“So… you’re telling me there’s no way to kill you? Like, at all?”

If it was true, Mac really would be alive for eternity.

“As far as I know,” he said, “the only ways to kill a normal vampire is to cut their heads off with a silver blade and keep the two pieces separated until the body rots, shoot them in the head with a silver bullet, or with magic. silver doesn’t affect me, and magic can only hurt me. Also the sun doesn’t hurt me.”

He was shuffling a deck of cards over and over.

“How come it doesn’t hurt the other vampires during outside time?” I asked, now that I thought about it.

There’s a spell over the top of the area.”

“And so magic is real?”

Mac nodded,

“Didn’t you see him hold me to the wall? He knows spells. That’s partly how he wiped our memories.”

I took that in too.

“What makes you different from other vampires?”

He shrugged,

“Rafael isn’t sure if its my sixth sense gene having effects or if its the fact that I was turned via pill.”

“So, are you sure you don’t want me to join you?” I asked carefully.

“Yes. I'm sure. Stop asking me.”

I sighed.

“Not even if you do it? So Rafael isn’t hurting me?”

“... I don’t know how and I don’t want to.”

“Dammit Mac. You’re impossible.”

“No, I’m not. All you have to do is drop it, and I’m happy.”

“No you aren’t. I can tell you’re lonely even when we’re talking. Even right now.”

He just kept shuffling. I wondered if he intended to deal them at any point.

“Can we stop talking about me and my problems? What’s going on with you? How’s your depression? It seems a little better.”

I thought about my answer, deciding to drop it. Rafael had said not to remind him.

“It is, I think. I know now that I can’t leave you, and I care about things now. I’m doing my best to get better. I didn’t have the motivation before. I dunno, something just clicked. Maybe its my drug change.”

“He changed your meds? What to?”

I guess I’d forgotten to mention it.

“Yeah, a couple days ago he put me on latuda.”

“That was fast then. Usually it takes a week to kick in.”

I shrugged.

“I guess I was really low on whatever it has in it.”

“Yeah. Well it's wonderful that you feel better. I’m really, really happy about that.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I still feel like a piece of shit.”

“But it’s a start.”

“ I guess.”

Lunches were brought out for the people who ate. Mac still sat with me, and the look of disgust on his face told me he didn’t miss eating. He shuffled the cards more. He got real still besides that.

“What’s it like to be around food now?”

He wouldn’t look at me, as if he felt guilty.

“I can hear you chewing and the saliva in your mouth squelching around. The food smells the same but it just… makes me feel sick, like when I was on zyprexa. And it smells very strongly. I can’t imagine being around coffee or garlic or onions. I wish I liked it though. I wish I could eat instead of… you know…” his eyes moved down to my neck. I lowered my head to look him in the eyes. He seemed a tiny bit frustrated. I guessed I’d have to give up cooking if I was turned, which would majorly suck.

“Is it getting any easier to handle? All your senses?”

“I don’t know… I guess.”

“I mean, it's only been, what, 5 days?”

“... It seems so much longer than that.”

“Yeah… listen. It’ll be okay someday.”

“Mhm…”

He seemed distracted.

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“N-Nothing. I’m going to go to my room. See you tomorrow.”

He walked over to dayo and asked to go to his room, but apparently she said no because he sulked back over.

Poor Mac.

Vince slid Keith’s notebook over with a message from him to mac.

“What’s it say?”

“Hey, at least you don’t have a panic attack every time you think about it.”

I looked over at Keith who winced.

“You weren’t supposed to read it out loud.” Said Vince.

“O-oh. Sorry.”

He gestured for Mac to give the pad back. Mac did, and Keith passed it to Vine after writing something else.

“He says he’s sorry for trying to kill you last week, and that it’s okay.”

“No, I understand,” he stated, glancing at my neck again, “believe me.”

He spoke the last part much quieter.

I recalled what Keith described again. I knew that if Mac couldn’t hold back, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to.

I finished my lunch quickly so we could move over by the tv, away from the food, and we sat in silence watching “titanic”.

When group came around, I urged Mac to talk about how he felt (he had refused to talk about anything relating to him for the past 5 days). So did Quincy.

“Mac, how are you doing?”

“Not good. How about we talk about how to not want to murder innocent people?”

Quincy blinked at his strong words.

“Stay well fed. After a while of that, you’ll start to need it less.”

“I have another question. Do werewolves feel the need too? Or do they just kill whenever they feel like it?”

Quincy glanced at sam, Tyler, and Vince, who were all sitting together.

They avoided eye contact, except for Sam. He didn’t really seem to be ashamed.

“Sometimes,” he offered, “Once you get a taste, there’s no going back.”

Goosebumps climbed my arms as I glanced down at myself. I felt vulnerable. Just another reason for me to become a vampire. Or a werewolf, for that matter. Anything but prey.

I collected several pairs of eyes, including Mac’s.

“Do you kill people, Quincy?” Mac asked. Killing seemed to be on his mind.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Is it normal?” Mac added.

“It is. Humane feeding is a personal choice that as one gets older, it isn’t so important anymore. It’s natural for vampires to kill, and most do. But it is more common for young vampires to feed humanely.”

“Can we change the subject?” I suggested as I felt my pulse quicken.

It was too late in the evening for me to be nervous.

“There is in fact a human in the room.” I added.

“Sure.”