I slept better that night than I ever had in this house. Perhaps it was because I'd been bitten by a vampire and my body was now trying to heal. The blood loss wasn't insignificant, but I felt amazingly refreshed, almost as if my entire system had been regenerated. That evening, I drank a lot of water, and I had to admit, I felt surprisingly good.

I wondered if I was naive to trust a vampire and let him drink me—but I was still alive. My mother had written me that the money had arrived and that she had already left for treatment this morning. When I read this message...