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The attorney looks like he might throw up a little in the back of his mouth. The man, a true professional, obviously fights through his discomfort. “Do you ever get sick after sucking your own blood, Aaron? Surely, this can’t be healthy.”

“All the time. I was sick just last night. Puked blood everywhere. Looked like something from a Stephen King novel.”

“But you continue doing it, even when you get sick?”

“It’s not easy being me,” I say, grinning.

“Aaron, did you ever seek any kind of professional help?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“But you think you’re a vampire.”

I grin broadly, purposefully exposing the long, slightly curved sweep of my upper canines. “Maybe I am, counselor.”

The lawyer looks again at the jury box, his expression almost smug. See, it seems to say, is the kid loony or what?

“Aaron, when did you first meet Annie Hox?”

“When I was seventeen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Eighteen.”

“And where did you meet her?”

“I met her at one of my jobs. I was working as a security guard in a warehouse. The graveyard shift, of course.” I smile. “Annie worked there as well.”

“What attracted you to her?”

“She was different, special. She was one of the few people who accepted me for who I am. She was what some people would call a goth.”

“As in gothic. As in someone who dresses in black, paints their nails black, powders their faces white, and reads Anne Rice novels. In short, someone obsessed with vampires.”

“Yes,” I say, grinning at the stereotypical image the attorney draws. “She was that and more.”

“Were you intimate with her?”

As soon as he finishes asking the question, a woman in the courtroom begins sobbing. A familiar sobbing. I don’t have to look up to know who it is. Annie’s mother. A big woman, she’s sobbed throughout the entire court proceedings.

So much for my private life...

“Yes, we were intimate.”

“Did you love her, Aaron?”

“With all my heart. Like I said, she accepted me for who I was. She loved my teeth. Hell, when we kissed, sometimes she would even lick them.”

The attorney waits for the mother, who has burst into tears again, to settle down, and when she finally does, he asks, “Did you love Annie Hox, Aaron?”

I think back to the pretty goth girl who accepted me for exactly who I was, the pretty goth girl with whom I opened up to and shared so much with, the pretty goth girl who listened to me attentively and treated me as if I mattered.

“Yes. I did. Annie was my savior.”

“Then why did you kill her, Aaron?”

I feel myself shrinking in upon myself, as if I’m slowly imploding.

I’m indeed trying to shrink away; in particular, from the horrific image of Annie dying in my arms. Now, from the depths of the witness chair, I run my fingers through my greasy black hair and look out across the courtroom to Annie’s mother.

The woman is crying softly into her hands and rocking back and forth.

“It was an accident. I never meant to kill her.”