Her throat aches like it’s nobody’s business, her mouth as dry as a desert. No matter how much water she drinks, the thirst doesn’t go away. If anything, it only gets worse with each sip. She knows what she craves; the desire that shoots through her whenever she sees a certain sanguine liquid isn’t an easy thing to miss, but she can’t bring herself to try it.

As with many things in Stephanie’s life, this new urge of hers is her father’s fault. Arthur Brown came back into her life after another one of his supposed deaths, but this time was different. He had died; that’s what he claimed, and he had come back soon after. In all honesty, she stopped listening, but whatever he did to her made the sun burn and her heart stop beating in her chest.

The evidence is like a flashing neon arrow, pointing to an even flashier… neon-er sign saying ‘vampire.’ The word has been on the tip of her tongue since the night her dear old dad ruined everything, but she hasn’t exactly gone out and tested the theory. Either way, weirder things have happened in Gotham.

In Stephanie’s expert opinion, the second-worst part about all this (just behind the newfound bloodlust) is keeping this a secret. It’s not like she’s bad at keeping them; she wouldn’t be able to be Spoiler if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, but this is a whole new level. Especially when her best friend is knocking on her apartment door, asking why she hasn’t been in class for a week and why she hadn’t been answering her phone. Shit!

“Uh, hey,” she says, awkwardly leaning against her door frame in an attempt to hide the mess inside. This is great. No, really, it’s perfect. Okay, maybe Stephanie’s mental sarcasm isn’t helping much, but what else can a girl do? Her self-imposed quarantine has been broken, and she's trying really hard not to sink her fangs into her friend's throat right now. “I’ve just, you know, been doing stuff. Important stuff. And I lost my phone.”

Wow, that excuse was more terrible than she thought it would be.