EXTRACT FOR
The Vampire Murders
(Arian Wulf)

"I don't think I can jump," she says. And then, because she has been making so many bad decisions already that it doesn't really matter that she's making another, she adds, "You're going to have to push me." When she turns to face him, she finds him looking at her with an expression so soft and gentle that she wonders if she should be running.



He cradles her face in both his hand and leans in to kiss her, his lips so warm that she could easily believe him to be human if not for the inhuman eyes staring back at her. She closes her eyes, not just because it's a thing people do when they kiss, but looking him in the eye is like looking into the abyss, so easy to get lost in them that she's frightened of looking for too long for fear that she would not be able to find herself if she keeps staring for too long.



"I love you," he says when they part for air. "I love you," he says as he pushes her over the edge.



She would remember that moment forever, she thinks. His declaration like a promise against her skin. I love you.



It isn't a goodbye.



It feels like hello.



It feels like betrayal despite her being the one to tell him to push her. She would not have been able to jump. She wonders if she should have asked for more details, if she should have doubted him more. She didn't even think to ask him why he thought pushing her off the cliff would work, just for him to do it because she's too chicken to jump herself.



Too late to regret any of that now.



No amount of preparation could have prepared her for the reality of the free fall.



Wind whips at her hair and she scrambles in the air for something to hold onto, only to realize that there's nothing at all for her to grip onto, not at the speed at which she is falling.



Time slow to a crawl. She's thinking she shouldn't have done this. She doesn't know the vampire enough to trust him with her life. She doesn't know him well, if at all, and now he's getting rid of her to protect his own kind, so that she wouldn't bring back all the information she had gathered on vampires.



She's going to hit the water and die. Or maybe she would be able to shift? It has happened before, hasn't it? At moments of great stress, her body would react the way that's needed of her and she would transform.



Any moment now.



Funny, how the drop did not seem to high earlier, but the fall seems to go on forever. She tries to call forth the inner beast within her that she knows will be able to handle the fall better than her weak human body, but nothing happens.



Nothing happens.



And then she hits the ice cold water and everything erupts in pain.