Blake looked half alive. Her chocolate skin looked pale, with pastel blue tints all over her body. She lay on a bed in a white room. An oxygen tube blew cool air into her nostrils as she lay motionless and ill. A heart monitor tracked her barely beating heartbeat.

Erin pulled it up beside me and sat back. It took a lot of convincing the front desk to get in, but no one could resist Jeremy's charm as he distracted them.

She looked a little better. Less pale. "Adam," she called to me, propping herself up. Her voice was raspy.

I smirked. "Hey."

"Oh, thank god she's not a vampire," Erin muttered low behind me.

I turn around and whack him in the chest. "Dude, shut up." A nurse checked Blake's bandages on her neck and thigh. I had to look away for a moment. The smell from Blake's bite wounds was almost unbearable, and my gut and chest screamed for another taste. Erin barely turned to me while socking my buffed arm. Then, the nurse's eyes shifted over to the two of us.

"Are you two--" The nurse paused, her eyes trained on mine.

I cleared my throat. "We're just friends," I said.

The nurse nodded. "Right. I need to check with the doctor to see what he said, but she should be okay to go home."

Blake sat up, took a few deep breaths, and squirmed in bed as I listened to her heart beating strangely. Then, the doctor walked in.

"Well, it looks like you're ready to go," the doctor said. His dark eyes landed on me. Something felt off about him. I think Erin sensed it, too, because he shifted closer to the bed in his seat.

"Are you boys alright," the doctor asked.

"Yeah, YEAH," Erin answered him. Then he relaxed into the chair. "We're great."

"Are you two taking her home?"

Erin and I exchanged glances and shrugs. "Yep," Erin replied.

"Good, I'll be back with the discharge papers," He said. Then he wandered out of the room.

∆∆∆

Blake sat in the back seat, half-awake between Jeremy and Jessica. Jeremy tapped his fingers against her cheek, trying to keep her awake.

"Come on, Blake. Stay with us," He soothed.

"I thought you said she was okay?" Jessica asked, watching me curled up against the window.

"She was until we got her out of the hospital," Erin replied, focusing on the road. "Maybe we're wrong. Maybe she is turning?" Erin swerved into the cabin parking lot and hit the brakes. "Her grandma will kill me if my father doesn't beat her to it."

"Blake, please wake up," I urged her. She didn't move a muscle. Anxiety coursed through me as my stomach growled again.

"Goddamn it, Adam. You're bloody hungry now?" Jeremy screeched.

"I can't help it," I replied as Erin pulled into our cabin's closest accessible parking spot. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt and flung it across the car.

"Let's get her into the cabin," He prompted. "You guys can carry her, right?"

"What the bloody fuck was that? A sad attempt at a joke?" Jeremy growled. Instead, Erin glared at him. Jeremy slipped his arm under hers while I rushed over to help him. We hobbled her past a group of Erin's father's friends and into the Cabin dorm.

Moments later, we laid her back on my pillow. Erin lay on his bed, watching her with his arms tucked behind his neck. "Who the fuck could have done that to her?" I growled.

"Uh, you," Jeremy answered, stretching against the wall.

Erin sighed. "Or someone who wants to set you up."

I threw a pillow at him, and he dodged it swiftly. "Again, it wasn't me. Someone else bit Blake, too," I pointed out, reaching for another pillow.

I chucked it at Jeremy, knowing I wouldn't miss this time. It smacked hard right into his rib as he fell forward into the wall, smashing his face into the drywall.

"You are the only one I know who can make a pillow deadly, mate," Jeremy growled, rubbing his sore nose. "That shit hurt. I'm going to get you back for hitting me that hard."

"So what are we going to do about Blake, you know? We're hoping she's not a vampire, but we all know she--" Erin paused.

"Know what?" I asked him.

"She could be one of the undead. A vampire."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine. Blake knows nothing." I replied.

"Okay, but that's what they said about you. Look what you turned into," Jeremy watched me with a raised eyebrow.

"You're part vampire, too," I countered.

"He is a mutt. I wouldn't be surprised if he started practicing witchcraft," Erin added.

"Shut up, dog boy," Jeremy growled, sitting against the wall behind him.

"Wuff," Erin rolled his eyes. "You're a dick."

"Wow. That's some nice vocabulary you have there, mate," Jeremy mocked Erin.

Suddenly, Blake shifted on the mattress. "Adam?" She moaned. I stepped forward, slipping my hand in hers.

"I'm right here, Blake," I said. Jeremy chuckled.

"What a bloody sappy moment this is. Are you two going to bloody kiss or some shit like—" Jessica slapped Jeremy's chest.

"Shut up, Jeremy."

"Sorry," He apologized. That was the first time I had ever heard him say sorry. It seemed foreign coming from him, but I accepted it.

"Run, Adam, run," Blake muttered, still dazed in delirium.

"What is he running from?" Erin said back. She shifted around. I pressed the back of my hand against her forehead. She felt ice cold to the touch and seemed almost lifeless, like a puppet on a string. I watched her squirm in my bed, trying to fight whatever demons were after her, but suddenly she took one big breath in, and her hand slipped from mine as she slumped lifelessly to the bed in seconds. Then minutes ticked by as her body turned cold and blue.

We watched her and guarded her undead body until she kept life again. There was nothing. Panic settled in. Then, as I gave up hope, I felt her hand twitch as she shifted it back into mine, and suddenly her body lifted from the bed, floating high above the mattress. Erin and Jeremy raced to her side if she dropped, and her eyes peeled wide as she muttered two words.

"THEIR COMING." Then she dropped to the bed, fast asleep. I didn't hear a heartbeat, but I knew she still had life, or at least an undead life. The rest of us knew it, too, as we stayed with her for the rest of the day, guarding her reanimated corpse, hoping she woke soon. We all wanted to know what she meant and feared the worst. The deities were coming for us. It was a matter of time before they found us, too. We were screwed.