February 3rd.

  The Music room wasn't supposed to be unlocked, which meant either someone screwed up, or fate had decided I finally deserved a damn break. Victoria peeked her head through the ajar door like a possum searching through a bin.

  "Coast is clear. Come on."

  Her giggles danced through the air as she led me inside. I couldn't help the small smile that spread across my face as I watched her twirl on her heel in excitement. The way her long hair danced over her shoulders, the way her slender hands traced across the piano keys as she passed the instrument, the occasional pop of her lips she never noticed she did, the light in her eyes.

  It helped.

  "Okay, okay." she raised her hands in surrender with a smug grin. "I know I'm supposed to be helping you calm down, but come on, no one's here! When do we ever get the whole room to ourselves?"

  "Don't even think about touching that drum kit, you'll alert the whole school that we're in here." I chuckled.

  "Ugh! Fine, I'll stick to the quieter instruments!" She stuck her tongue out.

  I shook my head as I sat myself down on a piano bench, watching her bounce over to the ukuleles hanging on a wall. My face fell as another wave of nausea hit me. I glanced down to my trembling hands and shuddered at the sight of how long my nails had gotten again. I briefly looked around and snatched a pair of scissors from beside a box. Shakily, I began cutting the nails as short as possible, wincing each time from how stubborn and strong they were.

  Victoria frowned. Nothing ever got past her.

  She came back over to me, placing a hand on her hip. I raised mine in defence.

  "What? It's a precaution!" I huffed.

  "You can't use scissors. You need like... dog nail clippers." she grumbled.

  "Those are meant for round claws. I have flat human nails." I smirked sarcastically, my voice strained and bitter.

  "Take 'human' out of that sentence and spare yourself the grief." She rolled her eyes.

  Tori stole the scissors from me and went back to exploring. I sighed. Now I had short blunt nails on one hand, and sharp claws on the other. Great.

  I looked over my shoulder to the piano beside me. I hadn't really played since I was human, but the muscle memory remained. Though there wouldn't be many songs I'd be able to perform with my nails the way they were. I'd tried once, and nearly broke a finger after a claw got stuck between the keys.

  "So, what was it this time?" Victoria strummed a uke as she looked at me expectantly, sitting up on a table.

  My face scrunched and I averted my gaze.

  She shot me a look.

  "It's stupid!" I groaned into my hands. "I had to go to the nurse's office for a minute. That's it."

  "That's it." she repeated with a slight smirk. "You're not gonna elaborate? I can guess if you want."

  "Don't."

  "Kid with a nosebleed?" she started. "Broken arm? Scraped knee? They're daily occurrences in any school. I've told you, you can't go in there alone-"

  "It wasn't blood." I sighed.

  Tori nodded, and her strumming stopped.

  "You can tell me."

  "I know."

  A heavy silence fell between us. I'm sure it was painfully quiet for her, but I couldn't relate, thanks to the buzzing of every circuit in the walls echoing in my head.

  "I was in Psych. We had to watch some shitty domestic violence PSA from the 90's - and y'know, there's always that one kid that sees the class as a trauma dumping session."

  A small chuckle left Tori's lips at that.

  "I just... didn't wanna hear it, so I walked out. Teacher didn't care, they never do, but I got caught at my locker by one of the substitutes." I shrugged. "Obviously they're not used to my amazing attendance rate, so I lied and said I left class cos I felt sick, and they sent me to the nurse's office to get a note."

  "Yeah, no, that's fair." Victoria sighed.

  "There wasn't anyone in there. I-I'm not lying about there being no blood." I fiddled with my trembling hands as my knee began to bounce.

  "I believe you."

  "I just couldn't stop thinking about what that kid was yapping about. It... got in my head. They went on for ages about how horrible it is to have someone snap at their partner, a-and I just kept thinking about all the times I've done that to you-"

  "Zach..." Tori frowned, her voice soft.

  "I know it's not the same, b-but it feels the same. And the guilt doesn't magically go away when you throw an excuse on it." I raked a hand through my messy hair. "I never used to raise my voice. I don't have to. I know that."

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  "Zach, when you snap, it's a primal instinct." she assured me firmly, putting the ukulele down and resting her hands on her lap. "You're not human, sometimes your behaviour can't be held to the same standards we have for others."

  "I get that, if I've lost my shit." I met her gaze, my eyes narrowed. "I get that it's not my fault if I'm not lucid, if I'm high on blood, if I'm not human. But 95% of the time, I'm more than able to be held accountable. I don't want you or anyone else ignoring it or excusing it when I hurt you."

  She nodded, her gaze falling to the floor. "I respect that-"

  "And what I did the other day," I cut her off, "Tori, you can't ignore that. I don't want you to think that's okay for me to do."

  She winced, blinking a few times too many. "... you were overwhelmed and in pain-"

  "I don't care."

  "... Alright." Tori crossed her arms, looking away. "Fine. Yeah, you did... scare me, when you started talking to yourself and yelling at me."

  "Like that." I nodded. "That's what I need you to do - call me out."

  "I felt like I was in danger when you told me you'd thought about biting me," she continued in a tense murmur, "I didn't feel safe anymore."

  It hurt to hear, but I stayed quiet and let her continue. I had to hear it.

  "A-And then you started talking for me, imagining that I was speaking when I wasn't." she continued, her brow furrowed. "I started thinking about every possible exit route I had from my room to the backyard. None of them were good enough, so I started considering calling the police, but you'd knocked my phone off the bed during the pillow fight."

  I could feel my state worsen with her every word. That sliver of a part of my brain that had been corrupted by vampirism was panicking. I could hear its voice buried in the back of my mind, screaming at me, telling me that I couldn't afford to lose Victoria. But I knew I wasn't losing her by doing this. It always thought it had some claim over her, that she didn't deserve autonomy. That was one of the many reasons it was buried under mountains of my stubbornness, never to see the light of day.

  As Tori quietly vented to me, the usual light in her eyes fading with insecurity, I studied her closely. She was the type to bottle up all of her emotions, only to feel frustrated when others would do the same. Seeing her let herself open up - especially about me and to my face like this - was rare and fleeting. Her uneven blinking continued. Her lip curled occasionally. A few face scrunches. It was when the head nodding started that I took it as my hint to calm her down.

  "Vic," I got to my feet and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Her eyes snapped wide at me as she was brought back to the present, her breath short. After spending a moment locked in a staring contest with me, she groaned and rubbed her eyes.

  "It's fine. It's supposed to do that."

  "I know, but I don't want it to get painful-"

  "I-It waxes and wanes with my emotions, that's how tics work, Zach! If I'm ramped up, so are they!"

  I winced and took my hand back.

  She sighed and slumped. "Now I'm the one who raises their voice."

  "Not quite the same," I offered an apologetic smile and sat up on the table beside her, "But I appreciate the thought."

  Victoria rested her head on my shoulder. Her face scrunched as she spoke.

  "You said it yourself, I know what I'm signing up for with you."

  "Doesn't excuse it."

  "Yeah, well, it makes it really difficult to be mad at you."

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and let my head rest against hers.

  "Please," my voice softened, "Never get used to me acting out."

  -

  "What journal?" I frowned.

  "That's what I'm asking you." Carly pouted, trying to seem authoritative and failing miserably.

  "Carly, I don't have a diary." I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  "But did you?"

  "Why do you care?"

  Carly hesitated to respond. She bit her lip in guilt.

  "I snooped."

  "What?!"

  "I snooped through your stuff! Just a little bit!" she hugged herself. "I accidentally found these old torn up pages where you'd written about stuff years ago."

  I can't deal with this tonight.

  "Carly, in the last 24 hours, I've had to deal with going to a sold-out rave, feeding on several people without getting caught or going too far, feeling the intoxication human blood gives me for the first time in months, meeting a stranger who reminds me of my dead girlfriend, being near an open fire, having Malachi confront me about how I killed Victoria, struggling to even walk without triggering my powers, finding a woman bleeding to death, trying to save said woman's life, going too far and having to lie to the paramedics, being interrogated by the police, being yelled at by everyone for every little thing I do, and now this."

  "..." Carly cringed. "So can I read your journal?"

  A primal grunt left my throat, the sound more like a growl, and I pushed past her to get to my room. My shoulders relaxed at the sight of Tori sleeping soundly in my bed, and I calmed down for a moment, before remembering I was supposed to be pissed off right now. I span back around to Carly and crossed my arms.

  "It's four in the morning." I spoke quietly. "Can't you annoy me tomorrow?"

  "I have to leave for school in the morning." She frowned. "Cmon, you can tell me!"

  "Genuinely, why do you care?"

  "I only read a few lines, but if you have more, maybe they could help us with Tori's situation."

  "How? I know what I wrote, there's nothing in there I couldn't tell you off the top of my head."

  "Do you remember killing Titan?" She glared. "Because you never told me that."

  My jaw set, and my gums began to ache. Carly took a step back and forced a sorry smile.

  "I-I just mean, if you wrote down your experience when you turned, maybe it could be beneficial to have a refresher? It's been years, I'm sure there's some things you forgot or blacked out."

  "Not interested."

  I tossed my jacket across the room and gently climbed into bed beside Tori.

  Carly whined like a child.

  "Please? I wanna read your secret vampire diaryyy!"

  I shot her a glare and shushed her, before resting my head back against the pillow. Tori instinctively turned over and wrapped her arms around me, a sleepy hum of security escaping her lips. I sighed and looked back over to Carly.

  "You wanna read a journal detailing every dangerous, murderous, cannibalistic thought, instinct or act I've ever conjured? Seriously?" I grimaced. "You cry when you see me feed."

  "It could help." She chewed her lip. "Have you ever read it through? Or do you just write a page and never look at it again?"

  "The latter, and I like it that way, thanks."

  "I'm serious, Zach." Carly's brow furrowed. Her voice grew softer and she stood straighter, her gaze falling on Tori. "I want to read it."

  I sighed and threw a hand over my eyes, only to panic at the darkness, and rest my hand on my chest instead. I took a few moments to think the offer over.

  "There's two."

  "Journals?"

  "One's a journal, one's more like a... shitty handbook clearly made by a 15 year old."

  "What, like, a guide?"

  "I never finished it. Once I started realising vampirism wasn't as glamorous as the movies, it didn't feel fun to write up my own stats and that sort of thing anymore. I got out of the superhero mindset pretty quick."

  Carly nodded, trying to hide her bubbling excitement.

  "Do you know where they are? Either of them?"

  "Mmhm." I shut my eyes and wrapped an arm around Tori, feeling sleep creep up on me already. "The journal's under my bed, and the guide's in the storage locker in the old art room at school."

  "... you mean the old art room that got bulldozed over the summer?"

  "... shit."

  "Shit?"

  "Shit."