Chapter Three

"I feel like she knows what I am." Esther said to Adam. "I've been here a week. A week, and I haven't been able to get her to invite me back into her room."

"A week without blood won't kill you." Adam teased. "Stop being a baby, you don't need that much."

She didn't want to tell him that the second night she'd been here she'd made herself sick off of hot cocoa and wasted most of the blood she'd gotten the night before. Listening to him tease her didn't seem like too much fun at the moment.

"Adam."

"You'll be okay. If you fall dormant again, I'll come wake you up."

"That's what you said last time and I ended up asleep for twenty years."

"You didn't tell me where you went. It was hard to find you." Adam shot back. "When you can be literally anywhere in the world, what am I supposed to do?"

"Whatever."

"Listen, why don't you switch to more aggressive tactics if you want more blood?"

"What, I'm supposed to hold her down and just take it?" Esther scoffed.

"Come on now, I didn't say that." He said "Can't you like, seduce her or something?"

"And then what? She's not supposed to notice me biting her and drinking her blood?" Esther scoffed.

"Wait until she goes to sleep afterwards." Adam said. "Geez, do I have to spell it out for you?"

"Wh- you won't me to actually have sex with her!?" Esther said, recoiling in disgust.

"...duh?" Adam said. "Why do you sound so grossed out?

"Because she's a lot younger than me, Adam." Esther said.

"Really? That's it? Where do you think you're going to find another 180 year old to sleep with?"

Esther let that question hang in the air, then drift up into the atmosphere where it could slowly decay for the rest of eternity.

"I have to go." She said.

"Esther—"

She hung up the phone. It always felt good to do that.

Her head pounded in sync with the pulsing in her veins, and the need to sleep was stronger than ever. At that point, she reasoned that the easiest thing to do would be to sleep out her exhaustion, then go hunting.

There was a blanket draped across the back of the love seat. It was the multicolored crocheted kind, done up like a circle. It was markedly similar to a blanket she had received as a wedding present, many years ago. That one, was of course, gone, long since reduced to dust by time and moths.

Esther picked it up and rubbed the coarse fibers between her fingers. These types of blankets were always coarse, and they never kept you warm, but it felt like home.

She laid down on the couch and draped the blanket over her body.

Within minutes the darkness came.