Roommate’s Blood Deal

My roommate used to be an incredibly meek person, so thoroughly broken that she’d apologize before even opening her mouth.

When the cafeteria staff messed up her order, she would take the tray of broccoli a vegetable she never ate—and choke it down in dead silence.

Once, someone in the laundry room dumped her clothes straight onto the wet, filthy floor to steal her machine. She stood at the door staring for a long time. In the end, she just crouched down, silently picked her wet clothes up one by one, put them back into her basket, and carried them back to our dorm.

I honestly thought she would go her whole life without ever learning how to raise her voice.

Until today.

She boxed me in at my desk, using a tone I had never heard from her before.

"Sienna, you just need to help me this one time."

Chloe twisted her hands together viciously, a desperate urgency burning in her eyes.

"Just use your face and chat with him for a week," she pleaded, lowering her voice as the words tumbled out. "Only texts and pictures. Absolutely no meeting up. If he can resist your beauty, it proves he really loves me!"

I leaned back in my chair. Half a month ago, she had met an anonymous account named Lucian on social media. The guy claimed to be a European count. Right out of the gate, he dropped thirty grand to pay off her student loans and even promised to fly her out to his ancestral castle.

Ever since then, she practically walked around the dorm with her nose in the air.

"If you don't meet him, how do you know if his love is real?" I found the whole thing ridiculous.

I was just about to open my mouth and flat-out refuse, but my phone, resting face-down on the desk, suddenly lit up.

An unsaved, anonymous text flashed on the screen.

[Don't help her. That thing isn't human.]

My stomach dropped an inch. My thumb hovered instinctively over the screen. I froze for two seconds before tapping out a reply: [Who is this?]

The chat window stayed quiet for a heartbeat. Then, a second message sliced through the silence.

[Keep a piece of silver on you. You're going to need it.]

The air in the dorm room suddenly turned ice-cold. I stared dead at the word silver, an uncontrollable shiver crawling up my spine.

"Sienna?" Seeing my silence, Chloe reached out to grab my sleeve.

I immediately dodged her hand and stood up. "No. I have zero interest in playing a part in your little vanity game."

Chloe’s hand froze in midair. The fawning desperation on her face drained away at an almost visible speed, and her plain features faintly twisted into something ugly.

"Aren't you full of yourself?" She took a step back, bristling like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on. "You really think just because you have a pretty face you can seduce everyone? Lucian isn't like those shallow guys. He loves my noble soul. He wouldn't even look twice at an empty shell like you!"

I picked up my water glass from the desk, eyeing her coldly.

"Since he's so hopelessly devoted to your soul, why don't you just turn on your camera and video call him yourself?"

Chloe’s breath hitched sharply.

I slammed the glass back onto the desk, the heavy thud punctuating my words. "Hiding behind a screen all day begging for money. Are you terrified your acne scars will scare him to death, or are you just worried your bitter, mean-spirited personality will make him sick to his stomach?"

"You—" Chloe trembled with rage, her nails digging so hard into her palms they could draw blood.

Unable to mount a comeback, she spun around, scrambled up the ladder to her bed, and brutally yanked her privacy curtain shut. The metal track let out a piercing, aggressive shriek.

The cramped room fell back into a dead silence.

I sank back into my chair and reopened that eerie text thread. The unknown number never lit up again.

Midnight.

The dorm was pitch black. A thin layer of blackout fabric did absolutely nothing to block out sound. Lying there with my eyes closed, I could clearly hear Chloe hiding in the dark, pinching her voice into a sickeningly sweet pitch as she recorded a voice memo:

"Lucian... baby, I miss you so much too..."

I threw off the covers. Foregoing my slippers, I padded barefoot across the cold floor to my wardrobe.

Pulling open the bottom drawer, I dug out an old wooden box. Inside laid a solid silver fountain pen my grandmother had left me.

I slipped it out, weighing the cold, heavy metal in my palm, before shoving it straight into the crossbody bag I planned to carry tomorrow.

The very next second.

The jarring, unmistakable ringtone of an incoming video call erupted from behind Chloe's curtain without warning, shattering the quiet of the room.