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He crossed the room but stopped to place the glass of blood on the nightstand beside me. He perched on the edge of the bed in front of me.

“I heard it stops?” I asked, gesturing at my ears. “All the loud noise?”

“Yeah, give it a few weeks.” He shook his head. “It’s like background music in a store or on an elevator. Eventually, your brain just tunes it out. Or adjusts to it.”

“How did you deal with it, the transition?” I finally asked. “When Zand turned you. How did you cope?”

Donté leaned forward. “Gee, on God.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “At first, I was about to crash out.”

“Wait, what happened to you? Why did he make you into ah?—”

“You mean how did I die?”

I guess I meant that. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know much about any of this stuff. I didn’t know anything about Donté.

“Yeah, how did you die?” I was just now understanding that Donté was brought back from the dead, just like me. I didn’t know that until now.

“I was dead when Zand saw me for the first time. I had bullet holes all up in me, no cap.”

“Damn, you got shot.”

“Fo’ times. I was murked at the age of nineteen. Just like all the other YNs in the hood that become statistics.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

He exhaled slowly. “Shit! Damn, Zand told me to stop cussin’ so much.”

“Zand ain’t here. You can talk however you want.” I assured him.

“Yeah, I know, but I’m trying to better myself.”

“Do that after you tell me your origin story.”

“Heavy on the origin story.” He chuckled, showing his pearly whites. “I stayed over on 63rdand Aberdeen. You know, in Englewood.”

I didn’t know I wasn’t from Chicago. I was just mastering up north, over east, out south and out west.

But I let him continue. “I was hanging out with my gee’s. It was me, K. Squeala. J. Money and Lil Reek, we was standing in front of the crib. Reek goof ass was talking about this bop that he cracked at this party last Friday. It felt like a regular day. No cap, we was slippin’, cuz fo’ you know it. Woo-wap-da-bam, The Opps hit the corner and roll up. And buddy start blastin’ on us. I couldn’t even pull my blickey out my shit. J. Money got a few shots out before we took off. I took fo’ of them bullets.” Donté tapped his chest, abdomen, forearm and thigh, marking the places he’d been shot. “On fo’ and ‘nem, I was outta there. Imean out. Ambulance got me to UIC Medical, but they say I was bleeding out. Doctors was working on my Black ass. I could hear ‘em saying that Grey’s Anatomy shit above my head, but I didn’t see ‘em, just heard ‘em. I could feel myself slippin’, you know? Like falling asleep, like I was on percs, but deeper. I ‘member thinking I wish I would’ve took my dumbass to my granny house over in Lawndale like my mama told me too. Hard-headed, that was me.”

What a colorful story. I nodded, remembering my plunge over the balcony. That millisecond of knowing it was over was a terrible feeling.

“Zand told me he was at the hospital when I died. He was there cuz his lady was a patient.”

“Yeah, somebody jumped her in the parking lot of her old apartment.” I added my facts.

“Right. Zand told me there was a lot of my fam in the waiting room going through it cuz I was shot da fuck up. He said my fam was toe up over me. He said I couldn’t be that bad if all those people was held up at the hospital worried about me and praying for me to make it.”

He had a good point. I was even convinced that he wasn’t that bad. “Why did Zand pick you to turn?”

“He said something about me called out to him. He said he thought he heard my voice even though I was dead.”

Did he really?“And then he turned you?” I filled in the blanks.

“Nah, not right dem and there. My body went to the morgue. Zand said he came back later and copped me.” A smile flashed across Donté’s face. “Rich-ass vampire sneaking into a morgue to steal some YN’s body? Can you imagine dat shit?”

I couldn’t believe I was keeping up with all the AAVE and Chicago hood slang that was coming out his mouth. It had tobe thanks to The ShadeRoom. I’m sure it wasn’t my suburban middle-class upbringing. “I can’t even imagine it.”

“My father said he gave me his blood, but I don’t remember that part. I guess I fell asleep, and I woke up like this.” He raised both of his arms out to his sides and dropped them back on the bed. “A vampire.”