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Carmilla opened one of the windows of the diner and peeked outside. Nothing seemed to move in the grey penumbra that came before dawn. The cold air of the last hours of night hit her face; she inhaled hard. Nothing. Her stomach clenched with hunger.
Carmilla closed the window and returned to the shabby table in the storeroom, where Perry was sitting. Carmilla sighed. The little psycho kept doing that. Waking up too early, way before the alarms in their phones woke Laura and LaFontaine up, and moving around the place much too quietly.
“That’s my spot,” she growled, then pointed at the plate full of cupcakes. “And when did you make those?”
“There’s still some minutes left until they wake up and I thought you could use some company,” she said in her irritating strained whisper of a voice. Carmilla sat on a different chair, silently vowing vengeance for her stolen seat.
“That doesn’t answer any of my questions,” she bit a cupcake furiously. It was delicious. She devoured it in a few seconds, knowing it would do nothing to kill her sharp hunger.
“I knew you would be hungry,” came the irritating whisper again.
“Look at you being clever, and I thought they made you the students’ nanny for nothing.”
“There’s no need to be rude,” frowned Perry.
“Of course I’m hungry, but these are going to do nothing to change that.”
“I know. The cupcakes are not for you. I wanted to offer you a real bite.”
“Of what?”
“Of me.”
Carmilla stared at her, trying to decide if the woman had finally snapped and lost her mind. She heard a murmur of blankets in the next room and a soft snore.
“Are you offering me your blood?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, undeterred. Carmilla felt her insides tighten with need. Laura had complained about how cold her skin was before she fell asleep--she always got colder when she didn't drink regularly. She eyed Perry’s pale neck; it looked surprisingly mouthwatering, which was probably further proof of how damn hungry she was.
“Are you sure?” she said. She wouldn’t give her a another chance to regret her offer.
“Go ahead.”
Carmilla stood up so fast the chair slid backwards. She was leaning over Perry and hooking two fingers inside the neck of her sweater when she noticed a firm hand against her collarbone.
“What…?”
Perry pushed her back softly. Then she started rolling up her sleeve primly until the inner side of her elbow was uncovered. Carmilla blinked; Perry placed her arm on the table.
“You can sit down,” whispered Perry. “It will be more comfortable.”
Carmilla growled. For a split second she debated throwing her on the table and draining the insolent child dry. But only for a split second.
“Unbelievable…”
She retrieved the chair that had landed some distance away from the table, sat down, and held Perry’s arm with both hands in front of her face, elbows on the table, trying to decide where to bite. She moved her lips close to the skin, choosing a spot near the elbow and getting ready to bite.
“Laura told me about Ell.”
Carmilla let her arm fall on the table with a heavy thud. Perry winced when her elbow hit the hard surface.
“If this is some sort of scheme to lure me into a heartfelt conversation and play the floor don, you can keep your scrawny arm and go back to cuddling the bio major.”
“I was just trying to make conversation,” Perry murmured, rubbing her elbow.
“Nice try, 007.” Carmilla grabbed Perry’s arm again, too hungry to be proud. “We are not bonding here, understood? I loved her, she died. The end.”
Perry only hissed when Carmilla sank her teeth in the tender flesh of her forearm.
“It must have been hard…”
Carmilla moved her head back and watched ruby red drops of blood grow over the little puncture wounds:
“It happened too soon. But I knew it would happen one way or another,” she said with all the carelessness she could fake. “I knew I would outlive her.”
“And Laura?”
“Laura can make her own decisions. But I am ready for that too,” she moved her mouth back to cover the wounds and feed before her voice cracked.
“And if that happens?” asked Perry gently.
Carmilla drank more than she wanted to. Perry would probably feel weak after it, but she didn’t want to move her lips away from her skin and answer. Her eyes itched.
She finally let go and looked at Perry, lips covered in blood.
“If that happens, I will survive. You always survive. You move forward, and the world changes. People change. Even the air around you changes. There is nothing left of them, the people you loved. Nothing at all. No one who knew them, the house they lived in, the places they loved. The world keeps growing up and swallows every bit of them until they disappear. So you have to survive,” said Carmilla, avoiding Perry’s eyes as she reached for another cupcake, “to keep them alive.”
Carmilla tore the cupcake apart and ate it slowly, bit by bit; Perry looked at her own lap. Silence stretched thick between them, until Laura’s cellphone started ringing in the next room. Perry smiled politely.
“Thank you,” she said standing up with her brisk, efficient moves.
“I told you, we are not…”
“All the same. I am glad we could talk.”
Carmilla’s eyes followed Perry’s hand where it went to roll the sleeve of her jersey back down. Carmilla blinked, eyes wide. The arm was covered fast, but she knew what she had seen: the skin slightly stained with the red of blood, but unbroken, with the wounds disappeared. In the moment it took her to process the information Perry had taken the cupcakes and left the room. She jumped off the chair.
“Perry…!”
She walked into the main room where Laura was stretching out on a booth, still covered with a blanket. The cupcakes were abandoned in front of her and Perry was lecturing LaFontaine in her high-pitched voice.
“Perr, there’s no one outside, I just want to take a look…”
“You can’t go alone! What if the townspeople are hiding somewhere and take you? What if you get lost? What if…?”
Carmilla looked at her from behind the counter, curls bouncing as she tried to steer the reckless ginger from danger, face flustered. She thought about the unbroken skin of Perry’s forearm, how little she slept, how silently she moved in the darkness before dawn. She thought about baked goods appearing out of thin air, about her hand stopping her easily when she had aimed for her neck and about Perry waiting for her at the table to offer her blood and ask about Ell, and Laura, and time.
She watched Perry take LaFontaine by the hand and drag them towards the cupcakes, chirping as always about keeping them safe, and a shiver struck her like lightning.