LOVE, LIKE BLOOD

It was the second time we had to move cities since my death.

I still remember the first time vividly. I was thirteen.

And no, that wasn't even the first time I'd actually died. Just... the first time it happened in public.

With too many eyes watching, too many witnesses.

A truck hit me. Brutal doesn't even begin to describe it.

Skull crushed. Bones disfigured. Limbs twisted in ways no one walks away from.

There was no story we could've told that anyone would've believed. No one survives that.

Although it was never hard to cook up survival stories since we always had our kind in hospitals, as doctors and nurses. They helped with cover-up stories and fake diagnoses.

I'd always thought that kind of cool...

I wasn't even taken to the hospital at the time, our people were the ones in charge of the ambulance that day.

They drove my mom and me straight to the House of Silence. Others had already been summoned for our farewell. My dad packed up everything we needed from the house, and by nightfall, we were gone.

There's always a House of Silence in every town we've lived in. It's what we call the abandoned homes our kind uses - for dark meetings, quiet arrivals, and final goodbyes. The name was passed down through generations, like a prayer whispered in the dark.

Always deep in the woods. Always empty.

To the human world, these houses were just ruins - haunted, forgotten, avoided.

To us, they were sacred. Untouched by time. Humming with ancient memories.

We've got a way of making everything look spooky on purpose. It keeps humans out.

Most people swear we don't exist. Others think we're myths - rare, extinct, maybe once real but now buried in folklore, long gone or ancient.

But the truth? We're everywhere.

In schools. At the grocery store. In your office. Behind the DJ booth at the club. Smiling at you from across a candlelit table at dinner.

Some of us are born. Some are turned.

But we're watching. Always have been.

After my first public death, we moved to New York.

For a while, it felt like I'd actually started living.

I never imagined I'd have to leave so soon.

I had finally made friends. I was well-liked, popular even.

One of the best female athletes in the entire school.

And honestly, why wouldn't I be?

I loved my friends. I trusted them.

There were even days I let myself believe I could open up to them, really open up.... about who I was. About what I was.

But I was wrong.

My mom had warned me never to make friends outside my kind.

I didn't listen.

I went against everything she said. I wanted to feel normal, to believe I wasn't that different from any other teenager.

"Humans have emotions that get them into trouble... they're too weak for the kind of feelings that take over their hearts," she would always tell me.

What would someone who hadn't lived a quarter of human life possibly know about their emotions?

I'd asked myself.

Unluckily for me, one of my closest friends - Olivia - had a boyfriend.

A charming, lying predator who flirted with me in secret, even tried to force himself on me.

My mistake? I didn't tell her.

I thought I could handle it without hurting her.

I loved her too much to break her heart with the truth.

But when I finally threatened to come clean, he beat me to it.

Twisted the whole story.

Created fake texts to make it look like I was the one chasing him.

Olivia confronted me in the chemistry lab that afternoon.

Top floor. Everyone else was at lunch.

We argued - voices low but sharp.

I would never put myself in a position to fight any of my friends.

We weren't the same. Not in strength. Not in nature.

But things escalated. We struggled.

Then she grabbed me - fingers tight around my neck beside the window.

And just when I decided to push her off, my elbow smashed through the glass... and I fell.

It wasn't fast.

That's the part people never understand about falling - how slow it can feel.

Like time stretches out just to let your thoughts catch up.

I died with the pain of knowing that it would be my last day in New York. The city I finally called home - gone, just like that.

I wasn't even awake for the journey.

By the time I opened my eyes, we were already in Ravenshollow.

A cold, gray town with skies that always looked like they were about to cry.

Thick forests were visible from every side, and the houses sat too still, like they were watching. Waiting.

Our kind liked places like this - hidden and quiet.

But to me, it felt like exile.

No noise. No excitement. No friends.

Just the sharp taste of betrayal still stuck in my mouth... and the lingering memory of Olivia's furious face at the chemistry lab.

I hated the idea of starting all over again. And the fact that it was going to be like this for the rest of my life made me wonder how I was going to keep up.

I had spent most of the first week in Ravenshollow, locked up in my room.

The only time I stepped downstairs was to grab snacks or a cold soda from the fridge.

Being an actual seventeen-year-old born vampire, one who had never tasted human blood, made me realize just how different I was from my parents... and from others like us.

I didn't have to lie about my age yet.

I still looked my age, still acted like a teenager.

And unlike most of our kind, I actually liked human food.

I craved chips, chocolate, and warm bread.

Not veins.

The hunger for blood, the real kind, had never touched me.

My parents never talked about it much, but I saw the way they looked at me sometimes.

Curious. Maybe even a little concerned. Like they were waiting for something inside me to switch on.

Like one day I'd just... snap.

But so far? Nothing.

No thirst. No visions. No cravings.

Just me, a girl in sweatpants, binge-watching horror movies that didn't scare me.

I wasn't normal-not by human standards, and not by vampire ones either. I was something... in between.

And that terrified me more than any stake-through-the-heart fairytale ever could.

That evening, I'd already heard my mom coming up the stairs before she knocked.

"Noah. I need to talk to you," she said from the other side of my door.

Yes, Noah.

Not Noaelia or Noelle. Just Noah-because mom said so.

I was six when I first asked her why she gave me a boy's name.

She'd brushed my hair back from my face, looked me straight in the eyes, and said.

"Because the world will already try to soften you. Your name shouldn't."

At the time, I didn't understand what she meant.

But now, I get it.

She wanted me sharp. Unforgettable.

She named me like a warning.

"Noah, are you in there?"

She was louder this time.

I opened the door and met her eyes.

I hadn't said much since we got here-not out of anger, but something worse.

Shame.

Shame for letting my guard down. For ignoring every warning she'd ever given me.

Mom had warned me countless times about human friends, how it always ends in blood.

And now? She was right - and I hated that.

"Do you need something?" I asked in almost a whisper.

"You can't lock yourself in there forever, sweetie," she said softly.

"Tomorrow's your first day at your new school."

The word SCHOOL stung like something sharp inside me.

Don't I get time to heal from what happened? Other kids will get therapy for something as brutal as that.

Although they wouldn't survive it, but..

"I need another week," I told her.

She narrowed her eyes.

"No... You need to get out of this room and walk around."

She reached for my hand and gently pulled me out of the doorway.

"Ravenshollow is a beautiful town. You should look around," she smiled. "I heard they make wonderful pasta downtown."

Pasta. Human food.

I thought.

She shouldn't care for that. Not even to please me.

Not when it reminded me of everything I'm not supposed to be.

You wanted to comfort me, but every time you've said things like that... it made me feel more like a mistake.

The tears came before I could stop them - sharp and hot, sliding down my cheeks like they belonged to someone weaker.

Why can't I just switch and feel nothing? Why is the feeling of betrayal still clinging to me like it just happened?

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be a real vampire.

Not this halfway thing.