“Okay, so, the dream. Like I said, the banquet table is full of food and booze, and there are, I dunno, a dozen or more chairs around me, and they’re full of dead people. I’m not talking Hollywood dead, with makeup and good lighting; I’m talking real-life dead. Rotting flesh and missing limbs and eyes—everything. I don’t recognize a single one of these people, or any of the ones standing behind them, because their faces are, well, you know, gone. But I’ve got an idea of who some of them are because of the clothes they’re wearing. Can’t remember their names or why I killed them, yet most times I remember what they were wearing when they died. Does that make me crazy?”

Isabella Flores didn’t answer. His story, which was 100 percent true, had taken a bite out of her self-absorption. He had her full attention. “The other crazy thing about the dream?” he said. “Flies and maggots everywhere. On the bodies, the food. I know it reeks to holy hell in there, but I can’t smell anything because it’s a dream. Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Smelled a dead body?”

She swallowed, indignant. “Why would you ask me such a horrible question?”

“I’ve been around a lot of dead bodies, and it’s the single worst odor on the planet—the kind that hits you in the stomach like a fist. The only thing you want to do is to run from it, find a place to throw up. But in the dream? I just keep on eating like it’s no big deal.”

Sebastian chuckled. “But that’s not the crazy part. That happens when I wake up. Every single time I do? I’m hungry. Not ‘Let’s go downstairs and grab a glass of milk’ hungry. I’m talking about eating-the-entire-contents-of-the-refrigerator hungry. Crazy, right?”

Her eyes cut sideways, to the door.

“Oh no,” he said. “No, no, no. This isn’t some shitty movie where you’re going to escape. No one’s coming to rescue you. This is real—this is happening—so I need you to focus, and answer my question.”

“What question?”

“About the dream. What do you think it means?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist.”

“You seem like a smart woman. Surely you have some insight.”

“I don’t know,” she said, but this time her tone was softer, less hostile. She was ready to play ball.

“But you’re smart enough to understand that being rude to me, my staff, acting ungrateful—such behavior isn’t exactly in your best interest. You’re here as my guest. If I were so inclined, I could let you starve to death, or if I were feeling more generous, I could simply make you disappear. Sure, there would be an investigation, but the fact of the matter is, nothing would come of it, because nobody knows where you are. You see my point?”

Her lower lip trembled. “Yes.”

“Anything else you’d like to say?”

She nodded, chastened. “I’m sorry for my behavior.”

“We’ll chalk it up to pre-transfusion jitters. This is your first one, correct?”