Darrien's expression changed. He was deep in thought, eyes lowered to the floor with his brows drawn together. That face. It was the same one Mantel had worn in the forest. There was no connection. It didn't mean anything, but the twin looks sent Ren hurdling to last night.

He'd finally put it to the back of his mind and it was back again like it never left in the first place. She was at the forefront with her ripped neck and her horror-struck expression which would be forever frozen in time. Even when she was dead she was in pain, living in an endless nightmare. They should have called the police. They shouldn't have left her there to rot without her family knowing where she'd gone or what had happened to her.

The worst of it all was the guilt of knowing her killer was still out there. 

He no longer cared how he looked. He didn't know why he wanted to put up a front in front of Darrien anyway. It wasn't like he cared what he thought about him.

Ren let out a groan as he buried his face in his hands. 

He was starting to understand where his mind was wandering. Darrien was attractive, but Ren had never actually wanted to be with someone. Not that that was what this was. Thinking someone was good looking didn't mean he wanted anything other than to goggle at them.

That's the one thing he never thought about and something he never thought he would. Life was hard enough without wishing he could share it with someone.

His attention was drawn back to Darrien. He leaned over Ren's desk. Ren waited for him to say something. 

His eyes unintentionally fell to Darrien's mouth and he hated himself all the more for it. It was nothing he could ignore and not something he could take back. He was the one that was supposed to have no emotion yet it was the one thing that held him back from the rest.

"Are you—“ He was waiting for it. He didn't want it to be true. He didn't want to be right, but he already knew what Darrien was going to ask. It was frustrating. Maddening. "Are you a—“

Darrien pressed his lips into a hard thin line. The words didn't come out. He tried again, opened his mouth, and he closed it once more. Ren wanted to tell him to spit it out, to just get it over with so he didn't have to keep going through the pain. 

He'd never had anyone ask him outright. Everyone already knew what he was and he was surprised no one had filled this kid in. He was surprised that wasn't the first thing out of their mouths since that was the reason why they liked to stare at him all the time. 

And Darrien had to be messing with him. If he had been here before, it was quite fucking obvious that Ren was still a vampire. It wasn't something people usually forgot. 

People's phobia of him only got worse with age. He started to look like a grown vampire every passing day. He wasn't easily hidden anymore.

He glared at Darrien, pulling his hands away from his face. "Am I a vampire?"

Darrien flinched back as if Ren had hit him across the face. Ren could see the fear turning in Darrien's eyes, the utter horror of finally seeing what Ren was. 

It hurt more than he thought it would. 

Darrien pressed his hands into the back of the metal seat. Ren watched him look around the room. He wasn't turning away. Ren was sure it was just the shock, that maybe it was physically painful for him to twist around and hide from him.

Or maybe he wasn't afraid. Maybe he was just disgusted he had to sit in front of a vampire for the rest of the school year. 

It wasn't a rule, but kids stuck to their seats. What you picked was what you got.

The second bell rung. They were saved from the dead conversation.

There was no reason for Ren to care if Darrien wanted to talk to him after this.

He let out a soft sigh. Darrien knew now. It was a relief he wouldn't be trying to talk to him anymore.

The room slowly raised in volume as kids took their seats and got ready to start class. He took a slow glance around before he settled his eyes down on his notebook.

The class went on with Mr. Kale going over the last section of their reading. He was glad they were almost done with the Human and Vampire War. They went over it every year and it was the same thing over and over. 

He didn't want to think about it more than he had to. His whole life seemed to consist of remembering the past and how the world was before he was born. He'd rather focus on the present and the future that would only be a little better because he wouldn't be there.

It was only a few weeks.

He hoped he could survive until then.

***

It was the second time he'd found himself sitting around the corner of the school with unimportant things on his mind. 

There might have been a reason for this, maybe a sign that he was too blind to see, but for now he believed it was just another thing he couldn't explain. 

The parking lot had mostly cleared out. No one really wanted to linger here more than they had to. Ren didn't either. He would have loved to ditch this place, but the deep seated fear kept him sitting at the back of the school until everyone had cleared out. It was irrational. Just a bit. He couldn't do a damn thing about it though. He wasn't going to change and he had to accept that. 

It really didn't make sense when he felt safer with drug addicts than he did with people his own age, but he wasn't going to try and understand fear. Just like the buzzing and the dark thoughts that seemed to grow stronger everyday, it had a mind of its own. Ren's will to fight it just wasn't strong enough to fight against it.

The cold was sharper than it was yesterday. It bit into his skin. His skin began to crack under the intense gusts of wind. He was just thinking about his plan of attack when he got home—slathering lotion and oil on his knuckles—when Darrien walked over.

He was wringing his gloves in his hands, not with them on, but he was wearing his matching hat. It was pulled over his ears. It pushed his glasses further up on his nose. The lenses made his eyes look bigger than they already looked. He looked like a cartoon character. The cold brought out the red in his cheeks and nose. His eyelashes fluttered across his rosy cheeks. 

Ren shouldn't stare, but it was hard not to when he looked like that.

He stopped a foot away from Ren, his shoes just in Ren's line of sight. 

Ren wasn't looking at his face anymore. His eyes were glued to the sidewalk where he was sitting. Through he loud thumping of his racing heart, he heard people talking on the other side of the parking lot. He tensed, waiting for someone to walk around the corner to join Darrien.

He was there. Ren really shouldn't be afraid of him. 

"I'm sorry."

Ren blinked. "You are?"

He couldn't accept his words as the truth. Darrien was strange. He was different than all the others in a way that made Ren feel safer and more scared being around him. He hadn't felt it at first when they'd bumped in the parking lot, but he could feel it now with him so close. 

He was in his space, drifting toward Ren with small steps, like he was approaching an animal. In some way, that was true. 

Darrien sat on the sidewalk with his hands hanging between his legs. They spread wide enough that they were almost touching Ren's. Darrien was careful enough to not let it happen. They were closer than Ren would have liked, the warmth of Darrien's body too noticeable, hard to ignore, and he didn't want to move in case Darrien thought he was being rude. He sat, his legs crossed, as still as he could be while Darrien got into a comfortable position.

"I don't..." Darrien paused and covered his face with his hand. He was looking into the parking lot, somewhere off in the distance, maybe even off into space.

Ren looked out there, to see if there was something to look at, but the lot was empty.

"In Rexington, vampire don't exist. Well, they do, but no one ever says out right and vampires sure as heck don't mingle with us."

Us. They were only a few sentences in and he was already putting up a divide. Ren couldn't fault him for doing so. Every decision they made, every word they said, was a step toward a line that no one in the last hundred years wanted to cross. This line, where humans made it clear they didn't want any vampire blood crossing over, was the thing that kept Ren from living as a human and not a vampire. 

Sure, that need on his vampire side required the one thing that made human fear and despise, but if it were anything else it would be fine. If they only fed on goats, humans wouldn't be in such an uproar. Perhaps, it wasn't something he could discuss with his bias. Maybe he didn't understand much about vampires or humans to understand himself. 

He knew, however, that he wasn't a murderer. Blood, food, and water was what his body needed to function, but it wasn't a need that took over his clear thinking. At least, it was for now. They didn't need to know about the buzzing or the effects of being around Mantel had been having on his body.

As far as he knew, sleep deprivation was what made his mind go haywire the most.

Darrien fiddled with the button of his shirt. His hands, slim, and his fingers, nimble, were pale like the rest of his body. Ren didn't know why he did it, maybe he really was out of his mind more than he already thought, but he moved closer to him until he could feel his body heat through his jacket. He stiffened as Ren placed his hand next to his.

He didn't touch him. He didn't want to, but he wanted to see the difference. Darrien's skin was almost translucent while Ren's looked a dark brown next to him. 

He shouldn't have done it. He should have stood up, walked away, done anything other than stay there and compare skin tones. But Darrien wasn't taking the chance to pull away. The moment was wrong, not right in the least, and they both knew that.

Darrien pulled back with a cough.

Then, as if they'd been waiting to catch them both off guard, two guys turned the corner. Leading them was none other than the douchebag Regan. 

Their eyes fell on them. 

Ren wondered what they thought when they saw him and Darrien sitting so close together. Did they hate him as much as he thought they did? Did they want to hurt him like all the rest of the people in this town?

When he looked at Regan, it was a no brainer. Regan hated Ren's guts. 

And now he looked like he was ready to rip them out.

Ren froze. He had to fight the urge to turn and run to the safety of the forest. There was no way for him to escape them if he moved. He didn't know what they would do, but he had to trust himself in this one thing.

Hold your ground. Don't look scared. 

It was a lot easier to say than to do. They headed toward them and he wanted to look up, to face them, but his hands were shaking. He didn't know if he could do this. He didn't know if he could even breathe. But he was doing it somehow.

When he looked up, he immediately wished he hadn't. The leader of the group was Regan. He tossed his dirty blond hair out of his vibrant green eyes with the shake of his head. A sneer was permanently tattooed on his face. The two following him were Sam and Ollie, brunettes. 

Regan crossed his arms as they stopped just behind Darrien.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Darrien looked back. He didn't look bothered at all. "What's wrong?"

Regan actually sputtered. "I can't believe I even have to say it."

He nodded in Ren's direction. "Why are you hanging around this fuck?"

It wasn't the worst Ren had been called. The word was still a bullet through him. His cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment. His hands were metaphorically tied. He couldn't attack, not even with his words if he didn't want to make the situation worse.

Darrien turned and stood up. He was taller than all three, towering over them. Regan stared up at him, glaring so hard it looked like he might burn a hole through Darrien's face. But there wasn't an ounce of fear on Darrien's face. He was chill, calm like a storm about to blow over, and Ren didn't know how he felt about that. Or how he should feel between the two storms happening at once.

"Back off, Regan," Darrien said. He looked back at Ren and then grabbed Regan by the arm. "Let's go."

Ren didn't know if it was for Ren's sake or for Darrien's, but Darrien didn't fight them. He didn't stick up for Ren or to what they were saying. 

Ren was fine with that. It made it a whole lot easier to forget any of it had happened.

They turned the corner, the four of them disappearing from his sight. Where he should have felt relieved that he hadn't been ganged up on today, he felt empty. For the first time, someone had made the gesture or be somewhat nice to him.

It felt unreal like a figment of his imagination. Perhaps it was. Maybe Darrien had wanted to know what being around a vampire was like. 

He could have been a side attraction and Darrien had been curious to know if the monster bites.

Ren hoped Darrien go this answer because he was tired of all the unwanted bullshit.