Stop the world from spinning round,
It feels like the sky is falling down,
I can't breathe in, I can't breathe out,
I'm afraid that I might drown.

L E T A

That snapped me out of my haze, all right. I'd read once the only way to get a drunk person properly sober was to slap them or to dunk water on their head, and at the time I'd highly doubted it.

Now, however, I felt like it was true. I definitely felt sober, and very pissed. 'What the hell?' I snapped, feeling wide awake. 'What is wrong with you? Are you insane?'

'You were the one telling me not to buy you green socks for Christmas,' Raphael said, sounding a lot like a stuck up prick (as per usual). 'Just saying.'

I gritted my teeth. 'You were the one who got me high on your mind control! How is this my fault?'

'It isn't your fault!' Raphael said angrily. 'Just get up, okay?'

'Get up?' I said, staring at him. The sofa was really uncomfy and was also digging into my butt, but just because Raphael was the one telling me to do something, I didn't want to do it. For some reason, the guy really made me want to a punch a wall (or him. Hey, I wasn't fussy).

'I need to show you something,' Raphael insisted, tugging on his jacket and looking... Nervous?

Whatever. I got to my feet, knowing that if I didn't get up he'd pull me up, which would just be mortifying for both of us.

He was biting his lip again, so hard that blood bloomed on his lip. I stared, wondering how a vampire would bleed. Did vampires have blood?

This is so not the time, Leta, I told myself. Just don't think about Raphael's blood, because that's just weird. And also wrong.

Raphael pointed to something on the table next to him. 'Leta, look. This is what Camille did- and she'll do it again, given half a chance.'

Camille? God, that bitch was everywhere.

I walked over to the table, then frowned. 'Hey, Raphael, there's nothing there-'

He kissed me.

It was nothing like the kisses I'd had before. Raphael pressed his lips against mine almost desperately, like he was in a sinking ship and I was the only lifeboat.

For a second, I almost enjoyed the kiss, and then I remembered who I was kissing. Or more accurately, who was kissing me.

I pushed him away from me, glaring at him furiously. 'What the fuck is wrong with you? What was that for? We barely know each other, for fuck's sake!'

That little shit had the arrogance to look amused. 'I didn't kiss you because I wanted to, believe me, although you seemed to be enjoying it at first.'

'Until I remembered who I was kissing!' I half shouted. 'If you didn't want to kiss me, why would you? That's just freaking weird!'

'Sit down, Leta,' Raphael told me. 'And I can explain everything.'

'Not fucking likely,' I hissed. 'You're a creep, and I'm outa here.'

'Leta, for God's sake, Camille made me kiss you, okay? She wants you to be a vampire!'

The world stopped. I felt like everything around me was suspended in time, and I was the only one moving, except I couldn't get my arms and legs to work. I wanted to open my mouth and shout that that was ridiculous, that kissing me had nothing to do with vampires anyway, but everything was clicking into place.

As a precaution, Alec had told me how vampires were made (and warned me, scowling, that if I saw a vampire I should just carry on walking and keep my head down), and that to become a vampire someone had to drink vampire blood ('it doesn't take more than a drop,' Alec had said) and have a vampire drink from them. Then the human would start to transition, and the final step was just for the human to die.

I'd already completed two out of three steps.

Drinking Raphael's blood when he kissed me, and Camille drinking from me. The only thing left for me to do was die.

I still couldn't move, and apparently Raphael took that as a cue to start to talk. 'We've been watching you for a while,' he began. 'Well, I have.'

I knew he was a creep, I thought numbly.

'Camille likes to make a new vampire at least every two years, because the vampire population in her clan keeps decreasing from Shadowhunters killing them off and some just leaving for other cities. She likes to take young people, beautiful people, people who are brave and honest...'

I shook my head. 'No. Why would she pick me? I... I don't want to be a vampire!'

'Nobody does,' Raphael said sadly, shrugging. 'Only people who have nothing left to live for want to become vampires. It has perks, I will admit- super strength, super speed, a clan who will always protect you, immortality...'

'What- what's going to happen to me now? Will I just die, or does someone have to kill me?'

As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn't asked. Raphael was giving me a pitying look that clearly meant I was screwed. If Camille didn't kill me, he would.

'I really don't want to be a vampire,' I whispered. 'Oh my God, Raphael, I don't want to be a vampire. I want to go to collage, I want to get a job, I want to get married and have kids, I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to grow old. I want to be a grandmother, and to find my first grey hair, and...'

I trailed off, feeling my heart contract. 'I want to be human.'

It had never occurred to me that someday I might not be human. Humanity was just one of those things I took for granted, like I took it for granted that I'd see my twenty-first birthday and finally be able to legally drink.

'You want everything that you can no longer have,' Raphael said softly. 'If it makes you feel any better, Leta, I don't want you to have this either. People like you don't make very good vampires.'

'What, and people like you do?' I asked, wiping away a tear I hadn't even realised existed. Raphael had the good grace to pretend he didn't see it.

'When I first became a vampire,' Raphaek said conversationally. 'I tried to dive into the sunlight, because I thought that I was damned.'

'Are you?' I asked. 'Are you damned? Or, at least, do you still think so?'

There was a strange expression on his face, wistfulness and longing mixed together. 'I don't know. I don't know if I still have a soul, or not. All I know is that the name of God burns me-' he broke off and started, almost like he'd revealed too much.

'But if I were you,' he said quietly. 'I'd run, Leta. Run whilst you still have a soul, and never stop running.'

What's your favourite tv show, people? Mine is teen wolf, but the 100 runs a very close second.

xxx Jade