Phoebe brushed her fingertips across the boy's cheek, the gesture tender. He was pale, dazed, but alive — breathing soft and shallow in the sand where she'd laid him.
Winona crouched beside hers, brushing her curls behind one ear, eyes bright with the afterglow. The other boy blinked slowly, like waking from a dream. Neither had screamed. Not really. Not after it had started.
Phoebe stood, brushing the sand off her jeans. Winona followed suit, and together they turned to face the small half-circle of remaining teens. Silent. Pale. Eyes wide. The air crackled with the strange mix of horror and awe.
A girl in a glitter hoodie swallowed hard, her hand twitching toward a vape she'd dropped. A tall boy in a varsity jacket muttered something under his breath — a prayer, maybe, though he didn't seem to realize he was saying it. Another girl, all limbs and eyeliner, clutched a jacket to her chest like it was armor.
And that's when Odeya arrived.
She didn't say a word as she stepped into the firelight, her boots sinking slightly in the sand. Her long black coat drifted behind her like sea mist. The flames danced against the glass beads on her sleeves, catching little flickers of red and silver.
She was beautiful. Strange. Other.
And the teens felt it like a shift in gravity — the sudden awareness that there was another one.
They watched as Odeya paused beside the fire, tilting her head slightly as she looked over the scene — the sleeping boys, the stunned faces, the two girls she'd called her sisters. Then her eyes landed on the others, scanning them slowly.
The teens couldn't look away.
Phoebe gave her a faint smile. "Took your time."
"Got caught up," Odeya murmured, her gaze drifting lazily across the kids. "Didn't eat yet."
The teens tensed at that — some stepping instinctively back, others frozen where they stood. The silence was electric, held together by a single taut thread.
Odeya stepped closer. Her boots crunched in the sand. The teens tensed, watching her every move.
She looked over them slowly, like scanning a menu.
Phoebe glanced her way, then toward a girl who hadn't spoken. A quiet one, pressed against a driftwood log, knees drawn to her chest, not even breathing.
Odeya followed the look.
Her lips parted slightly, not in a smile, but something close.
And the quiet girl whispered, "Are you going to kill us?"
Odeya crouched in front of the girl like she was approaching a wounded animal — slow, steady, careful not to spook her, even though it was clear the girl was already trembling.
"No," Phoebe had said earlier. "We don't have to."
And they wouldn't. But that didn't make it easier to understand — not for a teenage heart thrumming in terror.
The girl's breath hitched. Her shoulders curled tighter around her knees, knuckles white where she clutched her phone like a lifeline that had long stopped working.
Odeya's blue eyes studied her — not hungrily, not cruelly. Just… gently. Like she could see the fear radiating off her and didn't take offense.
"Hey," she said softly.
The girl flinched, her eyes wide, shimmering with unshed tears.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Odeya continued, and this time there was no taunt, no smirk. Just quiet truth, carried on a voice like velvet fraying at the edges.
She let her coat slide off her shoulders and gently folded it in the sand beside the girl before sitting cross-legged across from her, hands open, unthreatening.
"Look at me," Odeya said gently. "Please."
It took a moment, but the girl did. Slowly.
"My name's Odeya. I'm from Santa Carla. Class of '87."
The girl blinked.
"You were in high school?" she asked, voice barely audible.
Odeya smiled, soft and sad. "Not a great student. But yeah."
A pause stretched between them, the sounds of the sea folding in — a distant wave, the hiss of foam on sand, the low murmur of wind through the dark.
"I'm not ancient," Odeya added, glancing toward Phoebe and Winona. "I'm not a demon. I'm not whatever you're thinking I am."
"Then what are you?" the girl whispered.
Odeya's smile held. "A really hungry girl who got lost for a while."
She reached out — slowly — and placed a pale, cold hand on the girl's shoulder. Her thumb brushed against the edge of a tear the girl hadn't realized had fallen.
"You're scared," she murmured. "That's okay."
The girl gave the smallest nod.
"I won't take much," Odeya said softly, like a lullaby. "You'll be tired. That's all. Like after giving blood. Just... let me."
The girl looked at her for a long time — really looked — and what she saw there, despite everything, wasn't a monster. It was something older than her, yes, but not cruel. Not evil.
Maybe even… sad.
With a shaky breath, the girl gave a faint nod.
Odeya leaned in gently, her hand still resting steady on the girl's shoulder. She didn't bare her teeth. There was no flash of fangs, no dramatics — just a hush, a lean, the briefest press of lips to skin. Neck. Warm. Alive.
The girl gave a small gasp — barely audible. Her whole body gave the tiniest shudder. Her fingers slipped from the phone, which fell with a soft thud into the sand.
It didn't take long.
And when it was done, Odeya eased her gently onto her side, folding her coat around her like a blanket. The girl's eyes fluttered, dazed, but peaceful. A little paler, a little dizzier — but breathing deep.
Odeya looked down at the girl, her expression softening into something close to tenderness. With careful hands, she tucked the coat more snugly around her, like she was tucking in a little sister at a sleepover.
"Rest up," she whispered instead, brushing a thumb over the girl's temple. "You did great."
She looked up then, to Phoebe and Winona.
"I'm good now," she said, standing and slipping her coat back on. Her voice was light, but her gaze flicked briefly toward the other teens — still watching, still stunned.
Not one of them moved.
Because somehow… this wasn't like Twilight.
This was real.
The silence lingered long after Odeya laid the girl gently on the sand.
Her fingers brushed the girl's hair from her forehead like she was tucking in a little sister. Then she stood, straightening the hem of her jacket, dark eyes catching the flicker of firelight.
None of the teens moved. Not even the ones Phoebe and Winona had fed from. They sat in stunned, breathless stillness — all of them held in that strange space where horror had started to twist into something else.
Then a chime.
Soft, melodic, completely out of place — brrzt-ding.
A phone screen lit up. One of the girls glanced at it.
Her mom.
With a nervous, almost apologetic glance around, she accepted the call.
A woman's face appeared. Mid-40s, bathrobe, tired eyes. "Hi, sweetie. You okay? You look pale."
"I'm fine," the girl whispered. "I'm with friends."
"You're not alone, right?"
"No."
"Well, get home soon. Love you."
The call ended.
Phoebe blinked slowly. Winona leaned closer, trying to peer into the dark glass of the phone.
"She could see her?" she asked, baffled. "Through that little screen?"
"Talk to her. In real time," Odeya added, squinting. "Like it was a… tiny TV?"
Phoebe crouched a little, peering more closely. "Wait... that's her mom? Live?"
Winona leaned over, eyebrows raised. "Like, actually live? In real time?"
Odeya squinted at the glowing screen. "How does it even—there's no cord. No antenna."
"She's just... there," Phoebe said, her voice hushed. "Like a moving postcard. But alive."
Winona tapped the side of the phone with a nail. "This used to take a whole camcorder and a block of static on cable access."
Odeya gave a low whistle. "Technology got slick."
Phoebe glanced at the girl holding the phone. "You just… carry that in your pocket?"
The girl nodded slowly, as if afraid answering wrong might break whatever strange spell had descended over the group.
"That's wild," Winona whispered. "I remember begging my mom to let me use three-way calling."
Odeya grinned faintly. "And now you're doing video chats on a snack-sized mirror."
The teens didn't laugh. Not anymore. They could see it in the way the girls reacted — the genuine confusion, the awe — that this wasn't theater. There were no lines.
They weren't playing dress-up. This wasn't cosplay. Or irony. Or branding.
They were real.
One of the teens — a girl in a crop hoodie with glitter still clinging to her cheeks — whispered it aloud:
"You weren't pretending."
Phoebe smiled faintly. "Class of '85," she said. "Santa Carla High. The year I was turned."
Winona nudged her, flashing a grin. "Class of '86."
Odeya chimed in, smoothing a hand over her windblown curls. "Class of '87."
That settled over the group like ash. Realization bloomed like frost across the faces of the living.
One of the girls — shaking, clutching her phone like it could still protect her — asked the question. Barely above a whisper.
"…What was it like?"
Odeya looked at her. Really looked. A girl with braids and neon nail polish, mascara smudged under one eye, fear and curiosity warring in her chest.
"…The eighties," the girl said again. "What was it like?"
Phoebe blinked, almost surprised. Winona smiled faintly.
Odeya raised an eyebrow, then gave a small, indulgent huff through her nose. Not quite a laugh.
"What was it like?" she echoed. "Loud. Neon. Fast. Everything smelled like hairspray."
Winona grinned. "Coke in glass bottles. Roller rinks. Cassette tapes."
Phoebe tilted her head, eyes gleaming. "And danger. But fun danger."
Winona added, "We saw Bon Jovi play in San Bernardino. Open field, denim jackets, half the crowd drunk off Bartles & Jaymes. I think I lost a shoe and didn't notice until the next day."
Phoebe laughed softly. "We were already turned by then. No one noticed we didn't blink."
Odeya's smile turned wistful. "The speakers were taller than us. It felt like the world was going to explode, but in the best way."
The teens stared. Something shifted again — the fear still there, still alive, but threaded now with something else. Wonder. Confusion. Disbelief.
"They're not acting," one of the boys whispered. "They're really Gen X."
Phoebe glanced toward the sea. The tide rolled in with soft murmurs, as if it had heard all of this before.
Then she turned back.
"You won't remember this," she said, gently. "Not just the ones we drank from. All of you. It's how it works."
"The mind fogs," Winona added softly. "Details fade. Faces blur. You wake up and… convince yourself it wasn't real."
"Some kind of dream," Odeya murmured.
The teens looked at each other, eyes wide. It was clear none of them had known. That this wasn't just terrifying — it was about to vanish.
And then the boy — the one who had stepped forward earlier, the short one who had first dared to speak — took a shaky step toward Phoebe again.
"I don't want to forget," he said.
His voice was tight, but sure.
He looked at her like someone stepping into sunlight for the first time. His whole body trembling, not from fear anymore, but from the weight of what this night had done to him.
"I don't want to forget you all. Or any of this.
Phoebe blinked slowly.
"It's like…" he swallowed, eyes glassy. "Like this was the first real thing that ever happened to me. Everything else… I don't know. It was always filtered, or practiced, or for somebody else. But this… this was real. Even if it scared me."
Phoebe looked at him — really looked. And something in her expression softened completely. She didn't reach for him. She didn't touch his face.
She just smiled.
"Oh, honey," she whispered. "You won't."
His throat bobbed.
A pause.
Then, quieter still, the question slipped out — like it had been hiding inside him all along.
"Will I ever see you again?"
Phoebe didn't answer right away.
But her smile lingered as she turned to face the dark horizon, where the sea met the edge of the stars.
And when she finally looked back at him…
She just said, "Maybe."
And this time, it didn't feel like a no.