I open my eyes; there’s a knocking sound. It’s someone at the door. “Heeeey,” Maria’s voice comes through it. “Lyyyyd, are you in there? I brought snacks,” she says. The knocking stops and then my phone vibrates on my forehead. It’s a message from Maria. I look at the text just on the lock screen so that she won’t know I’ve read it: “Hey Lyd am outside your studio, can hear something playing inside are you there?”

There’s another knock on my door. I turn vibrate off and put my phone on my chest. I close my eyes again, and I listen to Maria’s footsteps leaving down the hall, and then the sound of her own studio door clanging open and closed. I feel disgusted by myself. A part of me wants to follow Maria to her studio. A part of my mind actually goes there, playing it all out, knocking on her door, waiting for her to answer, entering her room, standing in a shadow cast by her art—a shadow occupied not only by me but by other awful things: Gideon’s hands groping forward, holding up a part of my body he has snatched like it is a sculpture he owns, eyes peering out—and then biting her and consuming her. But no, a voice says in my head. No. Stop! Stop that woman! She’s a monster. Pig’s little legs climb up my calf while I drain his owner and he whimpers, begging me to stop eating.

I grumble and half sit up. The room spins; my tongue feels big and heavy in my mouth; my temples ache. Why do I have to be so hungry? Why do I have to be so weak-willed? How will I be able to starve the demon out of myself, and then live as human, if I can’t even stop thinking about blood? I reach onto the top of the table and find Yaga’s skirt. I pull her down and she lands on my stomach. I put my hand in her.

“I hate you,” I say to her, and she hangs her head. I bare my teeth at her and snap. “You’re disgusting,” I say. I bring her body toward me and bite down on the seam that joins her head to the fabric of her dress, and suck, imagining that I’m draining her. Then I throw her on the floor and her head makes a loud knocking sound as it lands.

I feel bad almost immediately, and pick Yaga back up and cradle her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say.

I don’t know how long I’m in my studio, just drifting in and out of sleep, watching Buffy and videos on my phone, with Yaga now lovingly restored to her position on my hand. I get through a season of Buffy, and come out of my stupor when she’s graduated from high school and is at college, now with an annoying, new, non-vampire soldier boyfriend. I find myself under my yoga mat, kind of peaceful and grounded under the weight of it and the things on top.