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Shelby's cold fingers pull at her eye sockets.
Shelby was quite interested in biology in school, if only for the purpose of learning about cryptids. She does recall learning about decomposition, and also that she was the only girl interested in the topic and the only person to take it seriously.
First, the body becomes cold and stiff and blood pools in the side of the body closest to the ground. Were this last bit applicable, she supposes that would be her feet, causing her to feel lightheaded, but it doesn't matter given the circumstances. They can feel their muscles aching when they move, but they're not sure if it is rigor mortis or if merely the thought of their turning is enough to make them afraid. And they are certainly cold to the touch.
After that, the body starts bloating. This has not started to happen yet, and Shelby is fairly confident that it won't even though it hasn't been quite long enough to know for sure. Scott looks normal, after all, rather skinny even, and he certainly doesn't smell like he's decomposing nor has Shelby noticed any foul fluid leaking from the holes in his face. She's not going to turn into a monster, she reassures herself, poking at the puncture wounds on her neck. She's still going to be a girl, just a different type of girl.
There's no point in detailing what happens after, she insists, but she can't stop herself from doing it anyway, because for every symptom that Scott doesn't show, that's more proof that it won't happen to her. Scott's skin has not turned black and putrid and begun to liquify. He is not crawling with maggots.
Shelby does not have maggots under her skin. She brushes a finger against the holes again. There are no maggots.
By this logic, she's not dead. She's still here. She's still walking around. She's not going to putrefy and be eaten by bugs. She still has to wonder, though, why it is that everyone seems to think she's going to. Apo, though they tried to hide it, maintained a distance from Shelby when they came to visit her. When she reached a hand forward the other girl stepped back, clearly wanting to avoid the feel of death on their skin even though they aren't any more full of blood than Shelby is.
"I'm dead," Apo had said. "You can't hear my heartbeat because I'm dead."
Shelby forces herself to lift her feet and stroll around the lake. The sky is turning dark now, the clouds coalescing in front of the moon, the reflection in the water becoming reddish to match the sky.
There was something about Apo's face. There was something about the way she seemed apprehensive, scared, upset. And a little voice in the back of Shelby's head, one that they can't hate because it's only asking a question, wants to know:
Why are you so happy about this?
Shelby isn't a stranger to doubt. They've always had a hard time finding people to take them seriously, but they have always been their own biggest fan. This isn't even the first time other people's questions have seeped into her own head, but it is the loudest she's ever heard that little voice be.
Asking things like, Is Apo right?
And, Isn't being dead a bad thing? Didn't you have a lot you wanted to live for?
Not to mention, Isn't it kind of gross that you find pleasure in something that everyone else finds disturbing?
Are they right to think you're dead? Are they right to forsake you? You were asking for it, after all. You didn't fight back. You didn't try to stop it. You are dead.
What, do you get off on it or something?
Why else would you be okay with your body being treated like that?
Why would Apo be so upset if this was the right choice?
What would your dad think of you if he knew his only daughter ran away and got herself killed and was happy about it?
Shelby stops. She's on the side of the lake farthest from Oakhurst. That can't be right, she tries to reason. That cannot be right. The coven is my family. Apo was upset because she didn't want it to be this way. I don't mind it being this way.
Why don't you mind it, Shelby?
And why do you think so much about getting bitten again?
And there's another voice, too, one that belongs to Apo herself. Why would you choose Scott over me? The only one here who could understand me?
Shelby kicks off her shoes and socks and sits down, resting her feet in the freezing water. Her pale skin is only growing paler, and she can't see a single vein or artery under it anymore. The sand gives under the soles of her feet.
She tosses rock after rock into the water, spending much of the night that way. The forest creatures don't disturb her, further proof of what a monster she has become. But that's hardly fair, is it? She's always been a monster.
"The truth is," she says aloud, "I can hear people's heartbeats because I want to kill other people."
There's no one around to hear her. The moment the sound stops echoing it's as though she never spoke at all. Her stomach growls and she feels like she's going to die if she doesn't eat.
She stumbles into the woods, not bothering to put her shoes back on. Rocks and twigs scrape against her feet, but her flesh is dead. She hardly feels it.
Fortunately for them, a wild pig wanders by. Another night without killing someone — but are they really going to last the rest of their eternal life? They're barely paying attention as their claws rip at the pink flesh and they devour it barehanded, smearing blood across her ghostly white face. It's not happening if they pretend it's not.
Footsteps crunch from between the trees.
Shelby feels dizzy, the metallic taste of blood turning even more sour than usual. She backs up from the fresh carcass, but she can't hide what she's done, not when the evidence is all over her. The work of a wild animal.
Apo's boot pokes through the trees first, and then the rest of her. Her hair, so like Shelby's before any of this happened, looks almost black in the dark. Shelby sees the exact moment she realizes what has occurred here. The girl doesn't speak and neither does the beast.
She's so beautiful, Shelby thinks, and the guilt stabs at her stomach. Apo is not alive anymore, so why do her hands itch to grab her and bite, bite, bite? It's wrong, it's wrong, it's all wrong of her, she's filthy, the meat under her nails is throbbing even though it surely can't be pumping blood any longer.
If she wants to bite Apo, and if Apo believes Scott is a monster for biting her, then what would that make Shelby?
But this girl has never been more gorgeous than when she is staring down at Shelby with a look of unbridled disgust on her face.
They're used to it.
Apo slaps her hand over her mouth and spins around, but she can barely get anywhere before she has to stop and vomit in the bushes. Shelby hasn't moved an inch and still managed to drive her away. She shakily gets to her feet and tries to walk forward, but she knows she's only going to make things worse. The problem is the blood, the sight of it, and surely the smell.
Apo is scared of her.
"Um," she starts. "I'm… sorry."
Shelby doesn't get a response. After a few moments longer she realizes that Apo isn't even throwing up, only dry-heaving. Her stomach is empty, and the thought makes Shelby so overwhelmingly upset that she decides she has to fix it somehow. She pulls up a chunk of flesh from the dead pig, perhaps a sign that she is still not quite thinking clearly, and holds it out.
"You don't have to drink human blood, you know," she says lightly. "Scott says it's not as filling, but animal blood works just fine."
"Well, if Scott says so, it must be true." Apo wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. The action is so graceful that Shelby's stomach churns with the effort not to reach out and grasp, touch, hold.
The girl doesn't turn around, and Shelby doesn't blame her. "I, I wasn't lying when I said I wanted you to come back." She places a hand to her stomach again.
Shelby looks down at their bloodstreaked hands and tries to resist the urge to run her tongue over the red fluid, just to get as much as possible. "I know no one else wants me there. You don't… you don't need to lie." Not to me, is what she wants to add.
"They— they will— they'll understand. They'll understand you." There's something bitter in Apo's tone now. "They won't be mad at you."
"How am I supposed to believe that when you're too scared to tell them what happened to you?"
"Because they love you!"
"They burned my house down!"
"Avid burned your house down, and I can count on one hand the amount of people who don't want him dead!"
"I am not leaving my family for the people who tried to burn me alive, and definitely not for a hypocrite like you!"
She'd been thinking it for a while, but even as she says it it doesn't feel right. She can't hate them, and she definitely doesn't blame them.
So why does it hurt so bad to know she's been rejected again?
"Shelby, please," Apo says softly. "You of all people have to get it. You have to."
"Get what?"
Apo finally turns around, and that horrified expression is gone from their features, replaced by something a little too sad to be called neutral. They survey the mess Shelby has made in silence before answering. "I told Martyn and he told everyone."
Shelby scuffs the dirt with her bare foot.
"So I thought that if he couldn't understand me then you would. You don't want to hurt anyone any more than I do."
"Do you think I'm disgusting?" It comes out so quiet Shelby isn't sure that Apo's heard her. "Because I asked for it? Because I wanted it?"
She doesn't wait for an answer, and instead steps closer to Apo; for once, they don't back up, they don't move away. They're so close she could reach out and touch their face, if not for fear of dirtying it with the blood of a wild animal. "Would you still want me to understand you if I said that I've thought about biting you?" Her voice comes out so pitifully thin that she can't even pretend that she sounds menacing.
Apo tilts her head forward. "I'm dead, Shelby. There's nothing for you to take from me."
"I know," she whispers. "But I can't stop thinking about it."
Another thought lingers in the air between them — as much as they both wish he weren't, Scott is haunting everything about their lives.
Apo cups Shelby's face in her hands and gently places her lips against theirs, in what may be the messiest kiss Shelby will ever experience. They can feel Apo trying to lick the blood from their face, and their teeth sink ever so slightly into Apo's bottom lip. It's so much warmer and kinder than the feel of Pyro's fangs in their neck and the water that seeped into her socks that evening, and Shelby doesn't want anything more than to stay in this moment forever and never think about Scott again.
She wants Apo so much it's painful. She pushes Apo back against a tree, and pauses. "Is this— are you—"
"Yeah," she answers. "Yeah, it's okay."
Shelby kisses her again. It doesn't matter that there's no blood in either of their lips, as she barely notices the cold. In fact, her muscles have loosened and don't hurt anymore, and for the first time since she was a little kid she feels like someone wants her. Like she's a human being.
So this is what it is, Shelby thinks. I didn't want to kill her after all.
When Shelby lets go, Apo wipes a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth with her thumb. "Wanting to be loved doesn't make you a monster."
"I don't…" She swallows. "I don't want to be like Scott."
There it is. She feels the tension in her chest release, just a little bit, and then she can't stop the words from coming out. "I thought that because you were worried about me there was something wrong with me for being happy and that I was some kind of freak for enjoying something that you thought was so miserable, but— but they're my family, and I can't just leave, I can't—"
"A family wouldn't lie to you and kill you."
Shelby's chest heaves. "It's my fault, I didn't try to stop Pyro or Scott."
Apo's hand lingers at Shelby's shoulder. Her skin tingles despite the layer of fabric between them. "Shelby, they were literally murdering you with their teeth, just because they could. That's not your fault."
It turns out that dead bodies can cry, or at least vampires can.
"It's not your fault either," Shelby says quietly, wiping her eyes. "What Martyn did wasn't fair."
Apo shrugs after a short moment. "I… I don't know. I don't think any of this is fair."
Shelby takes Apo's hand. "Well."
"Well."
"The sun's coming up now. Let's stay a little while longer."