Ren rushed out the back doors of the school when the final bell rang. He slammed the doors open and took in a large gulp of fresh air. He risked closing his eyes, listening to the rustle of leaves and the whistle of the wind. It wouldn't be long before the parking lot would be full of kids. Their voices would be louder than his thoughts.

But when it all settled, he would be alone and free to leave this place behind. The peace would only last as long as tonight. The end of the year felt so far away. The Machines felt like a big dream that he had imagined. He had to keep reminding himself that it was a real place where he could put all this school stuff behind. He would work until his body ached, send the money back to his mom, and he would do it all over again.

It had to be better than this. It had to be. Otherwise, Ren didn't know what else he could do. 

He sat on the back steps of the school building. Autumn had settled, leaving a chill in the air and dead leaves on every inch of the ground. He could see where he sat on the cold cement large masses of graveyards of once green leaves. He remembered a simpler time when he used to jump and play in the piles. That was before he had to leave the safety of his home.

That was long before he knew that he was an outsider. He'd been hidden so long that when he entered school, he'd been shocked to find that not everyone was like him. 

He drank blood. They did not.

A group of kids walked out into the parking lot. Ren couldn't seen them, so he hoped they couldn't see him, but though he tried not to, he could feel them. The buzzing made it all the more harder to ignore the pounding of their hearts and the rhythm pulsing through their bloodstream. 

He was entranced by it. His ears thumped to the sound, imagining what it would taste like to sink his fangs into their skin and drink from the source as he was designed to. 

As nature had intended.

The connection was lost. Their voices drifted in the wind.

A few minutes passed and the cold air bit at his chapped lips. He turned his hand over, examining the breaks and cracks around his knuckles. 

He flexed his hand, remembering the large bruise that had been there years before when he'd fought back against Regan. It didn't seem so long ago when Regan had started messing with him.

If he'd had the guts, he wouldn't have let him get so mouthy.

He dropped his hand, sighing, as he tilted his head to gaze up into the cloudy sky.

Maybe he would go again tonight. One day had already broken him and he wasn't looking forward to hearing Kale drone on about the war and shit. 

God. He couldn't wait to get out of this shit hole.

The sun was beginning to set when he took off, taking the lonely trail that would lead him back to the one place he loved.

What followed him was the buzzing and the thirst for human blood.

***

The house came into view. The small blue two story house sat next to a creek. It had been built by his grandparents and was intended for three.

There were just two living in the quiet sanctuary. His parents had died when he was just a year old. The memories he had of them were stored away in photos and the one ring he wore around his neck with the house key.

He clamored up the rickety steps, taking note that the middle one needed to be fixed—again. When he unlocked the front door and threw it open, he was greeted by the sweet smell of his mom's perfume and the scent of wax from the candles she burned all day long.

The living room was covered in a blanket of silence except for the faint hum of the washer in the backroom. A slant of light spilled from the kitchen doorway. He frowned as he wondered if he'd left the light on and how the washer was spinning. But his questions were answered when the shadow flickered across the tile flooring. He didn't need to look up to picture his mom's curly brown hair, her deep brown skin, and her small frame. Her bright smile could be felt across the room.

A smile broke out on his face when he finally pulled his eyes from her shadow.

“Ren?"

He walked through the doorway. "Expecting anyone else?”

Margret Cornelli turned with a laugh. "Who? Mrs. Inkman across town? She never stops talking about how the winter frost is going to kill her tulips.”

She sat the pot of noodles she was about to drain down.

Ren snorted. He was about to reply with a short joke about how the old woman wouldn’t be around long to annoy her when he saw it.

The innocent envelope was sitting on the kitchen counter as if it had always meant to be there. His words caught in the middle of his throat. But when he expected his mom to bring it up, she simply continued with making dinner.

He grabbed the envelope. It was heavy. That was concerning. 

His fingers toyed at the corners, debating if he should open it now—act as if nothing was out of the ordinary—or if he should hide it away in his room. He already looked suspicious now with his back turned to her. If she was paying any attention, she might already know that he was hiding something from her. She was intuitive like that.

But he was saved by the buzzing. It started at the center of his chest, traveling to his gums, and then to his stomach. His shoulders shook with the force. The letter dropped from his shaking hands and he grabbed the counter for balance.

"Do you—Ren?" A pan clattered, but he was already falling to the floor. He sagged, leaning his weight to the side. Hands wrapped around his arms, trying to hold him up. His feet felt like rubber and his eyes glossed over.

He didn't know how long it had last. This was the first time that it had gone so out of control. 

She brushed his hair to the side. The soft touch sent him reeling back to when his feeding had been too much for his small body. He'd grown sick as his fang grew in. Everything had been a sensory overload. The lights, slight noises, and even the beating of his own heart had set him off. That had lasted two days, but it might have been a decade. The pain had no sense of time.

That was how it felt now. He was free falling into an abyss of pain and darkness.

She murmured soft words against his cheek and ear. The soft rocking in her arms soothed him. He was able to climb out of the dark hole. 

He opened his bleary eyes. 

Her smile was tight lipped. "Have you eaten?”

"Yeah," he said. Too quick.

She laughed darkly. Tears were shimmering in her eyes. "I mean, have you taken—"

She could say it. Synthetic blood, medicine, that 'stuff'. She could say anything.

He didn't understand why her saying nothing made him feel more like shit.

Nothing made sense to him anymore.

His fingers were slowly getting their feeling again. She thought this was a normal feeding side affect. How wrong she was. He would make sure that was all she thought it was. This buzzing thing was his to deal with. Not hers.

"I can get it." He moved to sit up, but she pushed him down. 

Her eyes betrayed her. She grimaced and pulled her hand back. “Sorry."

"It's fine." He got to his feet better than he'd expected. With his hand over his mouth, he slunk away. 

The buzzing had pulled out his fangs. The carnal need to rip something apart was swarming around him. He needed to chase something, do anything, to get it out of his system. 

The stairs creaked under his weight. He wasn't fast enough. He couldn't get away from her sad expression, even when he closed his bedroom door and locked it. There was no escaping the haunting in her eyes. 

The aching seconds that it took for him to open his sock drawer and down one of the vials were a blur. He tried to not think about how fake the blood tasted. How the fuck was he supposed to know that? He'd never tasted real blood before.

It was as if his body was engineered to know the difference. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it turned out to be another thing nature had played around with. He was one of thousands who'd been fucked over because some higher power wanted to experiment.

He tossed the vial into the waste basket by his desk.

He decided then, staring at that empty vial, that he wouldn't go out to sell tonight. Instead, he was going to chase whatever the fuck his body wanted out in the forest. He would get it out of his system. If that's what it fucking wanted, then that was what it was going to fucking get.

He fell face first into his bed. He beat the mattress until he got tired of it. Then, when his arms were limp at his waist, he laid in silence. 

Sometime later, he'd managed to pull himself under the sheets. He heard the floor creak outside his door. The handle turned, but Margret hadn't tried a second time.

He was in and out of it until he woke up fully. The moon was shining right in his face. The buzzing had never truly left. It was claiming its space inside of him, resting beneath his skin as if he was just a host for it. Maybe he was. Perhaps the reason why vampires existed was because they'd been taken over by a blood sucking parasite.

Ren laughed at himself. He clamored out of his bed, still fully dress with his jacket and all. He snatched his switchblade from his desk and then he swung his legs out his window. The drop strained his ankles and knees. The pain made him clench his teeth and groan inwardly. The ache subsided just barely. Another thing he could chastise himself later when he was feeling more like himself. 

The forest called to him. The buzzing was getting louder. He glanced back at the tiny blue house. The window to Margret's bedroom felt like a million miles away. His own window didn't look like his own. For the first time in his life, the house he'd always called home, didn't feel like his. The forest was all he wanted. 

And violence. Blood and wrath. He wanted to unleash it, kill and kill until he could not fill his stomach with anymore. 

The fear was all his, but it was laced with giddiness. 

He turned his back to all that he knew and plunged into the wilderness that would take his soul.