My Vampire's Points System novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Forty Points

The letter said FORTY.

I read it standing in my stairwell in a robe, with the cold coming up through the linoleum.

*County Night Compliance Office. Notice of Point Adjustment. Subject: MORVATH, CYRUS. Prior total: 64. Struck by order of the board: 24. Current total: 40.*

Under the number, in Brenda's blue pen, someone had written: *Two off for every clean month from here. Do the math. B.*

I carried it up the stairs two at a time and then stood in the bedroom doorway, not wanting to wake him.

He lay on my narrow bed in the dark behind the black trash bags, quiet and pale, with one hand open on the pillow.

I sat on the floor by the bed and watched him sleep, on and off, all day.

I ate a bowl of cereal and answered three texts from Kyle, which were all donut emojis.

I put a note on the fridge that said *CYRUS, WAKE-UP FOOD ON STOVE.*

At 5:12 that afternoon, the sun went down, and his eyes opened on the dark.

"Molly," he said.

"Forty," I said.

"What?"

I put the letter in his hand.

He read it with his thumb moving over the number.

Then he read it again, and his breath, which he did not have, seemed to stop in his chest.

"Forty," he said.

"That's two points over where you started."

"I know where I started."

"That's twenty-four points that were never yours."

He folded the letter very carefully.

"Come to the bank," he said.

"Now?"

"I would like to ask you something. Properly. In my own house."

"You can ask here."

"No," he said, with a small crooked smile. "I want to have a door to open."

We got to the bank at dusk, and he turned on the lobby lamp.

He took a black key off a hook inside the steel door.

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