“No.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. No one can make a vampire. We were born like this. Cursed. You will be fine—tired and a little sleepy, maybe, but fine.”
Hannah gulped. “Is it the only way?” She didn’t much like how that sounded. He would have to bite her. Suck her blood. She felt nauseous just thinking about it, but strangely excited as well.
The boy nodded slowly. “I understand if you don’t want to. It’s not something that most people would like to do.”
“Can I think about it?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
Then he disappeared.
* * *The next night, he told her a little more about the thing that was after him. It had almost gotten him once before, but he had been able to get away. But now it was back to finish the job. It had tracked him down. Hannah listened to the boy’s story. The more he talked, the closer she felt to him. He was running out of time, he said. He was growing weaker and weaker and one day he wouldn’t be able to resist its call. He would walk out to meet his doom, helpless against the creature’s will.
Something thumped on the window hard, breaking the spell of his speech. They both jumped. The glass vibrated, but held and didn’t shatter. Hannah could sense the thing was back. It was out there. It was close. It wanted to feed.
She turned to him, reached out for his hand. Her eyes were wide and frightened. “I’m sorry, but I … I can’t.”
“It’s all right,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t expect you to. It’s a lot to ask.”
The light blinked off, and he was gone.
* * *Hannah thought about him all the next day, remembering his words, his desperation to get away from the creature in the night that was hunting him. How alone he had looked. How scared. He looked like how she had felt when her father had told her he was leaving them, and her mother had had no one to turn to. That evening, before going to bed, she put on her cutest nightgown—a black one her aunt had brought back from Paris. It was black and silk and trimmed with lace. Her aunt was her father’s sister and something of a “bad influence” (again her mom’s words). She had made a decision.