"Come to the club." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. "We need to talk face-to-face." I end the call before he can argue, before his anger can crack through whatever composure I'm barely maintaining.
When I step out of the VIP room, Emily is waiting, her expression a mixture of confusion and something that might be fear. Or is it anger? Something underneath that looks like a wound still deciding whether to bleed or scar.
She doesn't speak. Just gestures toward her office with a tilt of her head that feels more like a summons than an invitation.
James emerges behind me, and his presence at my back is the only thing keeping me from fragmenting completely. We follow Emily through the club in silence that weighs more than any accusation could.
Inside her office, Emily leans against her desk, arms crossed, and for a long moment just looks at me. Really looks, like she's cataloguing every change, every lie, every moment I pretended to be something I'm not.
"So." Her voice is flat, carefully controlled. "Vampires are real."
The words should sound absurd. Melodramatic. Instead they land with the dull weight of truth finally spoken aloud.
"Yes." What else can I say?
"And you're one of them."
"Yes."
She nods slowly, processing. James stays silent beside me, a grounding presence that reminds me I'm not facing this alone even though it feels like I am.
"When?" Emily asks.
"A week ago. The night of the auction." The confession tastes like ash. "James—he won the bid. And he turned me."
Emily's gaze shifts to James, assessment sharp and clinical. "You bought her virginity and turned her into a vampire?"
"Yes." He doesn't flinch from the accusation. Doesn't make excuses.
"Jesus Christ." Emily pushes off from the desk, pacing the small space. Her hands shake slightly, and watching her try to contain whatever she's feeling makes guilt claw up my throat. "A week. You've been this for a week and you didn't tell me."
"I couldn't—"
"You could've." She whirls on me, and now I see it—not fear, but hurt. Deep, bleeding hurt that cuts worse than anger ever could. "After everything we've been through, Tess. After every time I've been there for you, every secret we've shared—you didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth?"
The accusation lands like a physical blow. Because she's right. I didn't trust her. Or I did trust her, but I was too afraid of this exact moment—of seeing the hurt in her dark brown eyes, of watching our friendship crack under the weight of what I've become.
"I was scared," I whisper. "Scared you'd look at me like I'm a monster."
"And instead I had to find out from Whitney?" Her voice breaks slightly. "That's so much better, Tess. Really."
Silence stretches between us, thick with everything unsaid. Then Emily sinks into her desk chair, and the anger drains out of her like water from cracked glass. What's left is exhaustion and something that might be acceptance.
"I'm not afraid of you," she says quietly. "I'm hurt that you thought I would be."
The words crack something open in my chest. Not relief—something more complex. Gratitude mixed with shame mixed with the desperate need to make this right somehow.
"I'm sorry." The apology feels inadequate. "You're right. I should have told you."
Emily studies me for a long moment, then gestures at the chairs across from her desk. "Sit. Both of you. And explain—everything."
So I do. We do. James and I take turns filling in the pieces—the Virtue Exchange as a front for vampire feeding, the transformation process, the way sunlight burns, the hunger that never quite stops. Emily listens without interrupting, asking questions that cut to the heart of things: Am I safe? Am I happy?
The last question stops me cold. Do I regret it?
"No," I say finally, and the honesty of it surprises me. "I don't. It's terrifying and violent and nothing like I imagined my life would be. But I'm not invisible. I'm not powerless. I'm not pretending to be smaller than I am just to make other people comfortable."
Emily absorbs this, and something in her expression softens. "You seem more yourself, somehow. Even with the whole undead thing."
"I feel more myself," I admit.
James adds context about the vampire world, the way their society operates in shadows by necessity rather than choice. Emily listens with the sharp focus of someone who's built a business on understanding hidden desires and negotiating unspoken rules.
"So you fed from that guy at the bar," she says slowly. "That wasn't roleplay."
"No." Shame heats my face. "But he consented. He wanted blood play. I just... gave him the real thing."
Emily's lips twitch toward a smile that doesn't quite form. "There's probably a business opportunity there, but that's a conversation for later."
The almost-joke feels like forgiveness, and I grab onto it like a lifeline.
Then Emily's expression shifts. Sharpens. Her eyes meet mine with the piercing directness of someone who already knows the answer but needs to hear it confirmed.
"The loan sharks," she says quietly. "The bodies at the docks. That was you, wasn't it?"
The question steals the air from the room.
I could lie. Could deflect. Could offer some half-truth that preserves the illusion that I'm still fundamentally good underneath the monster skin.
But Emily deserves better than lies. Deserves the truth even when it's ugly.
"Yes." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "Vincent—the man who threatened Alan… I went to pay the debt and I... I drained him. And then there were others in the warehouse and I was drunk on blood and power and I didn't stop."
Silence follows. Heavy. Damning.
James's hand finds mine, squeezes once. Solidarity in the face of judgment I probably deserve.
Emily processes this in silence that stretches so long I start to wonder if this is where our friendship ends. If she'll look at me and finally see the monster I've been afraid of becoming.
When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet but steady. "Alan's going to be here soon. You need to figure out what you're going to tell him."
Not condemnation. Not absolution. Just the practical reality that time is running out and my brother is about to walk into a club run by my best friend to confront his vampire sister about a video that proves everything he thought he knew about me is a lie.
"What do I tell him?" The question comes out desperate.
Emily meets my eyes. "The truth. He deserves at least that much."