Sucks to Suck – Chapter 12

“I think your problem is overthinking…”

Logan’s conclusion didn’t come from out of the left field, Marion considered as they were both leaning against the railing separating the raised portion of the Triskelion’s interior from the dance floor perhaps four feet below them. Marion had bought herself a dose of whisky for her to nurse so that she could avoid drawing suspicion to herself by the fact she wasn’t drinking. Everyone else was drinking, after all, and even Logan had a tall glass of vodka and lime juice, from which she sipped on occasion, taking her time. Their eyes scanned the crowd and Marion was already filled with intense regret over a number of things: for proposing this outing in the first place; for not backing out when she could’ve; and now for accepting Logan’s very awkward offer to help her with her ‘lack of game’. It would be a stretch to call it seduction, considering Marion's ineptitude at it. She had very few experiences with actual seduction and for the majority of them, she had been on the receiving end. She frowned as she brought her thoughts back to the present.

“You can say that again.” Marion nodded, taking a sip of her whisky.

The liquid passed through her mouth and tongue like it was burning but she stopped feeling it entirely as it passed the first few inches of her throat and was only vaguely aware of it hitting her stomach. Her empty stomach. That would generate some discomfort for her later on, but for now, it was important to maintain her cover and keep nursing it.

“Well, I’m very inclined to say ‘so just don’t’, but something tells me you thought of that one…”

They smiled at each other, mutually amused at the obviousness of the suggestion, and Marion’s mind was immediately taken by thoughts about how Logan's face lit up when she smiled, but now there was something else there. A faint blush on her cheeks perhaps? She couldn’t be sure with the dim, flickering lights inside the club, but she still found herself staring for half a second too long at her roommate and Logan moved her hand to her face, using a single finger to put a strand of her own light pink dyed hair behind her ear as she slowly turned her eyes away from Marion with what seemed like a bashful gesture. They turned their attention back to the dance floor and the rest of the club around it. Marion couldn’t remember the last time she saw Logan being coy about anything in the short time she knew her, and she wondered briefly what that was about. Was she staring too much? She had to get her hunger under control. That was the only explanation for why she would be doing it so much.

Her focus returned to her ‘hunt’ and soon she spotted a girl alone, halfway between the bar and the booths. Nobody was interacting with her of the people nearby, which made it easier to get her to somewhere discreet if Marion could somehow get her interested in making out in a corner.

“Okay, what about her? Red dress by the bar, with the black purse?” Marion asked a bit more directly.

“Uh… She’s alright, I guess? Did you notice her looking at you?”

“No, not really…”

That caused a mild raise of an eyebrow from Logan.

“Hm… Okay,” she said and paused for a moment. “Is she your type?”

“I mean…” Marion shrugged. “I don’t know if I have a type. She’s alone though, doesn’t that make things easier?”

Logan didn’t seem to like what she heard, frowning for a moment and shaking her head from side to side a bit emphatically.

“Not necessarily.”

“I mean, would be harder if she was with a group… Right?”

“Well, yes, but… If she’s not eyeing you and she’s not your type, why even go there, you know? The chances of anything happening are slim… And, like, most girls are into guys and all that… And even if something happens, wouldn’t you rather go for a girl you feel like… A stronger pull towards?”

As Logan spoke, Marion found her eyes too fixed on her lips, and then her gaze slithered across her chin to eye her neck. She could almost see Logan’s pulse through the vein she knew laid there, just under her skin. Yes, she would much rather go for a specific girl, but it was a bad idea to feed on one’s roommate, as conveniently as that would make things for Marion. She closed her eyes, briefly remembering that image in Logan’s vampire book; a vampire feeding on another girl in the bathroom of a seedy club. She took a deep breath and shrugged.

“You’re not wrong… It’s just… I feel like…”

“Like you’re missing out?” Logan guessed.

Marion was about to correct her and point out that that wasn’t it. She couldn’t really tell Logan that she had to feed though. And maybe Logan wasn’t too far off, she decided. Why was she concerned about accuracy anyway, when all she needed was a plausible story?

“Y-yeah…” Marion dipped her head once.

“I get you,” she said but then paused for a moment longer and offered as a correction, “no, I’m starting to get you.”

‘I doubt that,’ Marion thought. But she decided to humour her.

“Are you now?”

“Look… I am not going to pry on what was going on with you before you moved in… And inviting you to move in with me wasn’t the smartest thing when I barely knew you…”

‘You are so very right,’ Marion thought, but she said nothing and just allowed Logan to carry on with her theory on ‘getting’ Marion.

“But it’s not hard to put two and two together… You’ve escaped something bad.”

“I…” Marion was a little surprised with the conclusion, given how close it was to reality. “How could you know?”

“I can tell by the way you sometimes flinch when someone goes to touch you; by the fact you’re always looking over your shoulder, especially the day we met… And you cut yourself climbing a fence? I mean, I don’t know if that’s true but even if it is, most people don’t climb fences if they aren’t trying to get away from something or someone fast. So, I guess what I’m saying is… It was pretty rough, wasn’t it?”

Marion was more than a little surprised. That didn’t describe her life before she met Logan, but it did describe the life she had led for a long time, decades ago. Before she freed herself and went solo. Before she left Mother. Her hands gripped the railing, and she tensed, trying hard not to betray the pain that came with the memories. Logan continued though:

“So, here’s what I think… You spent your teen years not kissing anyone, and now that you are free, you kinda wanna do that… But you’re here so focused on doing that, you’re not even thinking about which girl you want to kiss. Probably something that has happened to you before, maybe? Which is why you are so inside your own head about this?”

She was wrong in one regard, Marion knew exactly which girl she wanted to give the Kiss to, which girl she would love to feed on. Her eyes lingered on Logan’s neck again as she reminded herself of the many reasons why it would be a bad idea to do it. But beyond that, Marion could hear some sense in what Logan was saying. She felt a little embarrassed that someone decades younger than her could diagnose her so easily when she couldn't.

“My point is… I get wanting to make up for a lost time, but it will be more meaningful if it’s someone you have some chemistry with, some attraction…”

Marion wished it was that simple. That she could just pick someone she liked, enthral and feed on them until the end of her death. Which could be anywhere between two hours to two hundred years from now. But it was hard for a single mortal to provide enough to sustain her kin without ruining that mortal’s life. Depending on how much she fed, her prey could take a couple of days to recover, and sometimes up to three or four. And even if she was starving herself, skirting close to the limit, she would still need to feed at least weekly, to some degree.

She was wondering how she could explain that to Logan without betraying her cursed nature. She couldn’t, of course. There was no analogy or lie that could explain all that. She sighed.

“It’s not that simple… I mean, sure that would be nice but there’s… There’s a lot more involved if I wanted to find someone special that… Uh… It’s just more complicated than that…” Marion trailed off, giving up.

Logan hummed and pondered over Marion's chewed-up, incomplete explanation. She drummed with her fingers on the railing, which was impossible to hear over the music, but Marion could see it and feel the vibration, as Logan mused for a moment.

“I think I gotcha.”

“You do?” Marion sounded doubtful.

“Yeah, I mean… It’s pretty obvious when I think about it for a moment. It’s, like, ‘duh, Logan, think!’, you know? Right now you’re not looking to get entangled with anyone new… So why would you be looking for someone too special, right? You just want to do it, to suck face with someone, to show yourself that you can,” she said with superficial confidence but then her face shifted to sudden uncertainty as she asked afterwards, “right?”

Marion got the sense that the explanation was done for Logan’s own sake as much as her own. She didn’t pretend to understand her roommate, but it seemed clear to her that Logan wanted what she proposed to be true, to some degree. And sure, Marion could give her that. She wasn’t ways off, considering how little she knew.

“Well… Yes, okay. It’s not how I would put things, but that’s close enough.”

“Nosy Logan,” the pink-haired girl said, pointing to herself. “Sorry that I’m all up in your business, Marion, I should probably shut up and let you figure your own stuff out…”

“No, don’t…” Marion said a bit too quickly, “I mean… I’ve been trying to figure my stuff out for a while. I am not good at it.”

Logan sighed, and her face seemed taken by a sudden sadness that Marion couldn’t understand until she sighed again and shook her head.

“I hate when Isabella’s right.”

“What? What is she right about?”

“Never mind, Marion.” Logan lifted her head and forced a bittersweet smile. “Let’s find someone for you to suck face with. I feel like… You kinda need it, right?”

“Yeah…”

“So, if I have to wingman for you, I can do that.”

“Well… That would be nice but… I also need to do this on my own. It was bad of me to ask you to help.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“Still…”

“No, no, I get it. Wingman was… Too much, but…”

Marion paused for a moment and thought of the game she had witnessed and the image in Logan’s book. Perhaps this was a crazy idea, but nothing of what she had tried so far had worked, so she was considering ditching ‘sane’ for a night.

“At the risk of embarrassing myself even further…” Marion said, “you know the game I watched you guys play?”

“Yeah, of course…”

“If this was part of the game… If you were a vampire seeking to feed here… How would you do it?” Marion asked.

Logan snickered, and Marion felt that if she had more blood inside her, her cheeks would no doubt be on fire. Even in her partially fed state, they still warmed up as she watched Logan cover her snake-bite-pierced lips with her hands for a moment and her snickering turned into a poorly suppressed laugh.

“Alright. Stupid thing to ask.” Marion sighed and got up from the railing. “I’ll just… Be in a corner until you guys are ready to go home.”

She was mortified, and she turned to remove herself from the scene as fast as possible, but Logan reached out and grabbed her wrist. Marion wished that she had not used the trick to warm herself as she had done with the doorman, and her arm no doubt felt very cold. But also, that touch caused Marion to feel a tingling in her upper jaw where her fangs were.

“Wait, Marion…”

Marion turned and Logan thankfully released her arm. She did seem to frown slightly at how cold it felt, but it wasn’t cold enough to set any further alarm bells in her mind before she immediately seemed to forget it to continue with what she was saying.

“I’m sorry I laughed… It was a very unexpected question, that’s all.”

“Yes, and a stupid one…”

“No, it wasn’t… Maybe a strange one? But that doesn’t mean it’s not, you know, a useful way to put things.”

“Yeah, I can see how impressed you were…” Marion commented a little bitterly.

Logan leaned back against the railing, placing one of her hands on it while the other kept holding her drink.

“I said I’m sorry I laughed, come on…” Logan insisted, “you want me to answer?”

Marion gave that last question some pondering. She figured she had very little to lose. Before she asked and got laughed at, she had her dignity. But now that seemed like it had been already lost in the wager.

“Fine, yes.”

“Good!” Logan perked up. “So… If you were a vampire, and you wanted to get a girl alone to sink your fangs into her…”

Marion swallowed dry, feeling a very strange tingle across her neck and spreading down to the tip of her breasts at hearing Logan talk about her fangs and the idea of her feeding on someone. Logan continued, unaware of the effect of her words:

“You would need to find a girl that is alone but also one that’s… A little bit into you at least. Or maybe make her into you… So, you know, find a way to connect and don’t really make a move until it seems like she wants you to make a move.”

“Uh…” Marion began but Logan lifted a finger to interrupt her.

“No, no, I know. Not that easy but… Think about it this way; if a vampire was starving for blood, and they went hunting with only that in mind… They would likely finish the night starving even more, right? It’s just not how vampires do things… Not the ones who are good at it, at least”

‘Well, first of all; how dare you?,’ Marion thought to herself, feeling rather attacked as she crossed her arms, holding the whisky near the nook of her elbow. She huffed and there was more than a little anger boiling inside of her at the critique, but she tried her hardest to suppress it.

“So, I guess what I am saying is that a vampire treats every prey as if they don’t actually need to feed on them… And if they do that, they can always find a next one. So, it’s all about trying to strike some rapport and connection, but leaving enough uncertainty, enough space that the prey will want to fill that void. The social version of working with negative space,” Logan offered finally, after rambling for a moment and seeming to enjoy the conclusion she landed on.

Marion found herself frowning. She would be less upset if Logan had been utterly unhelpful, but her criticism was rather pointed. So pointed that it almost seemed like she knew what Marion was doing wrong.

“What if… The vampire’s not good at that?”

“Look, I’m not great at flirting but… When I play an NPC…”

“A what?”

“Uh… A character in the game which is neither one of the players.”

“Oh, right, right…”

“When I play one of those and I need them to flirt with the players, I just fake flirt… And often fake flirting and flirting for real look the same on the surface. Fake is just easier 'cause there are no stakes,” Logan offered, “so, like… Forgetting all the vampire stuff. Just go out there and pretend really hard that there are no stakes. Maybe there actually aren’t any…”

“I mean… Sure, but who would I even…”

Logan's expression shifted very quickly from her thoughtful, ponderous face to a gleeful grin of pure mischief. And the transformation was so abrupt that Marion never got to finish her sentence as Logan stepped towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Marion flinched slightly, but the black cat hoodie in the way prevented the coldness of her skin to be a problem. Logan guided her to turn and spot what seemed to be two young women, who looked to also be in their early twenties, standing right next to the bar, but their drinks were still in hand. Both were dressed entirely in black, with dark-themed makeup and a few lace and leather accessories. But the reason Logan was pointing them out to Marion seemed to be the shorter one of the pair, with long wavy blonde hair. She was looking straight at Marion as she turned and held her gaze for a moment before looking away and whispering something to her friend.

“Is she your type?” Logan asked with a mischievous tone, also close to Marion’s ear.

“I mean… She is a little cute.”

“She’s been looking at you since I turned, probably longer…” Logan commented and Marion could hear the amusement in her voice, along with something else that was harder to identify; some conflicting emotion.

“Really?”

“Mhm… I don’t think I need to spell it out for you what that likely means, right? I mean, you’re not that naïve.”

“I’m not,” Marion assured her.

“So…” Logan's hands shifted from resting on Marion's shoulder to placing both of them on her back and gently pushing her forward.

That felt strange, for a moment. She had hoped for an opportunity to hunt while she was in the club, sure, but perhaps part of her was hoping there would be no opportunity. She could not fail if she didn’t try, after all, and despite how often she failed, it never really got much easier. Sure, she wouldn’t beat herself up for days about every single dud night anymore, she abandoned that a long time ago, but they still left a bitter aftertaste that lasted for days.

As she started to approach the two girls, wondering how she would even begin the interaction, the dark-haired one waved to her friend and walked off to the bar, and to Marion’s surprise, she found that the blonde girl maintained eye contact with her as she approached. She was even… Welcoming, if that was possible. No, it couldn’t be that easy, it had never been that easy before and she had been doing this for a long time. This had to be a false start and she was inching away towards failing, she knew. Because that was what she did every time. This would just be a new type of failure.

And consumed by those thoughts, she halted in front of the girl and felt a tightness in her chest. Why was she this insecure? She had struck out before a hundred if not thousands of times. Was it because Logan was watching her? Was it because for once she cared what someone else besides her thought? No. She didn’t care.

“Hey,” Marion greeted, casually, “I really dig your dress.”

‘What was that?’ Marion thought immediately as the girl smiled towards her and briefly looked down at her own dress, pinching the fabric of the skirt briefly before releasing it and then looking up back towards the approaching vampire.

“Thank you, I like your hoodie,” she commented with a brief nod towards Marion.

The vampire resisted raising an eyebrow in confusion. It was really nothing special, and even though it was probably the least inconspicuous piece she owned, it was fairly unremarkable. Just two bright cat eyes across her chest in an otherwise plain kangaroo-style hoodie. Well, it had a tail, which she removed for obvious reasons. And ears.

“Oh, really?” Marion casually smiled in surprise, deciding not to suppress her unexpected reaction to the compliment. “It’s so…” and she shrugged.

“Well, you pull it off,” the girl offered, “I’m Mel.”

“I’m… Raven,” Marion lied.

“Oh, for real?” Mel smirked. “That’s such a cool name.”

‘Glad I picked it then,’ Marion thought.

“Pff, it is not… Not once you get used to it.”

Marion lied, and lying came naturally to her kin. If that was a gift of the vampiric bloodline that had ingrained itself into her veins or just a matter of survival, she wasn’t sure. She could barely remember much of her life as a mortal, but she remembered that lying came with guilt, shame and hesitation. She had the vague idea of feeling that when she had to hide a secret or misdeed. When she lived with Mother though, lying came only with fear. Fear of being found out, and nothing else. After she left, the fear was also gone. Now it was just nothing.

Marion found herself pretending that she was Raven, a totally different person, and that she was performing just as Logan’s players had. She decided in her mind that Raven was also a vampire, but not a starving, inept hunter. She was smooth, and clever, and could talk circles around her prey. And while Marion wasn’t sure if she was up to emulating those characteristics, she didn’t let any hesitation show, because Raven wouldn’t. Raven carried a smirk on the corner of her lips as if she knew something that whoever she was talking to did not, and she was nice and warm, but not too accessible. She answered every question with playful dismissal and warmth, and acted just a little aloof, looking around the room at times and asking Mel to repeat herself as if her mind was miles away, when in truth, she had heard it perfectly. If someone failed the hunt that night, it wouldn’t be Marion. It would be Raven. Marion didn’t know why that worked, but it did take some of the pressure off.

It took some effort to maintain that half-interested guise, though. And also, some self-control. At the first signs that Mel was falling for it in how she leaned closer, and laughed just a bit too much at Marion's – or was it Raven’s? – mild jokes, it made Marion feel her jaw start to tingle softly as her fangs ached to be pushed out. Eventually, she moved closer to the girl and focused on her arm, letting it warm up to a passable temperature before brushing the back of her hand against the back of the girl's hand as they talked, and acting like it was an accident. Mel blushed, and Marion could almost smell all that warm blood, full of life, flowing to her face. And then she caught Mel’s eyes drifting briefly towards the bar, where her other friend was watching over her like a hawk. Perhaps just like Logan was doing to Marion, though Marion made sure not to look back towards her own friend. She couldn’t bear to look at Logan while she did this, she didn’t know why. It just felt dirty to think about doing so. If she was honest, she would have to admit that it felt a little dirty to merely be there talking to Mel knowing Logan was in the room.

But Raven didn't care about that. The memories of sinking her fangs in the flesh of that man that attacked her in the alley and of months before of her last successful hunt, came red hot into her mind. The memory of feeling skin rend and the warmth of pure life essence flowing through one’s lips, soaking them and her tongue and seemingly infusing her with warmth with every inch it travelled inside her. And Raven craved feeling that again more than any strange feeling Marion felt. Marion barely recognized herself as she brought her hand to brush softly against Mel’s face, caressing along the line of her chin.

“So… How long are you going to make me stand here before you let me kiss you?”

Marion was almost surprised to hear herself saying it, and her muscles tensed when the words were done leaving her lips. Mel’s flush deepened and all Marion could smell was the sweet scent of her skin, and the vague hint of the iron taste of her blood lingering just beneath it. She managed not to show in her face how tense she had become, freezing it in Raven’s smirk, but inside she was certain Mel was about to turn heels and walk back to her friend, perhaps with a hurtful dismissal beforehand; perhaps with nothing but silence, which would somehow be worse.

But then, she didn’t. She let out a coy smile and merely came closer. Marion’s heart started to race and she moved closer too, focusing on her face and her lips, pulling the blood from her heart to them to make sure they blushed with warmth and life as they met Mel’s. The sweet taste of her cherry-flavoured lipstick came before their lips parted and her tongue brushed against Marion’s lips, beckoning them to do the same. They kissed, for a moment that felt both too long and too short, and by then, Marion had her hands on the girl’s waist. And she leaned against her body.

She had not fed yet, but this was the furthest she had gotten in a long time. She moved her hands to brush against the girl's sides through the dress, thanking the fabric that the coldness on them wasn’t easy to feel, as she grazed her lips with her teeth and looked around the club. Nothing else mattered in the world to her right now, other than feeding. But where could she go to feed discreetly?

That image flashed in her mind again. Logan’s book. She focused on her hand, feeling the warmth flow there from her face as she looked at Mel and said commandingly:

“Come…”

She didn’t use her power to command Mel, she didn’t have to. Somehow, she knew that she wouldn’t need it, as Mel took her hand and followed her without hesitation towards that passage next to the bar. The dark corridor had two archways past the entrance towards the right, which led to the men’s and women’s washrooms respectively, but as a quirk of the construction perhaps, the corridor continued into a dark dead end with unlit alcoves on either side. Marion guided Mel towards one of those, to then place her hands on her waist and push her back ever so gently against the wall of the alcove. Mel sighed as she was pushed there, and her hands shifted to grab Marion’s face and pull her into another kiss.

Their tongues danced together for a long moment and inside the vampire, her hunger stirred to a point where each second she restrained her fangs from coming out seemed like an eternity. Her mouth asked to release them and let them out, and she could feel the tingling in her upper and lower jaw intensify to the point it felt as if there was something buzzing under her skin. The smell of Mel’s youthful energy, her passion, her desire, poured through her skin and Marion could smell the blood pumping inside her veins. She could feel the girl’s heart pulsing, and how her own unbeating heart ached with jealousy. Death envies life. That was her first lesson after she was turned. That was her most vivid memory of the past when everything else was a haze.

That was the one lesson from Mother she could never unlearn. Death envies life. It seeks it and preys on it, and try as she might to be something else, she’d never be more than a leech. And she hated it, most of the time. But as the thrill of being so close to feeding on actual, live prey overtook her, she remembered why it was so dangerous. She hadn’t felt that with the man that attacked her. It was too fast, the hunger had had no time to simmer in his scent and the idea of draining him. It was still there, but like a person fresh from slumber, half-aware and groggy. Not now. Now it moved at full power, aware, energetic. Demanding. It knew what it wanted and Marion had no choice in all her being but to give in to it.

She shifted from the kiss to go towards Mel’s neck, nuzzling it, finding that throbbing vein with her nose and lips and then Marion opened her mouth and finally released her fangs. She could feel something inside her stir warmly at the sensation of letting them out, more than pure relief, it was near ecstasy. And then, anticipating Mel’s scream, she sunk her fangs into her neck and covered her mouth. The skin broke and she cried, but Marion’s mouth and the loud music silenced it pretty effectively. For a moment she desperately pushed Marion away, as her blood flooded the vampire's lips. Marion was way too strong for a small girl to push away, she was helpless like a lamb in the slaughter block. As the crimson liquid poured down Marion’s throat, though, and she swallowed the first gulp, she felt Mel’s resistance fade into nothing. And then as she continued to drink, she released the girl's mouth in time for her to let out a moan of pleasure while Mel brought a hand to the back of Marion’s head, to hold her against the open wound.

She was in bliss too. That was it. The Kiss. Sharp, intense pain followed by a state of euphoric oblivion. She was there, but she was hardly aware of anything happening around her. She was conscious but dissociating. By the time the Kiss was done, her brain would fill in the gaps, and it would still be soaking in the aftermath of the pleasure induced by the Kiss. Marion continued to drink, feeling herself growing stronger and more alive with every gulp. Her heart began to beat again, her skin flushed with warmth and colour, her breath returned to full power and her senses sharpened. Which created a feedback loop. The more she could smell and taste the blood, the more she wanted to drink it, and the more she drank it, the more acutely her senses could experience it.

It always felt like she was walking on the edge of how hard it was to stop herself before she took too much. She remembered the game, and Logan declared that Pandora’s thirst had caused her to overdrink and kill the girl at the bus stop. Somehow, that memory, hearing that in Logan’s voice, made her baulk back immediately. Despite feeling weak, Mel still tried to push Marion’s head back against her open wound. Marion pressed her tongue against it, causing it to seal as she held it there, and then she licked the leftover blood from the girl’s neck.

Mel went limp, her arms hanging next to her body as her legs gave in, and Marion held her in place. At full strength, the girl weighed next to nothing to her. She kept her propped up and waited for her to come back to her senses. She did, slowly, confused, and Marion almost forgot to retrieve her fangs. Mel looked at her, and while it was dark, she could barely see, but Marion saw her face perfectly. Her eyes adjusted to the low light like those of a cat or owl.

“What…”

“I think you had too much to drink,” Raven spoke, surprising Marion once again with how quickly and easily she could lie.

“I… Yeah…”

“We were, you know… Making out and you almost fell,” Raven continued.

“Oh, shit… Did I? That’s so embarrassing…” Mel said, chuckling, and touching the spot on her neck where Marion had Kissed her.

“Sorry… Hickey.”

Marion was almost scared of herself. Not only had she hunted with success, she felt like a true member of her kin, every bit as deceitful, cunning and remorseless. She would hate herself soon, but right now, the high of the Kiss spoke louder than anything else.

“Oh… Yeah…” Mel offered, and Marion stepped back to give her room to walk.

She took a few wobbly steps forward, and Marion held her hand. Soon she’d recover her balance, and the weakness wouldn’t truly hit her until a few hours from now. By then the sun should be up.

“I’ll take you to your friend, but I think you should go home… You drank way too much.”

“No, yeah… Definitely, I overdid it.”

“Just… Drink lots of water and brace for a killer hangover tomorrow,” Marion suggested.

Luckily by the time they walked back to the bar, Mel was stumbling less on her walk and just seemed a bit light-headed. Marion got an awkward suspicious glance from her friend but Mel seemed to be really happy, and Marion knew she was riding a similar high. She insisted on exchanging numbers and, for some reason, Marion accepted it, knowing fully well that it was bad to have done it. She gave a fake name for a reason, and now the girl had a link to her life. She needed to change phones soon, she reckoned.

She turned around and found Logan standing near Sam, Alex and Isabella by the railing overlooking the dance floor, where she left her, and she walked towards them with a spring in her step, feeling the pulse of new vibrant life inside her. She had forgotten how different the real thing was. Or maybe she had made herself forget so she wouldn’t feel so bad drinking from a bag. She could still smell Mel’s perfume clinging to her clothes, and the aftertaste of her blood on her tongue.

But as she closed the distance, she didn’t need her sharp senses to see that Logan's mood had soured a lot since their talk. She was expecting to have some playful banter about her success, though she’d omit the part about drinking blood, of course. But Logan seemed somewhere between angry and disheartened, and as Marion approached them, Isabella gave Logan a brief squeeze to her arm, something Marion suspected she was not supposed to see, and Logan forced a tired smile.

“What’s wrong?” Marion asked as soon as she rejoined the group.

Isabella seemed a bit incredulous at first at the question, for whatever reason, but then she frowned as if she had just caught an awful smell in the air.

“Geez, Marion…”

“What?”

“Your aura… It is positively wicked.”

Marion felt as if she was standing naked there, and she had to remind herself that Isabella was just a wannabe new-age kid and she couldn’t really see auras or anything. Logan poked Isabella’s side and said in a bit too serious of a tone:

“Isa, cut it.”

“Está bien, chica,” Isa said and turned to Marion. “Nevermind that… We should go, though.”

“I…”

“I’m not feeling too good,” Logan said simply, and unconvincingly.

She was fine moments ago. But Marion wasn’t willing to argue with her.

“Isa can’t take the public transport back to her place until the morning, so… She’s gonna crash with us on the couch,” Logan said a bit too curt towards Marion as she broke from Isabella’s hold. “I’m going to go outside to call us an Uber.”

Marion watched the pink-haired girl depart, and the high of the feeding now was strangely tainted by a heavy unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hated that, and she couldn’t help but feel Logan had been the one to kill her buzz. She wished she didn’t feel the resentful anger that she experienced then, but it was there, as she watched Logan walk away

“Frankly, Marion…” Isabella said simply.

Marion exploded in impatience, tired of not fully grasping what was going on around her.

“Good grief, what is it!”

“Bah.” Isabella shook her head. “If you don’t get it, you don’t.”

And with those words, she started to walk towards the entrance to catch up with Logan. Marion rolled her eyes and looked to Sam and Alex, expecting to find a hint of complicity in them, who were probably equally frustrated with Isabella's cryptic behaviour and Logan's mercurialness. But she found them looking halfway between uncomfortable and disapproving, and that was the last drop.

She couldn’t believe Logan had ruined the first night she truly felt like she knew what she was doing in so many months, maybe years. Served her right, for showing her vulnerable side to a mortal, she reckoned, as she just waved and muttered an impatient ‘good night’ towards the two of them, and followed the other girls towards the entrance with that strange heavy feeling in her stomach mixing in with resented frustration, in a rather unpleasant cocktail. She was thankful she had fed because if she was in such a bad mood moments after, she could only imagine how she would’ve felt without the high Mel had provided.