Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

“Be still!” he ordered and gave me a hard shake. “You’ll kill yourself! If you’re crazy enough to try to jump out of a moving car, you should be in mental hospital.”

I stared down at the bleeding marks I’d made on his hand, and suddenly I was unable to think about anything else. I ducked my head and licked away the blood, licked the wound I had made. He tensed, almost pulling his hand away. Then he stopped, seemed to relax. He let me take his hand between my own. I looked at him, saw him glancing at me, felt the car zigzag a little on the road.

He frowned and pulled away from me, all the while looking uncertain, unhappy. I caught his hand again between mine and held it. I felt him try to pull away. He shook me, actually lifting me into the air a little,

trying to get away from me, but I didn’t let go. I licked at the blood welling up where my teeth had cut him.

He made a noise, a kind of gasp. Abruptly, he drove completely across the road to a spot where there was room to stop the car without blocking other cars—the few other cars that came along. He made a huge fist of the hand that was no longer needed to steer the car. I watched him draw it back to hit me. I thought I should be afraid, should try to stop him, but I was calm. Somehow, I couldn’t believe he would hit me.

He frowned, shook his head. After a while he dropped his hand to his lap and glared at me. “What are you doing?” he demanded, watching me, not pulling away at all now, but looking as though he wanted to—or as though he thought he should want to.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t getting enough blood from his hand. I wanted to bite him again, but I didn’t want him afraid or angry. I didn’t know why I cared about that, but it seemed important. Also, I knew hands weren’t as good for getting blood as wrists and throats were. I looked at him and saw that he was looking intently at me.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said. “It feels good. Which is weird. How do you do that?” “I don’t know,” I told him. “You taste good.”

“Do I?” He lifted me, squeezed past the division between the seats to my side of the car, and put me on his lap.

“Let me bite you again,” I whispered.

He smiled. “If I do, what will you let me do?”

I heard consent in his voice, and I hauled myself up and kissed the side of his neck, searching with my tongue and my nose for the largest blood source there. A moment later, I bit hard into the side of his neck. He convulsed and I held on to him. He writhed under me, not struggling, but holding me as I took more of his blood. I took enough blood to satisfy a hunger I hadn’t realized I had until a few moments before. I could have taken more, but I didn’t want to hurt him. He tasted wonderful, and he had fed me without trying to escape or to hurt me. I licked the bite until it stopped bleeding. I wished I could make it heal, wished I could repay him by healing him.

He sighed and held me, leaning back in his seat and letting me lean against him. “So what was that?” he asked after a while. “How did you do that? And why the hell did it feel so fantastic?”

He had enjoyed it—maybe as much as I had. I felt pleased, felt myself smile. That was right somehow. I’d done it right. That meant I’d done it before, even though I couldn’t remember.

“Keep me with you,” I said, and I knew I meant it the moment I said it. He would have a place to live. If I could go there with him, maybe the things I saw there would help me begin to get my memory back—and I would have a home.

“Do you really not have anywhere to go or anyone looking for you?” he asked.

“I don’t think I have anyone,” I said. “I don’t remember. I need to find out who I am and what happened to me and . . . and everything.”

“Do you always bite?”

I leaned back against him. “I don’t know.” “You’re a vampire, you know.”

I thought about that. The word stirred no memories. “What’s a vampire?”

He laughed. “You. You bite. You drink blood. He grimaced and shook his head. “My God, you drink blood.”

“I guess I do.” I licked at his neck.

“And you’re way too young,” he said. “Jailbait. Super jailbait.”

Since I didn’t know what “jailbait” was and I had no idea how old I was, I didn’t say anything.

“Do you remember how you got that blood on your clothes? Who else have you been chewing on?” “I killed a deer. In fact, I killed two deer.”

“Sure you did.” “Keep me with you.”

I was watching his face as I said it. He looked confused again, worried, but he held me against his body and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure how I’m going to do that, but yeah. I want you with me. I don’t think I should keep you. Hell, I know I shouldn’t. But I’ll do it anyway.”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be alone,” I said. “I don’t know who I should be with, though, because I

can’t remember ever having been with anyone.”

“So you’ll be with me.” He smiled and his confusion seemed to be gone. “I’ll need to call you something. What do you want to be called?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to give you a name?”

I smiled, liking him, feeling completely at ease with him. “Give me a name,” I said. I licked at his neck a little more.

“Renee,” he said. “A friend of mine told me it meant ‘reborn.’That’s sort of what’s happened to you. You’ve been reborn into a new life. You’ll probably remember your old life pretty soon, but for now, you’re Renee.” He shivered against me as I licked his neck. “Damn that feels good,” he said. Then, “I

rent a cabin from my uncle. If I take you there, you’ll have to stay inside during the day. If he and my aunt see you, they’ll probably throw us both out.”

“I can sleep during the day. I won’t go out until dark.”

“Just right for a vampire,” he said. “How did you kill those deer?” I shrugged. “Ran them down and broke their necks.”

“Uh-huh. Then what?”

“Ate some of their meat. Hid the rest in a tree until I was hungry again. Ate it until the parts I wanted were gone.”

“How did you cook it? It’s been raining like hell for the past few days. How did you find dry wood for your fire?”

“No fire. I didn’t need a fire.” “You ate the deer raw?” “Yes.”

“Oh God, no you didn’t.” Something seemed to occur to him suddenly. “Show me your knife.” I hesitated. “Knife?”

“To clean and skin the deer.” “A thing? A tool?”

“A tool for cutting, yes.” “I don’t have a knife.”

He held me away from him and stared at me. “Show me your teeth,” he said. I bared my teeth for him.

“Good God,” he said. “Are those what you bit me with?” He put his hand to his neck. “You are a damned vampire.”

“Didn’t hurt you,” I said. He looked afraid. He started to push me away, then got that confused look again and pulled me back to him. “Do vampires eat deer?” I asked. I licked at his neck again.

He raised a hand to stop me, then dropped the hand to his side. “What are you, then?” he whispered. And I said the only thing I could: “I don’t know.” I drew back, held his face between my hands, liking

him, glad that I had found him. “Help me find out.”

three

On the drive to his cabin, the man told me that his name was Wright Hamlin and that he was a construction worker. He had been a student in a nearby place called Seattle at something called the University of Washington for two years. Then he had dropped out because he didn’t know where he was heading or even where he wanted to be heading. His father had been disgusted with him and had sent him to work for his uncle who owned a construction company. He’d worked for his uncle for three years