100 Yellow Doors

8:45 p.m.

Julien was busy.

He was making tacos by candlelight, which had seemed like a romantic idea at the time but was actually turning out to be a nightmare. Once Ringo had knocked one of the candles off the island and set the living room rug on the fire, it had been downhill from there. Now his whole house smelled like smoke and his ears were ringing with the memory of the fire alarm.

"You damn cat," Julien said, gesticulating at the notch-eared cat with a knife covered in scallions. Ringo was sitting innocently on the top of the couch now, grooming himself as if he had not just nearly set Julien and the entire townhouse aflame. "How dare you sabotage me while I'm trying to eat my feelings."

Ringo meowed insolently.

Julien bared his fangs. "I could eat you, you know. If I wanted to."

Ringo meowed again, almost as if to say, But you won't.

Julien sighed and went back to chopping the scallions. Half because Ringo was right, and half because he only wanted the tacos more now. They would not satisfy the hunger gnawing at the edges of his stomach, but at least they'd make him stop thinking about it for a little bit.

There was final thud of the knife against the wooden chopping block as Julien finished with the onion; satisfied, he slid the blade beneath the tiny scallions and maneuvered them into the skillet.

Scents blazed up into his nostrils, and he nearly lost his balance.

He saw a woman. Her dark hair was coiled up into a tight bun over a ruffled collar. He saw her fingers: fine, deft, musician's fingers. On one finger, she wore a ring. On her face, she wore a smile. But that was all he saw: her back, her fingers, her smile.

Julien caught himself against the counter. That was not a dream that felt like a memory. Could it be—just a memory?

There was an alarmed yowl from Ringo's direction. Julien whipped around, flinging onions from his knife as he did. He didn't know why he was unsurprised to find Sera standing in his kitchen.

She'd changed clothes. She was wearing a terribly sexy all black outfit and her hair was up in a ponytail. He had always loved it when she tied her hair up. He loved it now.

"Sera," he warned, tightening his grip on the knife. "I never even invited you in. How the hell do you keep getting in here?"

"I'm old," she said, pouting. "The older you get, the less effect that little trick has."

Julien considered how Fritz had broken in, too. Julien was the youngest of his vampire friends, he realized then. It was a strange fact he didn't want to think about too much. "I thought I told you to stay away from me."

"But I can't, Jule," she said. She raised her hand; Julien jerked the knife, anticipating an attack, only for her to produce a single bottle of wine. "Put the knife down and have a drink with me, will you? Just one."

No, screamed every neuron in Julien's undead brain. No no no no no no. No. GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE.

Julien put the knife down, his hands still trembling with the violence of the memory that had just revived in him. "One," he agreed, "and then you're leaving."

So Julien pulled down his best wine glasses—recently bought from IKEA—and let Sera fill them with pinot noir. Many a night had he spent like this, with Sera and wine and stars. He was frightened at how easy it was, how easy it could be. He could run away with her again, to some obscure end of the Earth, and no one would care. Everything he'd spent years fighting, all back again in a flash. Was he weak?

Yes, he thought with grim acceptance. I am so, so weak.

Sera lifted her glass to her face, taking a long whiff of her wine. "I didn't mean to upset you earlier."

Julien made a bitter noise in the back of his throat, taking a gentle sip from his glass. "Does it matter? You did anyway. You make me go out with you, say all these things about how you love me, you care for me, and then don't want to answer any of the questions I have."

"Do you ever think that's for a reason?" Sera said, leaning over the kitchen counter, her ponytail swinging to the side as she did. "Admit it, Jule. You're young compared to the rest of us. You don't know everything about vampirekind. There are ugly sides to us. Uglier than you know."

Julien took a longer sip this time. Everything was too sharp. He wanted it blurred. "The hell does that have to do with my memories?"

"Some things," Sera said, spinning her wine around in its glass, "should stay forgotten."

The world was blurring, alright. And it was blurring much faster than Julien cared for.

Realization was the only sharp thing left.

He clawed for the counter, and missed. Glass shattered across the floor, wine mixing with blood. "Sera!" Julien roared. He tried to hold on to his voice, his vision, anything—but everything was slipping. His head lolled to the side, hair splaying underneath his ear. "Dammit, Sera! What did you...what did you do...to me...?"

A soft hand moved his head upright again. She was close. Very close. He tasted her words as they left her mouth, bittersweet, like licorice: "It's for your sake, Julien. You'll see, my love. It's for your own good."

The last thing he felt was her kiss upon his lips, and then the dark closed in.