“Nah.” I felt a cold hand grab my wrist and toss it onto my chest before the creature man sat beside me. I could tell his body must look pretty fucked up, even through the hoodie he was wearing.

“So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?” Every time I thought of a question, it would spill out without me speaking a word. Even though I was technically speaking, I guess. “You seemed to want to tell me something.”

The sneer left and the creature man looked at me, almost frustrated that I wasn’t playing along. He sighed and asked, “Aren’t you even gonna ask me who I am?”

“I’m pretty sure I know who you are.” I watched as he stood up and started walking around the room once I said this. “I mean, you made it obvious with the hoodie.”

He looked down at himself and picked at the hem of the pocket. “Damn. Oh well.”

Then he walked back and sat down again. I don’t know why he had to pace around like that.

“Look,” he began. “Aren’t you, like, afraid?”

“Of what?” I looked around the room, confused. “You?”

“I mean, yeah.” He pointed at his face and waved his hands in front of me. “Do you see how fucked up I look? Does this not even concern you at all?”

I tried to shrug but forgot that I couldn’t move. “I dunno. Maybe if that’s what I’m supposed to look like eventually.”

The creature man—fuck it, I’m calling him Constantine, ‘cause he’s literally me—sighed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Excuse me?” Constantine was being a pain in the ass and all I wanted was to understand what the hell was going on, besides the fact that my vampire self was talking to me through some weird vivid dream-like telepathy bullshit. “If you’re just gonna complain about me not dealing with a situation with the appropriate response, then get in line buddy. You know I’ve got a lot going on right now.”

The change of expression I just witnessed told me Constantine didn’t like that at all, but I didn’t care. “So what do you want? Why did you go through all this trouble just to talk to me? Are you supposed to give me some dummy guide on how to be a vampire? Are you gonna tell me I’m cursed and I’m gonna kill all my friends and everyone I hold dear? Or are you just gonna sit there and be an asshole because I’m tired of all the beating around the bush and am trying to get straight to the point of whatever this is?”

Constantine was completely unphased by my words. “You’re no fun,” he said. He looked over at the door and back at me. “Alfonso was the one that killed you.”

I watched him stand up and walk to the door. “Who the hell is Alfonso?”

“You’ll meet him eventually,” Constantine said. He leaned up against the door and looked around the room. “His wife makes one hell of a lasagna.”

Whatever flipped in the back of mind drove me to finally sit up. “What do you mean I’ll meet him ‘eventually’? You just told me who fucking killed me.”

I couldn’t tell if I was angry or in shock, or a mix of both, by the information that was just dumped on me.

“‘Eventually’? What do you mean by that? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?”

“Eventually means eventually.” Constantine shrugged.

I forced myself to stand up and almost immediately fell to the ground. I couldn’t feel the ground, or the bed for that matter. I couldn’t even feel if I was breathing, but I just knew I was.

I took a step towards him, trying to keep balance. A few more slow, imbalanced steps, and I was right in Constantine’s face. “Why did you tell me Alfonso did it?”

Constantine stared at me. His eyes were lifeless, emotionless even, as he stared. “Because I know where I came from,” he simply said. “We’re the only of our kind. I can keep count of the poor bastards that got stuck with me.”

He poked me and immediately I fell. “All you need to know is that Alfonso did it. He doesn’t remember that he did it, but he did it nonetheless. Do what you want with that, cause it doesn’t really matter.”

I stood back up and tried to keep balance. “And what do you mean by that? Are you a psychic or some shit?”

Constantine laughed. “Nah. I just really don’t give a fuck who you tell. People will find out anyways. It’s common sense, dumbass.”

Before I could even ask anything else, I felt the door slam right in the face. Any senses that I lost while that bastard was talking to me had come back as soon as that door hit me. Of course, I fell down. Again.

“Shit,” I heard Monroe mumble as he squeezed into the room to help me up. “Sorry about that.”

I shook my head. My face was too sore to say anything.

“What happened?” I could hear Mila approach the door as soon as I was back on my feet.

“He was standing right in front of the door,” Monroe told her. “Thought I knocked him right back out with how hard that hit him.”

I felt my eyes blink rapidly as the light from outside the room hit my face. I was getting used to that unnerving numbness that Constantine had me under; it felt weird feeling senses like a normal undead being again.

Mila walked into the room past Monroe and started looking me up and down, concerned. “Are you sure you should be standing around?”

I was definitely not sure what exactly I should be doing, but I nodded anyways. “I wasn’t feeling too good when I woke up earlier, but I feel a whole lot better now.”

I’m pretty sure Mila didn’t believe me.

“Okay,” she told me. “But maybe you should just sit on the bed. Wait a little bit longer before walking into opening doors and shit.”

I did as she said, no questions asked. It was probably better to do that anyways, while my face was still in pain. She sat with me and Monroe grabbed the chair that was sitting nicely in front of Travis’ desk and sat in front of us.

“Are you sure you’re good?” Monroe asked me. “Because from the way Mal sounded talking to her dad on the phone, you clearly sounded not okay.”

“What was she saying?” I asked him, wondering what exactly Mal was worried about.