He came up for air the very second he lost it in the nightmare.

His lips parted and he gasped as he scrambled to grab onto the side of the tub. The sudsy water fell down his face, over his eyes, and into his mouth. The fear wracked his entire body. He shook down to his toes. 

There was water everywhere, but there was also blood. 

It was the dream bleeding into reality. 

He shook it away.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his knuckles. The inside of his mouth was dry. He tried to swallow, but it was dry as sand. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, the water was clear. Besides the suds floating on top, there was nothing in the water but himself. 

He wiggled his toes just to make sure he was in control of his body. 

The water had run cold.

His heart skipped.

He pulled himself from the tub and frantically wrapped a towel around his entire body.

His thoughts were a maze of what he’d seen in the dream and what he couldn’t get out of his head. 

The time. What was the time.

He went to the foot of his bed and lifted up the cracked white clock sitting on the chest. He felt his heart drop into his stomach.

He sat the clock down. His fingers were shaking as he sat on the edge of his bed. 

He’d been in the bath for over an hour. What felt like minutes had been a complete hour. But also, it had felt like he’d been trapped in the dream for days.

He stood up and slowly walked toward the window. The towel around him was as cold as the bath water. It was heavy from the water droplets. He tightened his grip on it.

The window looked out into the opening mouth of the forest. The trees were similar though only slightly different.

He pressed his free hand to the cold glass. His knuckles knocked against the window pane. The cold didn’t feel real enough to register. It’s then that he pressed his face against the glass. He wanted to feel the cold along his entire body. He closed his eyes to get lost in the feeling.

Her face was there, looking back at him.

His body went rigid, but he didn’t open his eyes. He wanted to scream, to turn around, to run until he was lost in the forest. He didn’t know why a girl had just been murdered there.

His teeth chattered and his arms shook. Right down to his toes, he wanted to get out of this place. 

He thought of Mantel.

He opened his eyes. The forest hadn’t changed. 

There was a feeling that there was more to the dead girl. It didn’t make sense that she would be in the middle of the forest. It didn’t make sense that she would be attacked by a vampire so far away.

Either a vampire hadn’t done this or Mantel was lying.

He pulled his hand away.

That’s when he noticed it.

He reached up to clutch the ring on his neck—

His hand brushed his naked collar. Where his grandfather’s ring should have been, there was nothing.

It was as if someone had punched him in the throat. 

“No,” he breathed. His cold fingers wrapped around his neck. 

Still, nothing.

“Nonono.” He turned and searched along the chest. The broken clock was the only thing there.

Around his bed, on his bed, and in the bathroom. He went searching for the ring that would have stood out. It was heavy, big for a ring, and had intricate carvings around the band that shined even in the dimmest of light. 

He knew that ring more than he knew himself.

Just as he made it out to the hall, the front door opened.

There was the rustling of grocery bags and then the faintest of movements he recognized as his mom’s. 

He winced as he hit the frame of his bedroom door. He scanned the hallway and then darted back inside the small room. His heart raced as he threw a look around, looking under the bed and then around it just in case.

He went back to the bathroom, searching once more though he knew he wouldn’t find it. 

His pile of dirty clothes were untouched from when he’d thrown them there. He turned them inside out. Tears stung his eyes as he shook them. He hoped by chance he’d stuck the ring in one of his pockets. 

They were empty.

With shaky hands, he bit back a scream.

“Ren?”

He froze with his pants in his hands. The waist band was wet from where he’d stepped on them on his way to the bedroom.

It took him a second to swallow the ache in his throat. He wiped the fallen tears with the back of his hand and straightened his shoulders. 

“Yeah?” He tried to sound as normal as possible, but there was a slight quiver in his voice.

The grocery bags rustled as they hit the kitchen table. Margret let out a heaved sigh of relief.

“Can you come help me?”

Another tear streamed down his cheek. He released a shuddering breath, wiped the stray tear, and walked out from his bathroom, out from his bedroom, and out into the hall. 

The trail of water droplets followed in his footsteps. Out on the landing, he called out to her. His voice was faint.

“I’m getting dressed.”

She turned then, her hair wispy around her face, and sweat beading at her temples. She held some cans in her arms. 

“Oh.” She gave him a puzzled look. “You look paler than usual.”

“It’s nothing.” He ran back to his room. She said something after him, but he couldn’t hear it.

He threw on a pair of pants and went back to tearing the room apart. By the time he was done, he’d torn out the dresser drawers, tossed his bed around, and had gone through his dirty clothes seven times.

He thought over time his panic would settle, but it had only gotten worse.

It had to be here somewhere. He never took it off for anything.

But it was becoming clear something had gone wrong. He’d lost it. A ring that had been in the family for who knew how long and had been a prized possession gifted by his grandfather to him when he was born.

And he’d lost it.

He sank on the edge of his bed. He buried his face into his open palms. The water from his damp hair mixed with his tears until he couldn’t tell which was which. Downstairs, his mom put away groceries, all without knowing what he’d done.

The front door slammed. Paper ripped and then there was silence.

His tears stopped.

Something else was wrong.

“Ren!”

He looked up. Fright sparked within him.

Margret stomped up the stairs. His bedroom door flew open. 

“What the hell is this?”

This, was a paper addressed to Ren and was only to be opened by Ren. 

His heart sank. There was only one piece of mail he was expecting. He thought it would arrive after he graduated. But there it was. In Margret’s hands—the worst possible place for it to be.

Her hands were shaking. She threw the paper at him. It flew through the air before it sank to the floor.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Her voice cracked.

He looked down at the paper. It wasn’t his proudest moment.

“I couldn’t talk about it,” he said. He looked at his empty hands. The lines in his palms were maps. He wished he could look at a spot and go there. “We both know that.”

“Don’t turn this around on me!” She pointed at herself. Then, she jabbed her finger at him. “He died in those fucking mines and you think I’m gonna let you do the same?”

She shook her head. “You’re not going.”

“Mom—“ He tried to stand up, but she towered over him.

“No. For God’s sake, no.” Her tears were the angry kind. He wondered if they burned.

She looked around. “What happened in here?”

He was confused until he looked too.

The ring. He’d torn his room apart looking for it.

She cleared her throat, wiped her face, and tried to not look as if she’d been ready to tear him in two. “I’m not gonna ask. Just…clean up after.”

Like she’d come in, she left just as fast.

He picked up the paper she’d thrown.

It was his acceptance into the Mines—a mining factory that paid triple than any job he could find here.

His grandpa died working there. He worked his entire life, barely scraping by for his wife and daughter, but all he got was lung cancer and a few extra dollars after his death.

Ren wondered if his grandpa would have understood his decision to go or if he would have forbid him like his mom. Margret worked hard to provide and if she couldn’t see that it was killing her, she wouldn’t be able to see the benefits of getting rid of him.

Ren wasn’t going to be a parasite any longer. She would just have to deal with that.

***

The house was suffocating and he had to find the ring. Retracing his steps had been the only idea he could come up with. It solved one out of two of his problems. 

He would have to deal with Margret later.

The sun was looming over the tree tops. He had about three hours before the sun set and after that, there would be no point in searching. He had the worst eyesight of any vampire to live.

He zipped up his jacket and pulled the hood over his head. The crunch of leaves beneath his feet made a steady rhythm he could focus on. He tried his best to not think about the horrible dream or the dead girl in the forest. It was a good twenty minutes before he made it out of the forest and stepped onto the main road that lead into town.

The path took him past stores he’d never set foot in. Without having to look, he could feel eyes on him. The almost empty street felt as if there were eyes in the walls. 

Everywhere he went, people knew what he was. 

He turned to the next street. He let out a sigh of relief when he found it empty. Running into people at a time like this would be a death sentence.

He was glad when he made it to the school.

It was empty. It was as it should be this late in the day. Though, it shouldn’t have looked so gloomy. However, gloomy didn’t mean it looked worse than when it was alive with teenagers. Ren found that he quite liked the way it looked when it was deserted. It was a lot more inviting.

He stood on the sidewalk and gazed up. He craned his neck back to take in the tall windows on the second floor.

“What are you doing?”

He turned around with a sharp jolt. 

Darrien stared curiously at him, his thick brows furrowed. 

Ren crossed his arms.

“Nothing.”

He turned and walked as fast as he could to the other side of the school. He could hear Darrien following. His heart lodged in his throat.