Page 12 of Bite

Turned on. Confused. Weirdly…alive.

Chapter

Four

My phone buzzes against the edge of the bathroom sink, rattling the toothbrush holder. Bex’s name lights the screen, and I quickly answer the call and put it on speaker, grateful for the distraction.

“Hey,” I say, my voice still rough with sleep.

“How was it?” she asks excitedly, skipping right past greetings.

Yesterday, I swallowed my pride and told Bex I’d signed up at the agency. Not to hear her gloat with an ‘I told you so’, but because I was nervous as hell for my first engagement and needed someone to know what I was about to do.

Just in case I didn’t make it back.

“It was…” I hesitate, searching for the right word and coming up short. “Weird.”

“You’re gonna need to give me a little more than that, Tay,” she scoffs.

I sigh, leaning closer to the mirror and pulling my hair aside to get a better look at the puncture wounds on the side of my neck. “It wasn’t really what I expected,” I mumble.

“Okay, but whatdidyou expect?” she presses. “Coffins and cloaks? Creepy candlelight and violin music?”

I snort a laugh. “Maybe? I don’t know, I’m just still… processing.”

There’s a pause on the other end, then a soft sigh. “Well, at least it’s fast money, right?”

“Right,” I echo, picking up the small tube of Rapi-Gen cream from my bathroom counter and twisting off the cap.

When I got dropped off last night, the driver handed me a sleek black box as a parting gift. Inside, I found the tube of Rapi-Gen and a note from Francesca:Apply generously after each engagement.

Rapi-Gen is a miracle drug that came to market a while back: a tissue-regeneration compound that closes minor wounds in a matter of hours, healing them completely. Before last night, I’d only ever seen it in glossy magazine ads and TV commercials. It’s ridiculously expensive– the kind of thing rich people use for papercuts, while the rest of us learn to live with our scars. Having my own tube feels strange, like I’ve stolen something precious.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” I murmur as I gently dab the cream over the wounds on my neck, its coolness a strange contrast to the sting beneath my skin. “What services did you sign up for at Bite?”

Bex lets out a low laugh. “Are you gonna judge me if I tell you?”

“No,” I lie.I’m absolutely going to judge.

“I signed on for it all,” she replies breezily.

I blink. “All? Like, even–”

“The sex stuff?” she finishes, clearly amused. “Yeah, girl.”

I gape at the mirror. “Jesus, Bex.”

“Don’t be such a prude,” she laughs, completely cavalier. “And anyway, I haven’tfuckedone yet, just a little oral. But damn, girl, histongue… vamps know what they’re doing. The fact I got paid for it was just an added bonus.”

“You do realize that’s prostitution,” I say flatly.

“So’s letting them bite me,” she counters. “Either way, I’m for sale, so why not get a little something extra out of it for myself?”

I re-cap the tube of Rapi-Gen, frowning at myself in the mirror.She kinda has a point.

“And don’t act like you’re above it,” she scoffs. “You’re clearly thinking about it. You wouldn’t be asking me if you weren’t curious.”

I roll my eyes, but she’s right. Iamcurious. And that scares me more than anything else.