"What about you?" Enzo asked, shifting tonight's subject slightly. "Did you know the guy who turned you?"
"Mmnnn," Luciana murmured, shaking her head only slightly. She was leaning against the wall, where the edge met the bars. Enzo sat opposite to her – mere feet away, but just out of reach. "Pretty sure it was an accident," she admitted.
Her mind drifted to that night.
She remembered walking home, the night air still warm from the hot summer day. "Excuse me, miss?" His voice was deep and smooth, but it brought anything but comfort. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and when she turned, she was stunned to find two icy blue eyes, paralyzing her with his words. "Don't move," he instructed – a mere whisper with the power over her freewill. "Don't make a sound."
And then… nothing. She woke up hours later, when the sun was starting to rise, in the same spot that man had stopped her.
"I didn't know what was happening to me," she recalled. "By the time I got home, my parents were sick with worry. They'd been up all night waiting for me, even called the police…"
She remembered telling them she was fine, that she wanted to rest. But her mother fussed about, and set up a cozy space on the sofa – a cocoon of pillows and blankets, just like she'd always done when she was sick or sad growing up. She made hot tea and read her poetry, ran her fingers through her hair the way a mother does.
"She just turned the page and…" Luciana's voice cracked, her arms moving to wrap themselves around her torso in a lonely hug. "It was just a little papercut…" she drifted off.
Enzo's face fell – he knew where this was going.
"My dad's screaming… that's what snapped me out of it," she admitted. "I was more horrified than he was, I think. I ran for the door, but the sun – "
She recalled the horror of that moment, too. The terror in her father's eyes, the insurmountable pain and guilt for what she'd just done.
"He thought I was a demon…" she explained.
By nightfall, several priests began an invasive, traumatic exorcism. They tied her up and burned her with the sun, beat her with their tools, read scripture like spells and demanded the demon inside her leave. And, in those terrorizing moments, as her vampiric eyes turned black and her fangs bore defensively, she looking nothing less than the demon they thought she was.
And her father… that poor, sweet man. Heartbroken and desperate, he wept the entire time. He begged for his daughter back, and cursed the demon within her to hell for killing his wife.
Except there wasn't a demon. It was just her.
"It took two days to escape them," she went on.
She ran and ran, feeling shattered from the inside out, hungry in a terrifying way she'd never known, and absolutely afraid of herself. She didn't mean to, but she found herself back at the place the blue-eyed man had stopped her a few nights before.
And as if fate itself had led her there – there he was.
"And it all clicked," she snapped her fingers, recalling the light-bulb moment everything fell into place.
He did this to her.
But surprise swept his face when he saw her, dark brows knitting together in confusion. In an instant, he was in front of her. He smelled like whiskey.
"What the hell are you doing here? I killed you –" something like realization flashed across his features, "Damn it. If I'd known you had vampire blood in your system, I wouldn't have – ugh!" He gruffed, throwing his hands in the air. "This is so damn inconvenient."
A rage unlike anything she'd ever felt before in her life burned through her. "Inconvenient?" she railed. "You turned me into a monster!"
"Yeah, listen, I don't really have time for this," he was dismissive, unbothered. "Here –" he pulled a scrap receipt from his pocket, crumpled and used, and jotted down an address. "Go here, ask for Lottie. She'll help you figure this out."
She snatched the paper, blood boiling. "Figure what out?"
"How to be a vampire." And with a wink of his ever-blue eyes, he was gone.
"I never saw him again," Luciana continued. "But if I do, I'm gonna kick his ass."
Enzo let out a low chuckle, shaking his head as he leaned back a little further. "He better watch his back."
Luciana smirked but didn't reply, stretching her legs out across the cold floor. The concrete beneath her was unforgiving, pressing into the bruises she refused to acknowledge.
Enzo tilted his head, watching her closely. "And what about Lottie?" he pressed, his voice light, encouraging. "Did she help?"
Luciana nodded, barely. It's almost funny in retrospect, but it certainly wasn't at the time. "Apparently that vampire had just screwed her over, too," she explained. "And that manipulative prick knew she'd help me because I was another one of his victims."
"Damn," Enzo bit his lip, marveling at the irony. He'd have to remember that one.
"She made me a daylight ring and taught me the rules," She said, rolling her shoulders back as if shaking off the weight of memory. "We moved to New York together. We were even roommates for awhile."
"A witch and a vampire in New York City," Enzo echoed, rolling the image around in his mind, trying to imagine it. "Sounds like it'd make a good movie."
Luciana felt the corners of her lips curl into a ghost of a smile, "Don't forget, we were also librarians," she added, bemused. "Sounds like a pretty bad horror movie."
"Nah," Enzo countered, tilting his head, smirking. "I'm thinking a comedy—laugh track and all."
Luciana laughed – quick, short, genuine. It felt good.
Looking back, life with Lottie in that cluttered little apartment, trying to figure out their place in the magical world, was kind of nice. Like their own silly sitcom – two awkward girls, terrible at being the supernatural creatures they were, just trying to survive.
It didn't feel fun at the time, but looking back, they certainly had their moments.
She wondered if she would ever look back on this chapter of her life—the cages, the pain, the hunger—and find any kind of light in it. If she even got to look back at all.
Luciana shifted, glancing at Enzo. "What about our movie?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. She rolled through the obvious categories in her mind. Horror? Gore? Tragedy?
Enzo let out a slow breath, tilting his head back against the wall. "Could make it an action movie," he said, smirking faintly.
Luciana snorted, dry and unimpressed. The irony wasn't lost on her. Neither of them could move, let alone take action.
He hummed thoughtfully, tapping his fingers against his knee. "Or," he mused, voice smooth, easy, too casual, "maybe it's a romance."
Luciana's breath caught, just slightly. Heat crawled up her neck.
Then, just as easily, he moved on.
"If we really commit," he continued, his voice a touch more mischievous, "we could make it a musical."
"A bad one," she amended. The only singing she'd ever done was in the shower. "Terrible reviews. Absolute box office disaster."
Enzo chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Oh, obviously."