Liam Vaelthorn didn't need to sleep.
Not like humans did. Not the kind of sleep that brought dreams and warmth and silence.
What he did instead was lie still in the dark and pretend. Eyes closed. Breath even. Waiting for the hours to pass, for the sun to rise and burn away the ache in his chest. He didn't remember what it felt like to rest. Not truly.
And tonight, the ache was louder than usual.
He sat on the windowsill of his bedroom, the blinds half-open. A storm had rolled in after sundown, blanketing the town in soft drizzle and distant thunder. The scent of wet asphalt and pine drifted in on the wind, damp and heavy.
He could hear everything.
A couple fighting three houses down. The rustle of a raccoon under the trash bin. A television blaring through paper-thin walls. And, from the woods behind the property, something slower — a deer, maybe. Or something pretending to be.
His senses had been sharper all day. Ever since the new boy arrived.
Alex.
Liam exhaled through his nose and pressed his forehead against the cold glass.
There had been something wrong with that first moment. Or maybe not wrong — just... loud. The way Alex had stepped into the hallway like a cut across silence. Like a rip through the pattern Liam had spent years weaving over himself. He'd looked up without meaning to. Looked at him.
And then it had started.
The sound of his pulse — not just beating, but pulling. The scent of his skin, sweet under the sharpness of sour candy. The way his eyes had flicked up and met Liam's, as if neither of them had expected it.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Liam had learned to ignore the hunger. To let it gnaw and ache and twist inside his chest without letting it out. He drank the blood bags his mother supplied. Room temperature. Metallic. Lifeless.
It was survival, not satisfaction.
But Alex had walked in like an open wound. Like sunlight at midnight. And for the first time in years, Liam felt the teeth behind his smile shift in his jaw.
He had almost smiled at him in class. Almost.
He hadn't wanted to.
"You're doing it again," Harper said.
Liam blinked. The classroom was long behind him now — they were in the back courtyard, tucked away behind a broken section of fence. It was where they went when the halls were too loud, when the hunger clawed too hard, or when Harper wanted to sneak a smoke without getting caught.
"I'm doing what?" he asked.
"Zoning out. Looking haunted. Being dramatic."
She flicked her lighter open and lit the end of a clove cigarette. The smell curled in the air, dark and spiced, mixing with the clean chill of rain.
"You know I don't breathe, right?" Liam said, raising a brow.
"You can still smell," Harper said. "Don't be cute. You're thinking about the new kid."
"I'm not."
"Liar."
Liam looked away. "It's nothing."
She exhaled, smoke trailing from her lips like a slow confession.
"You only act like this when something's wrong. And it's always something supernatural and broody wrong. Spill."
He hesitated. He didn't talk about the hunger. Not even with Harper. She was the only one who knew what he really was, and even that had taken years — years of trust and loyalty and one night of unavoidable revelation.
But this — this was different.
"He smells like fire," Liam said finally.
Harper blinked. "...what?"
"I don't mean literally. It's like... like there's something alive in him. Something reckless. I hear his heartbeat and it doesn't make me hungry. It makes me—" He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. "—restless."
Harper tilted her head, watching him closely. "So you're saying you have a crush."
"No."
"You want to bite him?"
"No. I mean—" He paused. "Yes. But not like that."
"Uh-huh."
He sighed, leaning against the fence. "He's not normal."
"Neither are you."
"That's not what I meant."
Harper flicked ash into the grass. "Liam, just because someone makes your undead heart flutter doesn't mean they're a vampire-hunting demon in disguise."
He narrowed his eyes at her.
"Well," she said, "probably not."
Liam had met Harper in the sixth grade. Back when he still wore long sleeves in summer to hide his cold skin. Back when he still smiled too wide and hadn't quite learned how to breathe like a human.
She'd found him in the woods behind her house, collapsed after a bad feed — too much, too fast. He hadn't meant to take so much. But hunger did that. It was like being possessed.
She should have screamed. Should have run.
Instead, she'd crouched beside him, stared into his blood-smeared mouth, and said:
"Holy shit. Are you a vampire?"
He hadn't answered.
He didn't need to.
She'd been the only person who never flinched. Who never looked at him like he was something that needed to be locked away. Over the years, she'd become his anchor — sarcastic, fierce, and always watching his back.
But she didn't know everything.
She didn't know that Liam dreamed about blood sometimes. Not the kind that filled bags and bottles — the kind that pulsed from veins, hot and screaming. She didn't know that every time he touched someone — brushed shoulders in the hallway, caught a breath of skin — the thirst sang in his bones like thunder.
And now, there was Alex.
The worst part wasn't the hunger.
It was the curiosity.
That night, Liam slipped out of the house after midnight.
He moved like fog — silent, weightless. His house was old, buried in trees, with a front porch that creaked if you looked at it wrong. His parents didn't ask where he went most nights. As long as he came back unmarked and unbloody, they didn't care.
He ran.
Not like a jog. Not like a sprint.
He ran.
The forest blurred around him. Trees whipped past like streaks of shadow. The air was sharp, slicing across his skin, his lungs burning even though they didn't need to. The earth trembled under his feet as he pushed faster, farther, until the silence screamed.
This was what made it bearable — the movement, the blur, the feeling of being untouchable.
But no matter how far he ran, Alex's heartbeat stayed with him.
At school the next day, everything felt louder.
People stared more. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe it was nothing. But when he walked into English and saw Alex already sitting at their shared desk, a crooked smile on his face, Liam's stomach twisted.
"You're late," Alex said.
"Don't need a bell to tell me what time it is," Liam replied, sliding into his seat.
Alex laughed softly. "You always talk like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you think you're older than God."
Liam glanced sideways at him. "Maybe I am."
Alex blinked. "That was a joke, right?"
Liam didn't answer. Not really.
The lesson was about Oedipus. Something about fate and blindness and blood.
Liam stared at the chalkboard and thought about hunger.
At lunch, Harper cornered him behind the vending machines.
"I saw the way you looked at him," she said.
"I look at a lot of people."
"No, you watch a lot of people. There's a difference. You were looking at Alex like you wanted to pin him to a wall and—"
"Harper."
She smirked. "So what's the plan? Talk to him? Stalk him? Whisper his name into the night wind while you hang upside-down from a tree?"
"I'm not doing anything."
"Right. Because doing nothing always works out great for vampires in love."
Liam gave her a look.
Harper backed off. A little. "Fine. Just don't be weird about it."
"I'm always weird."
"That's true. But don't be dangerous."
After school, Liam didn't go home right away.
Instead, he followed the scent.
It wasn't hard. Alex smelled like citrus and ozone and that same sour candy he was always chewing. The wind carried it through the trees like a trail. Liam wasn't even trying — not really — but his instincts had already locked onto the shape of him.
He found him by the bleachers.
Alone. Hoodie on. Headphones in.
Liam stayed back, behind a tree, watching like a ghost.
Alex was drawing something in a sketchbook — lines and shadows. His fingers moved quickly, decisively. Liam tried not to stare. Tried not to notice the line of his jaw or the way his lips curled slightly when he concentrated.
Tried not to care.
But he was already too far gone.
Liam didn't mean to get closer.
One moment, he was watching from the shadows, like he always did. The next, his feet were moving of their own accord, crunching softly on damp leaves. His heartbeat — or whatever hollow imitation of it still remained in his chest — thrummed with something sharp and electric.
Alex looked up as he approached, one headphone slipping off his ear.
"Oh. Hey." His voice was warm, even in the gray chill. "You lost?"
Liam shook his head. "Was just walking. Saw you here."
Alex held up his sketchbook, angled slightly so Liam could peek. "Don't judge. It's just shapes."
Liam glanced down.
It wasn't just shapes.
It was a face. Half-shadowed, drawn in thick strokes of pencil. Messy but deliberate. Something about the angle of the jaw, the tilt of the eyes—it was familiar.
Too familiar.
Liam stared at it a beat too long.
"You draw people often?" he asked, quietly.
"Sometimes." Alex tucked a piece of candy into his mouth and spoke around it. "Faces mostly. They stick in my head."
Liam exhaled slowly, like releasing pressure. "You have a good eye."
Alex looked at him. Really looked.
"I've seen you run," he said suddenly.
Liam raised an eyebrow. "Track practice?"
"Yeah. You're fast."
"I try."
"No, like… freaky fast." Alex smiled, and it made Liam's stomach twist. "You're gonna destroy everyone at the meet."
Liam tilted his head slightly. "You watch me often?"
Alex flushed, just faintly, and looked away.
"No more than anyone else."
That was a lie. But Liam didn't call him on it.
He liked the way Alex got flustered. It grounded him — humans were messy and alive. It pulled him back from the edge, just enough.
Alex gestured to the spot beside him. "You can sit, you know."
Liam hesitated.
Then sat.
The rain had stopped, but the air still hung wet and quiet around them. A few birds called distantly from the trees. The bleachers above them groaned as the wind shifted.
"I'm not great at the whole… friend thing," Alex said suddenly.
Liam glanced over. "You seem fine."
Alex laughed softly. "You don't know me yet."
"Maybe I want to."
Alex blinked. Then slowly smiled. "That's the nicest weird thing anyone's said to me all week."
They sat like that for a while, saying nothing. Not because they didn't want to talk, but because the silence felt safe somehow. Like neither of them needed to fill it.
Liam had spent years pretending. Pretending to be human. Pretending to care about grades and gossip and cafeteria food. Pretending he didn't hear every heartbeat around him like a siren's call.
But next to Alex, something about the pretending felt less… necessary.
"I like this town," Alex said, eventually.
"Yeah?"
"I mean, it's weird. Too quiet. But maybe that's what I need."
Liam was about to answer when he caught the scent.
Blood.
Not fresh. Not gushing. Just a hint. A memory. Like something deep under skin — a papercut healing, a scraped knuckle.
It was coming from Alex.
Liam tensed.
His fangs didn't extend — not yet — but the pressure behind them sparked like fire in his jaw. He swallowed hard and turned away, fists clenched in the fabric of his hoodie.
"You okay?" Alex asked, voice suddenly cautious.
Liam forced himself to breathe.
"Headache."
"You want to go?"
Liam shook his head. "No. It'll pass."
Alex tilted his head, like he didn't believe him, but didn't push.
"I could give you one of these," he offered, holding out a half-opened bag of sour candy. "Might kill the pain. Or your soul."
Liam almost smiled. "I don't have a soul."
Alex laughed. "Perfect. You'll fit right in."
Later that night, Liam paced in his room.
The ceiling seemed too low. The air too thick.
His reflection in the mirror was pale and pinched, eyes bruised with restraint. His hunger was getting worse. Alex was making it worse.
He didn't understand it. It wasn't just the scent. It wasn't even the blood.
It was him.
The way he smiled, like he didn't mean to. The way he leaned in when he talked, like Liam's answers mattered. The way he drew Liam's face from memory, not knowing why.
It was dangerous.
He was dangerous.
And still—Liam couldn't stay away.
He didn't tell Harper about the bleachers.
He didn't tell her that he wanted to bite Alex.
Not because of hunger. Not just that.
Because he wanted to mark him. Claim him. Make him part of something ancient and irreversible.
But that was a thought he shoved deep down.
He was losing control.
And the worst part?
He wasn't sure he wanted to stop.