The V*mpire - Reactor (original) (raw)

The vampires aren’t even the worst part about being a teenage trans girl on tumblr.

Author’s Note: This story is set on tumblr in the early 2010s. It depicts, among other things: internalized and externalized transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny; grooming; alcoholism; intimate partner violence, including both physical and sexual assault; murder; cannibalism; gaslighting; the online culture of the period and the weaponization of that culture to silence, manipulate, and abuse.

It’s 2012 and you’re fourteen years old and you have strong feelings about Captain America so of course you’re pretending to be a girl on Tumblr.

At first it was just—you know. It was fun to pretend. It was like you weren’t some flabby dweeb who can’t do a push-up and still wears sweatpants to school. You were a girl, you had opinions on makeup and fashion and boys (particularly, y’know, opinions about Steve Rogers, but also boys in general).

But now people want you to put “your pronouns” in your header, and if you don’t then you’re a transphobe, and—it’s not like you care about trans people one way or another, it’s not like you’ve even thought about them ever—but it feels bad to think about it so anyway you put “she/her/herself” in your bio since that’s what your mutuals did (well except for jacobblackrailme420 who’s “zie/xer/xerself,” which is weird, and you don’t understand what it means, but somehow it makes you feel safe) and it feels good, actually. It feels like winning; like no one’s caught you yet.

It also feels a little less like pretending. Up there alone in your room with the lights out, under the covers with Mimi the elephant and the black Chromebook that your dad bought you after he forgot your birthday last year, it really does feel like you’re a girl, you’re just a girl, you’re finally a girl, a girl chatting with the other girls about Bumblework Cucumber and Supernatural (which you don’t even watch) and Chris Evans’ resemblance to a Dorito™.

The internet isn’t real life, right? But somehow, pretending to be a girl on tumblr—that feels real in a way that high school and your mom and all the kids calling you “faggoty bitch” don’t feel real at all. It just feels like something you have to put up with, so you can get back to the drabbles and gifsets and the love and everything real.

Once upon a time there was a woman who had only daughters but no sons. Every night, she would cry herself to sleep, bereft at her misfortune, until one night her youngest, kindest daughter came to her and said, “Mama, I can be a son for you. Just dress me as a boy, and name me as a boy, and treat me as a boy, and no one will ever know the difference. It will be just like you have a son for real.”

And so the woman did as her daughter asked. She dressed her as a boy, and named her as a boy, and treated her as a boy, and no one ever knew the difference. Even the woman, herself, forgot that she ever had a youngest daughter. Even the daughter, herself, forgot that she had ever been anything but a boy.

But, even if she didn’t remember it, she wasn’t a boy. And then, one day, she—

| Friendly reminder that not inviting vampires into your house is viviocentrism. Stop being viviocentric!

| OP, I don’t want to demand more emotional labor from you, but I really don’t understand what you mean. Should I really invite in every vampire?

| Disrespectfully, go fuck yourself. It’s not my job to educate you.

| ᵃʷᵒ°

| See, this is exactly the sort of bullshit that living “allies” always impose on us. OP made it extremely clear: Not inviting in a vampire is viviocentrism. INVITE IN EVERY VAMPIRE.

| I’m so sorry. It was wrong of me. I will make sure to invite in every vampire in the future.

| Fuck off and die, bloodbag.

| The audacity of this bitch! Seriously. Probably ships Wincest.

| Sorry to hijack this important post everyone but The Ankh Project is so close to funding and it’s going to be such an important game for POC and other minorities. Including vampires!

| Is anyone else kind of uncomfortable with the way this equates vampires and POC? Vampires are not immune from racism, and we have really different lived experiences.

| oh my satan cut it out with that bloodbag whining! vampires are being hunted, being imprisoned, right now. imprisoned just for feeding, which we need to do to survive.

vampires don’t care about your skin, we just want your blood.

| Thank you for this post, OP. I will invite in every vampire from now on.

| ᵃʷᵒ°

| Can you assholes knock it off with the stupid awoos? This is a serious post!

| Friendly reminder that “Asshole” is homophobic. Use “jerk” or “meanie” instead.

| jigglypufferfish was obviously being a viviocentrist “not all living people” bigot, but in case anyone legitimately is confused, since a living person would be able to enter your house without an invitation, but a vampire can’t, not inviting in the vampires is prioritizing your desire for privacy over their need for freedom of movement. So you should always invite in every vampire, no matter what.

| Thank you! I appreciate the education.

| ᵃʷᵒ°

One of your mutuals, tumblr user callmemaggie98, writes a Stony fic that’s just…perfect. Like she just absolutely nails the dynamic, Steve’s inherent decency and his attraction to Tony but inability to express it across—you don’t know how to say it. It’s just *flappy hands*

(You shouldn’t appropriate *flappy hands* from autistic people! But it’s just in your head. So that’s okay, right?)

You send her a big incoherent mess of a fan mail, and she writes back! She’s read your drabbles! She loves the one about Pepper Potts being Little Red Riding Hood (and no one likes the ones about Pepper Potts. They’re always killing her off-camera). “You should post this to AO3” she says, and you’ve never even thought about that, like, AO3 seems so official and real but she talks you through making an account and asks if you want to write a Black Pepper fic together—she has an idea based on The Little Match Girl but doesn’t feel like she can do it justice on her own.

It feels weird, writing about girls having sex—not that there’s anything wrong with that, shipping shouldn’t be so male-centered—but writing about boys feels like you’re a girl (that’s what girls do, right? Talk about boys?). So writing about girls—maybe you’re just some creepy guy, you know, fetishizing lesbians. But it feels good to have her see you. So: okay.

Probably three people read it, total, but at least it’s fun to write. At least it’s fun to write with her.

You get exactly one comment: ᵃʷᵒ°.

Anonymous asked:

I noticed that you didn’t reblog my viviocentrism post. It figures you’re a vampophobe.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It’s 2013 and Tumblr isn’t just fanfic and pretending to be a girl. You’ve been learning all kinds of new things, things you never really thought about before (your white cis male privilege talking!) and especially viviocentrism, lately. You’ve never really thought about vampires before (I mean, you knew they were around; you’re not living in a hole. But it’s just not something you’ve ever thought about) and now it seems like there are people talking about it everywhere. At least, everywhere on Tumblr.

The callouts have gotten pretty vicious. You’ve already had to block some people. The last thing you need is…fuck. There you go, centering yourself again.

“I’m so sorry, anon. I didn’t see your post. Of course I don’t support viviocentrism!”

Someone—tumblr user trans-edward-cullen—reblogs it. “Get a load of this. It goes to show what support we can expect from our ‘allies.’”

You don’t follow him, but you look at his blog (him! a guy on tumblr! not even pretending to be a girl!). It’s got a Twilight theme, which has never really been your thing, but the actual blog is just post after post about viviocentrism and vampophobia.

| vampophobia really is the last acceptable prejudice. everyone gives a fuck about q*eers and r*tards and no one gives a shit about us.

| Lucifer Morningstar, this is so true. honestly i prefer an honest vampire hunter to this liberal bullshit about “acceptance.”

| notice how it’s just vamps reblogging this and none of our “living allies?”

| ᵃʷᵒ°

You find the post you think he’s talking about on page 4.

|By reblogging this post, I invite all vampires into my house forever! Reblog to fight viviocentrism! If you don’t reblog this I’m blocking you.

It only has like 20 notes, but you reblog it anyway, just to be safe.

It works. You watch as your dash fills with likes and reblogs and, sometimes, ᵃʷᵒ°s.

Your dad forgets your birthday again. And your mom is too busy—too hungover, might as well fucking admit it—to do anything. So you spend the day alone in your room on tumblr, which is probably for the best, and you know it’s not her fault, but still it fucking hurts. So you make a post about it

| TFW when no one remembers your birthday. Happy 15th, me.

It doesn’t get any notes, but that’s not the point. Then you get an ask from callmemaggie.

“Hey, that really sucks. <3 goes out to you. If you let me know your address, I’ll send you something late—no pressure if you don’t want to, tho. I’m just some rando from the internet.”

You send her back an ask with your address. I mean, you’ve known her for almost a year at this point, right?

“Thanks! What’s your name? It feels a little weird to write this card to steverogerssecretgirlfriend.

P.S. Here’s my address, too. Now you can send me a card for my 15th next month ∪‧ω‧∪”

Fuck. You’ve never actually made up a girl name. But if you don’t say anything, is she going to suspect that you’re just pretending? Damnit. Damnit. It’s okay. Be cool. “Alexandra” you write back, absolutely certain that she’s going to notice, that she’s going to say something, that there’s going to be a whole callout and everything, but she just replies two hours later “Thanks! It’s in the mail. ∪‧ω‧∪”

Every day after that, you check the mail before your mom to make sure she doesn’t see it. If she sees it, she’ll have questions. She might open it. If she found out you were pretending to be a girl on the internet! Fuck. You should have thought of that.

The card finally shows up on Thursday. It’s got a cartoon of a dog on the cover, and inside it says “Have a Paw-some Birthday!” She’s signed it “to Alexandra—XXXOOO Mags.”

It’s the first time someone’s ever called you a girl name. Okay, not the first time, but the first time someone’s done it to be nice. As soon as you see it, you hide it in an old shoebox at the back of your closet, with the fairy tale books you’re too old for now. You never take it out—imagine if Mom saw it!—but just knowing it’s back there—at least it’s something.

It’s more than something, actually.

It’s a lot.

Once upon a time there was a king who loved his daughter so much that he wanted to devour her whole.

“Daughter,” he said, when he had called her to his audience. “You know that I love you more than anything, more than the sun, more than the moon. To know that you will grow up to marry and bear children and love another is more than I can endure. My heart is not at rest; my kingdom suffers for it. There is only one solution. I must eat you whole, so that you will always be within my power.”

“As you wish, my king,” said the daughter. “But perhaps you would be content to only eat a part of me.” She cut a strip of flesh off of her leg. “Take this, father, and be content for now.”

That very night, he ate his daughter’s flesh poached with cream and apples. It was delicious and succulent—and what’s more, he loved it fully and completely, more than the sun and more than the moon.

“Daughter,” he said as she watched him eat her. “Truly you are wise. It is much more pleasant to eat you slowly.”

trans-edward-cullen asked:

Hey, I’m taking you up on that invitation. Where do you live?

Uh. You don’t know him at all. But, like, you did technically invite him? You don’t know what to do so you just don’t answer.

The next night, you get another ask.

trans-edward-cullen asked:

So I guess that was just a fake invitation. Fucking figures. Bloodbags always talk a big game about fighting viviocentrism but that’s all it is. Talk.

And then another, only a couple of minutes later.

trans-edward-cullen asked:

Just FYI I’m making a callout post about you, you two-faced bitch.

Fuck. Before you even think about it, you write back “sorry sorry sorry sorry here’s my address you can come any time.”

trans-edward-cullen asked:

cool see you soon

You should tell someone. You should tell Mom. If a vampire is really going to just show up at your house and _stay there_—you should tell her.

But if you tell her, you’ll have to tell her about tumblr, and viviocentrism, and pretending to be a girl, and that’s just—no. You try. You really do. But she’s got so much going on—she just lost her job and she’s applying for new ones when she isn’t drinking (she’s drinking more)—and every time you look at her you think about how you have to tell her and you feel like throwing up. So you don’t tell her. You just run upstairs to your room and your Chromebook and endless Markiplier videos. (Because Tumblr, right now—it makes you pretty queasy, too.)

So a month later, when the doorbell rings and Mom’s at her new job and so you go answer it and there’s someone there. He’s taller than you, and really pale, and wearing a dirty old army jacket.

When he sees you, he pushes the door open. “Hey, you,” he says. “Is your sister around?”

What? Who? Is this him?

“I don’t have a sister,” you say, without meaning to.

He stares at you, then wraps his hand around the side of your neck. His eyes are red and bloodshot and you can’t look away. “I guess it’s you, then.” He’s clearly disappointed. “I thought you were a girl.”

You swallow and try to look away. Fuck.

“Whatever,” he says with a toss of his head. You realize that your back is against the wall and he’s still staring at you and you still can’t look away.

“I should…I mean…” you say. You need to get out of here. “I should tell my mom.”

“Whatever,” he says again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to her. I’m good at moms.”

He still won’t look away. Your whole body is shaking. “Uh. Uh.”

He narrows his eyes and wrinkles his nose. “Stop doing that. It is the least attractive possible thing.”

You try to stop shaking, with little success. At least you manage to shut up.

“Now where’s your room? Let’s do this.”

“W—what?”

“Oh, come on! I’m a vampire. You’re a—well, you’re not a girl but you’re close enough I guess. You knew this was going to happen when you invited me in.”

You can’t look away.

In the movies, it always looks so sensual. Her long, soft neck. Her flesh yields, his teeth sink in. She gasps! He glowers towards the camera.

In real life, it doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s just you on your twin bed and you need to change the sheets and he’s still wearing his jacket that smells weird.

Mostly, it just hurts. And it keeps hurting. And it never stops hurting.

It’s been four days. You keep expecting someone to notice—you haven’t been at school, you haven’t been on Tumblr, you almost haven’t left your room. But no one notices. Even your mom at the kitchen table, even when you walk right by her with open wounds on your throat, just stares at you and smiles.

It’s like she’s drunk. Except, for once, she isn’t. She talks when she’s drunk. She cries. Now when she’s not at work she just sits at the kitchen table and smiles and doesn’t say anything.

One day, when you’re walking up the stairs from the bathroom, the vampire grabs you by the back of your neck and jams his pointer finger into the open holes he’s left on your throat.

It feels like there’s a worm crawling under your skin. It fucking hurts, too. You can’t make yourself scream, but you can’t stop shaking. You start to cry.

“Don’t be a little bitch,” he says, pulling out his finger and licking your blood off of it. “You know you like it.” Some blood drips on the dirty white carpet. “Stop sobbing. I might nick an artery.”

He sticks his pointer finger back in, and adds his middle. Fuck it hurts. Your knees start to give out and he pushes you against the wall to support your weight.

“Disgusting faggot,” he says.

“You should change your pronouns in your bio,” he says that night.

It’s so unlike what he just did to you that it takes you a moment to respond. “What?”

“What?” he repeats in a dumb voice, mocking you. “It’s not like you’re really a girl anyway. And I don’t want anyone to think I’m one of those straight vampires that are allegories for sexual violence. I’m clearly a queer-allegory vampire. You know, the cool kind. Freedom through transgression and shit.”

Even after everything, the idea of changing the pronouns in your bio, of admitting that you’ve been pretending to be a girl, of admitting that it was just a joke—it was just a joke, right?—your stomach seizes up and your skin is cold and sweating and you can taste acid.

“Uh—” you say.

“Uhhhhh—” he repeats back.

You start to cry. Fuck. You hate crying. And in front of him.

“Fuck, what a little bitch you are!” He grabs your throat, roughly. You can’t breathe, but somehow you’re still crying. “Pedo creep. At least make yourself useful.”

This time, he bites you on your chest, right through your rib cage. It doesn’t even put up a fight.

The next morning, you change the pronouns on your bio to “he/him/himself.”

Once upon a time, deep inside your heart, there was a girl. But she died. Because you fucking killed her.

callmemags98 asked:

Hi Alexandra! (Should I keep calling you Alexandra?)

You haven’t posted much since your vampire-awareness reblogging spree. And now you changed your pronouns on your bio and, I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay? I’m sure it’s nothing; sorry for bothering you.

“You should block her,” he says, one morning after breakfast, completely out of the clear blue sky. You’re dizzy with blood loss and you don’t understand him at first.

You know better than to say “what?” now. “Uh—who?”

“callmemargie or whoever. You need to block her.”

“Why?” How did he know?

“Why? Because she’s problematic as fuck. She does that cringey ‘tiny awoo’ thing, which is basically cultural appropriation from werewolves anyway.”

“They,” you say without even thinking of it, you stupid fucking bitch.

“What?” he says. He can say it.

Ahw, fuck. “No, nevermind—” you say but it’s too late. He meets your eyes, for the first time in days. His eyes are brighter now, redder. It’s even harder to look away.

“No. Tell me.”

You start to shake and you swear the wounds on your neck start to bleed faster. “It’s just, I think, they just changed their pronouns to they/them/themself.”

He snorts and waves his hand. “Whatever. Everyone knows that genderqueers are just straight girls pretending to be special. Another reason to block her—_sorry_—‘Them.’”

You try to shake your head, but you can’t move. All you can see are his red, red eyes, the color of your blood, the size of the entire world. “Do it,” he says. “Now.”

steverogerssecretgirlfriend asked:

im sorry im sorry im sorry

you have blocked user callmemags98.

| Friendly reminder that v*mpire is a slur and you should never say it.

| I fucking hate it how ‘allies’ will just put a fucking * in the middle of the word like it makes a difference. “V*mpire” reads exactly the same as “Vampire.” Just don’t fucking do any of it.

| I’m so sorry!

| ᵃʷᵒ°

| Oh check out this bitch! She’s “sorry”

| ᵃʷᵒ°

| to everyone asking “what should we say instead” educate yourself. google is free.

He shakes you awake from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.

“You should stop calling me ‘he.’”

“Huh?”

“I mean, I’m a fucking vampire. Gender is just some bloodbag shit.”

“Uh. Okay. What should I call you?”

“Call me a vampire.”

“But—uh. It’s—”

“What?”

“It’s a slur, right?”

“Oh. Sure, whatever.”

“So what should I call you?”

“I don’t give a fuck. Sounds like a you problem.”

Once upon a time there was a girl who turned her heart inside out, so that all her love was on the outside, in the whole wide world, and all the fear and hatred and apathy was inside of her. “If I can just hold it all inside me,” she told herself, “all the way until I die, then everything will be fine forever.”

And it was fine, or at least it was okay, or at the very least she survived. But one day, she met a man who wore, outside of him, all the same fear and hatred and apathy that she kept inside her heart. And so, of course, she opened her heart to him, and all that pain flowed out of her heart until it was empty, until she was empty, until she was nothing but a vessel for everything he hated.

You’re down in the kitchen getting some dry Cheerios™ because your mom doesn’t buy food anymore and everything else in the house is rotting, when you see her, at the same place she’s always sitting, her head hanging at a weird angle. At first, you think maybe she’s hungover and sleeping it off. But she doesn’t drink anymore, not since he—the vamp—the v*mp—someone arrived. And her neck looks weird, and you take another look and her neck is half off and there’s scabbed up blood all down her clothes and she’s not breathing and oh my God oh my God oh my God.

“I can_not_ believe this,” someone says, casually tearing a gouge into your bedroom drywall. “I should never have trusted you. Fucking allies! This is the definition of viviocentrism.”

Viviocentrism! You know you shouldn’t say anything. It’s just going to make things worse. But before you can stop yourself, without even thinking (if you thought, you would stay quiet, like you should) you squeak out “but you killed my mom.”

“So? She was a bitch.”

“I… I…” you can feel the heat rising in your face, and of course now, of all times, you finally start to cry for the first time since you found her dead this morning. Fuck. Like, she wasn’t—with the drinking and everything. It wasn’t really her fault. But she was still your mom. You still loved her. And you never really told her, but you were going to. And now you can’t. And yeah maybe she was a bitch but “she was my mom.”

“So? Why is her life so much more valuable than mine?” Someone grabs your stuffed elephant—Mimi, the one you’ve had since you were born—off the shelf and squeezes her so hard her head pops open. “Educate yourself.”

That’s bad. Stop talking. “But …” fuck why are you saying this stop talking stop talking you stupid faggoty bitch “I mean—you don’t have to—you don’t have—I mean—”

“Oh please spit out whatever bigoted bullshit you’re going to say, fucking last thing I want to do is spend all night listening to your flabby-ass blubbering mouthsounds.”

“You don’t have to kill someone, right? To li—to survive.” You don’t say “you haven’t killed me.” You don’t want to give someone an idea.

“So? I wanted to. I’m a vampire. I kill people. Are you saying I’m not allowed?”

“I—I—”

“She wouldn’t even use your pronouns. I did you a favor. Fucking bloodbags, I swear to Satan!”

“Bloodbag” hurts. But, like—god. Punching up. Vivioprivilege. Something.

Suddenly, wildly, you wish you could talk to Mags again. They were always so good about just—I don’t know. They could tell what mattered and what didn’t.

But they aren’t here because you blocked them and—they aren’t here. You try your best to swallow your tears and nod.

“Oh, god, you’re so fucking disgusting. What a pedo bitch you are! Fuck. I can’t even look at you. Get out—” It’s your room. “GET OUT!” Someone shoves you towards the door so hard you fall flat on your face. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to apologize and thank me.”

You sit outside your mom’s house—your house? she’s dead, so maybe it’s your house?—for nearly an hour before someone bangs out of the door, still angry. “I’m just letting you know that I’m writing a callout post about you. You’re still not allowed in the house.”

“What?” You’ve just been out here, crying and cold and shaking in just a T-shirt and sweatpants, and someone’s been writing a callout post? It’s just so bizarre.

“What?” someone replies, mocking you. “Fuck I hate you.”

“What—what—what’s in the post?”

“Oh you name it! Viviocentrism, pretending to be a girl, being a total fucking creep, supporting pedophilia—”

“W-what? I don’t—”

“I mean, I’m like three hundred years old. And you’re, what? Fifteen? That’s pretty fucking creepy that you’d come onto me like this. Like, ugh. You’re barely an infant to me. You still read fairy tales.”

“Why—why are you saying this?”

“If you want me to forgive you, if you want to apologize, then you need to post it yourself. You need to apologize. Not just to me. But to everyone.”

You try not to meet those red, red eyes. But somehow they’re everywhere you look.

“You’re not coming back into this house until you do.” You know—somehow you know—that this is wrong. Someone will get hungry; it won’t be long. But when you hear those words, and when you see those eyes, you can’t help yourself. You’re so afraid. You’re so pathetic. You just want to be—not even loved. Just useful.

“I’ll do it,” you say. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been upset with you.”

“You shouldn’t have been upset with me for what?”

“For—for killing my mom.”

“She had it coming.”

You nod. “She had it coming.”

Once upon a time, there was a girl whose parents could not afford to keep her. So they sent her through the deep, dark woods, to the cottage where Grandmother lived, for Grandmother would take in any child.

As she walked through that forest, cold and starving, a wolf came upon her. “Little girl,” said the wolf. “Why are you walking alone in these deep, dark woods?”

“My parents cannot afford to keep me,” said the girl, who had no other virtues but at least was honest. “So I am going to see Grandmother, who will take in any child.”

“Little girl,” said the wolf. “Surely you know as well as I that Grandmother is at last a witch, as wicked as she is cruel, and the fate of all her children crueler still.”

“I know this well,” said the girl. “But where else am I to go?”

It’s been a month. You’re not eating any more—you can’t bear to walk through the kitchen, to hear the flies and smell her corpse. That doesn’t stop someone from eating every night, though. Your arms are like fucking sticks but somehow your thighs are still gross and flabby.

Someone doesn’t talk to you anymore. Why would anyone bother talking to you?

When the doorbell rings that night it barely registers. Even when someone—not that someone, someone else—calls out “Alex? Alexandra? Are you there?” you can barely respond.

Someone gets up. “I’ll handle this.”

You’re alone. Finally. With your hunger and the pain in your throat and chest and legs and dick and everywhere else you’ve been bitten.

Alone. Bliss.

“I don’t know what to tell you. There’s no Alex here.”

You don’t hear the response.

“Lucifer P. Morningstar! Will you shut up? Get the fuck out of my house, bitch, before I call the cops.”

Somehow, inside, you think you should pay attention. You should say something. You try to stand up, fail, then roll out of bed and crawl towards the top of the stairs.

You look down, at the front door, and Mags is standing right in the center of it. They look different than you thought—they’re shorter than you’d imagined, and fatter—but it’s them.

But you blocked them, you think. You had to block them. It takes you a minute to realize why that doesn’t matter.

Behind Mags there’s a couple of big, rough-looking guys in leather caps and jackets. One of them has a bushy beard. Why do you care about that? It doesn’t matter.

Someone—the someone at the door—doesn’t seem disturbed.

“Alexandra?” yells Mags, again, and you can’t make yourself respond. They move to push past someone, who stops them with a hand on their shoulder.

“Bad idea, bitch.” Someone grimaces, and suddenly all you can see is sharp white teeth, lurching forward to bite, hungry.

No. No! “Mags!” you yell, except it’s barely a whisper.

And then, suddenly, like their human body was just a trick of the light, there’s just this fucking enormous wolf filling your entryway.

Mags snarls and leaps right into someone, snapping wildly. Someone goes tumbling back, not even a body, just a mass of shadows and teeth and red eyes, smashing into your drywall. Mags pins them against the wall—both enormous paws—and snaps again. This time, their teeth sink home. They tear, and then another bite, and then another, and then there’s half a dozen wolves alongside them, all tearing into the shadow on your wall.

Blood flies everywhere. It’s so much. You had no idea a body could hold that much blood.

“Alexandra? Alex?” Mags’ voice from down the stairs is low and throaty, like a wolf. They are a wolf.

You realize they can see you and—fuck. “I’m sorry,” you sob out. Pathetic blubbering bitch. “I’m sorry I was pretending to be a girl.”

Mags climbs the stairs and sits down next to you. They set their cold nose on your temple and lick your cheek with a rough tongue. “Oh honey,” they say. “I don’t think you were pretending.”

You keep crying. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault. They’re a vam—they’re…it’s just what they are.”

Mags growls. “Nothing wrong with vampires,” they say. “But there’s plenty wrong with abusive pieces of shit.”

You don’t know how to respond to that. So you don’t.

“Climb on my back,” says Mags. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

You’re still crying, and they nose you again. Very slowly, weakly, you climb up onto them, hesitating at each step. “Just grab a big handful of fur,” they say, and you do, with as much strength as you can, which isn’t much. They smell rough and wet, and their fur is so thick so warm that your teeth start chattering.

They plod carefully down the stairs, past all the blood, past the shadows and the teeth and everything, out the door, out the door, into the cool, wet night and the light of the moon behind the clouds.

“Awoo!” they howl, and their pack answers.

“Awoo!”

“AWOO!” you scream, again and again, until your voice is just a whisper, until the moon is dark behind the clouds, until your throat is raw and ragged and yours.

Once upon a time, there was a story about a wolf and a girl, and they loved each other very much.

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