betty and her crew, searching for a better tomorrow.

Specifically, they’re searching for Liam’s parents.

“We got separated,” is all he says about why he isn’t with them now. “But we have systems in place to communicate, if we can just get to them. They move around a lot—do what they can to set up shelter and resources for people who need it.”

“They’re where Liam gets his propensity for picking up strays,” Chubs says, but his tone is more exasperated fondness than animosity, which Ruby appreciates.

“You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you want, darlin’,” Liam says, ignoring his friend and smiling at Ruby. “And if there’s anywhere else you want to go after that—anyone you want to get in contact with—they’ll be able to help us out.”

Us, Ruby thinks. Like they’ll still be a unit, even then. It makes her chest twist.

“Grams,” she says, before she really thinks it through. “I mean—my grandmother. I think...I think she must be wondering where I am.”

She prays none of them ask about her parents. About her past. About the choices, the mistakes, the darkest moments that brought her to their van.

They don’t ask. Zu just leans over to grab Ruby’s hand in her tiny one and squeeze, smiling reassuringly, and Liam nods like it’s as simple as that, and even Chubs isn’t glowering when he looks at her.

They find a comfortable rhythm over the next week or two, punctuated by Liam humming along to the radio and Zu tugging on Ruby’s shirt to show her something she doodled and Chubs reading aloud from interesting passages in his book and bickering back and forth with Liam.

Unwilling to break their uneasy truce and remembering the way he’d snapped at her, Ruby mostly tries not to address Chubs directly by any name. Still, sometimes it’s unavoidable, and by her third or fourth stilted, Hey, uh, Charles? the boy in question snaps.

He rolls his eyes. “Oh, forget it. Just call me Chubs, everyone else does,” he grumbles, and Ruby sees Liam try to stifle his smile from the driver’s seat.

It’s not a lot to go on. It’s not an overture of friendship, not really. But it’s something, and Ruby will take it.

It just so happens that that’s when Lady Jane finds them.

~

They hadn’t told Ruby much about Lady Jane.

The boys speak about her tentatively, nearly in whispers, in sentences that trail off or abruptly shift direction. Whenever they do, Zu curls up into herself, somehow even quieter than usual.

At this point, Ruby can say only three things about her with certainty.

One—She’s a vampire.

Two—She’s been hunting the Black Betty crew for as long as they’ve been running.

And three—She was the one who turned Liam.

It all happens so fast.

There’s a car coming up behind them, too fast, kicking up dust, its engine revving like the sound of a howling wolf.

Ruby doesn’t recognize the car or the behavior, has no context, but she’s knows it’s bad before she can comprehend why.

Chubs goes pale. “It’s her,” he says, and Ruby’s blood freezes.

Suddenly she’s driving directly alongside them, and Ruby can see her through the driver’s window, severe features twisted into a smug smile.

There’s a shout, and Ruby can’t even tell if it came from one of the boys or from her own throat.

And then—a sickening thud and a shriek of metal, and Betty is spinning out. Ruby’s neck is snapping the wrong way and leaving her dizzy, and they jolt to a stop that almost feels more dangerous than a crash.

“Liam,” Chubs groans out from the backseat. “What do we do?”

Liam turns to Ruby, frantic. “Ruby, don’t listen to her, okay? She’s a—”

“All right, now, children,” a voice rings from outside the car. “Come out here.”

There’s something stiff and wrong in the way Liam moves, instantly, opening his door before Ruby has a chance to react.

“Liam!” she says, but movement in the back startles her eyes that direction, to where Chubs is sliding open the back door, too.

“Chubs, don’t!” Ruby says, but he ignores her, crawling out into the sunshine with Zu right behind him.

Heart pounding, Ruby wrenches open her own door, scrambling, stumbling after them.

The vampire they call Lady Jane stands in the road, halfway between them and her own car, abandoned in a position that looks deliberately calculated to block any potential passerby from interfering.

She strolls towards them, unhurried. A spider returning to clean out its web—no concern that the flies might have the capacity to disentangle themselves.

“Very good,” she says. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She stops several yards away, studying them. Her eyes zero in on Zu.

“You look tired, Suzume,” Lady Jane says, a poisonous sweetness in her tone. “Why don’t you sit down and have a rest?”

Tears welling in her eyes, Zu lowers herself to the ground on shaky knees.

“And Charles...”

“Fuck you!” Chubs says before she can get another word out, and Lady Jane lets out a peal of laughter.

“Always so amusing,” she says. She considers him. “Hit yourself.”

Ruby flinches in horror as Chubs does just that, striking his own face hard enough to bruise.

“Chubs, no!” she shouts, unable to help herself.

“Well, well,” Lady Jane says, eyes finally landing on Ruby. But her words are directed at Liam. “You picked up a new friend.”

“Let them go,” Liam says, instantly. “Kill me, do whatever you want to me, but you have to leave them alone. Please.”

“Liam!” Ruby cries again, but he doesn’t look at her, his eyes steady and his jaw set.

Stupid, noble Liam.

Lady Jane shakes her head, amusement playing on her features. “Now, now,” she says. “We really must move past these hard feelings, Liam. I don’t want to harm you. You belong to my coven. To me.”

“Like hell,” Liam says, his voice harsher than Ruby has ever heard it.

“Come to me, Liam,” Lady Jane says.

He obeys, but rage is simmering in his eyes, his feet dragging like he’s doing all he can to resist. But it’s not enough.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Lady Jane says, but Liam only scowls harder. The others are still frozen, in horror or due to the vampire’s commands, Ruby isn’t sure.

“You know I never meant to hurt your sweet little sister,” Lady Jane continues, crooning, and Ruby’s heart jolts. “I meant to turn her. To bring her with us. But she was just so delicious.” She clucks her tongue, half shrugging as if to say, c’est la vie. “How could I stop?”

Liam is trembling, shaking with rage or fear or exhaustion or grief, but something splits in him at that, and he’s launching himself towards Lady Jane faster, a useless attack, a pointless rebellion.

Lady Jane smiles, like this is what she wanted the whole time.

She’s going to kill him.

Ruby can’t let that happen.

There’s only one thing she can do. Only one thing that could possibly work.

Even if it costs her everything.

She moves faster than she thinks she’s ever moved before, shoves Liam off his path of destruction with more strength than she thinks either of them can believe she possesses.

Liam tumbles to the ground and looks up at her, bewildered.

But Ruby can’t keep her gaze on him.

She turns to Lady Jane, planting her feet like that will keep her steady, keep her strong. Like she can will herself into being able to do this.

“Stop,” she commands.

A look of shock flashes on Lady Jane’s face, slipping away into nothing as she stills.

For a long, charged moment, nothing happens. No one moves. Ruby’s not sure anyone breathes, least of all herself.

Ruby almost surprises herself when she speaks again.

“You will not harm him,” she says. “You won’t hurt any of us.”

She’s never heard her own voice like this. Never felt like this. The power, the eerie calm. The unshakeable knowledge that Lady Jane is powerless against her. That Ruby could make her do absolutely anything.

“In fact, you’re going to forget you’ve ever seen us,” Ruby says. “You’re going to forget we even exist. You’re going to turn around and walk away and keep walking until you can’t walk any further. Then you’re going to sit down. And you’re going to forget everything else. Who you are. What you are. You are nothing.”

Lady Jane doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even blink. It feels like she’s not even trying to resist. Like resisting was never an option for her.

She turns around.

And she walks away.

There’s a long, creaking silence.

No one moves. No one speaks. Not until Lady Jane is out of sight.

“R-Ruby—” Liam says, his voice uneven. He reaches out, tentative, towards her arm.

“Don’t touch me!” she says, panic lacing her tone, and he freezes.

The power feels like it’s still building in her, like it’s still rising in her brain, threatening to overflow. She doesn’t know how to let it out. Doesn’t know how to make it go away.

Go away! she thinks, like she can control it the way she controlled Lady Jane. The way she controlled Cate and Rob and the vampire boy. The way she—

Stop! she thinks, half hopeless, choking out a gasping sob.

And everything stops.

~

Pushing through the hazy darkness, Ruby comes to with her head swimming and aching. For a long moment, all she can focus on is living and breathing, the beat of her heart echoing through her chest.

Her senses return slowly, one by one, to join the steady drum of pain. Cold ground underneath her. Itchy grass. The gas-station smell of burnt rubber and gasoline. The red glow of light behind her eyelids.

At first, beyond the buzzing of bugs, she can just hear distant humming, indistinct voices. Slowly, they solidify into words.

“She’s a compulsor,” Chubs is saying, his voice shaking.

“She saved us,” Liam shoots back, but he’s steady. Firm.

Ruby feels a tear roll down her cheek, even as her eyes stay closed.

Something soft touches her face, and when she forces her eyes open, she sees Zu, carefully wiping away the tear.

“I’m sorry,” she croaks out, and the boys both jerk to attention at the sound of her voice.

With a few quick strides Liam is there, dropping to his knees beside her.

“Hey, darlin’,” he says, soft. He reaches out and cradles her head, so gently. “You gave us a scare, there.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I should have left; I never should have—”

Liam cuts her off, sharper than she’s used to. “Hey now, none of that,” he says. “Don’t you dare. You’re one of us, Green. You’re ours. Right?”

He turns to Zu, who nods emphatically.

“We know you were just scared,” Liam says. “Of course you were. But we can trust each other from here on out, okay? We can figure all this out together. We’ll find my parents, find your Grams. We’ll keep each other safe, like you kept us safe. Sound like a plan?”

Ruby is not going to cry. She’s not.

It sounds so easy, when he says it like that. Like it’s not the most beautiful dream she can imagine.

She looks at Chubs, not willing to believe it. Not unless everyone is on board.

“Thanks for the rescue, Green,” he says, and even if it’s only slight, there’s a begrudging kind of respect in the sharpness of his eyes. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, okay?”

~

It started like this:

Ruby was utterly ordinary.

She was a good kid, got along with her parents, got good grades. She was friendly and well-liked, but she’d never bothered to cultivate a huge social life outside the usual casual school friends and camp buddies she only saw in summer. She mainly hung out with her best friend, Sam, and occasionally Sam’s next-door neighbors.

Her parents, always careful and cautious, got even more protective, hesitant to let her out of their sight. Her dad was a police officer, and he came home every night with more and more reports of increases in crime, in suspicious behavior all across town.

Vandalism.

Burglaries.

Missing persons.

Murder.

Ruby spent a lot of time at home, on the phone with Sam or her Grams, oscillating between anxiety over whatever was happening outside and frustration over being trapped inside, not knowing what was really going on.

That’s when Cate showed up.

That’s when everything really changed.

“Tell me, Ruby Daly,” Cate had said, her face sliding into a challenging grin. “You wanna save the world?”

The Human’s League was like something out of a movie.

They had all this equipment, even just in their truck. Uniforms and radios, computers flashing maps of vampire sightings, bins full of stakes and knives and incendiary devices.

Maybe it was crazy of Ruby to go with them. Maybe it was wrong.

But she’d been so desperate for answers, desperate to understand, and Cate had told her everything. Had told her about the vampire apocalypse, about this group devoted to stopping the monsters. Had told her they needed her.

How could Ruby not help, if she had the opportunity?

They were on their way to League headquarters, Ruby and Cate and Rob, another hunter they’d picked up on the way, when Rob got a call about a vampire in the area.

Cate didn’t want to go after him, not with Ruby along, untrained and helpless, but Rob was confident— and insistent.

“It’ll be good for her,” he said. “Field experience. All the other newbies will be jealous.”

They’d traced the boy to this location, and Rob had cornered him in the back of the store, grinning and gloating, twirling his stake in his hand.

The boy was shaking, mouth caught half open, the glint off his fangs dim in the half light.

He was a vampire. A monster. Wrong.

But something about the fear in his eyes...Ruby felt sick.

She’d been told to stay back and watch, but before she even really knew what she was doing, Ruby dropped her stake and leapt into action. She threw herself against Rob with all her strength, and probably only the element of surprise allowed her to jostle him aside, knock the stake out of his hand, give the boy an opening to escape.

“Run!” she shouted, and she had never heard her own voice like that. So powerful. So commanding. So terrifying.

But everything still went to hell.

The force of her attack had sent her tumbling, and Ruby found herself on the ground, with Rob disoriented above her and Cate staring, aghast, from across the store.

Ruby’s arm was bleeding. She must have scraped it against something as she fell. She hadn’t even noticed.

The boy had.

He stared at Ruby with wide eyes, something horrifying and hungry building. Before she could blink, he was in front of her, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders and pulling her halfway to her feet.

He was a vampire, and Ruby knew that, but she still couldn’t believe it when he bit her.

Pain screamed through her body, emanating from the fire slicing through her neck.

There was a scuffle, and before the boy could start to drink in earnest, he was off her, held back by Rob, flailing futilely as Cate stepped forward, stake aloft and aimed towards his heart.

Ruby’s own heart thundered.

The boy had bitten her. Tried to kill her. Tried to drink her blood.

Even still, he looked terrified, and so young.

“Leave him alone!” Ruby said, and Cate jerked back like she’d been electrocuted.

Rob’s grip loosened enough for the boy to wriggle out of it, and he darted away as Rob, suddenly emptyhanded, looked at Ruby with unconcealed rage.

“Ruby, we have to get out of here,” Cate said, urgent, stepping toward her, but Rob grabbed her hand roughly and pulled her the other direction.

“Fuck her,” Rob said. “She made her choice.” He picked up his stake and started for the boy, but hesitated, like some outside force was holding him back.

“Go!” Ruby shouted, and with a snarl, Rob obeyed, dragging Cate with him.

The relief was short-lived.

Ruby didn’t even have time to suck in a ragged breath before the vampire boy was back in front of her, red smeared across his face, and the fear in his eyes replaced by a glaze of out-of-body hunger like nothing Ruby had ever seen.

His teeth sank into her neck again, and this time she felt the blood flowing out of her, her life slipping away.

No, she thought, bleary. NO!

“Get away from me!” she’d screamed, with more force than she’d realized she had, shoving hard and somehow sending the boy stumbling back. “Go!” she’d shouted, and he had, looking down at his bloodstained hands, at the space around him, at her, crumpled on the ground, disoriented and spacey, like he didn’t understand what had happened, what had gotten him there, and then turning and stumbling out the door, running once it cleared it, gaining speed and confidence as he’d sprinted away, hopefully in the opposite direction of Cate and Rob.

And Ruby...Ruby blacked out, sagging with pain and crashing adrenaline and fear and relief.

And then later, she woke up. Different. Changed. A little bit monstrous.

She’d saved the vampire boy, but she’d ended up paying the price. She still can’t decide if she regrets it or not.

Ruby chances a glance at Liam. He’s humming along to the radio, oblivious to the way the light of the setting sun catches in his hair and spins it golden. His fingers tap out a beat on the steering wheel, and it’s all too quiet to drown out the sound of Chubs in the backseat mumbling in his sleep. It sounds like mostly nonsense, but she would swear she hears him sigh dreamily and say meatloaf at one point. A look behind her reveals Zu smiling serenely as she gently, diligently uses a marker to doodle on Chubs’s slack hand.

Something soft and fragile blooms in the pit of Ruby’s stomach, and she feels warmer than she has since the night of the hunt. Warmer than she thought she could feel.

For a delicate moment, regret is hard to find.

As the weeks pass, they keep pressing on. Towards that nebulous goal of finding Liam’s parents, towards some kind of stable life, towards something.

They go onward, at least.

She gets better at pushing away her anxiety, pretending there’s nothing to worry about. Pretending she isn’t a ticking time bomb ready to ruin all their lives. Pretending she hasn’t already ruined her own. It hurts, but she isn’t ready to deal with the reality. Not now. Maybe not ever. So instead, she exists, adapts, adjusts to this surprisingly hopeful way of life.

There is one thing she can’t quite get used to, though. She’s constantly aware of their fangs.

Her own, she almost forgets about, sometimes, except when they catch on her lips or her tongue, or when they muffle her words when she speaks. They fade into the background of her consciousness, the way she only occasionally thinks about blinking or the beat of her heart. But the others—sometimes it’s all she can see.

When Liam grins. When Zu gasps and points at something through the windshield, delighted. When Chubs makes a snarky comment. A flash of pointed tooth there, a sliver of white here, or just as often a full-on view of both fangs out in the open, unhidden, unashamed.

They never seem to want to clamp their mouths down over their fangs the way she does. Unlike her, they only want to hide in the rare occasions they’re around humans. Not each other. Tucked away in Black Betty, safe, they’re unapologetically vampiric.

It doesn’t scare her, exactly, the way it would have a year ago—or, hell, a few months ago. But it’s a reminder. A warning. Perhaps it’s a warning that seems ridiculous in Lee’s sunny smile or Zu’s sweet silent laughter, but something deep in Ruby’s mind knows it’s supposed to caution her.

At the end of the day, though, where would caution get her?

She’s a vampire, and she’s here with them. Her friends, she thinks. Maybe. Hopefully.

She thinks they’re gonna be alright.