Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

details he had left out for the Biting Victims’ group. Mr. Lenox listened attentively, responded with some sympathy and with some chastisement as good assistants were hard to come by and Art had been excellent. Mr. Lenox also thought Troy was being too rash in getting into a sexual relationship with a bite victim. But when Troy explained one more time that he and Nicole were not just a one-time fling, the man let it pass.

Then Troy asked, “Have you been in contact with your wife?”

Mr. Lenox’s expression went dark. “Only via skype.”

Sighing, Troy shook his head. “Have you tried to go outside?”

“Right now?” Mr. Lenox shook his head, staring at Troy as if he were asking the impossible.

Shaking his head, Tory said, “Look. You have not drunk blood. I am sure you can step out in the sun. You need to get your life back.”

But Mr. Lenox shook his head vehemently. “No. No, no, no. I can’t. It will kill me.”

Rising, Troy exhaled hard. “You can’t live your life in fear. You have to move forward.”

“I can’t jeopardize what little I have,” Mr. Lenox retorted, his face contorting with so much distress. “I don’t want to lose my wife. And I still can see my kids via skype. That’s enough for me.”

Groaning, Troy decided there was no getting through with him. And when he left Mr. Lenox’s house, he felt heavy. Truthfully, after spending so much time with Nicole, he realized how much Mr. Lenox most likely missed his wife, and his kids of course. Also, he wanted to prove Art wrong by trying to help Mr. Lenox. He was not some self-absorbed jerk like Art thought he was. Highly distracted and obsessed, as Bobo had said, yes. He would admit to the second. But the first assumption was unfair. Art had no clue what he had been struggling through his entire life.

But since it bothered Troy, he decided in that moment that he had to find out for certain if Mr. Lenox was right about his wife. Would she reject him? Or was he just worrying too much. There was no reason to leave this question to chance. He had to do something. So, instead of heading home, Troy got onto the subway and rode it into Mr. Lenox’s old neighborhood (which he had learned about when the Seven were vetting everyone and Matthew was adding it to a list of people to protect), hoping to catch Mrs. Lennox home.

Going over in his head what he had to say, Troy walked out from the subway station down the block to the apartment building where he saw familiar children playing outside on their bicycles, zooming up and down the sidewalk. They looked like their pictures. Passing them, as he didn’t want to be one of those creepy strangers, he walked up the steps to the building where he stepped inside and found the apartment door. They lived on the main floor.

He knocked.

A lovely, slightly dumpy woman with Hispanic coloring and shape to her, probably in her thirties, answered the door. Her cinnamon eyes rested on Troy, taking in his pale skin and hoodie critically. “Yes?”

Her voice had a slight accent.

Troy took a breath and said, “Are you Mrs. Gerard Lenox?”

“I’m Mercedes Lenox—though my husband hasn’t been home for over a year now.” She seemed mildly curious, but clearly suspicious.

“I’m actually here on his behalf. Can I come in?” Troy said.

“Did he send you?” she asked, barring his entrance with her body, rather guarded. Smart woman, really.

“No.” Troy shook his head.  “He does not know I am here. He’s worried… He’s worried he’ll infect you.”

She opened the door, stepping aside to let him in. Perhaps it was his honesty that took her guard down. Her eyes were wide as she watched him enter her home. “You have the same thing he does, don’t you?”

Walking in, Troy looked around at the modest space that was her small living room nodding. “Yes. It’s not actually as infectious as he thinks.” The place had simple, modest décor. There was a cross on one wall with a collection of bible pictures, framed, alongside pictures of their family. Their wedding photo was next to a family photo. In the picture he looked so robust, ruddy cheeks and such a smile. It was very different from the ashen man he knew in person. The biting had taken a lot out of him.

“We’re part of the same support group,” Troy said, turning his eyes now on Mrs. Lenox, who also seemed heavily burdened by the loss of her husband, even though she still had his financial support and skype contact. “My doctor referred me to your husband, hopefully to help him.”

Mrs. Mercedes Lenox walked in to the kitchen get something for Troy to drink, listening intently. When she brought him some iced tea, she said as she sat down across from him on the sofa, “My husband would not say much about his condition. Only that is was similar to leprosy.”

Troy nodded, wondering how he was going to do this. “Yes. It is kind of similar, but not. It’s not contagious. Rather, it…” Troy tried to think of the best analogy. The one that he hated came to mind, but it was the most accurate. “It is a bit like a sexually transmitted disease. You can only get it through an exchange of fluids.”

She paled, all sorts of things going through her mind as he spoke.

“I got it recently. My father gave it to me. But he had it for years and got it from some lady he cheated with, and he also gave it to my mother,” Troy muttered bitterly, wondering now what really happened to his mother. Was she even alive? Or… wait, his father said she had run off with another vampire. Was she still with that one?

“So my husband had an affair?” she said with and indrawn breath.

Realizing what she had imagined, Troy rose, shaking his head. “No. Oh my gosh. No. I’m sorry. Bad analogy. Uh, some guys jumped him on the street and forced him to consume something that gave it to him. That’s also what happened to me. He didn’t cheat on you.”

She peered skeptically at him, thinking, he was sure, that he was just covering up for her husband’s sins.

“It’s an analogy, not the actual situation.” Troy flustered, hoping he wasn’t making things worse. He had to be more explicit. “It’s passed through blood, specially. But your husband, who loves you very much, is afraid he will give it to you.”

The woman swallowed, slowly nodding, thinking on that with care. Her eyes drifted to their family pictures. She then said slowly, “And how did he get this disease again?”

With a sigh, Troy recounted once more, “He was waylaid on the way from work, and two men forced this toxic blood down his throat. They made him drink it.”

She gasped. Her lips seemed a little green actually. He hoped she wasn’t going to vomit. Her heart was certainly booming.

“It could have killed him, as it was poison, but he survived,” Troy said. “But now he is infected.”

Her wide and intense stares were punctuated by the increasing beat of her heart. She smelled nice also. That’s when Troy saw what Mr. Lenox had seen in his wife. Under her slightly padded exterior was a Monica Bellucci waiting for her dear sweet husband to come home so she could embrace him. She missed him with a passion.

“He can’t actually give it to you through sex or anything,” Troy said, trying to reassure her. “I have a girlfriend and she is perfectly fine.”

But Mrs. Lenox blushed on behalf of him and his girlfriend whom she clearly believed should not be fornicating at all, regardless of how ‘safe’ it was. He would have blushed if he could, deciding to change the subject.

“But it does create for him some dangerous conditions,” Troy said.

She nodded, waiting for them like a dutiful wife who truly wanted to help. This was good. But how much should he tell?

Wondering if he should let her know her husband was suffering with vampirism, Troy started small. “He will forever have an intolerance to sunlight. He’ll sunburn easily. But he’s so completely scared of the sun now that I can’t even convinced him to put on long sleeves and a hat to go outside. He’s completely switched to night shift.”

She nodded. Clearly she knew that one. That was good.

“He also has heightened sensitivity in the nose, eyes, and ears. He can hear things better. This causes certain side effects such as intense cravings for things unnatural to eat. But that is easily handled by eating lots of warm dairy products—and if you are not a vegan, that won’t be a problem.”

She nodded, rolling her eyes.

“But he also has an allergy to certain herbs with strong odors, such as… say, uh, garlic.”

She flinched. Damn. Her neck also stiffened. Her eyes widened and blinked at Troy more. She drew in a breath and peeked to the cross on the wall. Double damn. She was smart. And she had added it up. Was she freaking out?

Troy decided to lie about the rest, yet also telling the truth through the lie. It was better to pretend he did not know she knew. “Due to the damage of the forced consumption of this poisonous blood, he also has some dental distortions.”

Mercedes certainly had gazed at his teeth, her eyes raking over his figure. She even said, “How do you handle the sun, and all those allergies?”

All those allergies? Man, it made him sound like Rick and his list of excuses for werewolfism. Troy hated the comparison. But he played it cool and said, “Sunblock. Hoodie. Sticking to dairy. No more Italian food for me, which is a bummer. I really loved my calzones.”

Her gaze remained wide on him.

Troy rose, deciding it was time to get going. He was intending to meet Nicole at her work and he did not want her to wait. He didn’t want to give her a reason to think of other men. “Look, I just want to help him. He’s afraid you will reject him if you found out about his true condition. Just know that he loves you and wants you safe.”

“Will you swear that on the Bible?” she said, her voice tense, rising also.

Shrugging, he said, “I’ve never been religious, but I will swear on whatever you want me to if it will help him.”

She walked over to her table and took out a cross on a necklace. She handed it to Troy rather forcefully. “Give this to him. If he wears it in the next skype call, then we’ll talk.”

Troy moaned, closing his fingers around the piece of silver. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. What am I supposed to say to him?”

“Fess up,” she said with a shrug then walked toward the door. It was her silent way of saying he had to leave.

He followed her. “I might not even see him before that time. Our group won’t meet until Tuesday.”

Unlike Rick’s mother, she was not freaking out as she pushed him toward the door, opening it. But she was acting the way Mr. Lenox had predicted. She was definitely religious and she would reject her husband if she knew for certain he was a vampire. That’s why she had given him the cross, even though Mr. Lenox himself wasn’t that religious. And as he stepped out, she looked toward the sun shining into the hallway where her neighbor was coming in, and smiled at him then the cross in his hand.

“Put that in your pocket, and don’t lose it,” she said a little softer now, as if forgiving him. “And get one for yourself. You seem like a man who desperately needs Jesus.”

When she shoved him out and closed the door, he stared at it. Not even Art told him that, though he realized as he walked away from the apartment that the guy probably had been tempted