Roselyn traced the thumbtack across her inner arm, the softer, lighter skin through which she could almost see her veins under faded scars. As she did, another line of deep red welled up and flowed together with the lines of blood adjacent. She didn't wince as she cut a new line, just watched the blood trickle.
She hadn't cut herself in year, at least not this badly. Last time, it had been about a boy as well, but that was all that was the same. That time, it was because she had been traveling so far from who she used to be and who she wanted to be and almost did things with her friend Noah that she couldn't take back. It wasn't what she had done that made her mar her beloved body, just what she felt she was perilously close to becoming. Now, it was because of Dryden. Not because they fought; if she cut herself every time he was a jackass, she would be nothing but abrasions. She hadn't even thought about doing this for at least a year. Tonight was different, too stressful and she knew that something was wrong and there was absolutely nothing she could do to help.
She'd told Shane and Eliot when the apartment grew quieter and less amorous. Both were kind, but dismissive. Shane volunteered Eliot's car to search for Dryden, but what good would a car be if Dryden didn't want to be found? She thanked them both, meaning it more sincerely toward Shane, and returned to her room, where she fought against - and lost to - the urge to cut herself.
It wasn't suicidal, that's what people didn't get. It was just relieving, some enduring demonstration of her emotion, some way to be in control of a body that would occasionally toss her about with seizures. Dying is the last thing she would want, like any healthy organism. A little pain, a small invoked sting trailing her arm brought her much closer to grounded when she couldn't keep her head from racing, her thoughts from consuming her with obsession. A few ounces of liquid weight loss and she could go back to being herself again.
She had confessed her cutting to Dryden once, but once only. He asked her if she would show him the scars, which she begrudgingly did. It wasn't that she was particularly shy -- Dryden knew her anatomy at least as well as her gynecologist - but couldn't really understand why he hadn't noticed them before. She'd been utterly naked before him within two weeks of their first kiss. Surely some stray caress had traces this spider web of raised flesh. Surely in his frenzy for her bare breasts, he was at least casually aware she had arms. But no, he was ignorant and that was fine. He was a boy and she didn't expect much better behavior from males once skin is bared. What was far from fine is when he had asked her to cut for him, so that he could drink her blood. That was beyond grotesque. She could accept his persona as vampire because, at the very least, it made him a better piece of arm candy. But she could not even indulge the thought of letter someone else, especially a loved one, watch her perform this most intimate of acts. And to drink the blood that would result was sick beyond all reckoning. But for his catching on to the degree to which this was the worse possible thing to say to someone so exposing their pain, but for the effusive apologies and assurances that he had not really meant it, that fight might have been the one that ended their relationship.
Now, she could not help but think, this stupid fight about his sense of entitlement to her body might. And sex meant so much less to her than the cutting, she almost wished she had just given in to him. Then he would be safe in her arms and both of them would be well satisfied.
The door creaked open and Roselyn jumped from her bed to hide the thumbtacks and cover her arms. The blood splattered on her floor, on the candle and the ashes of the raven's feather.
"Shane. Hi. Don't you knock?"
The room was too dark for Shane to see any of what had been occurring before she opened the door. At least, Roselyn assumed this was true, night vision seeming to be well outside the amorphous purview of what Shane could likely do. "I did knock, actually. Maybe it was too light. Sorry. You okay?"
"Yeah, I'll survive," she answered, but rose to keep Shane from passing inside the room.
Dryden woke to a dark ceiling.
"Whoa there, tiger, take it slow. You've been dead all day."
He held his ringing head. He had the strangest urge to vomit up his lungs.
"There is a bucket for that, next to the bed."
Dryden felt around, found the bucket, and expelled what felt to be a month of meals.
"What… what happened?"
The man stepped in front of his line of vision. He was taller than Dryden, but most adult males were. His skin was pale, lighter than Shane's, but smoother too. He looked almost feminine, aside from the wheat colored goatee. But Dryden was Greek and he had a few aunts who could put this man's facial hair to shame. He wore a blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a corduroy jacket. The way he smiled reminded Dryden of something intentionally made wrong, like the masks of comedy and drama.
"Oh, don't worry too much, you're just dead. We killed you."
"What?"
"You're a vampire. You get used to it." The man looked him over, fingering the black pleather pants. "Actually, it looks like you've spent too long getting used to it. I'm Seth, by the way."
Dryden sat up again, his stomach settled now that it was vacant. "I'm not one of those vampires, Seth. I'm a psychic vampire, not a sanguine one. I absorb chi from the elements-"
"Blah, blah, blah, goth-cakes. You are an ex-human, halfwit. Get with the program."
"No, I'm-" Dryden began to argue. Seth pulled the fob from his watch, revealing thin wire. He grabbed Dryden's pallid hand and slid the wire across it, shaving off a layer of skin. Dryden yowled and began cursing and threatening to kick Seth's ass.
"Good luck with that, buddy. Look at your hand."
Dryden looked down, eyes full of rage, and saw no injury.
"I'm sorry," Seth mocked, "Did your chi heal that or maybe, just maybe, are you a fucking walking corpse?"
Dryden fell back on the bed, still looking at his hand. He needed the vomit bucket again.
Red Hook is a serialized novel being written by Xen, also known as Thomm Quackenbush. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is published by Cave Drawing Ink and syndicated throughout the internet.
