Page 4 of Bite Back

DELILAH

When I come to, I’m slumped in a dark booth at the back of the bar. Cracked leather cradles my body, and my head rests gently against the tabletop.

“Delilah, Delilah?” My name sounds distant, like I’m drifting underwater.

Groaning, I raise my head towards the sound. A white woman hovers over me, pale, ethereal almost, blonde hair flopping into her face as her head tilts. It takes a moment for it to click.

Sarah. A werewolf. We used to bartend together here, back when I first moved to the city three years ago. Judging from the apron slung around her waist, she’s back to working here. Her bright green eyes meet mine, the color of a spring leaf in the sunlight.

“Delilah.” Her voice drifts over me like a blanket, warm and soft, but there’s a note of caution beneath the softness, like she’s approaching a stray animal.

I bob my head, eyes swimming as the motion disturbs the drum rhythm pounding inside my head.

I sink my face back down, smooth wood kissing my cheek before I flick open an eye.

Sarah looks different than how I remember.

It’s been a year or more since I’ve seen her, and something’s changed.

Her skin now holds an unnatural grayish cast. But I can’t think why that would be.

I can’t think at all. My hunger drives out everything. It’s clawing, ravenous.

“Blood,” I rasp out, a plea, a demand. Thankfully, Sarah complies. She darts over to the bar and returns a moment later, hands grasping not one but two bags full of deep red liquid. Bless her.

I grab a bag, tearing the plastic with my fangs and chugging down the liquid within.

I’d tried blood once as a human. Sampled a bit of Luka’s drink.

Then, the metallic, sour tang made my mouth well with saliva.

Now, honey-like sweetness floods my mouth.

An answered prayer and a damnation all at once.

I roll the bag, squeezing out every last drop.

I line up a straw with the next bag and stab it into the back, slurping the sloshing red liquid within. I feel…steadier now. Better.

“Thank you.” My hand drifts to my belly, now warm and full. “Sorry about—” I gesture vaguely. “Everything.” My hand flops down on the tabletop.

She reaches out and grasps my hand in hers. Cold bites where our skin meets, and I tense, tightening my grip on her palm. Vamps have lower body temperatures than humans and most supernaturals. The light from the neon beer signs on the wall dances through her curls.

“It’s been a while.” It’s a feeble stab at conversation, but I hate silence. She quirks an eyebrow.

“What the hell happened, Delilah? You weren’t a vamp the last time I saw you. Where’s your boyfriend?”

I wince. Luka never liked it much here, but he’d come around a few times when we first started dating.

Hung out after my shifts ended. But he got into drunken disagreements with a few of the werewolf patrons.

It didn’t come to blows, thankfully, but it still made a bad impression.

And eventually, after I started working at the councilman’s office, we stopped coming around altogether in favor of his preferred bars.

That was the thing about Luka. It was always about him.

His friends. His plans. His life. At the time, it seemed romantic.

A vampire pulling me out of my mundane, human life into the world of supernaturals.

After all, I’d been part of the first generation to grow up with knowledge of the supernatural after videos spread on the internet like wildfire.

I’d grown up fascinated by what so many around me feared.

That’s what originally drew me to Hector’s. Luka took advantage of that.

Heat spreads across my cheeks—unfortunately, my heart no longer beating doesn’t spare me the usual physiological reactions. How do I answer? Do I want to answer?

When I first moved to the city and started working here, I considered Sarah a friend. We kept in contact even after I left. Gradually, though, we fell out of touch.

Now, there’s awkwardness in the place of familiarity. But there’s also something there still. Something in the set of Sarah’s lips and the tilt of her head. Maybe not the friendship we had. But what’s left of it at least. And maybe that’s enough for now.

I clear my throat. The story spills out of me, halting at first, then stronger, more steady.

Sarah’s a good listener, though. The bar’s loud, filled with the slosh of liquids, the clack of pool balls, and the chatter of lively conversation. But she keeps her eyes trained on me, nodding occasionally as I speak.

My eyes trace the knots on the wooden tabletop. I don’t want to watch those luminous green eyes soften. If I see someone else’s pity, I might drown in my own. And I can’t afford that. Not if I want to do something about what happened.

My gaze drifts to my lap. My palm is curled into a fist, knuckles white. I exhale and unclench my hand, cracking my fingers to relieve the tension in the muscles. Four half-moon crescents bloom red across my palm.

Numbly, I pick up my phone and key in the passcode.

My outgoing call log reveals call after call to the same number: Luka’s. All unanswered. All straight to voicemail. He didn’t miss my calls. He ignored them.

“He’s really never going to answer, right? He really left me? He’s not coming back? There’s not some possible explanation?” My voice cracks. I’m grasping at straws.

Sarah shakes her head slowly. “There’s no explanation I can think of.

” Her tone carries a hint of apology, as though that can soften the blow.

My core still crumbles around the truth of it.

“No good reason at least.” Her voice hardens.

“Look, I hear a lot of things as a bartender. I don’t think you’re the first woman he’s done this to. ”

It washes over me. Not the first.

I don’t want to believe it.

But the pieces fit together. Small things.

The time I found photos of another woman on his phone.

A cousin, he said. But the photos were all deleted later.

The calls he used to ignore that he told me were from a jealous ex.

The time a woman came up and slapped him on the subway, red blooming bright across his cheek.

He said he didn’t know her. And I believed him. Dismissed it as a bizarre incident.

“I thought about texting you, saying something. But I didn’t know—don’t know—not for sure. Hadn’t really put it all together. And, well…”

I can fill in what she doesn’t want to say. I’d shut down any concerns she and Hector had raised about Luka after the fights. Didn’t want to hear it. Wasn’t ready to hear it. Maybe I’m still not ready.

My mind spins.

“I can’t go home.” Can’t face that apartment and the reminders of what Luka promised and what Luka actually did. The pictures of us together, happy. The blood stains on the floor.

“Stay with me.”

I look up. Her reaction isn’t the pity I expected, that I want to avoid. It’s something different. Something I think I recognize. Her eyes have gone cold, flinty.

“Something happened to you too, didn’t it?” It darts out of me before I can think twice.

A half smile flickers across her face, answer enough. “You can’t tell what I am, can you?”

The question gives me pause. Sarah used to run with a rowdy wolf pack that often clustered over by the pool tables, playing into the late hours of the morning. But, now, she’s most definitely…something else. I play it safe.

“You’re not a wolf anymore, right?”

“Yes, I was a wolf. Was.” Her voice catches on that last word, jumping up an octave.

“And now?”

“A zombie. Well, a revenant, technically, I guess. There’s not really a handbook for this.”

“Nope.” I take a deep sip of the remaining blood bag. “There sure as hell isn’t. How’d that happen?”

“You’re not the only one with a shitty ex.” She laughs, but the corners of her eyes don’t crinkle. “Kirby,” she hollers across the bar.

A petite South Asian woman with a pixie cut, hovering by the pool tables, turns her head and floats over. Her translucent copper skin glows under the neon signs hanging on the wall. A ghost.

“Kirby, this is Delilah, my old friend.”

A smile spreads across Kirby’s face. “Oh, I remember Delilah.” My expression must betray my confusion.

Kirby’s face scrunches apologetically. “Sorry, I’ve been around for a while. But I’m only just now getting the hang of materializing.” Her fingers flutter into jazz hands.

“So you were watching me and Sarah when I worked here before?”

“Yep. I mean not just you and Sarah. Nothing creepy. But—” Her gaze sweeps around the room. “I like it here. It feels safe.”

I get it. That’s why I came here too. There’s so much infighting among supernaturals, and so much tension between supernaturals and humans. But the owner here, Hector, tries to make their little corner of the world different, better.

“Delilah was asking me how I turned. And telling me about her ex.”

My ex. It feels wrong to refer to him that way.

Kirby nods, her fingers drifting over an ear full of piercings. “We’ve each got our own stories. I don’t like sharing mine.”

For a moment, Sarah stares off into the distance, green eyes unfocused. “You remember that guy I was dating, Declan?”

I nod. Another werewolf from her pack back home in Connecticut.

Sarah was working here and going to school and doing long distance.

“We moved in together after I graduated and came back home. Got a house and everything. And then he found his mate. His fated mate.” Her voice wavers a fraction. “Dumped me. Of course.”

Of course.

“He took everything we’d worked for, everything we’d built together for him and his new mate.” As though women were interchangeable and you could just slot one in for another.

“He and some of the other betas chased me when I tried to drive away with some of my stuff. It was icy, and the car spun out. He buried me on the side of the highway. But I guess the moon wasn’t done with me yet.

Because—somehow—I came back. Clawed my way out of the grave.

I haven’t been back home since then in case he wants to finish the job.

Haven’t responded to any of my family’s messages in case he finds out I’m still here. ”

Fuck. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse, knowing I’m not the only one. Better, because I’m not alone. And worse, because I don’t want that, not for Sarah, not for Kirby, not for anyone.

The laughter of a group of witches a few tables over fills my ears. My fingers toy with the edge of the crumpled blood bag.

“I don't know what to say, Sarah. I’m so sorry. I’m so…” I search for the right word. Upset feels inadequate, tepid. My fist crushes the empty plastic of the blood bag.

“Fucking furious,” Kirby offers.

“Absolutely.” A silence falls over us. Because what do you say after that? What do you do after that?

Pool balls clatter, and my head swims.

Declan should pay. Luka should pay. Whoever hurt Kirby should pay.

Heat fills my core, flushing through my body hot and red. I want to kill him. From the wide look in Sarah’s green eyes and the smirk painted across Kirby’s face, I must have said that aloud.

Kirby throws back her head and laughs. “Welcome to the Undead Exes’ Club.”