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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
BENTLEY
The door opens and I can instantly tell something’s wrong when Watson comes in. He’s quiet as he walks over to me and my body feels like it’s dying another death.
“Is—”
He holds up a hand. “We removed the tumor and closed him up, but we can’t stabilize him. He continues to crash—”
“Why did you leave him?” I ask in a panic as I stand up. How the hell could he leave him if he was crashing? “You need to save him.”
Watson grabs my face and pins me still. “Bentley. He’s going to die. The moment he coded the first time, it became more and more clear that he wasn’t going to make it. But no one knows he’s alive so no one will know he’s dead. Do you understand?”
“What?” I ask, confused for a moment before I realize what he’s saying. “You’re telling me to change him?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m telling you where he’s at, and if when I go in there he’s gone, it doesn’t matter because he was never here to begin with.”
I push away from him and rush for the door. “Where is he?” I ask, but I don’t even wait for him because I can follow his scent. A scent I’ve become so familiar with, so drawn into. I run desperately down the hallway as I question if I’m already too late. If I can’t get there in time, will he already be dead?
Watson rushes after me and uses his ID to get me through doors I can’t beat my way through. And when he motions to the final door, I tear it open to find the other doctor still working on stabilizing him. He’s hooked up to countless machines and the noise of them tells me what I already know.
“Let’s clear the room. We’re done,” Watson says as he walks in. The doctor looks at me in confusion, but he and his nurses do as Watson asks. Anxiously, I watch while Watson begins to pull the tubes and IVs off him and then leaves the room without a word.
I rush up to River as I cup his face. I can hear his heartbeat slowing with every moment that passes, and I know that if I’m going to do it, I have to do it now. But will I go to prison? Does it matter? I don’t think it even matters.
But it’s not his choice… I’m taking his choice from him…
And then I realize that I don’t even care because if it means he can be beside me, then that’s all that matters. Even though I know he hates having his neck touched, I have to bite him. Thankfully, he’s already unresponsive as I sink my fangs into him, careful not to draw in too much blood when he’s already weak. When I pull back, he’s already on the brink of death so I use my fangs to slice open my arm and press it against his lips until the blood runs into his mouth. He chokes on it before drawing still, and I’m filled with fear that I’m too late. Instead of properly draining and turning him, I’m rushed and doing what I can… maybe it’s not enough?
“Please, please, please don’t die,” I whisper as I kiss his forehead. “Please fight. Please fight so fucking hard.”
He’s unresponsive as my body begins to feel weak from blood loss, but I don’t care. I’ll give him all my blood if I need to. I want to see him alive and happy, and I will do anything to make that happen.
When I know there’s nothing more I can do, I grab the sheets and wind him up in them until there’s no part of him showing and lift him up. He’s a dead weight in my arms and I realize that he might still be dying but I need to get him out. I need to get him away because if we’re caught, the consequences would be devastating.
I hold him tightly against my body as I pull the door open and listen closely for footsteps. If anyone catches me and realizes what I’ve done, it’ll ruin everything. It’ll end my entire career, and I would rot in prison even if River dies.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. I have you,” I say as I kiss the top of his head through the sheet. I move quickly out into the hallway, but this area is sectioned off for everyone but medical staff, so I rush through it. When I hear footsteps, I quickly push a door open and step into a dark, empty room where I hold River tightly to me. I can’t tell if it’s working. I can’t tell if anything’s happening. Why is it taking so long? Did I not do it right? I’ve never changed anyone before, so everything I know about it is from secondhand knowledge.
I listen to them pass, praying they don’t step in here. Me with a body in any sense of the matter is quite suspicious. The moment they’re past, I rush back into the hallway and run. Pushing through the door, I step out into the main hallway that’s open to others. There are so many people and not enough clear space. Why are there so many?
Is there a window I can break and jump through? Is there an emergency exit that won’t set off the alarm when I rush through it?
I turn and see a woman heading my way, so I quickly turn back the other way and notice a vampire walking toward me.
“Fuck,” I hiss before deciding to take my chances with the human woman.
She sees me and instantly looks concerned. “Sir?”
I pull out my badge. “Police business. Closest exit?”
“Uh yeah, of course. Right this way,” she says as she dodges to the left. She’s clearly suspicious of me, but she leads me toward a side exit I’d have never found without her.
“Thank you so much,” I say as she pushes the door open and I rush out into the sun. I keep River tucked down tight, but I’m not sure if sunlight would even bother him yet. Is he even still alive? I reach my car and set him in the passenger seat where he sinks down onto the middle console. I get into the driver’s seat and push the console back before pulling him onto my lap where he lets out a painfilled moan.
“It’s okay, River. It’s going to be okay,” I say as I head toward my house.
When I arrive, I carry him into the bathroom and shut the door. Quickly, I cover the window as best as I can before uncovering him. He groans as he rolls onto his side and things just go from bad to worse. My mind tells me it’s just him changing, but the sobs and cries are enough to make me hurt. River has put up with so much pain in silence, so I can imagine how much his body dying hurts.
He stirs a little just to push himself up before slamming back down on the ground where he throws up where he lies. The only positive thing is that he wasn’t able to eat before the surgery so his body doesn’t have much to get rid of. After I clean him up, I grab him and pull him over to me. He clings desperately to me, nails digging into my leg as his body shakes.
“I’m so sorry,” I say as I run my fingers through his dark hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“What’s happening to me?” he sobs out. I really don’t think he’s coherent or I’m sure he’d have questioned why we’re not at the hospital. He rolls into me, and I see that the surgery spot is slowly beginning to heal as it pushes the staples out. Will he be all right? Watson said he managed to remove the tumor but was the surgery successful? Did he keep from hitting anything important?
I pin him against me, praying the shakes and seizures coursing through his body stop soon. The pain I’ve put him through is killing me and I just want it to end.
      
Once River is out, I gently set him in my bed and rush for his apartment in the hopes he doesn’t wake while I’m gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t wake for hours or days still. I don’t think he’d go far, but I still handcuffed him to my bed. As long as I keep him near bursting with blood, I don’t think he’ll attack anything, but I don’t want to take any chances. Back at his apartment, I let myself in and grab a bag to put his clothes and laptop in.
Banshee trots up to me, curious about what I’m doing, so I grab her food and litter box and rush them out to the car. Then I grab the cat. She is far less than pleased when I pick her up and she begins yowling, but I don’t know what else to do with her. So I carry her out to the car and put her inside. She perches her ass on the passenger seat like she’s now ruler of the car.
“See? Not so bad, right? You’ll get to see River soon, and I know he’s a little different but please still like him,” I say as I back the car out of the parking spot and start driving.
Her cool cat routine leaps right out of the window as a bloodcurdling yowl pierces my ears a moment before she leaps straight into the air and lands on the side of my face. Her nails sink into my skin as her tail whaps back and forth.
“Fuck!” I cry as I try to pull her off but she latches on tighter, which is how I end up wearing a cat the entire ride home. Once inside the house, I take out an old crate I had in the garage from Dorothy’s last dog and set it up in the living room with the cat inside. I padlock her in as she yowls, less than enthused. I would have assumed the bloodletting in the car would have sated her.
I walk in and unhandcuff River before checking him over. Then I set up River’s laptop in the dining room. I hear movement coming from the bedroom, telling me that River might be waking up, so I rush over to check on him.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
RIVER
There’s a moment in waking that I’m not sure if I’m awake or dead. I had spent so long accepting death would come for me that I assume it is death. Whatever the hell had happened to me couldn’t be from the tumor.
My body throbs in a strange way as I try to move. Would death hurt this much? Would pain follow me into the afterlife?
I open my eyes and look up into Bentley’s in pure confusion. I get that he’s probably excited that I’m still alive but isn’t it a bit weird he’s just hovering over the top of me? Is this some strange dream or something and I’m in a coma?
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Bentley says as I realize how… clear he looks. It’s like when you zoom in on an object and it finally focuses.
“Why do you look so fucking weird?” I ask. Clearly, it’s the loopy drugs I’m on. Ah yes. Drugs. Wait… what was that about news? “News. The news is on?”
“Okay. Good news is they got the tumor out. Bad news is that you’re dead.” He says it really quickly, like if he says it fast enough I won’t catch any of it and just agree and go on with my merry life.
“Ah…” I lift my arm up and hold it against my eyes. “I’m not see-through.”
“What?”
“I’m a ghost and I’m haunting you?” I guess. My god, of course it’s my luck to be turned into a ghost and wait… “Can you see dead people?”
I hear a noise and turn my head to the right to see what I could possibly be hearing. So many colors! Were they always so colorful? “Little fishies.”
“Are you okay? What if Watson hit something? Tell me your name. What’s your name?”
“Fishy one. Fishy two.” I’m fixated on them, drawn to them like a cat on a mouse. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye I’m standing before them and I snatch one right out of the water as my mind is just consumed with thoughts of sweet, sweet blood filling my mouth.
“Oh my god, don’t eat my fish!” Bentley yells. “Drop the fish!”
I open my mouth and chomp down, but Bentley moves the flopping fish out the way before I can devour its sweet blood. The fish is plopped back into the tank and I’m dragged away from it in this extremely impressive headlock thing he has going on. I’m devastated as I’m pulled into the kitchen. He sits me down in a chair as he turns to the fridge and I stare longingly at his neck. I mean… it does look even better than the fish. Oh my god, he looks so good!
I leap out of the chair and jump onto his back before sinking my fangs—fangs? What the fuck is going on?
“That’s not where the vein is. Are you just going to gnaw on me until you find it? Sit down.”
He pries me off and pushes me onto the ground before handing me a bottle of blood. The moment the top is off, I’m chugging it. It runs down my face and wets my shirt, leaving me to look like I bathed in it, but the taste is so goddamn sweet I can’t get enough of it. When the bottle runs dry, I start sucking on where it soaked into the shirt as I moan and roll around on the ground in pure ecstasy.
A moment later, the haze coating my mind begins to drift away and I’m left lying on the ground looking up at an extremely concerned Bentley, who says, “Umm… did you forget how to drink?”
“Oh my fucking god. You turned me into a vampire!” I cry.
He looks horrified. “I’m really sorry. You were dying and I didn’t know what else to do, and you can hate me or turn me in or I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”
Slowly, extremely slowly, I begin to process all of this as I suck on my bloody shirt some more. “So… I’m not a ghost… and I just tried eating your fish… oh my god. I tried eating your precious fish!” How could I do that?
“It’s fine. They’re fine. I’m so sorry.”
“No… it’s okay, but… what’s this mean?” I ask as I slowly sit up. He kneels in front of me.
“Watson removed the tumor but he couldn’t get you stabilized from there, so I turned you. It was the only thing I could think of to do to save you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not going to die?” I ask in disbelief.
“No.”
“Oh my god, I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die.” I grab his shirt and begin shaking him. “I’m alive!”
“You’re alive. But I’m sorry.”
“Stop being sorry… I’m alive.” I dive into his arms and squeeze him tightly.
“Don’t… kill… me,” he whispers.
“I forgot! I’m strong!”
I grab the dining room table leg and lift it right into the air but it’s off balance so it tips and crashes to the ground, sending all of Bentley’s papers and mail flying. “I’m sorry! I think there’s something wrong with me. I’m a bit… excited.”
“Me too,” Bentley says as he pins my arms to my sides. I think he’s trying to keep me from causing more chaos. “I’m very excited too.”
I sink into him and just sit in bliss for a moment. To go from six months of thinking about my upcoming death every day to being told that I’ll live for many more years is like a shock to my system. I dig my fingers into his back as he rocks me.
“I’m exhausted and tired and happy and feel weird and I’m alive,” I say.
He kisses my forehead, then my cheek, then pulls me back enough he can kiss my lips. “You don’t hate me?”
I grab his face as I really look at him for the first time and realize how distraught he looks. How long has he been beating himself up about this?
He looks so upset and I can’t even understand why until he begins speaking. “I mean, this is illegal. I’ve ruined your life. You can’t get a real job or a house or any of that without people noticing that you were illegally changed. You’ll have to rely on me or someone else.”
“Hey, stop. I would rather be alive than dead. I don’t care about any of that stuff. I’ll be careful. I promise I’ll never let you get in trouble over this, okay? I’m sorry.”
He kisses me again, but I feel strange. “Why do I feel so weird?”
“Your body is still changing. It’ll take a while before you feel well enough to resume normal activities, okay? Why don’t you get some sleep?”
Sleep has never sounded so good. “Do you think I’ll always have a bald spot?” I ask as I pat the bare spot on my head.
“Hopefully. It’s awfully sexy,” he teases.
“I know!” Instead of going to bed like a normal person, I just sink into his arms and immediately fall asleep.