In his mind, there was a voice.
It was smooth, like nectar dripping from a petal, like a cool rush of wind on a snowy night, like a whisper under someone's breath. It was talking to him but it felt more like it was prodding at him, like it dangled a needle above his skin and it would soon pierce through. It would make him bleed, if he let it. He would bleed, if it wanted him to.
Julien, it said. That is not the name I gave you.
It's not?
It is the name I gave my son, and you are not my son.
Listen—
I do not listen to the devil, it screamed now. I do not! Leave me. Leave me and never come back, devil.
But—
Devil. Devil. Devil.
The needle probed, and probed again.
And he bled.
Julien awoke in a cold sweat. The bed sheets clung to his clammy skin, his dark hair lank against his forehead, hanging in his eyes. He listened for the voice, that voice that was so near yet so far, so familiar yet so foreign—only it was gone. All he heard was the whir of the ceiling fan above his head, the distant sounds of cars humming along the streets somewhere below him.
He sat up, mopped his mouth. He felt flushed, alive, still high off the feed. How long had it been since he'd done that? Fed from a living, breathing, person, not an animal snatched from a tree? He couldn't remember. He wasn't sure it mattered. All that mattered was that he never did it again.
Julien didn't recognize the room he was in. It was small, consisting mostly of the queen-size bed he now occupied and the desk not far to the left of it. Throwing the gray comforter back, Julien got to his feet, padding across the carpet. The desk was littered with binders, papers, and textbooks, and a whiteboard calendar hung above it, midterm dates already marked. Julien's attention zipped to the cork board beside the calendar. It was covered in pictures printed on shiny photo paper; Iman smiled back at him from in front of Big Ben, or from the middle of a massive concert crowd, her arm tossed around a friend's shoulder, or from an outdoor cafe, Beck's arms around her waist. Everywhere, she smiled, her brown eyes crinkled at the edges. She was such a happy little thing. Julien couldn't recall if he'd ever been so carefree.
"Not stealing my jewelry, are you?"
Julien didn't jolt, because he'd known she was there. He'd heard her footsteps as they came down the hall, heard her heart pounding, alive, in her chest, smelled her blood from several feet away. He was a predator; it was natural, now. What he didn't like about being a predator was that everything was potential prey—even his closest friends.
Julien turned. "This is your room, isn't it?"
Iman eased the door shut behind her, leaning her weight back against it. She was still in the pair of black jeans and shimmery blouse she had worn to dinner, silver earrings dangling from her ears. Her aliveness was something palpable, oozing from her skin like an irresistible aura. Had she always been that way, Julien wondered? Or was everything particularly assaulting at the moment?
Iman nodded. "You couldn't tell?"
Julien pushed a breath out through his teeth, which were finally dull now that his hunger had been satisfied. "No. Well, yeah, I just—sorry. I didn't mean to kick you out of your own place. I just kind of passed out."
"Don't worry about it," Iman said, waving him off. "Beck and I took the futon, so it's fine."
"Beck," Julien said with sudden realization.
Iman's head tilted. She came to the end of her bed, sitting down on its edge. "What about him?"
"You told him? Everything?"
"No. I told him it was all a dramatization and that you're really an impeccable actor who's auditioning soon for the newest blockbuster vampire movie and didn't want to break character."
Julien blinked at her.
Moonlight spliced through the window, turning Iman's brown eyes to two topaz jewels. "Yes, I told him, you idiot."
"And—"
"And he's fine with it," Iman said, a grin crossing her face. "He's fine with you, and with me. In fact—you know what he said? He said he feels boring now because of us. He said he feels like he doesn't have anything special to him anymore."
That drew an unexpected laugh from Julien's throat. He left the desk behind, crawling onto the bed again and folding his legs underneath him. Squinting at the clock on the wall, he made out the long hand pointing to the 2. Jesus, he thought. How long have I been asleep? "That must be a joke. He's the most special out of all of us, because he's the normal one."
Iman shrugged. "You could put it that way."
Julien paused, unsure if his next words were the right ones to say. But he saw the smile on Iman's face, the faraway look in her eyes, and knew they were the right ones to say. He'd never seen Iman look like that, and it could only mean one thing. "I like him," Julien told her. Iman looked up at him, birdlike eyes watching him in silent question. "I like him, Immy. That's why I didn't want to touch him, because I like him for you. You seem...happy with him. That's what I want for you. I want you to be happy, love."
Iman blushed and turned away from him. "Oh, shut up."
"I'm serious," Julien said, dropping his voice so that she knew he meant it. "I am. You've been through so much shit, don't you think? I want you to rest now. You deserve to rest now."
"And what about you?" Iman snapped, whirling on him so suddenly that Julien nearly fell backwards. He was surprised to find no contempt in her expression, only overwhelming concern that appeared as contempt in her voice. "When do you get to rest?"
Julien touched Iman's cheek with a gentle thumb. "I am resting, amor. I am eternally resting. That's what it means to be dead."
"Jules," Iman said, frowning at him.
Sirens wailed in the night around them, momentarily coloring the room in technicolor red, blue, and white. Julien dropped his thumb. "Fine," he said. "You want me to tell you the truth?"
Iman narrowed her eyes. "I expect you to tell me the truth, dickhead."
"Harsh," Julien said, but allowed it. His memory echoed back to the grocery store parking lot, the strange, sad little squirrel, shriveled like a dry bean. "Look, it's—the reason I haven't fed much is because something else appears to be exhausting my food supply."
"Something else?" asked Iman. "Like what?"
"Like—illness," said Julien, knotting his fingers. "I saw a weird squirrel, er, carcass the other day. It was dead but weirdly dead, all shriveled up. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. And I've, you know, kind of been around a while."
Iman grimaced. "You're telling me one squirrel carcass is the reason you starved yourself?"
Julien jutted his chin. "I don't drink possibly infected blood."
"Possibly."
"Okay, but would you drink possibly poisoned wine?"
"You could argue that there's a possibility everything's poisoned, Jules!" Iman exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "Jesus. Don't you ever do that again, you hear me? It hurts. It hurts me to watch you suffer like that."
Julien wasn't sure just why the words struck him so, but regardless, they did. His eyes flitted towards the photos pinned to her cork board again, at Iman's smiling face, her cheeks puffy and her eyes squinty. He couldn't even imagine all the awful things he'd do to anyone who ever hurt that girl. So why was it so easy to throw himself away?
He got to his feet. "I should go."
Iman's hand around his wrist stopped him. "I know you're nocturnal, but stay, okay? For me? Just until I know you're okay."
Julien raised his eyebrows at her. "Immy, come on."
Iman only raised her eyebrows higher, tightening her grip on his arm. "Rest," she said. "And I mean really."
With a sigh, Julien collapsed back down onto the bed, sparing Iman a toothless grin.
Rest, he thought. I'm not even sure I know what that is anymore.