In not twenty minutes, Olivia’s seatbelt clicked into place, and she melted into Rachel’s passenger seat. It, like everything else in the damn Jeep, was hot pink. Probably some kind of witch spell, to make it tacky as possible.

Already, Olivia found it was growing on her.

“You’re a lifesaver,” she muttered.

Rachel beamed. “It’s the least I could do! Why text me, though? Of all people?”

“You have a car,” Olivia said, shrugging. And you always find the bright side to these kinds of things. “Plus, you’ve lived in Walder a long time. Where’s the best place to hang out?”

“Maybe the mall?” Rachel suggested.

“The mall here sucks,” Olivia deadpanned. The sun stung her eyes, even through the tinted windows of the Jeep. She pulled her sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them on. “It’s all boutiques for grandmas and overpriced furniture shops.”

“I mean, yeah, but isn’t that part of the fun? Trying weird blouses and sitting on stiff loveseats?”

“You have a strange idea of fun.”

“I guess so,” Rachel said, almost wistfully. “You know, this really isn’t how I planned to spend my first semester of university.”

“It isn’t?” Olivia raised a brow. “I thought you knew all of this was going to happen.”

She sighed, rather dramatically. It was practically a groan. “I knew what we wanted to have happen, but the whole re-emergence of a genocidal cult really put a wrench in things.”

“The Children of the Lone Angel?”

“Uh, yeah, unless there’s another one I should be worried about.”

Despite it all, Olivia snickered. “Yeah, that’d be bad.”

“I miss when things were simpler,” Rachel admitted. “I miss pretending to be a quirky human girl who liked fairies too much.”

“You’re still quirky,” Olivia assured her. “Plenty quirky.”

“Why, thank you,” Rachel shot back. “I’m sure I get on peoples’ nerves, but I really just want to lighten things up. Someone should, y’know? And I was the one who already knew everything, so I felt like I had to be… a big sister, kinda. Does that make sense?”

“I’m an only child,” Olivia said, “but I get it. And I’m sorry for being a bitch about it before.” Eyes on the road, Olivia. Just say your piece, so you’ll quit feeling bad and she’ll know you don’t hate her.

“Oh, it’s fine. I’m used to it, really,” Rachel said. “I mean, gay Black girl who’s secretly a mothwitch--and also got diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. Might as well get people to laugh with me instead of at me, because they’ll laugh no matter what.”

Olivia turned to Rachel, and she was still smiling. Her eyes shone, blue contacts aglitter with tears. She blinked them away before she looked at Olivia and said, “I won’t have to hide the mothwitch thing for much longer, at least. Once we win over Walder, it'll be safe to be myself. For vampires, that’ll mean a safe place to feed on others.”

“Feed on others?” Olivia echoed, cocking her head to the side.

“Apparently it’s different,” Rachel replied, “from the blood bank. When you’re…”

“Biting people?” Olivia finished.

“Biting people,” Rachel confirmed. “I’ve read it’s better than sex. And drugs. And sex on drugs.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. But wouldn't it make way too many vampires?”

“Not with the right protection.”

“Like what, fang condoms?”

Rachel laughed. Actually, laughed, not the superficial giggles she’d use to ease tension. It was a high, lilting sound, almost musical. Just hearing it, Olivia felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

But Rachel couldn’t know that. She’d never let her hear the end of it. So, Olivia put on a playful scowl and said, “What? It sounds intimate!”

“Oh, it is. And if you ever wanna try, my neck’s open season.”

“We haven’t even…” Olivia trailed off. She turned to the window, watching the pines zip by. The word kissed hung in the air, electric between them. “It would be stupid to do anything. Because of, well, everything. We could be dead tomorrow.”

Rachel said nothing, but the Jeep banked to the side. They were pulling over, onto the side of the road.

“I can’t even visit my grandmother,” Olivia went on, “because that might put her in danger.”

“I don’t have a fix for your grandma,” Rachel conceded. “But I might for the other stuff.”

Olivia looked up at her. “And what is that?”

“Just doing things you wanna do!” she replied with a grin. “It’s like you said: we might die tomorrow. Would you rather kiss someone while you can, or lose them and never know what it feels like?”

“Counterpoint: if I lost y--” Olivia paused, correcting herself, “whoever, I’d probably be sadder if we’d kissed.”

“But you’d live on after that wishing you’d kissed me.” Rachel winked. “Or whoever. Alternatively, if you’re the one who dies, you could become a ghost and haunt Walder forever because of the unfinished business.”

Olivia scoffed. “Oh, so ghosts are real, too?”

“Jury's still out on that one, actually.”

Olivia studied the dashboard, heart heavy in her chest. “I’m glad you can be so optimistic, Rachel.”

“You can be, too,” Rachel said. She rested a hand on Olivia’s shoulder, warm and feather-light. “This’ll be over soon.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we have each other,” she said simply. “We could run off, ditch everyone--the vampires, the fey--and we’d still be alright.”

Olivia frowned. “You don’t think we’ll have to do that, though, do you?”

“I hope not, but it’s something I’ve considered,” Rachel said. “I don’t know what'll happen, and that freaks me out.”

“That’s what it’s like for the rest of us,” Olivia pointed out. “We had our bodies and futures forcibly changed by a bunch of monsters who hate hiding that they’re monsters.”

Rachel sucked in a breath. “Y’know, stress makes my glamour spell fail, so I just might sprout some antennae if we keep this up. This is a stressful conversation, after all: death, cults, kissing… and we have finals in a couple of weeks, too, don’t we?”

“Kissing,” Olivia repeated. Mostly out of intrigue, partially so she could forget about school. “Right up there with death and cults, huh? You know, if you want to kiss me, you can just say so.”

“That goes both ways,” Rachel retorted. “You brought it up first.”

Shit. Got me there. “Just as an example of something intimate. I wasn’t…”

The conversation fizzled out. Rachel looked out the window, and Olivia looked at Rachel. It felt voyeuristic, almost, seeing the girl out of her depth. She was, after all, Rachel Fernweh--she'd known magic before magic had known the rest of them.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to kiss me,” Rachel said at last. “Most people are only joking when they say they do.”

“Rachel, that’s not…” Olivia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She was not used to this. “I do want to kiss you.”

Rachel turned to her, eyes wide. “You promise?”

Olivia reached a slow, tremulous hand out to caress her face. Rachel jumped, and Olivia drew back.

“No, it’s just…” Rachel chuckled. “You’re cold, Olivia. You know, like a vampire.”

“Is it okay if I kiss you anyway?” Olivia asked.

Rachel gave the tiniest nod.

And Olivia closed the gap between them, kissing her.

The second their lips met, warmth bloomed on Olivia’s lips, spread across her cheeks. It pulsed like a heartbeat, one that stirred her own into a glorious sync. Rachel’s hands wrapped around her neck, and Olivia may as well have been held by the sun, the way the other girl’s heat enveloped her.

Then Rachel drew back, Olivia’s eyes fluttered open, and it was over.

Except for that heartbeat. It still thrummed through Olivia’s veins, hungry.

She ignored it and grinned at Rachel. “Well, now we’ve kissed. Mission accomplished.”

Rachel poked her in the ribs. “That’s the dorkiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Means you’re rubbing off on me.” Olivia leaned back into the passenger’s seat. “I should probably head home before Rosalyn gets mad.”

“Probably,” Rachel agreed. “But thanks. For, uh, calling me.”

“Just calling you?”

“And kissing me.” She looked at Olivia with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Next time, we ought to do more.”

“Rachel!” Olivia exclaimed, with a dramatic gasp. “What, are you going to stock up on fang condoms?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Liv, they’re not fang condoms. They’re actually these little pills, and if you’re interested, I could make the drive back into a history lesson about vampire contraceptives.”

“I think that’d be great,” Olivia said with a laugh. “Take it away.”