“So I’m going to meet Dracula himself,” Walter marvels, sucking air through his teeth. He glances down at his smudged overalls. “I wish I had something nicer to wear for the occasion.”

With a small laugh, I lock the door behind me and disappear out into the dusty lot.

Michael’s perched in the projection booth, unloading film from bulky spools. He looks up, brightening when he sees me.

“I figured I’d let you sleep,” he says, and it’s such a simple thing, a courtesy really, but one that shouldn’t have been possible. He shouldn’t have been able to decide that. He shouldn’t have woken up before me at all, not when I coaxed him to sleep in the first place.

I know what that means. The thrall’s fraying between us. That’s what happens when you don’t keep tightening it like a noose, the way Dracula has with Renfield. Soon, Michael will drift away from me. This is how it should be. Exactly what I want, and exactly what I don’t want, too.

A radio crackles, and a monotone reporter gives the news report on the hour. Yesterday, there was a protest right here in Los Angeles over in Rancho Park. Against the war and everything that goes with it.

I run my hands across a pile of moldering film posters, rolled up and stacked in the corner like firewood ready for burning. “If you weren’t with us,” I say, “would you be there with them? Protesting what’s happening in Vietnam?”

Something glints across Michael’s face. “I doubt they’d want me. I fought there, remember? I’m the enemy now.”

I seize up, watching him. “But none of that was your choice.”

A sharp laugh, harsh as sandpaper. “There you go with that word again,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether or not it was my choice, Lucy.”

“It does matter.” I tighten my hand around one of the posters, and the thin paper crumbles between my clenched fingers. “It’s the only thing that matters.”

This hangs in the air between us, an impasse. I turn away, searching through the metal tins in the corner. It’s a tall stack, dozens of films, maybe a hundred, and though it takes me a moment, I finally find what I’m looking for.

“Could you put on these two?” I nudge a pair of film reels toward Michael. “You know, for old times’ sake?”

I flash him a smile, sweeter than marzipan, and we both know he won’t say no.

His hands steady, he starts feeding the projector. “I’ll be in here if you need me,” he says, and despite everything, he still hopes I’ll stay with him. That I won’t ever leave.

I flick off the radio. “Lock the door behind me,” I say, and disappear into the night.