This was, by far, the creepiest house she had ever seen.

It was huge, for one thing. Three stories high with countless windows on each level, each one boarded up or covered in one way or another. All of the other houses in the neighborhood were modern colonials and only half the height of this monster of a house. Its wood paneling was peeling away or missing entirely in places, revealing what looked like termite and water damage. It had been painted black, or maybe a deep red. It was hard to tell under the starless night sky. The only light there was came from the moon, but it did little to brighten anything. It felt like the house swallowed whatever light shone upon it.

"Joan? C'mon, we're late."

She heard him, but she didn't move. She couldn't. "This is super fucking creepy, Nick."

Nick smiled and walked back to her. "I know it's seen better days, but it's fine, I promise. All Victorian houses look kind of spooky. This'll be fun."

He was still smiling when he placed a hand on her back, seemingly unaffected by the imposing nature of the house behind him. He gently started nudging her toward the front doors. She still didn't move, feet firmly planted on the dead grass in the front yard.

"Joan, look at me."

She did. His eyes were normally brown, but in the darkness of the night they just looked black. Had the house swallowed the light in his eyes, too?

"I get that you're nervous 'cause you don't go to parties, but it's going to be great. I've known these people for years and they're gonna love you. I can tell."

He pushed her again, a little firmer this time, and she moved forward a step. "I've been to plenty of parties before… just not with strangers and not at weird creepy houses in the middle of the night."

A lie, not that he needed to know the truth. Why would he need to know that this was the first time she'd been invited to a party since starting college? That everything before now was birthday parties and sleepovers she was sure she'd only been invited to out of pity? No, better she keep that to herself. No point risking him coming to the same realization that everyone else had - that something about her was off-putting, and worth avoiding. She didn't know what it was. Maybe it was how she carried herself, or how she talked, or the way she laughed, but whatever it was, very few people had a tolerance for it. For her.

Nick was one of them. She'd met him during orientation and, for some reason, he'd quickly taken a liking to her. They didn't share any classes together and lived in separate dorms, but whenever he'd see her sitting alone in the dining hall he'd sit with her. Or when they bumped into each other on campus, he'd walk with her awhile, making idle conversation until she reached her destination. When they talked it didn't feel like he was keeping her company out of pity. She was accustomed to solitude after so many years of being the odd one out, but she couldn't stand pity.

She'd had friends before, of course. But they tended to be… well, "unobservant." Sure, that sounded a lot more diplomatic than "stupid" or "wouldn't notice a rabid wolf approaching until it'd eaten half their legs." Nick wasn't like that, though. He was her friend simply because he wanted to be, not because he was so dull that he couldn't sense whatever it was about her that made her so unbearable. It was a mystery to her why that was the case, but she wasn't about to question it and fuck up the closest thing to a real friendship she'd ever had.

"It's just a house. A few walls, a fuck ton of windows, and a whole bunch of people you're going to regret not talking to if you leave right now."

He waited a few moments and let the words sink in. Joan listened to the sounds of the house. There was a drawn-out creak, the hard knocking of a shutter opening and closing with the wind, and the muffled sounds of the people within. What were they talking about, she wondered? She'd never known what people talked about at things like this.

Knowing that she didn't have much of a choice in leaving anyway, seeing as he'd driven her here, she thought about why she'd agreed to come in the first place. She'd wanted a shot at being normal. She wanted to be able to say she went to a party and had a conversation that lasted more than thirty seconds and didn't end with someone hastily excusing themself. She wanted to be welcome. Nick claimed she'd get along with whoever else he'd invited to be here, so it'd be worth braving the comically sinister mansion, wouldn't it?

Against her better judgment, she nodded just slightly, nearly imperceptible, but Nick noticed and he gently guided her to the entrance of the house. She let him, but she was still hesitant. With every step closer to the house the feeling that something dreadful was going to happen grew, like she was actually the idiot walking into a rabid wolf's den and she was going to get eaten.

When Nick opened the front doors, she saw the foyer, lit up with dozens of candles and lamps of varying sizes. There was a gaudy chandelier adorned with crystals and gems hanging precariously above the crowd beneath it. The crowd itself was dense and the room felt cramped, which was impressive considering the size of the house. Most of the guests seemed to be around Joan's age, red cups in their hand as they laughed at whatever jokes they were telling each other.

"There's someone I want you to meet," Nick said over the noise, "but I'm going to make my rounds first, okay?"

She nodded absently, still taking it all in, and then suddenly Nick was gone, having disappeared into the crowd in a blink. She looked around, trying to find him, but she couldn't see over the throng of people. Okay. Shit. She'd assumed he'd take her with him, or she'd tag along anyway, but somehow he was already gone. She considered walking right back out the front door and waiting for him to come back, but she'd already committed to making the most of this and the inside looked much more welcoming than the outside. At least in here she could see. Waiting outside meant subjecting herself to the darkness of night, and she'd prefer not to spend the next hour or so waiting pathetically in the shadows.

Not knowing what to do with herself, she wandered, weaving through the crowd, taking in the house. There were so many different kinds of wallpaper in each room, most of them yellowed with age or peeling, but she could tell they must have been beautiful at some point. There were mahogany dressers, plush furniture, paintings, so many paintings. She felt like she was walking through a poorly maintained museum.

The crowd parted for her wherever she went, as it always did, but after about ten minutes of wandering aimlessly in this house, alone, she decided she was going to give socializing an honest try. Nick had said these people would like her: it was time to put that to the test.

She overheard a girl talking about how she might go into HR after graduation, or maybe pivot and limit herself to payroll instead. Joan had been considering the same, but after approaching her and striking up a conversation about it, the girl - Emma, Joan learned - withdrew after only a minute. She excused herself to get a drink, but there was already a drink in her hand. Joan knew she would not be coming back.

It happened again when she tried talking to a guy leaning against a wall, looking at all the paintings surrounding them. Anytime she asked him a question, his answers were blunt, curt, like answering them was a burden. What was he drinking? Beer. What did he think of the house? It's fine. Who invited him? His friend.

The moment some other random stranger joined the conversation he lit up, and it was like she'd stopped existing. They introduced themselves to each other and talked about how crazy the vibe of the house was and about how packed and exciting the party turned out to be. Rolling her eyes, Joan walked away.

It happened over and over again. Almost every attempt to start a conversation was either met with a half-hearted, dismissive response or no response at all. The few who were polite enough to humor her either couldn't keep it up for long and excused themselves, or were clearly the kind of people who just enjoyed hearing the sound of their own voice, in which case she would be the one to excuse herself.

She told a girl her dress was pretty and asked where she'd gotten it from. She politely said thanks, she thrifted it, then walked away and showed someone else that it had pockets. She asked a guy if he knew what the party was for or who the host was. He pretended not to hear her and took a swig of beer. At one point a girl ran around loudly asking if anyone had a tampon on them she could have, it was an emergency and she'd left her purse at home. Joan said she did and started rummaging in her crossbody purse, but the girl walked right past her, like she was a fucking ghost. At that point Joan gave up.

She was used to being brushed aside, but this was a little much, even for her. She chalked it up to the sheer amount of people that were here. In a crowd this large she was all too easy to ignore, a big blind spot in everyone's vision. The people themselves seemed more self-absorbed than the ones she usually associated with, too. She supposed they'd have to be. The only people who'd willingly come into a house as eerie and dark as this one in the middle of the night would have to be either so wrapped up in their own lives they didn't notice the sinister atmosphere, were stupid, or desperate. Joan considered herself to be part of the third category.

Nick had been mistaken; these people were not for her, and she was ready to leave. She wouldn't lie to herself and claim to be the best conversationalist, but she knew she didn't deserve the universal ostracization she seemed doomed to. They must all be able to see something in her she couldn't, and they weren't willing to look past it like Nick was. And she couldn't blame them for it, because she didn't even know what it was.

Still wondering where the hell Nick could be, she was about to ask someone where the bathrooms were when she was suddenly assaulted with the most foul stench she'd ever experienced. It was so pungent she wondered how nobody around her was gagging. She turned to the first person she saw, an oddly dressed man with skin as pale as the moon. His clothing seemed more appropriate for the eighteenth century than the twenty-first, but she was far more focused on the smell invading her nose.

"Do you smell that?"

He sneered, and Joan noted with some alarm that his eyes seemed to shine a little in the candlelight, the same way a dog's does in the night. "No."

She covered her nose, but it had no effect. "Really? It's-It's like burnt rubber and sulfur. Like we're in hell. You really don't smell that? God, it's bad."

He flinched. Hissing, he said, "Do not use that word!"

She tried to breathe but it was hard because now there was a scratchy sensation deep within her throat, climbing up and up. She felt hot - like there was fire in her blood and the only relief was… what? What was the relief? God, the smell, it was everywhere. She could barely think like this, with something boiling in her veins, begging to get out.

She spoke around the searing lump in her throat. "What word? Hell?"

"The g-word, actually," she heard Nick say.

Turning around, she'd never been more relieved and annoyed to see him. She wanted to ask him where he'd been, why he'd left her here to fend for herself with these people who somehow had even less of a tolerance for her than most did, but she couldn't think of anything except the terrible odor and the thrumming urgency it inspired in her veins.

"Please tell me you smell that. It's awful, I feel like I'm going to implode."

He sniffed once and shook his head. "No, I don't smell anything. Besides the candles, obviously. You ready to meet who I was talking about?"

He looked at the strange man who'd hissed at her, who seemed much more at ease than he had a moment ago. They shared a look, something secret and knowing, but Joan was too preoccupied to spare another thought for it. She was burning alive, couldn't he see that?

"I'll meet whoever you want, just please, get me out of this room."

Smiling, he grabbed her hand and led her through the crowd, expertly navigating the needlessly complex maze of hallways and staircases. She took a closer look at the crowd as they walked, searching for air that wasn't tainted with the smell of sulfur. She never found it. There were more people like that pale man in the crowd now, with skin just as washed-out as his and all of them wearing antiquated clothing. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes dark, and she got the same terrible feeling from them as she got from the house. She realized the smell must be coming from them; it was the odd-looking people who were to blame for this tortuous burning inside of her.

There was also a certain deeper element of wrongness to them, beyond their looks and smell, but what specifically it was she couldn't say.

Is that what people thought when they looked at her?

That she was indescribably wrong?

Confused, aflame, and growing ever more concerned, she tugged on Nick's hand. "Who are these people?"

He looked frustrated they stopped, but quickly schooled his features into something more friendly. "No one. They're just people, like us."

"No," she insisted, "They're not. Why are they here?"

He shrugged. "To party, same as everyone else. It's their house."

That didn't surprise her. It was natural for a creepy house to harbor even creepier people. They fit right in with the cobwebs and the dust and the termite damage. But that only made her more confused - why would Nick ever think she belonged with these kinds of people?

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, her voice raw.

He stopped pulling at her hand. He looked through her, and for a second she was worried he'd seen it, the terrible thing about her that made people want to leave. She shouldn't have asked it, because he was no doubt questioning the same thing now, why did her bring her here, she didn't belong, she was wrong, she was too much, and he'd made a mistake choosing her as a friend-

And then he smiled so brightly that she pretended not to notice the strain on his face as he said, "Because they were all so excited to meet you."

She didn't say anything more as he led her through the house again. Her blood hummed quietly as they passed more of their odd-looking hosts. She had an absurd feeling that it was trying to tell her something important, something she was meant to do, but she couldn't understand it. It chose to whisper when it should have screamed.

She let Nick lead her, thinking about where she would have been right now if she'd just left like she wanted. She'd be back in her dorm, listening to her roommate drone on about her Orgo homework or some new policy change at her tutoring job. It was always so exhausting talking to Aparna, leaving Joan feeling totally burned out, but that didn't sound so bad right now. She'd give anything to dull the fierce anticipation brimming through her.

Everyone felt drained talking to Aparna, which is why Joan assumed they'd been assigned to board together in the first place. They were two women, both unbearable in their own ways, who few could tolerate save for each other. If Joan didn't know any better, she'd think Aparna annoyed people intentionally - she'd caught her smiling a few times when she'd done something particularly frustrating.

She didn't seem bothered by Joan's presence, but there was no friendship between them. One night, when Joan had been too in her own head and starved for a real conversation, she had asked her outright if she minded her company.

Lying on her bed, she'd said, "Do you… do you think I'm different? Like, there's something off about me?"

Aparna had been making flashcards for her big chemistry test, laying them all over the floor meticulously. It helped her "visualize" everything, she claimed, but Joan suspected she only did it to make it harder to safely move around the room.

Without looking up, still laying her flashcards, Aparna said, "No. You are exactly the same to me as everyone else."

"And how's that?"

Her tone was bland, like her. "You are easily shaken by the smallest of things, living life day to day like you have all the time in the world when death is already on the horizon. Content to waste your time chasing meaningless degrees and companionship, you don't spare a thought for anything outside of your tiny, limited world."

Aparna looked up. "You are wholly unexceptional."

Joan sunk deeper into the pillows on her bed, and nodded. "Thank you."

It wasn't friendship, no. But Joan would take what she could get.

Now, slowly making her way through this labyrinthine house filled with strange people and an even worse smell, she wanted so desperately to go back. Nevermind the fact that Aparna wasn't a friend and their relationship was tenuous at best. She was dull and almost unnaturally boring, but spending the night chatting with her seemed a far better alternative to this. She needed out, she needed fresh air, but Nick was taking her deeper into the horde and she wouldn't have been able to navigate out of here if she tried.

It was too much. She'd tried to hold on a little longer for him, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't breathe, her skin felt wrong on her, the pale people kept staring at her, and Nick wasn't listening to her. There were embers in her lungs and she half-expected smoke to start pouring out of her mouth at any moment.

"Nick, I can't- I can't breathe, something's wrong."

He didn't look back. "He's just up the stairs, c'mon, he's been waiting to meet you."

"Who? Why does this matter? It's like I'm on fire-"

They stopped in front of a door, this one more ornate than the others. This part of the house was quieter than the rest, the sounds of the party muffled behind the walls. Without ceremony, Nick gripped the gold handle, opened the door, and gestured for her to go inside. Wary, but desperate to escape the smell of death and hellfire, she fled inside the room and took a deep breath. It was still here, the oppressive sensation of burning from the inside out, but less intense.

The room was just as decadent and neglected as the rest of the house, lit by nothing but the fireplace. Sitting in front of the flames in a wing-backed chair was a man. He was pale, too. Tall, much taller than the others. He wore a robe that shone gold in the light of the fire and had a strong jaw, despite his gaunt cheeks. He smiled, and it was too dark to be sure, but Joan could have sworn some of his teeth were sharper than they were supposed to be.

He stood and the hairs on her arms stood with him. Her skin prickled again, like something was crawling beneath it, ready to burst out if she didn't take action. She still didn't know what that action was supposed to be.

"Joan, this is Dimitri. He's my, uh- he's sort of like my mentor."

Dimitri took a bow. "It is a pleasure to meet you. Nicholas has spoken quite highly of you. We've been looking forward to your arrival."

He had a thick accent, but Joan couldn't quite place where it was from. "Yeah, he told me you'd been waiting. I'm -" She swallowed once, trying to force down the ball of heat trying to suffocate her. "I'm sorry, there's something in my throat - I'm not sure why you've been wanting to meet me?"

He smiled again, wider than before, and that confirmed it. Where there were supposed to be incisors there were canines.

An inferno raged within her, clawing at her from the inside out, desperate to escape and burn this man till he was nothing but ash. It frightened her, the violent need stirring so impatiently within her. She looked to Nick for reassurance, but he wasn't looking at her. His gaze was fixed solely on Dimitri.

Dimitri took a step closer. Joan took a step away, but Nick's hand was on her back again, keeping her in place.

"Nick?"

Finally, he looked at her. He frowned a little once he registered the genuine distress in her face. The hand on her back fell away, and she took the opportunity to step away from the strange, hulking man with an even stranger look in his eyes.

"Nicholas…," Dimitri said in a warning tone.

Nick met his eyes and something silently passed between them. Nick raised a brow in question and Dmitri nodded. All softness in Nick's face faded away, replaced with something hard and unyielding. Stiffly, he turned away and stepped toward the door.

"There's still a few people I haven't caught up with," he said, his voice a listless monotone. He refused to look at her. "I'll leave you two here. To talk."

"Nick-"

"Yes, go liven up the party! Greet Bradonovich for me, would you? It's been so long since I've seen him," Dimitri said with good cheer. He was right in front of her now with a hand on her shoulder, guiding her deeper into the room. Joan suddenly felt the urge to bite his fingers off.

Nick closed the door behind him, leaving her stranded, alone, in a dark room with a man she didn't know. A man who was far too eager to meet her, with a frightful expectancy in his gaze. Still reeling from Nick's utter betrayal, Joan barely resisted as Dmitri pulled her down to sit on the couch beside him. The moment his hand released her she moved to the other end of the couch, leaning as far back as she could. His stench was unbearably reminiscent of death and something in her was rising, ballooning into something terrible and wonderful and she didn't know what would happen once it popped.

She needed to get out of the room. She needed to run, escape the burning in her veins, the smell of this man, and flee from this house entirely. She'd made a mistake - there was nothing for her here, no friends to be made. She didn't know why Nick was so insistent she meet this man, why he abandoned her when he saw how afraid she was, but she didn't care, she was leaving.

When she got up to leave Dimitri grabbed her hand. His grip was gentle, but firm, except now that burning feeling was climbing up her arm, right where his hand held hers. Didn't he feel that heat? Shouldn't it burn him, too?

"Ah, miss, surely you could not leave yet? I was so eager to meet you! Nicholas is very cautious with who he chooses to bring to us, so they never disappoint!"

He inhaled deeply, as if he was savoring the smell in the air, and it made her stomach twist. "No, I can't imagine you could ever disappoint. He's never found someone quite like you before."

She tugged on her hand and after a few seconds of pulling, he smiled and let go. She almost lost her footing then righted herself.

"I'm sorry," she said, hoping he might respect her polite diplomacy enough to let her leave without protest, "I'm … flattered, but I've been fighting a fever all night and I think it'd be best for me to go home."

With a shaky, apologetic smile, she turned back toward the door, but he was in front of her again. Joan blinked with surprise. How the hell had he done that? He was just on the couch a second ago and now he was here, but she'd never seen him move.

Jaw dropped with shock, she looked up at him, meaning to spew more false apologies and excuses to leave, except something had happened to his eyes and she couldn't move. His pupils were large and growing, and it was only a moment before his eyes were nothing more than two black pits, which somehow seemed to be deepening the longer she looked. The room was getting smaller, the light of the fire was dimming, and soon there was nothing but his eyes, nothing but darkness.

Somewhere in the abyss she heard his voice. It didn't echo. There were no walls for it to bounce off of. "You are inexperienced in the ways of the world, yes? Never known a friendly touch, or a friend at all, have you?"

She didn't respond. She had no mouth to do so. Her body was gone, consumed in the darkness, and yet, she felt something. Distantly, as if in a dream, she felt a hand reach up toward her neck… angling it just so… and then something sharp dug into it. A warm wetness flowed down her neck and the voice she'd heard whispering all night, the one that lived in her veins and wanted so desperately to be let out, was finally free. It screamed the same word over and over again, beating in time with her pulse.

PREDATOR

The darkness collapsed. She came back to herself in pieces, first smelling the sulfur in the air, then feeling the rug beneath her feet, and then seeing the room again, dimly lit but so much brighter than that impossible darkness from before. She felt a sharp pain in her neck and then she could see Dmitri, his face buried there. Panicked, she wrenched herself away from him. He hissed, baring his teeth, and to her horror his mouth was filled with blood. Her blood.

She reached up and felt her neck. "What - what the fuck is this?"

He schooled his features, licked his teeth, and smiled amiably, as if he hadn't just sunk his teeth into her.

"You are much stronger than I expected! Do you know, very few can say they have broken free of my thrall. You should, uh, what's the phrase? Ah, pat yourself on the back."

His gaze hardened once again. "But do it quickly, because I have waited long enough."

He took a step closer. She took a step back, frantically looking around the room for a weapon.

"I can smell it on you, miss. Innocence."

Another step closer. "So lovely. Untainted."

Joan kept stepping backward, shaking, until she felt the backs of her knees meet a chair.

"Never known, never kissed, never loved. The purest of pure."

She looked at the door. He could move quickly, shockingly quickly, how was she supposed to get there?

"Let me taste-"

He lunged at her, practically flying, and she dodged, hitting the floor with a painful thud. She heard the chair behind her break as he collided with it. She turned around and he was back up again, his face void of any semblance of humanity.

Joan's mind was blank, terror taking the place of thought, but the urgent, violent need in her bones spurred her into action. With little conscious awareness of what she was doing, she grabbed one of the splintered chair legs just as he lunged again. She angled it forward as he tackled her to the floor and the pointed end of it pierced his chest, between his ribs and straight through his heart. He groaned, writhing, but Joan shoved it in deeper until she was sure there was nowhere left for it to go. She heard a pained gurgle above her and then nothing, his wet blood slowly oozing out of the wound and onto her hands.

A minute passed before she finally crawled out from under him, struggling to push his weight off of her. Her head was pounding and her neck ached, but the burning sensation in her blood and lungs had finally reduced itself down to a simmer. The room was still, quiet, no sounds save for her panicked breaths and the crackling of the fire.

She looked at his corpse and the stake she put in his heart, because yes it may have started out tonight as nothing more than the leg of a chair but at this point it was undeniably a stake, and she could have cried at the implications of it.

Vampire, she thought.

For a moment she rejected the impossible thought, but then that same feeling from before, the one that'd somehow known what to do as he pounced on her, hummed in recognition. It was an impossible thought, yes - it was also devastatingly true.

She touched her neck again, whimpering as she felt the puncture marks. She hoped to god the movies had it wrong, that a bite from a vampire wasn't enough and she wouldn't turn. Just the thought of becoming one was enough to bring her blood back to boiling. She'd walk right into the sunlight if that happened.

Suddenly Joan heard a blood curdling scream from outside the room and she could recall the face of every strange, pale person she'd passed on her way here. Her mouth went dry as she realized that she was trapped here, deep within this house, a house infested with vampires that stank of hell just as much as Dimitri did.

There was more screaming, and Joan thought of Nick, somewhere out there in the crowd, being preyed upon by his hosts.

He abandoned you. Left you alone with a demon.

She looked at Dimitri again. His robe was drenched in his blood now, turning it from gold to black. Black as his eyes had been,when he'd had her under his thrall. Joan's head pounded with the reminder of his hypnotic attempt to make her forget herself.

She remembered the moment Nick had decided to leave her here. He and Dimitri had shared a look, something heavy and unsaid resting between them. Joan hadn't known what it meant then, but she thought she knew now. Hypnotism - what Dimitri had done to her, he'd done to Nick in that moment, compelling him to leave her behind despite her protests.

She let out a breath. Yes, that would explain it. Because why else would he have done it?

The screams continued, getting louder and closer. She wanted to hide, to crawl under one of the couches and wait until sunrise, but that would mean abandoning Nick as he'd been forced to do to her. She'd have to spend the night listening to their screams, waiting for it to end and praying none of the other vampires would come into the room and find her.

No, that wasn't an option. The feverish urgency roaring to life once again wouldn't allow it. She was on fire again, skin so hot and filled with pressure that she thought she might combust. It urged her toward the broken chair again and she grabbed its splintered wooden legs. The weight of them in her hands felt good, like they belonged there, just natural extensions of her arms.

She headed toward the door. She had to find Nick and get them out of here.

When she left the room, it was as if she'd opened the doors to hell itself. People were screaming, running down the hall as fast as they could as vampires flew after them, cackling madly whenever they caught one. There was blood on the walls - human blood, red, not like that black ooze she'd seen come from Dimitri, the ooze that still coated her hands. Human corpses lay lifeless on the floor, and Joan recognized some of them from before, when the party was just a party and not a massacre. She should have felt sick, she should have been screaming with the rest of them, but the bloodlust that had possessed her to grab the stakes and brave the house was all she could feel.

The man from before, the one who'd hissed at her when she'd asked about the smell, spotted her. He was nearly on her in an instant, but in the last moment, on instinct, she held her two stakes together in a 't' - no, a cross - and he shrieked and recoiled in pain. She propelled herself forward, sticking one of the stakes as deeply into his chest as she could, same as she had with Dimitri. Crying out, his eyes rolled back and he dropped to the floor into a lifeless heap.

And then there was silence. All of the vampires in the hall froze, some in midair, heads turning to look at what she had done. They seemed just as surprised as she was that she was capable of it.

Some of the humans, noticing the distraction she'd caused, ran away. The vampires either chose to let them leave or didn't notice, all their attention on her.

They creeped toward her, hesitating, their gaze flicking between the other stake in her hand and the one sticking out of the chest of the vampire beneath her. She retrieved that one, ignoring the squelching sound it made as the blood continued to slowly flow from his chest cavity.

Suddenly they all moved, and with a dexterity and strength she didn't know she possessed, she launched her stakes at them, felling two of them just as the others descended upon her. She ducked, feeling their capes and dresses swipe across her back as they missed her. She retrieved her stakes from the corpses and turned to face the others, but clouds of black smoke had appeared and burned her eyes. As she tried to blink it away, bats flew out of the clouds, heading straight toward her face.

She dodged all but one of them, which had embedded its teeth painfully into her arm. She grabbed it, pulled it away, and pierced it. It went limp and she threw the body on the floor, searching for the other bats. They flew with no sense of order or direction, but she still managed to throw a stake and pierce one of them, pinning it to the wall. The other bats screeched at the display and flew off down the halls, too fast for her to follow.

Breathing hard, Joan leaned against the wall. The bloodlust wasn't fading, but it was more tolerable, having finally got a good taste of what it'd been craving all night. It'd felt good - why did it feel good? - to watch those vampires die by her hand.

Were they even really alive to start?

The god-awful smell was diminishing, thankfully, and it felt like she could breathe again. She looked at her hands, both shocked and grateful that even though she had no idea how it was possible, at least they knew what to do. It had come so naturally, no thought required as she threw her stakes and ducked the vampires' attacks. There was no fear, no time for it, only an itching to feel her stake run through them again.

She retrieved her stakes and began quietly padding down the halls, more screams heard somewhere off in a distant part of the house. She saw something blood-covered in her peripheral and she turned toward it, her stakes raised, except it was just a mirror. Her reflection staring back at her with a matching look of shock.

Was… was that really her?

She could barely recognize herself. She doubted her parents would be able to, if they saw her. Her hands were drenched in black blood, and there were splotches of it covering her face and chest. There was a mess of red on her neck, two surprisingly small dots sitting in the center of it. Her eyes were wild, a steely gray, and her expression…

And then she understood.

The thing everyone saw in her, what made them shy away at her approach, what made her so unpleasant. This was it. This was what they'd been seeing. They'd known. Somehow they'd taken one look at her and they'd known. They saw a-

Predator

-and of course they were afraid.

She wiped at her cheek, smearing some of the blood. They'd all been right, all along. She was more than off. She was wrong, just like the creatures infesting the house. The vampires may have been hunting them, but she was a hunter, too. And it felt right.

The sound of a growl behind her broke her from her thoughts and she turned, just barely managing to impale a vampire as its claws sank into her shoulders. She hadn't seen it coming. Right, vampires. No reflection.

The vampire fell to the ground, clutching her chest, and Joan crouched down to study her face as the life in her eyes faded away. She saw it in her, the wrongness, the same as she'd seen in her own reflection.

Now there was a choir in her blood, so many voices, ancient voices, coming together.

Predators, they sang.

She got up.

None as strong as you.

A cool acceptance washed over her as she stepped over the vampire's corpse. She ran down the halls, all of her earlier trepidation left behind in the lavish room housing Dimitri's corpse. She let pure instinct drive her as she worked her way through the house, plunging a stake into any vampire that lunged at her. She ran past the bodies of the humans who hadn't been as lucky as her and tried to push away thoughts of them, of how they'd been alive an hour ago, how she'd been desperately trying to make conversation with them, how they'd never be able to speak again. Grief could come later, right now she needed to listen to the screaming in her blood because she knew it was the only reason she was still alive and they weren't.

She killed every vampire she encountered, calling out for Nick as she went, hoping he might follow her voice and lead her out of this maze. The more vampires she killed the more injuries she accumulated, scratches on her chest, bruises, bite marks, and a broken rib (she thought that's what it was, she heard a crunch as a vampire threw her against a wall and now breathing hurt). She'd always been bad at tolerating paint before, but now the pain was dulled. It barely even registered to her because right now there was a vampire that had decided to turn into a dog and was currently trying to maul her, so there were bigger things to worry about. Once she'd dispatched the vamp-turned-dog, she looked around, trying to see if there were any others nearby waiting to leap from the shadows and kill her.

And then she realized she was pretty sure she'd seen that ugly painting of a sheep before - had she already been this way?

She looked down the hall, noticing the bodies of some of the vampires she'd already slain. She turned around and headed in the other direction, down a staircase she knew she hadn't walked through before. She continued to navigate the house in this way, using the corpses like breadcrumbs and killing any vampires that obstructed her path. She still hadn't found Nick yet, but she hadn't found his body, either, so she was still hopeful he was out there somewhere. He was smart - maybe he'd found a hiding spot, and was waiting until morning. Or, even better, he made it out of the house. But that would mean he'd abandoned her again, and though she felt guilty for feeling it, she kind of hoped he hadn't.

The house was quiet now. She didn't hear anymore screaming, just the normal creaks and bumps that old houses tended to make. She'd lost track of how many vampires she'd killed - twenty? Thirty?

A few more turns and she found herself back in the foyer. It was littered with human corpses, the floor sticky with blood. She saw the front door, also painted in blood, and it called to her. Freedom. Escape.

But Nick was still missing.

"Nick!" she called out one final time, hoping that somewhere deep in the house maybe he heard her.

Silence.

And then she heard a creak.

She turned and there he was, standing at the bottom of a staircase. She didn't know how he'd managed to survive here when it seemed like no one else had, but she was grateful for it and the relief at seeing him again nearly floored her. He was okay. Tonight was a nightmare, she was a nightmare, and people were dead, but at least he wasn't.

"You killed him," he said, his voice flat.

"Come on," she said, motioning for him to follow her, "I know- I know this is bad, but we made it. Let's-"

"You killed him," he repeated, and Joan noticed that his shirt was stained black. How had he gotten vampire blood on him, gotten that close to one, and not have a single scratch on him? His face was grim, but other than that he appeared fine. Totally uninjured.

"You killed my master."

Confused, she gripped her stakes a little tighter. Something deep within her rumbled in warning. "Your master?"

Nick walked toward her, stepping over the human corpses without even sparing them a glance. "Years. I sacrificed years of my life for them and you just…"

His steps were getting quicker and he clenched his fists. Joan reached out with one of her hands in a placating gesture, because in his eyes she saw something dark, not like the thing she'd seen in herself, but frightening all the same.

His face contorted with rage. "You fucking ruined it!"

She stepped back. The hypnosis, that had to be what it was. "They did something to you, Nick, messed with your mind. They're not human-"

"Of course they aren't!" he screamed, kicking away one of the corpse's arms in frustration. "And I was finally going to be one of them!"

Joan's eyebrows scrunched up. He didn't seem like he'd been hypnotized. He was too aware of what was happening around him, but he wasn't making any sense.

"You… you wanted to be a vampire?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

His jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

"I don't understand."

He groaned, running his hands through his hair. "Holy shit, you still don't fucking get it? You're the sacrifice, Joan! That's all you were ever supposed to be!"

She blanked. Sacrifice?

She thought about the silent conversation Nick had with Dimitri, the way he ignored all of the pain she was in, how he'd practically pushed her into the house when all she wanted was to go home. Every time she expressed a little doubt he'd reassured her of her place there, that she was welcome, that she'd regret leaving. Her hands started to shake.

Heart breaking, her voice cracked as she said, "You brought me here to kill me?"

"No," he spit, "I brought you here to let them kill you."

She gripped her stakes hard enough she was surprised they didn't splinter further. She wanted to scream, she wanted to push her stakes straight through him, she wanted him to hurt.

She'd thought they were friends, or at least on their way to becoming friends. They'd had such easy conversations. They shared lunch in the dining hall. They'd walk each other back to their respective dorms when their paths crossed. Was all of it in service of this?

She remembered when they'd first met at orientation. The room was crowded, and yet all the seats surrounding her were empty. He'd seen her there, sitting alone, and he'd sat down next to her and started a conversation. He'd asked her so many questions: did she have any family back home? Any friends she'd followed to college? Did she miss anyone? Did anyone miss her?

She'd answered all his questions gladly, thinking nothing of the interrogatory nature of their first meeting. She'd been desperate; he'd been scouting.

"You planned this from the start," she said quietly. She looked up at him, trying to find a glimpse of the person she'd thought he was, but there was nothing there. Just a man with hate in his eyes, hate for her, as if somehow she was the one to blame in all of this.

"You have no idea how hard I fucking worked for this. How much shit I let them put me through just for the chance of being like them. You were supposed to be my ticket out of mortality. One taste of you - the most pathetically untouched person to ever exist - and they'd turn me. And I'd be free."

He glared at her, both accusatory and frightened. "I should've known, when I saw how people avoided you. I should've known there was a reason. I cannot believe I ever felt sorry for you. You're a fuckin'- They're all - fuck, you wiped them all out."

He made a sound, something that sounded halfway between a whine and a sob. "They're all dead and I'm the one who brought you here…"

He was breathing hard. He took a step closer, only a few feet away now. Joan halted his approach with one of her stakes, pointing it directly at his heart. He flinched as it poked lightly into his chest, but he didn't step away.

His upper lip curled. "You don't even know what you are, do you?"

She didn't say anything. She couldn't. There was too much anger, too much hurt, to say anything without falling apart completely.

Nick leaned closer. A speck of red sprouted from his chest as the stake scratched him.

"You think you're human?"

She stayed perfectly still, eyes locked on his.

"You're not. You're worse than that."

For a moment, she faltered. No, she couldn't explain what she'd felt tonight, how she'd known exactly when to duck or dodge or swipe. It felt like she'd been possessed by something much older than herself, something that had been slumbering beneath the surface, waiting for just the right moment to wake up. It was something not quite human…

… but not quite not either.

"I'm human enough," she said, her voice gravelly, but steady.

She glanced between him and the front door. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to push her stake as deep as it could go and watch the life fade from him as it had for the others. He wanted to be a vampire so bad? Then he could die like one.

But she didn't move. She couldn't press the stake any further. He wasn't a vampire, he was human, and whatever it was in her blood that had driven her forward all night was silent. If she did this, there'd be nothing to guide her and nothing to blame. It'd all be her.

And she couldn't do it.

She stepped away from him. Lowering her stake, she slowly backed toward the front door. He deserved to die, maybe even more than the vampires did, but she was not going to be the thing that killed him. All she wanted right now was to go home.

"I'm leaving," she said, "And you're going to stay right there. And if you move-"

She pointed toward the bodies surrounding him. "You're joining them."

He said nothing as she opened the door. She didn't know if believed her bluff or not, but it didn't matter, because either way he made no move to pursue her. He stared at her, hatred still burning in his eyes, but he remained silent.

When she stepped outside and shut the door with a heavy thud, a cold wind whipped past her. She shivered. She'd been so hot the rest of the night that the cold felt foreign to her.

She walked across the yard, abandoning her stakes somewhere in the unkempt grass. Nick had driven her, so she had no transportation, but they were only a couple miles from campus. It was a small college tucked away into the city, surrounded by houses and apartment complexes.

She walked. The adrenaline that had fueled her was depleted, and now her limbs felt heavy. Every breath was agony, but she kept walking. The few cars that passed her ignored her, and she was thankful. She hoped a cop wouldn't come across her on their patrol. How could she ever explain her appearance?

How could she ever explain any of it at all? She'd known something was wrong the second she'd seen the house. Everything in her was telling her to run and yet she'd gone in, let the first friendly man she'd ever met pull her inside all because she was so blindingly eager for real companionship. Aparna was right - she was just as narrow-minded as everyone else was, too caught up in her own little pitiful world of loneliness to acknowledge what was right in front of her.

She'd be dead tonight, if the bloodlust swimming under her skin hadn't stepped in. She was pretty sure Nick had been full of shit when he said she wasn't human, but some doubt still wriggled in the back of her mind. She bled red just like any other human, yes, but other humans couldn't do the things she'd done.

I can smell it on you, miss. Innocence.

She wondered if Dimitri would still be able to smell it on her now, had she not pushed a stake through his heart. She doubted it, because she was a predator, a hunter, a -

Slayer?

-and Joan knew she'd never let anything like this happen ever again.

The bites on her neck stung, pulsing painfully with every step. She swore she could still feel an echo of Dimitri's teeth breaking through her skin. And she'd just stood there while he did it, lost in the darkness of his eyes, perfectly complacent.

No, she thought. She'd never let anyone have what she didn't offer. Not again.

It was forty-five minutes before she'd made it back to her campus, all the while replaying the night's events over and over again. She knew she probably should have gone to the hospital. She'd have to, eventually. She had a broken rib and some of her wounds might need stitches, but at that moment all she wanted was to go home.

It was late and the grounds were empty. There was no one in the halls so she was able to walk to her dorm room with no interruptions. When she opened the door she expected Aparna to be sleeping. She'd planned on sneaking in quietly, slipping into bed, and pretending the night hadn't happened.

It wasn't meant to be. Aparna was at her desk, studying chemistry by the light of her bedside lamp. She looked up at Joan as she entered. She didn't seem all that disturbed by Joan's appearance, the only indication that she even noticed something was wrong was a slight widening of her eyes. She turned back toward her book, flipping one of the pages.

"I take it the party didn't go well?"

Joan felt an absurd chuckle bubble up her throat. "No. It didn't."

Aparna hummed. "You need to see a doctor."

"I know. Tomorrow," she said as she crawled onto her bed. She was staining the bedsheets, but it didn't matter. She'd buy new ones.

They coexisted in silence for a few minutes. Aparna didn't ask what had happened to Joan, and maybe that should have bothered her, that she so obviously didn't care, but it didn't. At least Aparna was honest about how little Joan's wellbeing mattered to her. She wasn't a friend, but she'd never pretend to be one.

Trying, and failing, to sleep, she listened to the sound of Aparna taking notes. The scratch of the pencil against the notebook paper was strangely calming. Joan remembered how tired she always got whenever she talked to Aparna, and she wanted that feeling.

"Could you read out loud?" she asked.

Aparna looked at her, and it was ridiculous but she looked more surprised by her request than her appearance.

"You hate when I read my textbooks out loud."

"I know, but right now I'd like to hear it. There's-"

The tears flowed freely now, but Joan didn't bother wiping them away.

"There's too much, and I'd really like to not be anything, right now. Could you, please?"

Aparna said nothing for a few moments, and Joan was afraid that meant she wouldn't do it, that she didn't understand what Joan was really asking for, but then she flipped to a different page and cleared her throat. She began reading the driest, most mind-numbingly boring chapter on Chemistry Joan had ever heard. It was awful. It was perfect.

As Aparna read, Joan cried. She cried harder than she had in years. She cried because was used to being ignored, but she was not used to being used, and it hurt. Her neck still ached and Nick's betrayal still stung and it wasn't fair. None of it was. It wasn't fair that she was a great big blind spot to most of humanity, that she'd been born off and wrong and that everyone else could see it the second they glanced at her. It wasn't fair that the wrongness was the only reason she was alive at all.

Aparna's voice never wavered, even as Joan's cries turned to full-blown sobs. Her droning monotone cut through it all, and eventually Joan's sobbing subsided as her exhaustion finally dragged her under. She sunk deeper into the bed and closed her eyes, fading away into sleep.

Joan slept dreamlessly, and Aparna was full.