Zoraida Córdova

What kind of vampire has freckles?

Less striking. Less charming. Less beautiful.
Just … less.

It helps in the way a single breath helps a drowning man, which is to say not much.

Outside, the hall is empty, the bracelet gone, rescued by someone else. The tide of students has thinned to a stream, the current heading one direction—the cafeteria—and Jules is thinking of skipping lunch, or rather the performance of it, and curling up in a corner of the library with a good book, when Ben Wheeler comes crashing into her.

She leans against Ben as they walk.
He smells good. Not bitable but likable, pleasant, homey.

Gay, that is. Not vampiric. Obviously.

She remembers Elinor before, of course; it’s only been a few years, and the truth is, she’s always been delicate; beautiful. But there’s no question that now she’s more. As if that first kill took who she was and turned up the volume, made everything sharper, stronger, more vibrant.
Juliette wonders what she’ll be like with the volume turned up, which parts of her will get loud. Hopefully not the voice in her head, doubting everything, or the nervous energy that seems to steal across her limbs. That would be her luck.

“She’ll show up,” says Ben, and she wants to believe him, and she wants to go home, and she wants to be here, and she wants to be more, and she wants to take a shot from the bar, wants to do something, anything to calm her nervous heart.

Sixty seconds isn’t much time.
Sixty seconds is forever.
Calliope smells good, of course she does, but it’s not her lotion or her ChapStick.
It’s her.

“Hunt,” answers Theo, the way someone might say drugstore or market or mall. As if it’s nothing. No big deal. Just another night.