red sun || lee felix

ch. 2 /// the reticent empath

Changbin and I ran for miles, through forest, town and field, rain and snow and hail. We didn't talk. Sometimes I would look at him — his honeyed skin and frowning lips — and wonder where the guy from my vision was hiding inside him.

I'd gleaned a lot from the vision that had brought me here. Where I was supposed to go — the shoreline on the sea of Okhotsk, and then to Windgrove Hospital in Newcastle Upon Tyne — and whom I was supposed to meet. Six vampires. I didn't know anything about them except that they were kind and loving. And then there was Changbin. I was supposed to find him and lead him to his destiny.

I was supposed to fall in love with him.

I had felt it in the vision, my love for him, his for me. I felt his passion, depth, loyalty, determination. I loved him so much that I knew his name, his face, by the time the vision had ended.

So it stung that he didn't want to talk to me, didn't seem at all interested in me. I never should have got my hopes up. I never should have deluded myself into thinking he would know me as soon as he saw my face, that he would suddenly love me back, like he'd seen the same heavenly reality as I had.

I guess we were strangers. Don't worry, I reasoned with myself, I'm only a little bit in love with this stranger. Not too much. Just a little.

"Felix," Changbin said. It startled me. It was the first time he'd spoken in what felt like days, the first time he'd said my name at all. "We should hunt now. There won't be another city for a while."

"How do you know?"

"I've been around."

"With your coven?"

"Yes." He left it at that. He jumped onto a building, used it as a step-stone to a taller one. I followed, squinting at the sky. It was night, I hadn't noticed.

He swung onto a pointed roof — wooden shingles cracked and slid off the edge. I grabbed a spire to steady myself. There were a few people below, walking the streets. I was too high up to smell them properly, but I could imagine the taste...

"I'll take that one." Changbin nodded at a constable whirling a baton below us. "Meet you wherever."

"Um, okay."

He jumped onto the next roof, followed the constable. I watched him go, and then jumped off the ledge, broke my fall on a staircase and landed on the ground. I was about to follow a human on the other side of the street, but a door opened from above. I shrank back into the dark.

A man came out onto the staircase, paused for a moment, as if he were listening for something. Maybe he had heard the shingles hitting the ground. He continued down the steps, out onto the sidewalk.

I shimmied along the fence, hopped over and peeked around the corner. The smell of his blood — rich and metallic — made my mouth water.

I rammed into him, forced him to the sidewalk. He shrieked as I dug my fangs into his neck. His future was pending until that second, then it faded into darkness, disappeared entirely.

I clawed at the wounds in his neck, covered them up. Wouldn't want to ignite any more folktales. I dragged the body off the sidewalk, into the alley. There was a door — it opened to a small room, maybe the entrance to a basement. I chucked the body in and closed the door again.

I turned and Changbin was directly behind me. I flinched.

"You ready?" he said.

"Yeah, I was about to find you. How'd, uh, yours taste?"

"Fine." He was about to take off but I caught his arm.

"Wait, I don't like to run after I drink."