Bittersweet Contact

The starless night sky wept, spilling out its sorrow over the bustling Immortal Quarter. I stood, unflinching, as cars hissed by, spraying me with brown frothy water. Why avoid the street tea when I was already steeped in five years’ worth of misery and his blood?

I laughed, imagining what people would think—a woman shivering in the rain, mascara bleeding down her cheeks, as if she’d just had her heart broken.

I had.

I’d burned bridges so thoroughly tonight, that the ashes had likely blown halfway across the damn city by now.

I checked my watch. The bus was late. My legs ached from the hours it took to escape the labyrinth that is the Immortal Quarter. I eyed the crooked blue bench, its paint peeling and uninviting, before lowering myself with a sigh of resignation. The bench swayed under my weight, as if weighing up my conscience, finding it passable–for now.

My thigh tingled. I hesitated, reaching into the deep pocket—the fourth time in ten minutes—fingers itching to unfold the crumpled contract that pulsed with warning. It didn’t just radiate heat; it thudded like a heartbeat, sentient, knowing it was far from its master. The last obstacle, before I was free.

Destroying it would be impossible. Contracts were written on eternal paper, etched into time itself. Reading it was a worse idea, just another reminder of my naïve seventeen-year-old self, swept away by his killer watt smile, blind to the fine print.

“I’m such an idiot,” I cried, kicking a discarded glass bottle across the street. I couldn’t shake the picture of his perfect face or forget the endless promises he whispered against my neck. I dropped my head into my hands, groaning.

How easily his silken words erased every doubt the day I signed my soul over—It was just a formality, a simple contract he’d said, with just a few rules. I should have heeded my father’s warning and headed out the door. But I was in love…or in love with the saviour he pretended to be. He was charming, offering his wealth, his power as my own.

He was charming—until he wasn’t.

When I stopped smiling, he’d say I was the problem. I wasn’t happy because I never embraced the Immortal way. He’d wrap my hair around his fist. His coal gaze bearing down as he demanded to know. Where had my fun gone? Where was the girl who danced, who laughed, who played the violin night and day with passion, like it was her drug?

I never had the guts to say—You sucked the passion right out of me.

Regret warred inside my mind, raging like a tragic chorus. The thunder joined. Its crack echoing across the quarter, rattling deep within my weary bones. I couldn’t sit with my thoughts any longer. The restless rain washed over me as I stepped out from under the poor-excuse-of-a-shelter.

Hazy moonlight shone his ghost over my skin, memories of soft hands caressing my neck—followed by ice-cold fangs, sinking and claiming my sensitive flesh. I wanted to please him. I’d clench my fist against the searing pain, telling myself he was almost finished, almost satisfied.

But he never was.

I lived in permanent dread of his bite. Fear of his venom and the nightmares it unleashed. His glowing red eyes became a countdown—it was Pain o’clock in Kaspar Von Dracula’s house.

Though tonight, when he summoned me to the dining room, something inside me awoke. He’d given me the pointed look. A gesture I knew meant, assume the position; pull back my hair and expose my neck.

I had enough scars there.

I said—No.

A symphony of gasps rasped across the parlour. The esteemed guest, the blood slaves, every mystical beast all watched with bated breath.

“What do you mean, no?” He jumped onto the table, lips pulled back to reveal his ivory daggers. I’d backed up, but he swooped down in a cloak of shadows and vanished us away to my room. “Lila, whose are you?” A low growl rumbled in his throat as he spun me around to face him.

For the first time, I saw him. My heart, already thin as a boiled eggshell, cracked at the realisation. Truth slammed the breath out of my lungs.

I never had his heart—he didn’t have one.

He was a monster. Every charming smile he’d flashed, every song he’d sung, every dress he’d bought was all part of a performance. He was a masterful mimic of human emotions.

“Lila, I’m growing Impatient.” His fingers dug into my arm. “Whose are you?”

I’d like to say what happened next was an accident. A slip of the fingers. But you don’t go prancing about an undead’s mansion hiding a stake, unless you have some intention of using it. My fingers wrapped around the smooth wood of my salvation hidden inside my pocket.

I didn’t know whose I was anymore, but I sure as hell knew whose I wasn’t.

“Not yours," I said, plunging the stake between his ribs, into his non-existent heart.

He screeched in an ancient tongue as blood trickled down his cream shirt. I slapped away his weak attempts to grab my neck. With all the dignity I had left, I shoved my full weight behind the stake. He gasped, eyes wide, shocked.

Maybe, for the first time, he saw me too.

Just like that—POOF—an eruption of ash. It was all too easy.

The only remaining problem—the contract that was now nestled inside my pocket, retrieved from his desk before fleeing. My soul, bound within its very words. Free for any Immortal to find and claim, another signature, another master. I shuddered at the thought, pulling it out of my pocket, running my finger along the folded seams. I didn’t survive the last five years to end up as someone else’s plaything.

I folded the paper as small as possible. Filling the glass bottle I’d kicked with rain water, until there was enough swishing around for a decent mouthful. Drinking from a used bottle was the least of my concerns.

I stuffed the contract into my mouth. The paper, suddenly hot against my tongue. Saliva pooled at the intense bittersweet taste of chocolate, vinegar, and liquid fire melding together. One gulp of water sent steam hissing out of my nose and mouth. The contract, sticky in my throat. I couldn’t swallow. Swallowing felt like embracing death. This was a bad idea; humans and eternal items didn’t belong together.

Unseen fire consumed my body, sweat beaded down my forehead, and tickled down my back. Rain, the saving grace, kept me from combustion. It torrented down harder, cleansing away the last of his ashen remains that coated my gown and skin.

The bittersweet contract melted in my mouth, releasing the hurt of loss, the pleasure of freedom, the acidity of regret. It was a messy human combination. As the last of the bittersweet syrup slid down my throat, I knew—I’d reclaimed my soul.

The rain softened, allowing the squeak of wheels to be heard. An old yellow bus came into view, abruptly pulling to a stop. The driver eyed me up and down, whistling as he opened the door. “What in the world happened to you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, shivering as I boarded the empty bus.

“Alright then, where am I taking you?” He counted my coins, motioning for me to take a seat wherever. I looked out the foggy windows, pointing to the distant hills, human lands.

“Home,” I replied, taking a seat. “Take me home.”