As Quinn’s heart slows to a stutter and then stops, mine starts to beat again. It’s the strangest thing.
It doesn’t last long, maybe fifty beats at the most, and the most curious part is that it takes on the exact rhythm of Quinn’s heartbeat. It’s like there’s a small piece of him in my chest, a token that I’ll carry with me. It’s a small comfort as the man I love slips away in my arms.
I know it’s happened before I press two fingers to his pulse point, but the medic in me checks anyway. He’s silent. Still.
Dead.
‘Ok,’ Elias says, suddenly beside me like he could sense it happening. ‘I’m up.’
I watch him as he kneels beside us and bites into the flesh of his own palm, sending a rivulet of blood down into Quinn’s open mouth. I haven’t seen anyone be turned since I was, and after my experience, I expected it to be violent, maybe gory. But this is neither thing. It’s actually kind of beautiful.
Elias is gentle with Quinn’s body, almost reverent. He runs a finger lightly down the front of Quinn’s throat before he presses his cut palm firmly to the wound my fangs have made on the side of his neck.
‘Insurance,’ he says gruffly, though when I look at him there’s a soft smile on his face. ‘The ingestion is usually enough, and it’s fast, too. But as a backup’—he nods to his hand on Quinn’s neck—‘it doesn’t hurt to use another blood-to-blood transfer site.’
Panic lances through me, a sharp pain clean through my chest. ‘You need a backup?’
I see Elias pause. It’s momentary, but just for a split second, he’s entirely motionless.
‘Sometimes,’ he admits.
My soul almost leaves my body. ‘Sometimes?’
I see a new expression on Elias’s face, something awkward and sheepish. ‘I didn’t want to tell you that in advance. In case you worried.’
Something in my chest lurches. ‘And you thoughtnowwas a good time?’
He visibly shrinks away from me, but he doesn’t reply.
‘Does the backup ever fail?’
It’s not something I really considered– that the transition wouldn’t work and that I’d be the one responsible for Quinn’s actual, final death.
Elias doesn’t look at me. He keeps his eyes on Quinn’s body instead, his hand still pressed firmly to the wound. ‘It can.’
My heart feels like it’s in free-fall. ‘So, yes.’
There’s an almost unbearable pause before he says, quietly, ‘It has. A couple of times.’
There’s a moment of silence in which neither of us moves, or breathes. We just watch Quinn, or what’s left of him, anyway. There isn’t the faintest trace of life– or afterlife– in his body.
And then, in the next moment, I lose it.
I make a sound I can’t identify, something harsh and guttural. The image of Elias in front of me glimmers and blurs as tears well in my eyes, a forced-down sob held at the base of my throat that feels like a tightening fist.
‘I did it,’ I say, my voice shrill. ‘Ikilled him.’
Elias shakes his head furiously. ‘No.’
‘I did!’ I take a huge, gasping breath. ‘I did it and now he’s gone.’
I feel hands on my shoulder, gripping me more tightly than is probably necessary, like Elias is trying to calm himself as well as me. ‘Give him time.’
I want to,GodI want to, but I feel like I’m standing on the clifftop, and the slightest breeze might send me plunging to the rocks below. It’s been minutes now– more than that– and still nothing.
‘How long does it usually take?’ I manage, and he tries not to say it, I can tell by the tension in his jaw. I really believe he makes an effort not to. But it slips out anyway, a lit flame held to my touchpaper.
‘It’s usually pretty immediate.’