VOWS, BLOOD, AND MISTLETOE

Lyra's POV

The needle slides into my arm for the third time this month.

Mr. Garrison doesn't look up from his clipboard. You know the regulations, Lyra. Two donations maximum per thirty days.

I know. I watch my blood fill the plastic bag, dark red against harsh fluorescent lights. But Stella's medication went up again. Three hundred dollars this week.

Not my problem. He finally meets my eyes, and his smile makes my skin crawl. Though I suppose the vampires won't complain. AB negative always sells well.

I bite back what I want to say. Garrison profits off desperation, his blood bank sits right on the edge of The Hollow, where humans have run out of choices. He knows I need this money. He knows I'll sit here and let him drain me dry if it means keeping my sister alive.

Two hundred dollars, he says, peeling cash from a rubber-banded stack. And Lyra? You're looking thin. Eat something before you come back, or next time I might not be so generous.

Generous. Right.

Twenty minutes later, I'm walking through December snow with cash in my pocket and the world tilting slightly sideways. The Hollow looks worse in winter, boarded windows, crumbling brick, faded posters promising GOOD MONEY FOR GOOD BLOOD!

Good money. That's the lie they sell.

I pass Old Marcus huddled against a building, bite scars layered up both arms like grotesque sleeves. He used to be registered, pulling steady income until the vampires decided his blood had gone stale. Now he has nothing.

Spare change, miss?

I should keep walking. I'm three months behind on rent. But I pull out a five and press it into his shaking hand.

God bless you.

I don't tell him God doesn't come to neighborhoods like this anymore.

A sleek black car rolls past, too expensive for this part of the city. Through tinted windows, I catch the flash of pale skin and red eyes. Vampire. Hunting for unregistered donors, the desperate ones who'll sell blood illegally for half the price and twice the risk.

A mother yanks her daughter against the wall, covering the girl's mouth until the car passes.

Welcome to Nocturne Heights. Where humans are the bottom of the food chain, and everybody knows it.

Our apartment is three flights up in a building that should've been condemned years ago. I unlock the door to find Stella at our tiny kitchen table, doing homework by candlelight.

You're home! She looks up, thirteen years old and smiling like I didn't just sell part of myself to keep us alive another week.

How was school, sunshine?

Good! Mrs. Chen gave me an A on my history essay. She holds up the paper proudly. She said I could be a teacher someday.

My chest tightens. Stella still believes in somedays and futures. I used to believe in those things too, back when Mom was alive and I was in college studying nursing.

That was three years ago. Before everything fell apart.

I'm proud of you. I ruffle her hair and she swats my hand away, laughing. Let me make dinner.

Dinner is canned soup and day-old bread. We eat on the couch because our electricity got cut off last week and it's warmer here under blankets. Stella chatters about her classes while I calculate how to stretch two hundred dollars across rent, medicine, and food.

It won't stretch. It never does.

After she goes to bed, I sit in the dark and stare at the medical bills piled on our table. Numbers blur together. Stella has a rare blood disorder ironic, in a city where blood is currency. Her medication keeps her alive, but it costs more than I can earn selling my own.

I think about Mom. How she worked as a housekeeper at the Blackwater estate. How they said she died in an accident, but I saw the bite marks on her neck. Deep. Vicious. How the vampires paid just enough to cover the funeral and nothing more.

I'm so tired of this.

Something slides under our door.

The sound jolts me upright. I stare at the white envelope on the floor like it's a snake.

White envelopes mean trouble.

My hands shake as I pick it up. The paper is expensive, smooth and thick. The seal on the back shows a crimson spire piercing a crescent moon, the symbol of vampire nobility.

I tear it open.

You are summoned to the Winter Solstice Celebration at the Crimson Spire.

Date: December 21st, 8:00 PM

Attendance is mandatory for all registered donors in Nightshade territory.

Compensation: $1,200

Twelve hundred dollars.

Four months of Stella's medication. Rent. Electricity. Food. Maybe finally breathing room.

But I've heard the stories. Donors who go to the Crimson Spire sometimes don't come back. The ones who do return different. Broken.

The Winter Solstice is the biggest night in vampire society, when the elite gather to celebrate their power while humans serve as entertainment and refreshment. They call it an honor to be selected.

I call it what it is. A reminder that we're livestock with paperwork.

I look at Stella sleeping in the next room. Her shoulders rise and fall with each breath. So fragile. So precious. The only family I have left.

Three days.

Three days to decide if I'm willing to walk into the vampire's palace and pray I walk out.

I fold the summons and set it on the table next to the medical bills.

For Stella, I think. For Stella, I'd walk into hell itself.

I just didn't know hell would send an engraved invitation.

Three days until Winter Solstice.

Three days until everything changes.