The apartment's living room became a painter's workshop.
Lily shoved the leather chair against the wall with one hand, surprised again by the casual strength in her limbs. The coffee table went next, dragged to the corner with a scrape of wood on hardwood that made her wince at the tracks she left on the floor. Hopefully her sire wouldn't care about that.
She cleared a nice wide space in the center of the room, rolling out the plastic sheeting like a tarp before a storm. Past experiences had taught her the value in properly preparing an area, wooden floors did not take kindly to splattered paint.
The clear plastic crinkled beneath her boots as she positioned the blank canvas on its easel. Paints came out next, tubes squeezed onto a wooden palette in careful rows. Crimson, ochre, midnight blue, titanium white. Her brushes stood ready in a jar, instruments of creativity awaiting a chance to produce something beautiful.
Lily stepped back and studied the empty canvas.
Normally she sketched first. Rough lines in charcoal, blocking out composition, planning her attack. Other times she dove in blind, letting the brush guide her hand instead of her head.
Tonight called for the latter.
Too many thoughts competed for her attention, making it impossible to neatly plan or sketch anything. Along with those thoughts were a mess of emotions, churning like waves caught in a storm out at sea. Planning her composition would only strangle the chaos. Better to bleed it out onto canvas and see what emerged.
She grabbed a wide brush and loaded it with burnt umber.
The first stroke landed across the canvas, bold and decisive. Then another. Her hand moved, wrist loose, elbow fluid. Brown became the foundation, earth tones spreading like soil.
Her thoughts drifted back to New Orleans.
The gallery where her paintings lined up on white walls under soft lighting. People clustered around them, wine glasses in hand, murmuring appreciation or critique. The night she had died had only been her second showing.
The first had gone well enough to warrant another. Gallery owners talked about representation, about getting her work in front of serious collectors. Everyone said the same thing with bright, encouraging smiles.
Keep painting. One day you'll be famous.
Now she existed as a ghost in Dallas. A pale shadow slipping through crowds, careful not to be seen as what she truly was, terrified of what might happen if anyone looked too close.
Lily switched brushes, grabbed cadmium red, and slashed it across the canvas with sharp, angry strokes.
Her sire floated to the surface of her thoughts like a corpse bobbing up from the swamp.
She didn't even know his name.
He'd saved her there was no denying that. Without him, she'd be rotting in a New Orleans cemetery next to her mother and grandmother. Another statistic in a police report. Instead she had this apartment, millions in the bank, and an eternity ahead of her.
Gratitude warred with resentment.
The red paint spread under her brush, aggressive and violent.
He could have stayed. Could have walked her through that first hunt instead of leaving her to stumble through it alone, terrified and unprepared. Could have taught her how to use whatever supernatural abilities came with being a vampire. Could have explained the rules of this new world beyond the bare minimum.
Instead he'd given her a handwritten note and disappeared. Like all the others from her life.
Sink or swim.
Tough love from a man who turned her without asking, then left her floundering in the deep end.
The anger felt good. It gave her strokes purpose, energy. She painted faster, changing colors, layering texture.
But then the anger faded, replaced by something softer.
Joey.
Lily switched to a smaller brush and dipped it in cerulean blue. Her strokes slowed, became gentler, more deliberate.
He'd been handsome. Not in the overly polished way of men who spent hours at the gym or in front of the mirror, but in an easy, natural way. Dark hair, warm eyes, that smile that creased the corners of his mouth and eyes like he spent most of his time happy.
She could still feel the warmth of his hand in hers.
She'd never been good at dating. One-night stands sure, those made sense. Simple transactions between consenting adults. No expectations beyond a few hours of pleasure with whatever man or woman found her attractive. When they were done it was just a simple good-bye. Clean and uncomplicated.
Dating though was messy, it always was. It required talking, sharing, being vulnerable. Building something that might last beyond morning.
Lily had always been better at painting than people.
But the thought of coffee with Joey was alluring. Just talking with him, learning about his life, his job, what made him laugh. Sharing pieces of herself that weren't monstrous.
Maybe even building something real for once.
Her brush moved across the canvas with careful precision now, adding details, shaping forms that emerged from the chaos of color.
She smiled without realizing it.
The apartment fell silent except for the whisper of bristles on canvas and the occasional wet sound of paint being mixed. Minutes blurred into an hour. Her hands worked on autopilot, guided by instinct and emotion rather than conscious thought.
Finally, her arm grew still. The brush lowered.
Lily stepped back and looked at what she'd created.
A woman knelt before a tombstone, her body curved in grief, face tilted up toward a massive full moon that dominated the sky. The moon's light painted everything in shades of silver and shadow. But the woman's face, Lily had rendered her own features without meaning to, was streaked with red. Tears of blood ran down pale cheeks, dripping onto the earth below.
The woman's expression held no hope. Only sorrow and acceptance. The death of something that could never return.
Behind her, barely visible in the shadows, stood the vague outline of a figure. Watching. Present but distant.
Lily's throat tightened.
She'd painted her own transformation without planning it. The death in the alleyway, the burial, the rising as something new and terrible. The loss of her humanity, her dreams, her future.
And standing in the shadows, her nameless sire.
"The Death of Innocence," she whispered.
The title felt right. Perfect, even.
She set the brush down and wiped her hands on a rag, noting absently how much faster she'd completed this piece. What would have taken three or four sessions now took barely an hour. Vampire speed and vampire precision apparently had other uses apart from physical violence.
At least being undead came with some benefits.
Lily grabbed her phone from the couch and snapped a photo of the wet painting. The image didn't quite capture the depth, the texture, but it would do for documentation.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
Joey's number was still in her jacket pocket. She could add it to her contacts. Text him. Set up that coffee date.
But the painting stared back at her, a reminder of what she'd become.
The woman weeping blood over her own grave.
How could she sit across from someone like Joey and pretend to be normal? Pretend her hands weren't cold as ice, that her heart beat, that she could share a meal or drink coffee without getting violently ill?
How could she risk losing control and hurting him?
Lily locked her phone and tossed it back on the couch.
She stared at the painting a moment longer, then turned away and began cleaning her brushes in silence.