Page 73 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

73

Salt Lake City, November 15, 2024

My Dear Butter Chicken,

I keep looking right, and you aren’t there, and it makes me sad.

Are you in Boston yet? In my dreams—not the dreams you’re in, but you know what those ones are like and I hardly think I can put them in writing, both because I’m not that good at description and it would make these letters X-rated and I don’t know if your therapist (it still makes me laugh that you have a therapist, how human of you!) is going to be reading them before you visit her and pick them up—anyway, in my dreams you get to Boston and Dracula is just, like, hanging out. Outside MIT or something. I don’t really know why he’s there, maybe he’s developed a taste for insufferable geniuses. And it turns out we don’t need me to infiltrate Goldaming Life at all, because you make even quicker work of him than you did of Ford and whoever the ginger fox was. So I walk out in the morning, dreading my weekly torture sessions, but instead:

There you are. Radiant. Glorious. Dracula’s desiccated head in your hand like the season’s hottest accessory. I run to you and take you in my arms and you toss his head aside because who fucking cares about him, what a loser, and then we make all those dreams we’ve been sharing come true. Maybe even right there in the street, depending on whether I can stand to wait long enough to get into the house.

Who knows. We got lucky finding each other. We could get lucky again.

I know it’s unlikely. I promise I’m doing my part here, getting in good with the powers at the top so I can access secret information and find him that way.

I’m so fucking scared. I want to admit that to you. Every time I get on that elevator, I’m terrified I’ll never come out again. They’ll hook me to machines, plug my blood right into a wall outlet Frankensteining me into the building itself, and use me to power their evil forever. The blood is life, and they want both from me. My blood and my whole life.

But the thing is, I’m so scared, but I’m also amped. Thrilled. Giddy. Because I never thought I’d be able to do anything to bring Goldaming Life down. I felt powerless. I was powerless. But now I have you.

And they have no idea. They’re the ones not looking right. And when you come out of nowhere like a goddamn fucking nightmare superhero, I’ll be ready to push them into harm’s gorgeous arms.

XOXO

Iris