Thin. I was too thin. And pale. They say pale is the new tan, but only ghostly-white people believe that. Casper was friendly, never sexy.

Standing in front of the mirror, I flexed, willing my muscles to fill out my frame with rounded arms and sectioned abs. Instead they only twitched feebly under my skin, hinting at what could be after perhaps a year or two of concerted effort at the gym.

Whoever heard of such a thing, a vampire going to the gym?

Amend that, a lampir. If I was a full-blood, then I wouldn’t even cast a reflection, and honestly, I was starting to see the appeal. I leaned closer to the mirror. Was I losing hair? I tilted my head left and right while parting strands, but found little in the way of answers. Maybe my Rogaine regimen needed upping.

Sighing, I turned off the bathroom light and went to the kitchen. The woman was lying unconscious on the linoleum floor where I had left her, dressed in jeans and a low cut sweater. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing for one of those large dining tables from Restoration Hardware. The kind that could have easily accommodated an adult body with room to spare. Unfortunately, that sort of table just wasn’t practical for apartment living. At least not in the types of apartments that I could afford. Instead, I made do with a tiny, circular two-seater, which rarely got used because I did most of my eating on the floor.

Leaning down, I removed the quality control bag from over her head that read Satisfaction Guaranteed! in bright red letters and let out another sigh. She wasn’t very pretty. Not that I had expected a bombshell—the delivery service I used promised women in their twenties and thirties, not Victoria Secret models—but it was always nice when dinner had something special, like full lips or an upturned nose. No such luck today: dull brown hair framed forgettable, evenly spaced features. Shouldn’t that have made her pretty though? I had always heard that being symmetrical made you beautiful, but I guess you could just as easily be symmetrically fat or cross-eyed.

I shook my head as I tossed the bag into the nearby trash. Perhaps one day I’d have the money for better, but until I won the lottery, plain Jane it was. With a practiced move, I crouched down, teeth breaking skin.

She screamed, bolting upright and slamming her head directly into mine. I shrieked as well, toppling to the side.

The woman looked around wildly before seeing me and scrambling away. “Who are you? Where am I?”

For a moment I was completely overcome with shock, and not from the pain. After using Necks Direct for so long, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to one of my meals.

“I, um,” I stammered, as I got into a sitting position, “found you outside my apartment. In an alley.” That was good. Bad things always happened in alleys.

The woman’s face screwed up. “An alley…but I was leaving the supermarket…”

Shit. I didn’t have anything to say to that.

“What part of town is your apartment in?” she asked.

My address seemed like the last piece of information I should be giving her, but somehow it just spilled from my lips.

“What?” she said in a strangled gasp when I finished. “I don’t even live in the same state.”

I just shrugged, a bit surprised myself. I had always assumed the women I received were local.

She clutched herself, starting to rock back and forth. “Who?” she said. “Who would do this?”

Again, I shrugged, even though she wasn’t really looking at me. I didn’t have an answer, at least not one I thought it wise to give voice to.

“I’m bleeding,” she whispered suddenly, pulling a wet hand away from her neck.

“There was, uh, glass in the alley and you were lying in it,” I said.

She nodded slowly, eyes flicking over the rest of me before suddenly going wide. “Why is your shirt off?”

Immediately, I felt very self-conscious, and ridiculously crossed my arms over my nipples before I realized what I was doing.

“I, uh, didn’t have any towels of the right size for your cut, so I thought I’d rip off a piece of my, uh”—I spotted my shirt only a few feet away on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Thank the lord. I stood up and grabbed it—“my shirt. You know, like the movies.” I grinned sheepishly, but inside my heart was thumping crazily. Who in the hell would believe that?

She didn’t bat an eye though, only nodded again. “Oh.”

I looked down at the shirt, one of my favorites, white and soft, but having started down this absurd path, there was nothing for it. I went to rip it, but it only stretched. I could feel her eyes on me, so I tried again, pulling it further and grunting with the effort. I really did need to go to the gym.

“Do you—”

I looked up, the shirt still taught in my hands.

“Do you just have a paper towel or a tissue?” she asked almost apologetically. “It doesn’t seem that deep.”

“Sure,” I said, happy to wedge the shirt under my arm. I ripped a sheet from the countertop roll and then, thinking better of it, took a few more. I only ever used Bounty, but I didn’t want her thinking I was stingy.

“Thank you,” she said as I handed her the mass of paper. “And Bactine or maybe Neosporin?”

“Sure thing,” I nodded, already moving to the bathroom. Turning on the light, I noticed I was still bare-chested and so quickly yanked on the shirt. It looked like a sack on me after all the stretching.

Her voice carried down the hall. “You called the police, didn’t you? Or an ambulance?”

I froze in the act of opening the cupboard. “Of course,” I said. “They’re on their way.” My hands shook as they moved, taking the tiny tube of Neosporin out and shutting the door with a snap. This was not going well.

Walking back down the hall, I forced some calming breaths. I needed to decide what to do. What to do? She was conscious. She knew where I lived. I needed something heavy. I needed something blunt.

I smiled as I emerged from the hallway, but stopped mid-stride. She was gone. I looked around frantically before seeing her in my living room, lounging on my favorite chair.

“Sorry,” she said. “I suddenly just needed to sit on something that wasn’t the floor.”

The kitchen table was closer, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I smiled and handed her the Neosporin.

“Would you like something to drink? Water? Vodka?”

Air escaped her mouth, and I think in another time and place it would have been a laugh.

“Water, please,” she said.

“Coming up.”

She spoke to my back as I walked to the kitchen. “So, you carried me here…all by yourself?”

“Um, no.” Why didn’t I say yes? I could have done it. There’s an elevator. “My next-door neighbor happened to be out getting his mail when I saw you, and so he helped. He’s actually the one who called the cops and everything.” I glanced at her while I pulled out a glass and filled it from the sink.

“I should thank him.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yeah, he’s probably downstairs waiting for them to come. He’s a really good guy and was worried about you...” What was I doing? My next-door neighbors were a mother of four and an eighty-five-year-old man attached to a respirator. And I didn’t like either of them. “Did you want ice?”

“Oh, no, thank you.”

Walking back over, I smiled again, and this time she managed a bit of one herself as I handed her the tall cup.

“Sorry it’s tap,” I said, easing myself onto the nearby couch. “I know everyone these days has a Brita, but to be honest the water never really tasted different to me even with the flashing green light trying to convince me it was better, so I finally just went back to regular, but whenever I have guests I always feel guilty.”

“It’s fine,” she said with another little smile. And then over the rim of the glass, she paused. “I just realized that I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, extending my hand. “Stanley. Stanley Wentworth.”

She took it, although her grip wasn’t very strong. “Maria Brandt.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you Mar—”

Knock, knock, knock.

She let go immediately, turning to look at the door, and before I knew what I was doing, I picked up a candlestick from the end table and struck her on the back of the head with the weighted bottom.

It all came out as a knee-jerk reaction, but somehow the timing worked perfectly. The next series of knocks covered both the dull thump of metal hitting cranium and her thankfully small gasp of surprise. She slumped in the chair, limp fingers dropping the glass of water onto the floor. The carpet muffled the cup’s fall and stopped it from breaking, but her small sips hadn’t amounted to much, so a pool of water spilled out. I tsked in annoyance, but a soaked rug was the least of my worries right now.

As if on cue, the knocks sounded again, louder and this time accompanied by a male voice.

“Open up. This is the police.”

I dropped the candlestick, which clattered noisily as it fell between the end table and the chair. The police? I hadn’t called the police. I had been lying.

“I can hear you in there. Open the door.”

I looked frantically around my neat and organized apartment, suddenly wishing I lived a much more bohemian lifestyle, complete with spare pillows and throws I could use to quickly turn Maria into just another decorative lump. My eyes alighted on the closet, and without hesitation I grabbed her by the arms, dragging her right over the side of the chair. Her legs flopped comically after the rest of her body, but I didn’t stop grunting and pulling and pushing until I had her completely wedged under a row of coats. For good measure—because who knew how long she’d stay out—I took off my stretched shirt, using it as a gag, and locked the door as I closed it, an odd feature I had never truly appreciated until this very moment. Perhaps more vampires dabbled in architecture than I realized.

Knocking shook the door again, and this time it sounded as if the policeman were pistol whipping the wood.

“If you don’t open up right now I will force entry. You have until the count of three. One!”

“I’m coming!” I yelled, quickly double-checking the lock on the closet door before scrambling over and picking up the discarded glass. “I’m just getting dressed! I’ll be right there!”

“Two!”

I dashed to the kitchen, dropping the cup into the sink before rushing over to the door. I got it unlocked and yanked it open just as the young officer was sucking in breath to scream three. He was shorter than I expected, only a little taller than my shoulder, but his uniform was neatly pressed and the gun he was holding looked shiny and new. He quickly closed his mouth and holstered the weapon, but his hand didn’t stray far, resting on this hip, while the other pointed at me.

“Mr. Wentworth, I presume?”

“That’s right.” I glanced left and right down the hall before turning back to the officer. “Don’t you normally come in two’s?”

The shorter man lifted a brow. “Are you encouraging me to call for backup?”

“No,” I said, raising my hands defensively, “no, I just—”

“Screaming, Mr. Wentworth. Both a woman and a man’s voice were reported to be heard. Care to explain?”

Seriously? The brats next door yelled for hours at a time and no one called the cops on them. I hated being the new guy in the building. Zero trust.

The officer’s eyebrows, which were really quite thick, bunched together. “When people delay that usually means they’re preparing to lie. Don’t.”

“Um, no, see, the TV was on and I was watching a horror movie and well…I get scared easily,” I finished lamely.

The officer paused a moment before replying. “You’re telling me that the woman’s scream was from the television and that the man’s scream was yours in response to the show?”

I nodded trying to look embarrassed, which admittedly wasn’t very hard.

The officer paused again, the fingers of his free hand rubbing his chin while he stared me down.

Vampires are famous for their mind powers, such as hypnotizing their prey, and lampirs have access to some of these abilities. I’d honestly never been very good at them, especially not when it came to manipulating another person’s thoughts, but at this point I was willing to try just about anything.

I returned the officer’s stare, but in a timid way, so as not to set off alarm bells, and at the same time began a chant in my mind: you do not need to look in this apartment, you do not need to look in this apartment, you—

“I’m going to need to look in your apartment,” he said.

Shit.

I smiled. “Come on in.” I stepped aside so he could enter, but the policeman motioned me back, so I complied. He followed, keeping an eye on me while scanning the kitchen.

I watched him awkwardly for a few seconds until a thought came to me. “Wait,” I blurted. “Don’t you need a search warrant to enter my apartment?”

He glanced at me briefly. “Not once you invite me in.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed out loud. The policeman, clearly unaware of the irony, favored me with an odd look before pressing into the living room.

“Why isn’t your TV on?” he said.

“I turned it off after I got scared.”

He inspected the area. “And why is your carpet wet?”

“I dropped a glass of water when I screamed. I was cleaning up when you knocked.”

“I thought you said you were getting dressed?”

“I was…,” I said, trying to connect my lies. “Water spilled on me too, so I was switching clothes.”

“Like your shirt?” he said, indicating my naked upper half.

“Yes.”

“So if you bring me your shirt, it will be wet?”

“Um, probably. It might have dried by now…” I thought of my shirt currently soaking up drool in Maria’s unconscious mouth. You do not need to see the shirt, you do not need to see the shirt, you do not need to see the shirt…

He eyed me and then suddenly turned away, stomping toward my bathroom and bedroom. I sighed quietly, staying where I was. Finally, something going my way.

It didn’t take him long to check the rest of my one-bedroom apartment, which, thankfully, I always made sure to keep free of anything incriminating—even the Satisfaction Guaranteed! bag in the kitchen trash was otherwise nondescript. He looked disappointed but ready to leave, when he paused in the living room again.

“Where does that door lead?” he said, pointing at the closet.

“Nowhere,” I said, feeling a sudden rush of panic. “It’s just for storage.”

It only took the officer a few steps to reach the door. “Why is it locked?” he said, trying the handle.

“Oh,” I said. “Is it? I must have done that by accident. I always forget I even can.”

He wasn’t listening though, and my heart stopped as he unlocked the door and swept it open. For a moment I allowed myself the very small hope that Maria would somehow be obscured by the trench coats, but she flopped right out, lying prone at the officer’s feet.

You do not see a woman, you do not see—

Fuck it.

My arm swung around, clocking the policemen in the head with the same surprisingly efficient candlestick from before, which I’d managed to scoop up from the ground while the officer’s back had been to me. His body tensed for a moment but then he was falling, colliding with the carpet in that uncaring way only the unconscious can muster.

Looking at the two bodies and my weapon of choice, I was suddenly reminded of the board game Clue. Unfortunately, this wasn’t nearly as fun. A random woman from a delivery service was one thing, but a local policeman suddenly disappearing…

I sighed. This was going to be the third apartment I’d have to abandon in less than a year, and the security deposits were really starting to add up. There was nothing for it though, I’d have to pack up and leave, get a new name, driver’s license, and passport—the last one especially because if I was being smart I’d leave the country for a bit. I’d have to forward my mail, through a safe house of course, and apply for new credit cards and on and on. God, it was all such a hassle.

Sighing again, I glanced out the window and caught sight of the setting sun. I always did love that. One of the reasons I hadn’t applied for full vampire status yet. That and the small fortune required.

Maybe...maybe this wouldn’t be all bad though. If I was traveling overseas anyway, why not make a vacation out of it? I had some frequent flier miles saved, probably enough to get me to Bermuda or the Bahamas. I could disappear for a few months, take the vacation I so deserved, so needed, and come back a new lampir, a better, fitter, tanner lampir.

But first, I had to eat. Both because I couldn’t afford to waste perfectly good food on my budget and also because if I drained the two of them of enough blood it would ensure that they stayed knocked out long enough for me to make a quick getaway. Plus, this way when they woke up the officer could help Maria get back home. She seemed nice enough, and after being forced to talk with her, sucking her dry just felt…wrong.

As I drank from Maria--who was surprisingly tart--instead of my thoughts drifting off to the beautiful beaches and delicious Mai Tais in my future, I carefully planned the scathing review of Necks Direct I was going to write once I was safely out of the country.

Satisfaction guaranteed my ass.