June, 2019

The drinks were going down smoothly. One after the next as I tried desperately to drown out his voice, playing like a broken record in my head.

You ruin everything.

I don't give a shit about whether Olivia dies.

She will fuck it up.

A lone tear crept out of my eye, cascading down my cheek without apology. But I was too foggy to care to hide it. What did it matter if others saw me crying in a bar, alone? What did anything matter anymore?

"Olivia," Ben quietly whispered, trying once again this evening to capture my attention. "Let's just go back to the Siren's house and sleep it off. I'm sure, tomorrow, Lukas will apologise for everything he said. He didn't mean—"

As he continued to talk, my sips became more frequent. Until eventually I didn't even put the drink back down, chugging until the frothy, malty yellow liquid had drained dry from my glass. "I need another," I sighed.

"You really don't."

I got to my feet and stumbled over to the bar, Ben hot on my heels, hands held out as if he could catch me if I fell.

"One more pint, please," I slurred to the bartender.

But after his eyes looked me up and down, he shook his head. "All you're having is water for now, Miss."

"No, I want a beer."

The bartender ignored me, filling a glass instead with clear liquid.

When he placed it on the bar in front of me with a nod as if to say, 'drink up', I shook my head and pushed it back.

"Beer," I repeated again before fishing out my card.

"You're too drunk to have more. It's either water or leave."

"Fine!" I retorted way too loudly, earning myself some annoyed glances from the other patrons. "I'll find somewhere else that will take me."

With that, I stormed—or, rather, staggered—my way out of the bar and into the crisp night air.

I glanced around, my head fuzzy as I took in the glowing streetlights. What time is it? Has the day already passed?

I fished out my phone to check, yet the screen stayed black.

Great. It's dead.

Like everything is.

Heaving a sigh, I started shuffling down the street, tossing between turning into another nearby bar and actually heading home, as Ben had suggested.

Though before I could come to a decision, a figure in the distance stopped me in my tracks.

"Was that—" Ben started to echo my thoughts.

Yet rather than waiting on him to finish his questions, I started running.

Curious pedestrians shouted at me as I bumped them along the way, horns honked as I crossed cars paths, and Ben pleaded with me to slow down and think first.

Yet my sights were fixed.

My mind was determined to prove him wrong.

I don't ruin everything.

I can be useful.

I can do this.

After the figure rounded the corner into an alleyway, I came to a stop.

My heart pounded in my chest as I glanced down the dead-end, the familiar bricked walls rousing memories of that night so many moons ago.

The similar racing heart and sweaty palms.

My cheeks wet with salty tears.

My breath shallow.

Two warm brown eyes my beacon of hope at a time filled with despair.

Though those same eyes of comfort quickly turned hostile as the man in my memory hissed, "You ruin everything."

"I don't," I muttered back.

The figure in the dimly lit street straightened.

"I can be useful," I breathed again. I wasn't sure who I was talking to anymore, though Ben was begging me to close my mouth and run.

The lean man turned on his heel, eyes narrowing in as his gaze locked with mine. "You smell delicious," he purred.

"Then maybe you should try me out," I retorted.

His head cocked to the side. "Perhaps I should." Two fangs glistened as he stepped under the lamppost, the veins in his neck throbbing as his tongue wet his lips. His cold, dead eyes no longer met mine—instead they were focussed on my throat. On the kill.

Do it, I thought. Bite me. I'll show I can kill one of you. That I can help. That I can—

"Olivia, run!" Ben screamed just before my body was lurched into the wall.

In the blink of my eye, the Made had closed the space between us, thrusting my body against the bricked building and pinning me by the neck.

"Why do you smell so good?" he growled.

"Perfume," I managed to get through with what limited oxygen I had left. All the while, my legs wiggled and kicked as I hopelessly tried to get him to drop me.

Why isn't he biting me?

Yet as my vision started to cloud with black spots, my concentration lapsed.

And when my concentration lapsed... the Made shrieked.

"What did you do?" he cried as his hand released me. His fingers gripped at his wrist as he studied his palm like it was seared.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," I gasped as I tried to regain my breath, kicking myself that I let my zaps turn back on... even though I knew my instincts were merely trying to keep me alive.

But before I could reassess the situation, his hand clasped my wrist and he threw me deeper down the alleyway.

My body thudded against the dumpster at the end. A searing pain shot through my back to my stomach, a groan heaving out of my mouth not much longer.

"I've heard about you. A few of us escaped your attacks before as you killed my people."

"You're barely people," I wheezed, hand clutching my abdomen as I tried to channel magic down to heal it.

"Please stop talking, Olivia, and look for your exit out," Ben whispered as he crouched by me.

"We didn't want to be like this! I don't want to be like this!" he roared at me, almost like a toddler denied of his sweet treats at the shop. I was surprised when he didn't stomp his foot, which the very thought of this menacing Made doing tugged a laugh from me.

"You're really not helping the situation," Ben mumbled.

And proving him right, the Made shrieked, "You think this is funny?"

"No... no. I'm sorry. I've just had way too much to drink. I... I want to help." I pressed my hands onto the ground, shifting to a seated position despite the fiery pain protesting my movements. I clutched my ribs as I tried once more to mend the broken bones and further damage lurking within.

"How could you help? Why would you help? All you've done is kill us."

"That... You've been killing people. I... My friends saw killing you as the only way to stop that."

"How are you any different from us then? I had a family once too." His head twitched, his tongue darted out, and as I started to sober, I noticed how his consciousness seemed to lapse to the mania.

He mustn't have been bitten long ago, I deduced. The human him is still there... still able to be negotiated with. We might not even have to catch a Made, but simply convince one to let us help them. "I'm sorry. I don't agree with the methods they've used. I've tried finding another way. But... so far it's been unsuccessful."

"What other way?" he stalked closer to me, eyes sometimes flashing with hunger as he looked at my neck in a hunger that sent shivers down my spine.

"We were looking for a cure. At the lab that made the disease. We didn't find anything, but... we're hoping we can still make one. Perhaps you can help us?"

His head twitched again as he relinquished himself to the monster stealing his consciousness. When he finally came to, he said ever so quietly, "Why should I help you?"

"So that you can get better. So that everyone can. So that you can continue a normal life."

"And what will happen if you don't cure me?"

"Then... the disease will eventually take over your brain until the human part of you is gone and all that remains is the monster who takes lives."

"... Will I remember who I am? My human self?" he crouched by my side, his eyes—slightly flecked with blue in the small light the alley permitted—brimming with hope.

"Probably not."

"Then I welcome it." His face hardened.

"Why?"

"Because there's nothing of my human life worth remembering."

"But you said you had a family."

"Had."

"What... what happened?"

His face moved closer. Uncomfortably closer. And when he was so close I could smell the metallic hints of blood on his breath, he jeered, "I ate them."

With that, his hands clasped at my neck again, this time cutting off all oxygen with purpose.

My hands shot up, gripping him. Prying at his fingers in the hopes I could loosen them. But he held tightly.

I turned on my shocks. His grasp faltered, but not enough. I couldn't wedge through as my vision began to blank with blackness.

I couldn't even force any words out as I gasped for air.

As my fight for life intensified, as did my shocks, eliciting pained screams from him.

In the distance, I heard voices whispering.

Onlookers?

Don't help, I thought. If you're human, he will just turn you or kill you.

Ben's voice was long gone now. Was he still even there?

The moments of blackness became more frequent.

The pain subsided.

And then eventually the world around me disappeared.