“Well,” Monroe began. “She said that your eyes were really bloodshot before you passed out. Like when you get ‘hungry’. And they were still really red when you woke up, but there was like something weird about how red they were.”

Mila looked at him. “His eyes weren't bloodshot,” she told him. “I was here with her when he woke up, and his eyes were perfectly fine.”

“That’s because you’re a commoner,” Monroe told her. “You weren’t born into a supernatural family or taught magic. But that’ll change, so I recommend preparing yourself.”

“That’s a thing?” I asked Monroe, and he nodded.

“I’ve seen this happen with some of the vamps Trav and I helped over the summer,” he explained. “They’ve told me that when they woke up they were talking to themselves, but it was like their, uh… inner vampires? Or something like that.”

I understood what he was saying. “That happened to me,” I told him. “It was really, really weird. And he was kind of an asshole.”

“But he’s supposed to be you, right?” Mila asked me, almost like she was trying to hold back laughter after what I said. I knew what she was thinking.

“He said he was like the original of whatever ‘species’ I am,” I began to explain. “He told me that me and this Alfonso guy were the only ok this ‘species’, and… Alfonso was the one who killed me.”

Both Monroe and Mila were dead silent. I could sense Mila’s blood just boiling from rage.

“Who the fuck is Alfonso?” Mila finally spoke up. She looked over at Monroe. “Have you ever heard of this bitch?”

Monroe seemed almost too shocked to think properly. “N-Not from what I can remember, “ he told her. He looked over at me. “Shit, dude…”

I could feel myself getting angry again as well. “He said he didn’t care who I told, or if I would tell anyone at all,” I told Mila and Monroe, trying my best to recall the conversation without getting worked up. “He said I would meet him ‘eventually’, and something about his wife and a lasagna.”

I looked over at Monroe and could see he was thinking hard. He said, “I’ll ask Mal or Travis to look for someone by that name. It sounds oddly familiar, but I can’t be too sure.”

“Shouldn’t I tell the police or something?”

Monroe shrugged. He had this look of uncertainty and disgust on his face.

“The cops really don’t do shit here, to be honest.” Monroe told me. “That’s pretty much why Trav and I have been helping Mal and her dad with the vamps in the first place. We’re like our own little neighborhood watch party, but for the whole city.”

I couldn’t tell if the headache came back again or if I had just then noticed it was still there. I thought my brain was starting to melt.

“So, you and Travis are gonna look into it?”

I felt Mila grab my shoulder suddenly and pull me closer to her. She pulled at the collar of my shirt, like she was looking for something on my back.

I pulled myself away and turned to face her. “What the hell Mila?”

When I looked at her face, I stopped myself from saying anything else. Her eyes were really wide, and had this look when she first saw me in the kitchen this morning. She let me go and went to go rub her eyes before realizing she had makeup on.

“Sorry, I-” Mila was stuttering like crazy and started to mumble as she tried to speak. When she looked into my eyes, she just went silent.

“What?” I reached under my shirt and felt around my back for anything odd. I thought she saw a spider or something fall into my shirt.

I heard Monroe scoot the chair closer to us. “Well shit,” he said, examining the expression on Mila’s face. “I think she sees it.”

“See what?” I looked over at him, and I remembered him saying something about my eyes being bloodshot. “You mean my eyes? Are they still red?”

My eye caught Mila nodding her head from the corner of my vision. I looked over at her. “You can see it now?”

She nodded again, but more frantically.

But that doesn’t make sense at all, I thought. Monroe said that only people born or taught magic could see the redness. Also, why were my eyes still red?

“I-I saw something on your neck,” Mila told me. Her expression didn’t change. “I thought it was a b-bug or something. I tried to get it before it bit you or whatever, but then it crawled down your shirt, like really fast. Or it just fell right in. I couldn’t tell. Then—”

A bug? I was confused.

“What did the bug look like?” I asked Mila, and she just started moving her hands in a weird way. I thought she was trying to remember the shape or size of it. I couldn’t get over the fact that a bug was on me and I didn’t even feel it. I still couldn’t feel it.

But that still couldn’t explain how Mila was able to see my eyes.

“I-It was like this worm looking thing,” Mila began to explain, “but it was pitch black. And it was a little bit thicker. I couldn’t tell how many legs it had, or if it had any. I never seen anything like it.”

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of a bug would look like what Mila said. Just thinking about worms made me want to gag.

Monroe looked like he was writing something on himself and paying no attention to the conversation at all. He glanced up at me, eyebrow raised.

“Do you know what she’s talking about?” He asked me.

“D-do you?” I didn’t know how to react to his question.

Monroe took a deep breath and sighed quickly. “I do.” He shoved the pen into his pocket before saying, “That ‘worm thing’ is actually the vampire part of him, if that makes sense. It’s essentially a, uh, parasite.”