A young woman, twenty-two years of age, slept in the small room of the Tropic Sands resort. Twelve hours earlier she walked along the side streets of the city and onto the beach. The voice in her head willed her body forward and into the water. Her mind was consumed with one thought; she needed to die. But as fate intervened she was pulled to shore by a pair of strong hands, their grip unyielding like a set of iron claws. The voice screamed within her, ordering her to fight them off, but her body gave in and her mind grew numb. Was this what she wanted? Was this the death the voice begged for?
     The pressure and the pain woke the young woman. Through her blurry vision, she saw a dark room and the form of someone sleeping on the other bed. The pain in her gut resurged, consuming deep within her core. She cringed.
     From the floor, Emery pulled himself awake. He heard the girl quietly fighting the pain. In her agony she let out a muffled scream. Emery sat on the bed beside her and placed a hand to her shoulder.
     “Can you hear me?” he asked.
     The girl writhed a moment longer before opening her eyes. “Where am I?” she forced out.
     Emery rubbed her shoulder. “You’re safe.”
     On the other bed, Evonne felt Gabriel leave her side. She fought through the pull of the sun and looked around. He stood by the bed, both he and Emery speaking to the girl.
     “Who are you?” she whispered, her eyes barely open.
     “My name’s Emery. This here is Gabriel and over there is Evonne.”
     The girl looked at each of them. “Why am I here?”
     “You don’t remember?” asked Emery.
     “And why should she?” Gabriel remarked. “What’s your name?”
     She tried to sit up as she answered. “Micki. I mean, Michelle. But I prefer Micki.”
     Staring down at her, Gabriel crossed his arms. “Do you know what happened to you, before you tried to swim across the Atlantic?”
     Micki looked at her hands holding her stomach. The pain was still there but had subsided considerably. “There were these guys. I went to this club. I don’t know how long ago it was. One guy there tried to feed me all these lines just to get me to sleep with him. I turned him down… That’s all I remember.” The pain increased. She sat up further, doubling over. “What did they do to me?”
     Emery’s hand returned to her shoulder. “You don’t know what they did? How could you not know?”
     “Because you were a passing thought to them,” Gabriel answered for her. “Your mind refused to believe what was happening to you.”
     Micki cried out, the pain increasing.
     Gabriel stared at her. “You’re dying.”
     She fought to look at him. “What?”
     “You know more about what happened to you than what you’ve said. This is no time to be coy. Your time with them, what did they do to you?”
     Easily reaching her breaking point, Micki replied as hatefully as she could. “They raped me. Is that what you want to hear?”
     “I’m not talking about that.” He looked her over, judging the extent of the blood’s progression. “You’ll understand soon enough.” Gabriel returned to his bed and attempted to get back to sleep.
     “Understand what?” asked Micki.
     Emery glanced at Gabriel. “You’re not going to tell her?”
     “She won’t believe us,” he replied, his eyes closed.
     Evonne left the bed and headed into the bathroom. She came back with a damp cloth that she handed to Micki. The girl looked at the cloth, then touched the tears soaking her face.
     “I didn’t know I was crying,” said Micki, looking away. She took the cloth and began wiping away the tears and smeared, black eyeliner.
     Evonne watched her, taking in her distinctive sight. She had a Bettie Page look, with cropped bangs and long black hair. Her clothes, on the other hand, were completely Goth, more so than Melissa, Derek’s girlfriend. Though she had no visible piercings besides her ears, she had some tattoos, including a small, black star beside her right eye.
     “Do you have any family,” Evonne asked.
     Micki replied, voice weakening further. “My parents are divorced. I don’t talk to them much these days. They think of me as a lost cause.”
     “Why would they say that?”
     She gave her an odd look. “I’m not exactly the cookie-cutter daughter, now am I?”
     “Parents are great, aren’t they?” Emery chimed in. “Mine never gave two licks off a millionaire’s dick about me.”
     Evonne shook her head. “Eloquently put.”
     “What about you?” asked Micki.
     Sliding her hands into her pockets, Evonne shrugged at the question. “Me? I’m more of less a runaway. My mother died when I was young and my father is currently scouring the northern hemisphere for me.”
     Micki’s raised her eyebrows. “You’re a runaway? Sure fooled me.” She went to speak again, but the pain picked up once more, increasing in intensity. “I think I’m going to throw up.” Pulling herself from the bed, Micki rushed for the bathroom. Emery followed her. Evonne, however, wasn’t sure what to do. Half of her wanted to obey the sun and sleep, while the other half wanted to see the transition first hand. Her own shift from human to vampire was nothing more than a series of strange visions and sensations. When she woke up, it was all over. But with Micki, she had a chance to see the cruel side unveiled.
     Evonne stood in the doorway to the bathroom and watched as Emery sat at Micki’s side, holding her hair as she began to vomit into the toilet. The sour stomach acid her body expelled gave way to a mixture of blood, and then nothing. Exhausted, Micki laid her head on her arm and rested on the edge of the toilet bowl.
     Evonne felt Gabriel at her side, he, too, watching Micki. “I don’t remember any of this happening to me,” she said.
     “It happens to us all,” he replied. “I just made it so you wouldn’t remember.”
     Micki’s body tensed up with another round of spasms. Though her body tried to empty her stomach, once more, she had nothing else to get rid of.
     “Throwing up isn’t so bad,” Evonne tried to rationalize.
     “This is the beginning of what she’ll go through,” Gabriel explained. “The sun will actually help her forget most of it.” He then spoke to Emery. “Fill up the tub with hot water.”
     “What for?” Evonne asked.
     Emery answered her as he began running the water. “It’s like going through withdraws.” He sat on the tub’s edge, his eyes on Micki. “I was a heroine addict in my former life. I tried to quit on my own once. This is very much like withdraws. Well, that’s how I describe it. The body begins to get rid of everything. It’s not a pretty sight.”
     “In the old days,” said Gabriel, “sires would bury the human until the transition was complete. Some still practice this, but a bath is the next best thing.”
     “And a little less messy,” added Emery.
     Gabriel nodded at Micki. “Go ahead and get her undressed.”
     Emery helped her to stand, then pulled at her shirt first. Micki’s drowsy body tried to fight him off, her weak hands hitting him. The more she struggled, the quicker her strength left her. Giving up, she stood within his arms and allowed him to finish removing her clothes.
     Evonne wanted to look away out of respect, but the sight of Micki’s various tattoos fascinated her. What provoked someone to do something like that to their body? It was the same question she had for extreme piercings. But the question never found her lips when speaking with Emery. She chose to keep that side of him a mystery.
     Emery gently sat Micki in the tub. He grabbed a wash cloth and began wiping the diluted blood from her mouth. Her head rolled toward him, and through her lips, a thicker stream of blood slipped through. Wetting the cloth, Emery wiped it away as his fingers pushed back her top lip. The blood came from her gums above her canine teeth. He pressed his thumb against one of the teeth, testing it’s hold. The human tooth moved without much effort. Emery rewetted the cloth and wiped her mouth once more.
     “A slow start to this one,” he commented, pushing back the dark hair from her face. “Once the teeth go, the fun part begins.”
     “The real reason a burial is preferred,” Gabriel added. “The pressure of the earth restricts the body’s movement.”
     Evonne found herself asking her question before she could stop herself. “Were you buried?”
     “Yeah,” he replied. It was something else he didn’t want to explain to her, not right now, at least.
     “I wasn’t,” Emery said, his voice somber. “Mikolas and I were chained up in a basement. She released us three days later… fuckin’ bitch.”
     Micki stirred as more blood escaped her mouth. She lurched forward and coughed at the blood attempting to enter her lungs. Leaning over the tub’s edge, she vomited once more. Micki began to cry out. Her hands grabbed at Emery, pulling onto anything for comfort. She pressed her face into his chest and screamed.
     Gabriel left Evonne’s side to turn on the TV, upping its volume. He returned to the bed. Evonne looked back at Micki. The pain stricken girl move away from Emery as she spat the blood from her mouth. Emery reached within the mess and retrieved a small object.
     “One down,” he remarked, setting the tooth to the side. He leaned Micki back in the tub and raised her upper lip once more. A new tooth rested where the old once sat. He checked the other side and found the other canine tooth pushed forward, barely hanging on as the new tooth hid behind it. With a light tug, he pulled out the old, pesky tooth and placed it on the floor. He checked her new teeth, his thumb gliding over each sharp point.
     Unlike werewolves, vampires had no shape shifting abilities. Their fangs were given to them upon creation. And if a vampire were ever to lose their fangs, either to an unforeseen act or punishment, the body would regenerate a new pair. Evonne wasn’t sure if the same held true for werewolves or not. She knew they were capable of quick healing, but the whole regeneration ability was unknown to her.
     “I’ll stay with her,” Emery said, turning off the water.
     Taking this as her cue to leave, Evonne walked back to the bed where Gabriel lay, facing away from the bathroom. She crawled onto the bed and sat beside him.
     “What’s going to happen to her?” she asked with a whisper.
     “That’s up to her.”
     “Were you there when I went through this?”
     He kept his eyes closed as he replied. “They wouldn’t let me.”
     Evonne looked at the light from the bathroom. “It would be nice to have another female around. After all this time surrounded by you guys, I felt like the odd one out.”
     He finally opened his eyes, looking at her. “Because you’re female?”
     She gave him a shrug. “Someone more like me, really. She’ll be going through the same things I went through. She’s someone I can relate too.”
     “That remains to be seen.”
     Evonne narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t start that shit with me. You know what I mean.”
     “But do you know what I mean?”
     She placed her hands over her face, rubbing away the mounting frustration. “I’m tired and I don’t want to argue right now.”
     Gabriel place his hand to her arm, moving her hands from her face. “Who’s arguing? I’m merely stating the facts. You’re not like her. You knew what was happening to you. She will have to face a world she never believe existed. Sure, you’re both female, but that’s where the similarities end.”
     “So you’re saying that you and I have more things in common now?”
     “The only thing we have in common is the blood in our veins.”
     Evonne’s eyes dropped to the bed. “And my father.”
     “You had to bring him up,” he said, sounding annoyed.
     “Sorry,” she whispered.
     Evonne recalled the brief mentioning of the time he worked for Alex. Though he never explained much of their dealings, she could see the respect Gabriel had for him. The last thing she wanted to do was dredge up any memories, good or bad. She wanted her father to be absent from their minds.
     Leaning over him, Evonne placed her lips to his, the soft kiss driving her apology beyond the power of words. She felt Gabriel’s hand against the side of her face, sliding to the back of her neck and pulling closer as the kiss deepened. Again, Evonne sensed the lingering strength of Saros’ blood begging her to take the innocent act further. At least she blamed it on the blood.
     Evonne left him to lay at his side, her back to him, choosing sleep over anything else. Gabriel honored her wish. He draped his arm around her, blindly finding her hand as his fingers intertwined with hers.
     Even with the TV on, Evonne found herself drifting to sleep. The TV’s loud volume was no match for the sway of the sun.