On the drive back from City Hall, our freshly signed marriage license still resting in the glove compartment, Camilla spoke without looking at me. “”I cheated on you.”” She tapped the passenger seat I was sitting in, her lips curling into a vicious little smile. “”Yesterday afternoon. Right where you’re sitting. He kissed me, Drew. He was so good at it that I lost control, and… well, we ended up in bed.”” Betrayed. Again. By the only person left I thought was incapable of it. The breath went out of me. I froze, my ribs clamping down on lungs that hadn’t drawn a necessary breath in a century, until I couldn’t produce so much as a whimper. Camilla let out a bright, airy laugh. “”I finally understand Allison now. Troy really is twice the man you’ll ever be.”” Allison was my ex-wife. Troy was the human I once called my brother. Five years ago, I caught them tangled together in my own bed. When my entire world turned to ash, Camilla had stepped out of the smoke to save me. She had stitched me back together piece by piece. And now, she had broken me for the exact same man. 1. It felt as though an invisible hand had wrapped around my windpipe. It took minutes—agonizing, hollow seconds—before my mind dragged itself out of the shock. My voice came out as a cracked whisper. “”Why?”” Why sleep with him, only to turn around and marry me this morning? Why wait until the happiest day of my immortal life to slice me open? Camilla glanced sideways at me, momentarily surprised. Then, she threw her head back and laughed loudly. “”Troy, you won.”” I stared at her, completely unmoored. A second later, the car’s Bluetooth audio crackled to life, and a voice I knew down to my marrow oozed through the speakers. “”Make sure you wear those black stockings I bought you tonight, baby.”” My eyes widened in pure horror. The cold, stagnant blood in my veins turned to slush. “”Troy and I had a bet,”” Camilla said, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “”On how you’d react when I told you. I figured you’d lose your mind and slap me. He said you’d just sit there like a wounded dog and ask “”why””.”” She turned the wheel smoothly. “”If I won, he had to wear the cologne I like. If he won…”” She offered me a slow, predatory grin. “”Well, you heard him, didn’t you?”” Troy’s voice echoed through the cabin again, dripping with condescension. “”Come on, Drew. Are you even a man?”” Troy chuckled, the sound grating against my eardrums. “”Five years, two different women, and your only line when a wife cheats on you is “”why””?”” He paused, letting his triumph breathe. “”I have to hand it to you, though. Your taste in women is impeccable. I like this one even better.”” That sneering laughter paralyzed my limbs. In a terrifying flash of vertigo, the highway vanished. I was back in my old apartment five years ago. I had cut a business trip short, holding a bouquet of hydrangeas to surprise Allison for her birthday. I opened the bedroom door to find her and Troy tangled in the sheets. Allison had scrambled for a blanket, terrified. Troy had just leaned back against the headboard, lighting a cigarette with trembling, arrogant fingers. “”Sorry, bro. Dry spell. Needed to borrow your wife for a bit.”” Back then, the dead blood had roared in my ears. I wanted to tear him apart, to let my fangs descend and drain him dry. But the second I stepped forward, my knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the hardwood. All I could manage was that pathetic, broken word: “”Why?”” Their mouths had moved in response, but my ears felt packed with wet cotton. I didn’t hear a single syllable. Then came the blood. Allison began bleeding heavily onto the sheets, sobbing, clutching my ankles, begging me to save her. The terror broke my stupor. I scooped her up and sped to the emergency room. We were too late. The doctor said the trauma had been too severe; her fragile human uterine lining couldn’t withstand the strain, and our miracle—the half-vampire pregnancy I had prayed to the night for—couldn’t be saved. I spent that entire night on a cold metal bench outside the surgical ward, smoking until my throat burned raw, mourning my dead love, my dead friendship, and the child I would never hold. 2. “”All right, Troy. Don’t push him over the edge,”” Camilla said, her voice cutting through the nightmare. “”See you tonight. Let me drop Drew off first.”” She tapped the steering wheel to end the call. The silence inside the car slammed down like an iron vault, filled only with the mechanical hum of the engine and our breathing. A moment later, Camilla spoke again, her tone shockingly light. “”You must be starving. Let’s get you some lunch, and then I’ll drive you home.”” She sounded tender, almost maternal, as if the last five minutes had never happened. It made my reddened eyes and shaking hands look like a bad joke. “”Why, Camilla?”” My voice tore out of my chest, half-scream, half-sob. “”You swore to me. You looked me in the eye and swore you’d spend the rest of your life cherishing me!”” Tears spilled over, hot and humiliating. In the past, Camilla would have pulled over immediately, cupping my face in her hands, kissing away the tears, whispering that I was safe. This time, she simply leaned back against her headrest, watching me with detached amusement. “”Drew, if you had picked me the first time around, I would have cherished you forever,”” she said smoothly. “”But you’re damaged goods now. You’re someone else’s leftover. What makes you think you’re worth my loyalty?”” She pulled a tissue from the console and held it out to me like an act of charity. I recoiled, pressing my back hard against the passenger door, staring at her as if she were a monster wearing my wife’s skin. We had all gone to college together, back when I first decided to blend in among the humans. Years ago, Camilla and Allison had pursued me at the same time. I had fallen for Allison’s quiet warmth. Camilla had stepped back gracefully, offering polite congratulations before fading into the background. Until Allison shattered me. Until I couldn’t bear the weight of living and slashed my wrists with a silver blade in an empty bathtub. It was Camilla who had kicked down the door. Camilla who spent months sitting by my hospital bed, feeding me synthetic blood disguised as broth, keeping the darkness at bay, dragging my rotting soul back toward the light. “”If you resented it so much,”” I choked out, staring into her cold eyes, “”why pursue me? Why fight so hard to be with me?”” She sighed, a line of irritation creasing her brow. “”I thought I could let it go,”” she admitted, tapping her manicured nails on the leather wheel. “”I really did. But then we started planning the wedding…”” She scowled, visibly disgusted. “”You were too damn good at it.”” My breath hitched. “”When we booked the photographer, you knew exactly how to negotiate the package. When we picked out the rings, you casually suggested buying a cheap cubic zirconia replica for the actual ceremony so the real one wouldn’t get lost. And this morning at the clerk’s office? You didn’t even have to look up what documents we needed or what to wear. You had it down to a science.”” Camilla turned to me, her face dark with venom. “”Everything you did was a glaring neon sign reminding me that I was marrying a man who had already lived this life with another woman. You gave her the authentic Drew. I got the polished rerun.”” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “”I couldn’t stomach it.”” My vision blurred through a fresh wave of tears. “”I love you, Drew,”” she continued softly. “”I really do. But you gave Allison a full year of marriage. So I get a year of my own fun before I settle down with you. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”” Her fingers reached out to touch my cheek. I flinched violently, a tear dropping onto her knuckles. She pulled her hand back as if I had burned her. “”It’s not fair!”” I roared, every nerve ending in my body screaming in agony. “”If it bothered you, you should have walked away! You don’t get to play the savior just to stab me in the back! I want a divorce, Camilla! We’re done!”” She didn’t flinch. She just watched me with flat, dead eyes until my voice gave out. Then, she sneered. “”The papers are already filed. Fairness isn’t yours to define anymore.”” Her gaze drifted down. “”And a divorce? Don’t flatter yourself. You take what I give you, or you swallow your pride and shut up.”” Before I could process her words, she reached across me, popped the passenger door open, and shoved me hard. I tumbled out onto the wet asphalt. “”You’re pathetic right now,”” she said, looking down at me from the driver’s seat. “”Sit out here and think about how you talk to me.”” 3. A thunderstorm had rolled through town earlier, leaving the gutters overflowing. I landed hard in a pool of thick, muddy water. The pavement was slick with oil and rain. I scrambled, trying to plant my hands, trying to get my feet under me, but my limbs—deprived of fresh blood for years to suppress my nature—had absolutely no strength. I slipped and fell back into the muck twice. Camilla watched my frantic, clumsy struggles from behind the wheel, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. “”Look at you, Drew.”” I looked up through the grime, shivering. “”You can’t even stand on your own two feet without someone propping you up,”” she mockingly observed. “”You really think you can divorce me? Where the hell would you go?”” She hit the button, rolling the window up, and stepped on the gas. The car tore away from the curb, kicking up a wall of filthy street water that plastered my hair to my forehead and covered my face in mud. My vision swimming, my mind fractured backward, dragging me through the wreckage of the past year. After my divorce from Allison, my clinical depression had spiraled into violent self-harm. Whenever Camilla caught me pressing silver to my arms, she would take a steel blade and drag it twice across her own skin, crying that if I bled, she would bleed more. When insomnia made me feel like my skull was caving in, she spent thousands of dollars cutting a massive glass skylight into the roof of her loft, holding me through the night so we could count the stars until dawn—safe from the sun I could never face. When my throat closed up and I couldn’t swallow even synthetic blood, she fasted with me. It took a year of that relentless, suffocating devotion for me to believe I was safe. To believe someone finally loved me without conditions. The night I finally agreed to be hers, she wept against my collarbone, swearing she would spend the rest of her life making up for the pain the world had dealt me. I never imagined her “”rest of my life”” came with an expiration date for an immortal. It hadn’t even lasted twelve months. I wiped the street sludge from my eyes and dragged myself up against a rusted lamppost. A pair of pedestrians walked by, laughing behind their hands at the sight of a grown man covered in filth on a gray afternoon. Mortification burned through my numbness. I raised a trembling hand, trying to hail a cab. No one would stop. I was soaked, filthy, and shivering. I stood in the drizzle for an hour before an independent ride finally pulled over. The driver took one look at my ruined clothes and demanded cash up front, plus a two-hundred-dollar cleaning deposit. “”Yes, of course, anything,”” I stammered, pulling out my wallet. I tapped my debit card against his reader. “”Transaction Declined.”” I tried my credit card. “”Account Frozen.”” She had locked my accounts from her phone. Another little lesson to teach me my place. The driver cursed, locked his doors, and sped off. Right on cue, the sky ripped open again, unleashing a torrential downpour. The rain hit my bare neck like needles. I walked. I don’t know how many miles it was, or how many intersections I crossed in a daze, but by the time I pushed open the front door of our suburban house, my clothes were glued to my freezing skin. I stepped into the foyer. My mind went blank. A pair of designer heels lay tangled with men’s leather Oxfords on the rug. A black lace bralette was draped over a tailored charcoal suit jacket on the hall table. Through the archway, near the floor-to-ceiling living room window, Camilla had her arms wrapped tightly around Troy’s neck. They were kissing hungrily, deeply, their bodies pressed together in the dim afternoon light. The air left my chest. The past and the present slammed together like two freight trains colliding inside my skull. An involuntary, guttural noise escaped my throat. My hands shook so violently I dropped my keys. The clatter broke their trance. Camilla pulled back, her brow furrowing with deep annoyance. “”What is your problem? Stop acting like this is news to you. You’ve been through this before.”” Troy didn’t even bother buttoning his shirt. He leaned against the windowsill, his chest flushed, and barked out a laugh. “”Long time no see, Drew. I have to correct what I said on the phone earlier. Camilla is a hell of a lot more fun than Allison ever was.”” His compliment made Camilla preen. “”At least someone appreciates me,”” she murmured with a satisfied smirk. She turned and walked toward me, barefoot on the hardwood. With every step she took toward me, the violent tremors in my chest intensified. When she reached out, her fingers inches from my wet jacket, my stomach violently rebelled. I doubled over and vomited blackened, rancid synthetic blood and rainwater all over the polished floor. Camilla froze. A heavy, dangerous silence settled over the room. “”Drew,”” she whispered, her voice dropping into a register that was purely venomous. “”Are you repulsed by me?”” 4. I couldn’t answer. Every reserve of energy had been sucked out of me, leaving behind a hollow, shivering shell. I was too weak to even let my fangs show. My physical reaction shattered her ego. Camilla’s face twisted in rage. She seized the lapels of my soaked jacket, yanking me upright, a manic laugh escaping her lips. “”You brought this on yourself, Drew.”” Her grip tightened until the fabric choked me. “”I was going to let it go after tonight. I was going to give you your little domestic bliss after I got it out of my system. But no. You have to play the martyr. Now, you’re going to swallow every ounce of the misery I went through.”” She shoved me back, turning toward Troy with an icy command. “”The wedding at the end of the month? You’re stepping in. You’re the groom.”” Troy’s eyes widened with wicked delight. He closed the distance between them, pulling Camilla into a filthy, open-mouthed kiss right in front of me. “”Seriously?”” Troy laughed against her lips. “”Then Drew has to be my best man. I stood beside him five years ago; it’s only right he holds the rings for me this time.”” “”Done,”” Camilla whispered, her eyes locked on mine over Troy’s shoulder. “”He’ll stand right there and hand you my ring.”” Each syllable felt like a serrated blade tearing through the scar tissue of my heart. I looked up, trying to form words to curse them, to spit in their faces, but my vocal cords felt shredded. I could only shake my head in mute horror. Seeing my terror, Camilla’s lips parted in a ghastly grin. “”Hurts, doesn’t it? It feels like your chest is being torn open from the inside out, right?”” She took a step closer, savoring my collapse. “”Good. Because that is the exact agony I felt five years ago watching you slip a ring on another woman’s finger.”” I stared at her face, warped and ugly with years of festering malice. And suddenly, the fog cleared. She had never wanted fairness. She had never wanted to heal me. She had collected me at my lowest point, nursed me back to life, simply so she could recreate her own trauma and force me to live it. My destruction was her closure. I pressed a trembling palm against my ribs, feeling the dull, dead thump of my heart. A ragged, hollow smile broke across my face. “”No,”” I whispered. Camilla’s expression stiffened. “”It doesn’t hurt, Camilla,”” I said, meeting her eyes. “”I don’t feel pain. I just feel disgusted.”” That single word detonated whatever control she had left. With a shriek of fury, Camilla shoved Troy aside and grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the stairs. If this had been my prime, I could have snapped her neck with a flick of my wrist. But I had starved myself of human blood for years to be with her. To her, a weakened vampire weighed nothing. She dragged me up the stairs like a sack of laundry, my boots bumping against every riser. At the landing, she bypassed the master bedroom. She kicked open the door to the adjacent guest room and threw me inside. I hit the carpet hard. Hearing the heavy door swing shut, I lunged forward, trying to throw my weight against it. “”Let me out—!”” The deadbolt clicked into place from the outside. “”Disgusted?”” Camilla’s voice filtered through the wood, sharp and biting. “”Then get ready, Drew. The real show hasn’t even started yet.”” She raised her voice, deliberately projecting down the hall. “”Troy! Get up here.”” The chill in my bones sank straight into my marrow. 5. A few moments later, the wall shared between the guest room and the master bedroom began to hum with sound. Wet, heavy kissing. Then, Troy’s guttural, mocking laughter came through the drywall. “”God, this is incredible. Knowing he’s on the other side of the wall, listening to every breath.”” “”You want something even better?”” Camilla’s voice purred, breathy and eager. “”Let’s see how much he can take…”” I pressed the palms of my hands over my ears, hard enough to hurt. It was useless. The rhythmic creaking of the headboard, the muffled groans, the wet, sickening sounds of their bodies collided against my skull anyway. The room felt ice-cold. I curled into a tight ball on the floor, my forehead pressed against the baseboard, gasping for air that wouldn’t fill my lungs. My mind splintered. I saw Camilla sitting by my bed, holding my hand while I cried. I heard her whispering that I was worthy of being loved. And then the audio through the wall would spike, and I would see her arching her back beneath the man who had stolen my first life. My temples throbbed as if they were going to burst. Shaking violently, I clawed through my wet jacket pockets, finding the amber prescription bottle of concentrated silver salts I used to suppress my predatory instincts. I didn’t bother counting. I popped the cap and dry-swallowed four, five, six toxic capsules, my throat spasming as they went down. Time lost all meaning. The bedroom door clicked open. Camilla stood in the doorway, a white bath towel wrapped securely around her damp body, looking down at me curled on the rug. “”Can’t even handle one night?”” she sneered, crossing her arms. “”How are you going to survive the next twelve months?”” Behind her, Troy walked into the frame, bare-chested, his neck and collarbone littered with fresh, red bite marks. He laughed, leaning lazily against the doorframe. “”Careful, Camilla. You sound like you actually feel sorry for him.”” Camilla’s eyes flickered for a fraction of a second, but her jaw quickly hardened. “”Sorry for him? Never.”” She turned a cold glare on me. “”I married him so he would know what it felt like to be gutted. Why would I pity someone I set out to ruin?”” I lifted my head from the carpet. Every drop of hope, every lingering trace of gratitude, drained completely from my soul. It had all been a lie. There was no rescue. No tender savior. There was only a patient hunter who had lured a dying animal into her cage so she could slaughter it herself. When agony reaches its absolute peak, it ceases to be pain. It turns into a terrifying, white-hot clarity. A sudden reserve of adrenaline surged through my limbs. I pushed myself off the floor, stepped forward, and swung my arm with everything I had left. “”Crack.”” Even starved, the sound of my palm striking Camilla’s cheek echoed like a gunshot through the hallway. The silence that followed was absolute. All three of us froze, suspended in shock. Camilla touched her reddening cheek, her eyes wide, before her face flushed with murderous rage. “”You hit me?”” she hissed, her voice vibrating. “”Drew, you’re out of your mind!”” I threw my head back and let out a broken, wild laugh. “”Didn’t you tell Troy I’d slap you?”” I mocked, my laughter bouncing off the walls. “”I gave you what you wanted! Why are you so angry?”” I stepped closer, staring directly into her furious eyes. “”You know what the funniest part is? If this had been Allison… I never would have laid a finger on her. Because I actually loved her too much to ever hurt her.”” The color drained from Camilla’s face, replaced by a dark, suffocating fury. She stared at me for a long, terrible moment, her chest heaving. Then, her lips twisted into a cold, terrifying smile. “”Trying to hurt me?”” she whispered. “”Fine. Have it your way.”” She stepped backward into the hall and slammed the door shut, locking it from the outside. This time, I didn’t rush the door. I climbed onto the mattress, my limbs moving with an eerie, mechanical calm as the silver burned through my system. Next door, the music began to play loudly, punctuated by Troy’s deliberate, exaggerated groans. I stacked the heavy down pillows and blankets on top of the bed, creating a makeshift ladder. I climbed up, reaching for the brass latch of the custom glass skylight Camilla had built for me—the one she had installed so we could count the stars together, safe from the sun. I popped the seals and shoved the glass panel open. The cold night air hit my face, smelling of wet asphalt and ozone. I pulled myself through the frame, crawling out onto the slick, pitched shingles of the roof. With every inch I crawled toward the edge, a quiet, soothing voice whispered in the wind: “”Let go, Drew. She never loved you. It was all a calculated performance. The only way you ever leave this cage is by breaking it.”” I reached the gutter. I stood up, balancing on the wet slate. Below me, the yellow light from the master bedroom window spilled onto the lawn. I took a deep breath, looked down, and let gravity take me. My falling body cut clean through the light beam of their window. “”Drew, no!”” Inside the bedroom, Camilla’s terrified shriek shattered the night.
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