Chapter Text
Ava wakes violently.
It’s a grotesque dislocation of body and soul, unmeant to be watched by any living being.
She wrestles against a boundless grave, limbs spasming in blunt desperation to move. And in her panic, Ava forgets she is not the same as she was. Like a dog chasing its own tail, Ava chases the absence of what was. Her body tips over the edge of something and her face meets unforgiving ground in a solid impact. Painless, but enough to shock her awake. Turning onto her back, Ava lays there because at least this feels more familiar. This allows her to pretend that she’s back at the orphanage, in her bed, where she doesn’t know what the mattress felt like, but the pillow always hurt her head—just like the ground does right now. So when the cold starts to creep in, Ava does not resist. She lets it settle like fog on windshield, lets it seep into the marrow of her bones like the first frost of winter until it leaves behind a body too still. Until the human in her is fossilized into nothing but memory.
And like a dead thing, Ava emerges with a body unnaturally cold and pale, filled with untamable want. The sound that claws out from the back of her throat is a raw, animalistic craving for red-hot warmth—the kind that turns her into a vulture picking at carcasses. The kind that tells her she’s a dead woman walking.
There’s nothing reverent about her unbecoming. With uncoordinated movements, Ava tries to get up from where she had fallen, legs learning how to move again, synapses reawakening to fire and re-fire as she pulls herself up to her knees. Even in disorientation, a part of her mind relishes the way she can feel sediment and debris on the bottom of her bare feet, the way the ground digs into her knees in discomfort. And then, with a push, she stumbles, hands grasping onto the edge of a gurney, legs unprepared to bear the full weight of her body.
Bracing herself against the gurney, she tries again. Her muscles tremble from exertion, but finally, finally, she is able to stand. Ava looks around, the room is windowless and sparse. There is a wall of cabinets on one side, rows of square-shaped doors climbing up until they reach the low ceiling. Next to her, there’s the gurney she was on and a discarded sheet on the ground. Looking down at herself, Ava realizes she is wearing nothing but a white gown.
With shaking hands, Ava cups her palms together and watches the way every digit—down to phalange and metacarpal—moves from command. She blinks and there is a dull buzz as the room brightens, almost to an unbearable degree. There is a man standing by the door, eyes wide and the smell of fear.
More than that, there is the sound of something else. A low syncopated beat, unsteady and frantic. Muffled, as if shielded by skin and bone. Her mind doesn’t recognize this sound, but Ava’s body does. Her mouth feels heavy and there is a sharpness pressing against her bottom lip.
The man is across the room and then he isn’t—he is against the wall, held in Ava’s strong grasp. He is struggling and his mouth is moving but every sound is drowned out by the temptation of a pulse. Of warmth and life. And finally, Ava recognizes this sensation for what it is. Hunger trembles through her. She is helpless to stop the way her teeth slip into skin the same way she slipped into death—through violent reversal.
Warmth fills her mouth and every nerve in her body relaxes. She feels strong again. Euphoric. It shouldn’t feel as addicting as this. It shouldn’t feel so easy. With teeth gouging into an unwanted fate, Ava drinks and drinks, careless of the knowledge that the steady thrum of a pulse she was drawn to is getting weaker and weaker.
Even dead things want to survive.
And just like all dead things, Ava does not look back when she leaves.
Three years later
//
She gets caught next to the blood containment tank.
“Is that your lunch?”
Ava startles, accidentally dropping the bottle she’s holding. “Oh fuck!” It clatters to the ground, rolling away. Thankfully, she remembered to close it so no blood has spilled. She looks up from her crouched position, meeting the gaze of the hottest employee working in this facility, and absolutely the last person she wanted to embarrass herself in front of.
Beatrice.
(No, Ava will not be taking any questions at this time.)
Beatrice is standing at the threshold. The wide, heavy steel door is kept open by her hip. She looks… Serious, a hint of concern, but no surprise. As if people steal jars of animal blood all the time from their workplace. As if this is a very normal occurrence for Beatrice and she’s just worried that Ava might accidentally die from stupidly consuming raw blood.
Her work crush has finally noticed her, but at what cost? Their first meeting is happening next to a temperature-controlled vat of animal blood (incredibly unromantic) and Ava would like to be able to tell this story to a room full of people someday, without Beatrice censoring her.
Ava places the bottle back inside her cooler bag and slowly stands up, arms raised. “I’m not stealing! Vincent knows.” And even that is a stretch of the truth. He knows that she spends time down here, during her breaks. He just doesn’t know she’s been filling up on blood like it’s tap water. But hey, a girl’s got to eat somehow.
Then, Ava remembers the actual question that was asked. “No, um, I brought a sandwich. Ham, ‘cause it was the only thing I had left in the fridge that wasn’t expired.” Slowly, she zips her bag closed and slings its strap over her shoulder. “What about you?”
Head titled, Beatrice considers her, taking in Ava’s proximity to the tank and what she was holding in her hands earlier. And when the silence stretches for a moment too long, Ava thinks maybe she miscalculated. But then, Beatrice twists her body to look out into the hall before fully stepping inside the room and letting the door swing closed. Oh. Never mind.
“Beetroot salad, rice pilaf, and an apple,” she lists, providing a very thorough answer to Ava’s question. One that sparks more follow-ups.
“Damn,” Ava gives an impressed nod, unable to stop the awkward bobbing of her head. “You like a vegan or something? Would be funny, considering that we work in a meat factory,” she says with a half-laugh, because truly. The irony of such a thing.
“Vegetarian,” Beatrice corrects. And the small, obtrusive part of Ava’s mind hopes she means vagitarian too.
“Recent life change or…?” Most people working in this place still went home and ate beef, ham, sausage, and everything else. Hell, Ava still did. But for some, they couldn’t handle it—the gore, the messiness of the job, the smell of blood, organs, and death—knowing that this was how their food was made. Those were the people that usually didn’t last very long anyway.
Beatrice was already working here when she started. Ava remembers halting her introductory tour to peer into the deboning room, curious about what they did in there. There were so many people standing in front of each table, fat trims flying from skillful cuts. There were rows of workers, stretching from one end of the room to the other, limbs moving in a perfect meat-cutting symphony. But there was one particular worker that caught Ava’s eye—tattoos crawling up one arm before disappearing under a black sleeve. The veins in her hand flexing as Beatrice skillfully cut through carcasses and separated sections of meat for processing.
Beatrice shakes her head in response. Like gravity, Ava’s eyes are pulled to some of the flyaways that frame the chiseled angles of Beatrice’s face. “Happened a few years prior.” She talks about it like some kind of event. Not a gradual process, but an abrupt change. Something she couldn’t control.
Ava taps her cooler, thinking about the pieces she’s been given. They don’t paint a full picture, not yet. Beatrice is very careful about that. “And then you chose to work here,” Ava concludes.
Beatrice lets out a sharp exhale in what suspiciously sounds like a laugh. Ava will count it as a win, giving herself a mental pat on the back. “Yes, and then I found work here,” Beatrice confirms for her. Again, deliberate with her words.
“Cool. Cool, cool,” Ava repeats aimlessly, trying to figure out other possible avenues to keep Beatrice in this room with her for as long as possible. “So like, I’ve never been to a vegan place before. But I heard one recently opened up in town—Yellow Cat? Wanna check it out with me after work?”
“Why?” Beatrice asks, like it’s a crime to be communicating outside the workplace.
“Well, you’re vegetarian and I’ve always wanted to try a vegan place so, why not?” Ava offers because it really is as simple as that. And if she has ulterior motives like getting the hottest employee in this shithole to be her friend then, well, that was inconsequential.
“Alright,” Beatrice agrees, a bit wary but open enough to the idea.
“Awesome! I take the bus back so do you want to meet—“
“—I can drive us,” Beatrice says, abrupt. Ava closes her mouth, fighting off the smile that threatens to overtake her face. Even under the shitty, half-flickering light, Ava can spot the faint color on Beatrice’s cheeks. She clears her throat and amends her statement to something less direct, “If that is something you’re okay with.” It’s said hesitantly as if Ava doesn’t prefer forwardness from people she finds very attractive.
And that is something she has to fix. Right now. “Of course!” A forward Beatrice? Incredibly hot. Ava may as well take off all of her clothes right now. “The bus is shit, so I’d never turn down a free ride. Meet in the parking lot after shift?”
Beatrice nods in agreement. Her gaze moves from the blood containment tank and then back to Ava in a way that suggests there are still some unspoken questions lurking there, but she says nothing further about it. She murmurs a quiet goodbye and leaves, the door quietly snapping shut behind her.
Ava stands there, chest warm and feeling very accomplished with herself. Then, she turns back around and unzips her cooler to fill up one more bottle of blood for the day.
//
Ava smokes a joint before eating her ham sandwich. It helps stir up an appetite—at least the phantom sensation of one. After she died, the only thing she had a craving for was blood. That’s how she distinguishes between the two phases of her life. Before she died, Ava had a mother and then she didn’t. She lived in an orphanage with a little boy who was like a brother. And then, it was just her in that empty room. After she died, she became this. Her stomach a grave. Something that always hungered for human blood. Something that didn’t age, not like everyone else. Whatever Ava became—something with no reflection, very few invulnerabilities, and a deep unquenchable desire for blood—was as good as being dead.
So she died. And then? She found a job at a place where no one looks at your legal documents close enough to figure out if you’re dead, alive, or somebody else.
A few stray drops of rain fall on her head. In the distance, heavy clouds are gathering. Gray and dark. The wind is beginning to pick up. Ava takes a final pull from the joint, more ash than weed, and releases a small cough. The smoke fills up her lungs, warming her from the inside out. If she pretends, it almost feels like the warmth of a heartbeat.
Ava lets out a heavy exhale, wisps of smoke leaving her mouth, and the heat disappears. She drops the stub on the ground, stamping it with her toe. She turns around and punches in the code for the side door. The door clicks and Ava swings it open, walking back inside to finish the rest of her shift and finally get out of this hellhole.
//
The weed makes her limbs feel loose and strong. Sometimes, she’ll inhale and still feel the remnant of a warm haze pulsing in her chest before it travels up into her mind, making everything feel slow and dreamlike.
In front of Ava, the industrial meat mincer grinds away in a monstrous mechanical hymn, loud enough to drown out the cacophony of heartbeats around her. Her headphones do alright at mostly dulling the noise of the machine into something manageable for her heightened sensitivity to sound, but some nights Ava will lie in bed still hearing its continuous echo sawing at her eardrums.
She loads up the machine with frozen meat blocks from the carts next to her. They’re all in an assembly line, maximized for efficiency and productivity. Another worker stands at the end, exchanging the containers of minced meat for empty ones. The full containers get passed off to the next worker who loads it up into another machine that automatically portions out the correct amount for every styrofoam container. Others stand along the conveyor for quality check and final packaging. It goes on like this for hours. From dawn till the sun sets, Ava stands at her station, dropping meat into the machine’s gaping maw, watching the constant mesmerizing rotation of the blades breaking down muscle and tissue into mince. It’s easy to lose yourself in the rhythmic pattern of this work. A cyclic activity. And slowly, Ava’s mind begins turning back.
Her mom would buy pre-packaged ground beef—just like this, from the store. Every time they went shopping, Ava’s hand in hers, they would always look for the best of every item. The reddest apple. The best cut of beef. They would make a game of it. And when they went home, Ava would be placed on the counter, legs dangling against the bottom cabinets and careful eyes watching her mother make meatloaf every Wednesday.
It’s easy to find herself back there again. The gentle hum of the summer cicadas and peonies in full bloom, it’s a perfect summer day. Ava follows the winding path up the porch. The door is left ajar and there is laughter coming from the kitchen. Ava carefully removes her shoes, tucking them in her usual spot, and follows the sounds into the kitchen, where Diego sits on the counter, legs dangling, and giggling along to whatever her mother said.
He brightens as soon as he sees her. His face is full of color, devoid of the nasal cannula that was a constant in his final days, pulling phantom oxygen from an already empty tank. “Ava! You’re late,” Diego scolds, because meatloaf-making is a very serious activity and they already had to start without her.
Her mother drops her oven mitts and turns around, looking as young as the day she died. She greets Ava with an embrace and the smile that comes to Ava’s face is wide and easy. It’s so easy to fall into the hug. And despite her being as tall as her mother now, it feels like she’s seven again. Ava burns her nose in her mother’s shoulder and inhales, smelling the lilac fabric softener that Ava always used to pick off the shelves for them.
“Ava, querida, we’re so glad you’re here,” her mother whispers into her ear, arms still around her.
Ava feels a pressure building behind her eyes. “Hi mamãe,” she mumbles into her mother’s sweater, voice rough and heavy. She keeps her cheek pressed to the soft knit fabric, skin against thread, soaking up every texture and sound from this illusion for as long as she’s able.
“Now,” her mother pulls back, warm hands on Ava’s cheek, the heat enough to erase her—to steal all the breath from her lungs. Her mother tucks Ava’s hair behind her ears in a motion so gentle that Ava wants to fall to her knees and weep against her mother’s belly. “You missed helping us cook, but you can make yourself useful by setting the table,” the fossilized heat of her palms on Ava’s face disappears. She steps away to grab a stack of plates and cutlery for Ava and nudges her toward the modest breakfast nook tucked into the corner of their kitchen.
Ava releases a wet laugh and moves towards the table. She runs a thumb over a faded baby Bulbasaur sticker that sits on the ear of the chair, marking it as hers. She sets her own plate in front of her. Her mother’s plate goes at the head of the table and Diego’s on the right. Her mother brings out the meatloaf and sets it on the table, the smell of meat and warm spices filling the home like it always used to. Diego fills up their glasses with water, his small frame bouncing into his assigned chair. He doesn’t look out of breath and his skin is bright and healthy, not like the sickly yellow hue it took right before he died.
Her mother dishes a healthy slice onto everyone’s plate before she sits down, too. Her skin is glowing and the beginnings of laugh lines are starting to set around the corners of her mouth. She’s asking Ava how her day went, how she wished Ava had brought Diego around sooner because he is very good company—You have some competition, filha, sparking Ava’s indignant Mãe! and Diego’s loud cheering as he spills crumbs all over his plate.
In just a few more years, Ava will officially be older than her mother was when she died.
In the center of her chest, a dead heart still beats. Every slow pulse sends an ache reverberating throughout her bones and the grieving part of Ava wishes her death was like this instead—laughter in the room and everyone she’s ever loved sitting at the table.
—
Beatrice meets her at the entrance of the facility, taking shelter under the awning while the rain comes down in heavy, thunderous sheets. Lightening flashes, illuminating everything in a brief white glare before it recedes, gray bleeding in again. She’s changed out of her work uniform and into a quilted flannel jacket and jeans.
She gives Ava a polite nod, arms crossed and appraising the rain. The jacket fits her well, accentuating her broad shoulders and stretching across her muscled arms. “My car is just down this row,” Beatrice says, pointing.
Ava looks at the heavy drops of rain crashing down on the ground and then back at Beatrice, who is semi-sensibly dressed for the weather. Ava showed up to work in whatever wasn’t in her laundry basket—which meant digging through spares in the back of her closet and finding a cropped tank top, a thin cardigan, and joggers. The air is cold in a way that feels rejuvenating, a welcome environment after the last twelve hours. Ava fills her lungs with it until she feels dizzy.
Neither of them have an umbrella, so there’s only one thing left to do. A giddiness takes over her. Ava holds her bag over her head, getting ready. “Race you!” She exclaims and takes off in the vague direction that was pointed.
Her beat-up sneakers pound against pavement, rain beating down on her cooler and sliding down her arms. The back of her neck quickly gets soaked only seconds into her run. A few stray drops sneak under the lip of her shirt, trailing down her spine and Ava shivers, relishing the way it makes every nerve in her body feel alive. She’s halfway across the parking lot when she turns back to look and realizes that Beatrice is not behind her.
“False start. And I’ll still win,” comes a low voice to the right of her. She didn’t even hear Beatrice catch up. Ava’s surprised eyes find Beatrice’s own, glinting with confidence and amusement as she overtakes Ava in long easy strides. She maintains the distance, only slowing down when the lights flash on a black pickup truck.
Ava pulls up behind her, knocking her elbow into Beatrice’s shoulder, still holding her bag above her head. A breathless laugh escapes her lips. Not from exertion, but from joy. Her pants are soaked but she’s happy, like all her worries disappeared with the rain. Even Beatrice looks different. Her shoulders absent from the usual weight she carries inside work, posture always tense and guarded. Wary of everything and everyone around her.
Beatrice unlocks the car and gestures for Ava to quickly get inside. It’s a monster of a car, suspension-lifted and armored with off-road tires. Ava has to open the door, grab the handle on the side, and hoist her tiny body up using the rocker panel. Once inside, she slams the door closed, muffling the torrential downpour outside.
There’s a drop of water sliding down the curve of Beatrice’s jaw, shining. Ava follows its path, the slow way it trails down Beatrice’s neck between prominent veins, before slipping under her shirt. And all of a sudden, Ava becomes intently aware of the warmth pulsating throughout Beatrice’s body. The steady thump thump emanating from her chest. Her hands curl into fists and Ava tries to take a deep, calming breath. Tries to focus on the sound of the rain instead. But every part of her keeps getting drawn back to Beatrice—the way her blood pulses against the side of her strong neck. Loud and addicting. What it would be like to lick it. Bite it.
Her breaths stutter, losing their carefully curated rhythm. And Beatrice must notice that something is wrong because her brows pull together in concern, hand moving, halfway in the air—like she might touch Ava and that is the absolute last thing she needs. One hand is scrabbling against the door, and as soon as Ava finds the handle, she pulls, body tumbling out of the car and into the storm.
The sky rumbles, low and foreboding. Loud enough that Ava almost feels the ground shake from the vibrations. She slams the door shut, leaning her forehead against the cool metal and breathing heavily. Rain slaps against the hood of the car violently. If Ava’s clothes weren’t soaked before, they definitely are now. Her hair sticks to the back of her neck, wet and flat. Her limbs are numb to the cold. Everything is starting to bleed together.
Ava can’t remember if her clothes are stuck to her skin from the blood or the rain. The surface beneath her fingers is smooth, unlike the rough pavement she was lying on beside her mother’s overturned car. The mass of swirling colors behind her tightly closed eyes starts to take the shape of her mother—still in the driver’s seat, smoke rising from the crushed hood. The rain slams down on Ava, turning her into a cold, shivering mess. Ava needs to get to her mother. Needs to get her out of the car. Call for help. But she can’t move. Can’t feel her body. Every bone in her body burns. She can’t—
“—Ava?”
There’s a warm hand on her shoulder, the heat brands her skin, a thunderclap back to the present. Beatrice’s concerned eyes are looking back at her, scanning Ava for injuries or anything else that could point to whatever episode she just had.
“My bad,” Ava rasps. Her throat is dry and it hurts to swallow. Her tongue darts out against her top lip, collecting rainwater. It tastes of mineral and earth, soothing the scarred, aching parts of her. “You shouldn’t be out in the rain,” she calls to Beatrice, voice shaking in a way that Ava will pretend is from the cold.
Beatrice studies her for a moment longer before nudging Ava to the side and opening the passenger door for her. “Let’s get back in,” she says. Her voice is soft, protective, and Ava finds herself unable to refuse.
Beatrice keeps a steadying hand on her back, ensuring that she’s inside before closing the door. Ava rubs her hands together. The car is warm. Beatrice must have turned on the engine only moments before Ava threw herself out of the car.
Ava tracks Beatrice as she quickly jogs over to her side of the car, climbs up in one smooth motion, and shuts the door. Water drips everywhere onto their seats. Beatrice swiftly removes her wet jacket, tossing it to the back. She curls a hand over the steering wheel and her bicep flexes with the motion, veins standing flushed against skin. Ava looks away.
“I’m sorry,” Ava offers, shoulders curling inwards from guilt. The seats are wet. Beatrice’s jacket has become a sopping mess. Ava is sure that she doesn’t look any better with her wet mop of a cardigan and pants sticking to her legs. She’s ruined whatever nice, easy thing they had going.
Beatrice doesn’t address the apology, instead redirecting to a topic that Ava wishes she would ignore. But no, she isn’t like that. Quiet, attentive, Beatrice. “Are you alright?” The question is without blame or any sense of obligation. Beatrice asks because she wants to know.
Ava searches for a lie. A convincing one. Ends up offering a half-truth instead. “Cars are…hard for me.” She stares at her palms, studying the lifelines etched onto them with morbid desire. How they would never grow and change again. Her life was stagnant now. Uncharted. “When I was a kid, my mom and I got into an accident. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a car again.” Ava summarizes. “I’m pretty good at being okay now, but sometimes it just randomly happens,” slowly, she curls her hands into loose fists. Offers a smile to Beatrice. Tight. Wrecked.
Beatrice nods like she understands. Every sequence of her is an absorbing force for Ava and her worries. Time always passes differently in her presence. Slow. Relenting. Even black holes provide comfort, keeping the light safe inside. A lighthouse. Both shelter and warning. Their weight an anchor in an otherwise hostile environment. And Ava will always step into Beatrice’s orbit willingly. Every time.
She doesn’t know what Beatrice sees when she looks at her. For years, Ava had gone without being able to see herself in the mirror. And then she died and lost that ability forever. Before, it felt like a loss. Of being unable to perceive who she was. Now, it feels like a blessing. Spared from meeting the eyes of the monster she’s become.
Beatrice’s eyes still roam her face and Ava is not sure what she’s still searching for. And then, Beatrice offers a smile that feels like gravity, “How about we pick up the food?”
Something in Ava’s chest eases, knot untangling from relief. She’s still wanted.
—
As soon as they finish changing into dry and more comfortable clothes, Ava gestures to the water pipe sitting on her coffee table, “You mind if I light up?”
Beatrice drops their bags of food on the small amount of space that’s available on Ava’s already overflowing kitchen counter. She glances at the coffee table that’s littered with rolled joints, a small scale, and the bong—already packed and prepared. She shrugs. “Not as long as you share.”
Ava can’t help the impressed whistle that escapes her. “A woman after my own heart!” As Beatrice brings their takeaway boxes to the living room, Ava unpacks her cooler and places the jars of blood in her freezer. She joins Beatrice, flopping down on the couch, and gestures to the bong, “Please! Guests first.”
Beatrice takes a seat beside her, maintaining a polite distance. Their knees touch when she leans over to grab the bong, but Beatrice does not pull back to restore the gap. Taking it as a win, Ava grabs the lighter and passes it to Beatrice, who expertly flicks it, flame dancing near the edge of her thumb. She lowers it to the bowl, letting the weed ignite as she fits her lips over the mouthpiece and starts inhaling. The chamber fills with smoke and Beatrice puts the lighter down, lifting the bowl off to take a harder pull until the pipe clears again, smoke disappearing. She takes a final inhale, holding the smoke in her lungs before turning her head and expelling it.
Ava watches this all with extreme heart eyes. She grabs the lighter from Beatrice to take her own pull. There’s a small breeze coming in from the window she forgot was cracked open, brushing past the thin curtains and mingling with the fading smoke. It feels nice. The mix of warmth and wind.
After a couple of pulls from the pipe, Ava leans against the back of the couch, head lolling in the direction of Beatrice who sits composed, fiddling with the lighter. The weed is starting to settle in Ava’s belly so she pushes up off the couch with her elbows. Every movement feels slow and drifting. She leans over the table and hands Beatrice the first box of food before grabbing her own.
Inside her takeaway box sits a Reuben sandwich and a side of sweet potato fries. As soon as Ava takes the first bite, she knows she made the right choice. Perfectly fried tempeh, the sharp burst from the sauerkraut, the coolness of the thousand island sauce, and saltiness from the vegan cheese. But while the flavors feel good on her tongue, it does nothing to sate the real hunger in her belly.
Still, she pretends. “So good,” Ava says, around the mouthful of bread and tempeh. It comes out incomprehensible, but Beatrice nods in understanding, chewing her own food, slow and savoring.
“This is surprisingly pleasant,” Beatrice agrees. And despite having a portion of her own, Ava still steals a fry from her. Somehow, it tastes even better from Beatrice’s plate.
“Maybe,” Ava says. “Or maybe, it’s just the weed talking.”
Beatrice pauses, BLT still in hand. “No, I was talking.”
Ava’s brows do a fun dance, meant to wind Beatrice up. “Were you? Or was the weed talking through you?” She challenges with a mouthful of fries.
“That’s absurd, Ava. Weed isn’t sentient, it’s not—“ Beatrice shakes her head, trying to comprehend something that’s not meant to be. As if logic can be used to untangle thoughts while you’re high. “It’s just not possible.”
Ava taps at her brain. She’s thinking big thoughts. Beatrice will catch on soon enough. She slumps down into the couch—legs sprawled off the cushion and chin tucked to her chest—and makes a thinking sound. Her limbs are buzzing from warmth and sensation. Everything she touches has a texture. The couch beneath her fingertips is worn and comfortable. Even Beatrice has relaxed into it, eyes closed and head tilted up. Ava’s hand moves on its own accord, fingers reaching for the insect tattoo on the back of Beatrice’s hand. She doesn’t startle when Ava’s touch meets her. Lets Ava’s fingers roam along the lines of its wings, from knuckle to wrist. Beatrice’s skin is soft. Everything feels full of possibility.
“What is that—butterfly?” Ava asks, thumb now over Beatrice’s knuckles, slowly rubbing.
Beatrice makes a noise in the back of her throat. Ava watches the slow way her chest rises and falls. Mesmerized. The weed helps quiet the world down. Every sound she hears feels muffled, head underwater. The rhythm of Beatrice’s heart travels throughout her entire body, feeling like her own. Soft staccatos of warmth. It’s peculiar. Most people’s pulses stay in a range of sixty to hundred beats per minute. But Beatrice is different. Hers is much slower. Calmer. More deliberate.
“It’s a Luna moth. Named after the Roman goddess of the moon, Luna, because of its hindwing spots—translucent discs with dark, crescent edges—like the moon, when it’s nearly full.” Beatrice answers, eyes still closed, tendons in her neck flexing with every swallow.
“Oh,” Ava breathes, gaze moving to the two small circles inside the wings, etched onto Beatrice’s hand like two moons. And despite knowing very little about her, this makes perfect sense to Ava, who sometimes feels like the moth on Beatrice’s hand, chasing her light.
“Actias luna, or known as the American moon moth, because it is typically found in certain parts of North America. They have very short lifespans, living only seven to ten days after they emerge from their cocoon.”
“Why? That’s kind of sad,” Ava says, thinking of her own, very brief life.
“They have no mouths or digestive systems. They cannot eat, forced to survive on the energy they stored as caterpillars,” Beatrice’s voice is gentle and soothing. Ava could listen to her talk forever.
“Bug nerd,” Ava comments with a fond squeeze of Beatrice’s hand.
Beatrice hums, turning her hand over so that their palms are now touching. With her heart in her throat, Ava slowly curls her fingers between Beatrice’s in a loose, hesitant hold.
“Moths are symbolic insects,” Beatrice continues. “Different cultures find different meanings. Some see them to represent finding your true love. Others see them as foreshadowers of death.”
“And you?”
Beatrice’s heart picks up, just the slightest bit, but noticeable to Ava, who has been tuned to the cadence of Beatrice’s body for this entire evening. She feels her own muscles freeze in response.
Beatrice’s eyes flutter open, head turning to direct her piercing gaze at Ava, “Transformation. A fundamental change to who you are and the life you once lived.” If Ava looks a little closer into her eyes, there is a faint amber ring eclipsed by the hollow of her pupils. Lilith once told Ava that her own eyes get like that sometimes—a ring of fire around her pupils when her more, sharper, attributes tended to come out.
There is something else there—a diffracted similarity to Beatrice. A suggestion that they’re both different from everyone else. Like pieces of the same whole. Two fragments of the same rock, humming with identical resonance.
It’s what makes her confess this next part.
“I died once. It was..” Ava considers her words, tries to remember what it felt like. It’s been a while, and the memory of her death gets blurrier and blurrier with every passing year. “Quiet. Peaceful. There’s no one to greet you or say goodbye. And honestly, I think I prefer it that way. It’s just a deep, endless sleep. You don’t even realize you’re in it.” She takes a deep breath. Looks at Beatrice, “Until you wake up.”
Beatrice’s face is soft with something like understanding. “Do you remember how it happened?”
Ava grimaces. Thinks of Sister Frances roaming the halls. How it was always the sickest kids that never made it out of the orphanage. Thinks of the suddenly empty bed next to hers. Diego had promised that he would sneak her an extra pudding for lunch the next day.
“No, I—“ She tries to parse through her fuzzy recollections. Tries to forget the way Sister Frances’ dead body slumped to the ground after Ava was done with her. She can bury her memories, but Ava will never forget the way her blood tasted. Rotten. Sour, like spoiled milk. But Ava had drank and drank so that no more kids would end up like Diego. Or become like her.
As soon as Ava left the orphanage, she immediately threw it all up on the side of the road. She couldn’t drink from another person for a month after that.
“It’s hard,” is what Ava leads with instead. “I think I was asleep when it happened. I wasn’t meant to know,” she shrugs, tries to pretend that the pain has dulled. “Anyways, yeah I died. Didn’t go anywhere though.”
“Is that what you believe?” Beatrice doesn’t sound accusatory, just interested. But it still puts Ava on guard.
“What do you believe?” Ava challenges back. “Heaven and hell?” She asks, gaze pointed at Beatrice’s neck, a simple necklace where a cross rests above her sternum.
“It’s what I was raised to,” Beatrice clarifies, but it still feels like a non-answer.
Ava nods, “Me too, kinda.” At Beatrice’s curious look, she explains further. “The nuns at the orphanage were all too eager to remind me I was going to hell every chance they could.”
Ava can almost feel the strength of the questions that Beatrice wants to ask before she settles on the simplest one, “Why?”
Ava shrugs, half-hearted, despite the messy storm of emotions that churn in her gut. “I pissed them off. Fucked with them all the time. I was a kid. And they were shit to me.” She shakes her head, “Guess they got the last laugh in the end after all.”
Beatrice tilts her head, “What do you mean?”
“Hell is… When i came back, that was hell.” She gives a bitter smile. “Nothing good came of that. You just learn to live with the consequences of who you are.”
“I think I understand,” Beatrice says. Quiet, thoughtful.
“Yeah,” Ava releases a breath. Similar frequencies. Their shadows casting the same shape against the light. “I think you do too.”
Beatrice hums, a thumb rubbing along the edge of Ava’s hand. She closes her eyes like she’s focusing on something, before opening them again. Her forehead creases in thought. Then, she asks an unexpected question, “Do you have a heart condition?”
Confused by the abrupt change in topic, Ava replies, “Kind of, yeah?” Once, very early after her death, Ava had measured her pulse. She had sat down and put a hand against her chest in the lonely silence of her room. What little sound she felt beneath her cold palm was devastating enough for her to never try again.
“It’s just,” Beatrice’s brows pull together, eyes unfocused, “I can feel your pulse under my fingers.” In the moments that Ava had lost to recounting her memories and the effects of the weed, Beatrice’s fingers had curled around her wrist in a loose hold, two fingers pressed to her radial. “And it’s incredibly slow. I counted maybe ten per—“
“So is yours!” Ava blurts out, half-panicking. “I can hear—feel it too.”
“I used to swim competitively in my younger years,” comes the swift reply. The answer is practiced—and something about it sounds like the truth, but also suggests that it’s not the full story. But Ava isn’t brave enough to push. Not yet. Not when the truth of her own pulse threatens to unmake her.
Beatrice glances around Ava's apartment, gaze pausing at her empty cooler bag before moving to the neon green numbers on her microwave, alerting them to how much time has already passed. It’s now nine p.m. She pulls her hand away from Ava’s wrist, sitting up on the couch. “It’s getting late. I should probably go.”
“Yeah,” Ava agrees, a little put out, but understanding why. She sits up and closes their takeaway boxes. “Gotta wake up for work tomorrow.”
She helps Beatrice pack up her leftovers and walks with her to the door. Beatrice gathers her clothes from where they were left to hang, mostly dry, and slings them over one arm. Ava waves off her concerns to return her current clothes, citing that they fit Beatrice better anyway. She unlocks the door for Beatrice, hesitating to step out of the way. They dodge eyes as Beatrice steps closer to the open door.
In the end, Ava settles to part with this, “I’d like to see you again. Outside of work.”
Beatrice pauses at the threshold, turning to face Ava. “Was this a date?” She asks, eyes wide and unblinking.
If Ava had sensed even an ounce of discomfort from Beatrice, then this entire evening would be written off as platonic. But, there’s something there. Why else would Beatrice ask? Ava gives her a soft, understanding smile, “Only if you want it to be.”
—
“Do you mind if I…?”
The door awkwardly thuds against the large rock she’d placed to block it from closing. Ava looks over, a little bit surprised but mostly delighted. “Hell yeah, dude!” She passes off the half-finished joint to Beatrice who takes a long, hard pull. Again, Ava is drawn to the way the tendons in her neck flex, her chest rising and then collapsing. Cheeks warm, she looks away. “Damn. I thought you’d be like a straight-edge or something.”
“We smoked at your apartment earlier this week,” Beatrice reminds her. She takes another drag before passing the joint back.
Ava pauses, joint halfway to her lips. Realizes that Beatrice is right. “I dunno,” She takes a pull, inhales some fresh air, and releases. “Whenever I see you at work, you always seem so serious. So focused.”
Beatrice’s eyes glint with playful intensity. She crosses her arms against her chest, the muscles of her biceps bulging from the maneuver. And Ava can’t help but wonder if this was done on purpose, to further tease her. “And how often do you come by to see me?”
Ava lets out a stuttering laugh, at a complete loss for words after being caught like that. She’s not embarrassed, just surprised that Beatrice noticed.
Beatrice takes pity on her. “Weed is alright. Alcohol, not so much. My body tends to not react well.” Ava lets out a noise of agreement. Her fangs tended to pop out by the fourth round of shots. “This job has a way of bringing out the worst memories. The long hours. Repetitive work. Nothing to do but think.” Beatrice looks at her like she sees right to the core of Ava, “The weed helps with that.”
But Ava doesn’t understand. Beatrice is larger than this place. Extremely knowledgeable. A good head on her shoulders. “Why work here, then?”
Beatrice gives her a wry smile, head shaking like Ava doesn’t understand whatever shared joke they’re part of. “Where else can I find work?”
“Well, you obviously seem very educated. Foreign-born?” Ava hazards a guess. The accent is the most obvious. But, there’s also the way Beatrice holds herself. Back straight, chin up. Always poised.
She nods, “I had some life changes… Returning home wasn’t an option for me anymore.”
“Yeah, I get what you mean,” Ava exhales more smoke, head tipping back against brick to stare at the murky sky. And then, just because she’s feeling bold enough, she goes ahead and answers Beatrice’s original question, “Pretty often actually. You’re the only decent eye candy in this place.”
“Oh.” Beatrice blinks, surprised. Her arms fall to her sides, “That’s… a very generous statement.”
Ava shrugs, straightening back up. “Well hey, it’s either you or the hanging carcasses in cold storage.”
This is the second time that she’s caught Beatrice off-balance. And boy, does it feel glorious. “There’s plenty of other people that work here,” Beatrice replies, voice threaded with disbelief.
Ava gives an elusive smile, “None like you, Beatrice.” She finishes off the end of her joint, drops it on the concrete, and stubs it with her toe. She swings the door open, giving a parting glance to Beatrice, who looks a little unsure, but still inclines her head at Ava as she heads back inside.
—
Vincent corners her as soon as she’s clocked in. Says that he needs her in the hall today. Two workers are out. One injured. Another quit. There are shoes to fill. Ava has worked there before, so she can do it again. He’ll find people by the end of the week and she can go back to her usual station.
Ava wants to scream at him. Tell him she’s worked there enough. That she earned her place in the room where all she had to do was stare off into the distance and feed frozen blocks of meat through a machine.
But she needs the money and access to blood, so she grabs a hard hat, her heavy-duty noise-canceling headphones, nose plugs, and makes her way towards slaughter hall.
As soon as she opens the heavy doors, sound and smell immediately overwhelm her senses. It’s the loudest room in the factory. Where band saws are always spinning and metal hooks clinking as cattle is moved along the mechanically powered rail. Every minute a bolt gun firing—the squeal of animals—before another cow is strung up.
The salvage line is elevated above the ground for easier cleanup of all the blood and bits of meat that fall off of the carcasses. Ava adjusts her headphones over the hat and walks to the end of the chain where a worker is struggling to do both tasks at once to make up for the deficit. She waits until he puts the saw down and taps him on the shoulder, motioning to the carcass. He gives a nod, finishes the rest of the evisceration, and moves back to his station so she can take her new place.
Ava pulls up a mask over her face, holding her breath as the next carcass comes down the line. She’s in charge of removing the offals before the carcass is sent off for final inspection. The body stops in front of her, swinging, as the rail brakes. She has two minutes for her task before the rail starts moving to send her the next animal. The line operates on a Canpak system, optimized for the slaughter of up to one hundred and fifty animals per hour. Only the best of the best, according to Vincent, who was always looking to increase his profits, no matter the margin.
Ava starts the electric saw and makes a long, clean slice from ribs to front and then switches to her butcher knife to cut from ribs to back, completely opening up its slick belly. Even the plugs aren’t enough to dull the mingling smells of iron, organs, and feces. She holds her breath, reaching in to separate the white viscera from the red. The kidneys, intestines, spleen, and pelvic-renal fat go into one container. While the lungs, liver, gallbladder, windpipe, and heart go into another. It’s the last one that has her pause. A cold, dead heart in her hands. Her fingers squeeze around it, gripping it tight. The rail starts, its rattling death whine filling the room again and Ava jolts, dropping the organ into its assigned bin.
As the next carcass comes along, Ava tries to lose herself in the repetitive nature of the work. Takes herself back to the place she went to when she first started on the line. She would focus on the motions. The way the knife cut through skin. Then, she would unfocus, still aware of every action from her body, but enough to let it all blur. Someone was sawing through an animal, but it wasn’t her. Someone’s hands are digging through organs, but they’re not hers.
Ava takes a deep breath and prepares herself. Lets her vision tunnel.
There’s a girl on the line, waiting for the next animal to butcher. But not her.
But the smell of blood still overwhelms her senses and she’s been neglecting—telling herself that she’ll feed next time. Next week. Her body is starting to wake in bloodthirst and—somewhere along the way, she takes a wrong turn.
The memory of her turning comes back piecemeal. A false promise fueled by pain and desperation.
She’s inside the car. Chained to the seat and the world tilted upside-down. Her mother’s head is slack against the window, eyes closed like she’s peacefully asleep. Ava tries to wake her, but every sound she makes hurts her lungs. She tries to reach for her mother instead, but nothing moves. Her chest stutters in panic. She screams.
Her mother still does not wake.
But Ava finds that she cannot stop. She keeps screaming, face a mess of tears and blood, hoping that someone will hear her. Someone will save them.
And then, a stranger arrives. Face obscured in shadow and head haloed by the sun. He bends down to offer a bargain to Ava, who does not understand the meaning of what she accepted. Not yet, anyway.
(But she will learn. Through painful hunger and forced loneliness. She was offered a curse.)
When Ava next wakes, she is on the side of the road. Mouth heavy with the taste of iron and throat hoarse.
It happens in two parts. The first is the drinking.
And then—
Her death.
A man entering her room at the orphanage. The same man. Moonlight dancing over his long hair, painting it silver. “There are no gentle rebirths,” he says, pitying Ava for the position she’s in. For what has already begun happening to her.
She’s hardly lucid, eyes heavy from the weight of the poison that’s begun working its way through her system. He grabs her arm, turning it so her wrist faces up. Something sharp sits at the edges of his mouth, twin crescents glint in warning. He lowers his mouth to her wrist and bites. And for the first time in years, there is pain. Fire spreading from her wrist to the rest of her limbs. Her body spasms on the bed, mouth foaming and eyes rolling to the back of her head.
Ava does not know what she’s been given—something worse than death. A curse. A turning. A behemoth hunger that threatens to unmake her—until she wakes.
//
Like always, Beatrice finds her when she least expects it.
Ava is sitting on the ground, back against the blood containment tank, head between her legs, and breathing tight.
“Ava?” Her voice is heavy with concern and a fear that Ava does not want to think about. Can’t bear the thought of Beatrice being scared of her.
“I fucking hate this place,” Ava chokes out, chest stuttering and limbs trembling. The bloodthirst is already setting in. The last time this happened, she drained a body dry.
“I didn’t see you at your station today.” And something about the knowledge that Beatrice went looking for her should make the useless organ in Ava’s chest skip. But she feels nothing except a deep, yawning emptiness in her belly. “Where have you been?” Beatrice asks.
“The hall.” It’s all she has to say. Beatrice’s shoulders slump in understanding. It’s where everyone starts. The station with the highest turnovers. Every week there’s a new face. You have to earn your way out of that room. Claw and teeth. Ava survived it. She’s survived enough.
“Don’t you wanna ask me what I do with the blood?” She asks, half-crazed and body shaking from the hunger pangs. Her hands are curled tight, nails digging into skin hard enough to draw blood. To use pain as a distraction.
“What matters is your health—“
“—I have a condition,” Ava begins, manic. “I have to drink blood. Otherwise, I go crazy,” she releases a dull, hollow laugh. “I told you I died. And then I woke up in a morgue. Killed the first person that entered.” If Beatrice is meant to leave, she may as well do it now. “By the time I was done, all that was left of him was skin and bone.” Ava stares hard at the dark spot of animal blood on the ground that had spilled while she was hurrying to drink, hoping it would help chase away the hunger. “Do you know what happens to a body once all the blood is gone? It shrinks. The tissues have nothing to keep them alive. The skin sags against bone, like a fucking shirt that’s two sizes too big. It’s so—“ She heaves, stomach expelling nothing but air and agony.
There is silence. Unable to bear the weight of it, Ava finally looks at Beatrice. She’s… There’s no fear, usually it’s one of the first scents that Ava can smell, the most potent. It always makes the blood taste worse. Instead, her eyes shine with almost something that looks like pain.
“I suspected it may be something like that,” Beatrice replies in quiet acceptance. And something about that—Beatrice already knowing and staying, soothes the buried, wounded part of Ava’s heart.
Thinking back on her death—on how she woke, Ava realizes she misremembered. Death tends to do that to a person’s memory. After the fire calmed and the world went quiet. When there was nothing but emptiness, Ava dreamed. A church. The way the walls breathed, ever-expanding and contracting. Its center, hallowed by a phantom pulse.
A woman stands between the pews, her back is towards Ava. Statuesque.
“Hello?” Ava calls out. “Who are you?” She tries to move closer. To see who it is, but her limbs won’t cooperate.
The woman turns around. The ever-changing walls shift, white light bleeding in from the high windows. Her face is pale and the light looks like it burns her. She faces Ava with a painful smile, “The one that came before you.”
“I wish I’d known you,” Ava blurts out, terrified. Despite never having seen her before, there is a familiarity to this woman. Older. Wiser. If Ava focuses hard enough, she can hear the patterns of their hearts following the same rhythm.
She’s the closest that Ava will ever get to seeing her own reflection.
“We all meet. Eventually,” The woman says as her face smoothes into something like acceptance. “In this life or the next,” she echoes it like a lesson. Like something that’s been told to her many times. Like something that she’s repeated even more. But right now, she doesn’t look like she believes it. The longer she looks at Ava, the more her gaze shifts into troubled, the rigid posture of her shoulders loosening until they begin to shake. She breaks down before Ava’s very eyes, terrified as her body folds under the weight of whatever she’s become, collapsing to her knees as if she’s feeling the pain of her own death and—
Panic starts to claw at Ava’s throat. The woman is weeping on her knees. Ava is still trapped. She can’t move. “What’s going on? What am I supposed to do?”
In a futile effort, Ava tries to reach for her, one arm outstretched and the woman fades away into dust.
“Please!” Ava calls out to an empty room. The walls breathe in time with her, trembling. The small windows of light slowly fade. “Don’t go!”
“—va?” There’s fingers tapping against her cheek. “I’m right here. Focus on me,” Beatrice is crouched in front of her. There’s a cool hand pressing against her forehead, “You’re burning up. What's wrong?”
Her body is shaking, unbearably cold. There is a deep, monolithic pain in her stomach. The last time this happened, she went searching for Sister Frances. Left her for dead in the halls of the orphanage.
“Tell me what you need, Ava,” There is an urgency in Beatrice’s voice that she has never heard before. “Please, let me help.”
Ava shakes her head. Sweat is dripping from her temples. Her fangs are already out, she can feel them pressing against her bottom lip, drawing blood. Ava can’t bear to do this to her. Refuses to sign Beatrice’s death with her teeth. She’ll never forgive herself.
“It’s okay, Ava. It’s okay,” she holds Ava’s trembling hands in her own. Looking around, her gaze catches on the fallen bottle on the ground. “You’ve been drinking blood, but it’s not working anymore.” Beatrice’s brows are furrowed as she works through the problem. “Because you need it fresh. From a living being. A human.”
No, Beatrice never needed Ava to confess anything. She was intelligent enough to figure it all out on her own.
Everything is too loud. The tank humming behind her. The sounds of knives slicing through animal skin. The angry buzz of the saws. But Beatrice is here, reassuring her. Telling her it’s okay. But it’s not. It can’t be. The only people she’s ever drank from are dead. And yet. And yet—
“You need to drink my blood, Ava,” she says, fierce and unyielding. It sits on the edge of a command. “We’ll be alright. Trust me,” she murmurs, voice softening. Beatrice has wrapped her entire body around Ava’s, fingers running through her hair. Her neck is so warm. Ava noses it, breathing in. Beatrice smells cold, like the winter rain. With every breath, Ava feels the frost settle in her lungs. Like the first fall of snow that muffles the world, Beatrice quiets the storm that’s ravaging Ava.
This was always a losing battle for Ava. Her need for Beatrice made her weak. Fueled the parts of her desire that she didn’t want to face. And isn’t hunger just another word for ache? Her unbearable longing to be wanted after being denied for so long.
And now, Ava was out of time. If she didn’t drink, it would only get worse. For the both of them.
There are hands in her hair, rubbing her back. Beatrice’s touches feel mauling, the warmth of a hand close to her—in her hair, against her shoulders—right before it tears her apart. Ava’s mouth sighs open, fangs seeking the warm pulse beneath skin. Her teeth graze against Beatrice’s neck, a promise to eat her softly. And then, her fangs sink in.
Blood immediately fills her mouth, dribbling down her chin. The first taste already sends relief. Ava’s tongue darts out to soothe the bite and she feels Beatrice relax against her, pulling Ava closer. Her neck tilts back in further invitation, a rough exhale escaping from her lips.
Ava’s body takes over the rest. One hand rests at the base of Beatrice’s throat as she drinks her fill. Blood has never tasted like this before. Ava has never let herself have this. Beatrice’s taste is almost overwhelming. From the first taste that silenced Ava’s frenzied mind to now, where she feels warm. Safe. Beatrice’s blood is sweet and brings a clarity to Ava’s mind that she’s never felt before. Especially not after the bloodthirst takes over. Drinking was always a form of survival for Ava. A last resort. To prevent her from becoming something worse than she already was.
(She forgets. Her corruption never began with her turning. It began with her want.)
But drinking from Beatrice is something different. Nobody wants someone who is too desperate to be loved and yet—Beatrice embraces her. Ava feels wanted down to her very marrow.
She’s gone hungry for so long that the idea of being full feels even worse. So when the hunger in her belly slowly begins to quiet down, Ava removes her fangs from Beatrice’s skin, licking and sucking at the bite marks as she relaxes into Beatrice’s hold. Neither of them move away, unwilling to disturb the sanctity of this moment. For Ava, it’s out of fear. Of what she will see on Beatrice’s face. What will happen after they untangle their limbs.
But right now, Ava holds on for a moment longer. And something about the position they’re in feels inevitable.
Like this was always going to happen.