“What are you looking at, you fucking idiot? Do you want to die?” The boy drove a knife into the tree. “This is what happens, if you so much as look at me.” A small wedge of wood popped out of the trunk. The boy whispered, “Go on, squeal like a pig.”

Eli had seen the boy. He lived next door to her. She had just moved into his apartment complex. He was about the age she had been.

Blond, he was a little taller than she was. She could smell him. She felt her teeth grow, especially the canines, becoming sharp and pointed. She wanted him. Hakan was past due.

She concentrated, willing her teeth back to their normal, kid, shape. She shouldn’t have him. He lived next door; that was too close. It would attract too much attention.

As the boy faced the tree, stabbing it with his knife, she ran over to the jungle gym, and leapt, a leap of two meters, landing on top of it and stood balanced on the bars watching the boy. Why she had, she didn’t know. She shouldn’t have. Normally, she had little contact with people, only speaking, when necessary, to Hakan.

The boy must have heard her. He turned around. “Hi.”

She didn’t answer. Saliva filled her mouth. He smelled – well – delicious.

“I said hi.”

She swallowed. “I heard you.”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

Eli shrugged. She nodded her head in the direction of the tree. “What were you doing?”

“Practicing.”

“For what?”

“For if the murderer comes along.”

“What murderer?” Eli asked, although she knew which he probably meant. Hakan had killed a kid and had brought home his blood. But that had been last night, and Eli was hungry again.

“The one in Vallingby. The one who killed that guy.”

Sighing, Eli looked up at the moon. That was the one, a boy a little older than this one according to Hakan, thirteen or fourteen. Eli tried to imagine what the boy had been like? This one wasn’t that old, she didn’t think. She leaned forward, “Are you scared?”

“No, but a murderer, that’s like…it’s good if you can defend yourself. Do you live here?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Over there.” Eli gestured toward her door, the one next to the boy’s door. “Next door to you.”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I’ve seen you in your window.”

The boy – Oskar - blushed, hot blood filling his cheeks. He looked up at his window. If she lived next door, her windows faced out as his did, and she wouldn’t have seen him from them. She could only have seen him from the courtyard, and his windowsill would have hidden anything below his waist.

He often stood in front of his window, usually wearing his briefs, but sometimes, figuring no one could see that part of him, naked. Sometimes, he jacked off standing at the window, wondering if anyone watched - aroused by the possibility that someone did.

They wouldn’t be able to see his cock, but would they, seeing the movement of his arm, know what he was doing? Had she watched from the courtyard while he jacked off?

Oskar’s cock was hard. It had been from the moment he’d seen her. Girls didn’t so much do that to him. At times, he thought he was gay. Jonny and his gang called him, gay, piggy, and other names. They teased him about his small dick.

Eli bit her lower lip, feeling her teeth grow. She shouldn’t be here. The temptation was too great. She jumped down, landing in front of him. She held her hand up, blocking the sight of the hot blood in his cheeks. “I can’t be friends with you,” she said.

“What?”

If I stay here another moment, I’ll tear out your throat.

“Do you need a reason? I’m just telling you how it is. So you know.” She turned, walking off toward her door.

“What makes you think I want to be your friend?” the boy said. “You must be pretty stupid.”

Eli walked back to him. About to grab for him, she interlaced her fingers and let her arms drop. “What did you say?”

Wrapping his arms around himself, Oskar looked at the ground. “You must be stupid…to say something like that.”

His feelings were hurt. He didn’t know why, but he did want to be friends with her.

“Oh, I am, am I?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. But that’s just how it is.” There was something about the boy. He reminded Eli of another boy, a boy from long ago. He reminded Eli of her brother, or of the boy Eli had once been.

Eli wasn’t a girl, of course, but she looked like one, and that’s how she thought of herself. She certainly wasn’t a boy. She hadn’t been a boy since that first day in the lord’s castle.

“Is that smell coming from you?” Oskar said, wrinkling his nose. She stank.

Eli shrugged. “I guess so.”

When’s the last time she’d bathed? She couldn’t remember. Probably, it had been the last time she had made a kill, to wash off the blood.

“Aren’t you cold?”

She only had on a light sweater, and she wore no shoes. She was barefoot in the snow.

“No,” Eli said.

“Why not?”

Eli tried to remember what it was like to be cold. She couldn’t. “I guess I’ve forgotten how to.” She turned and walked back to her door.

Letting her door slam shut, Eli stood with her back to it. Why had she said that, I can’t be your friend? Why had she even thought it? When was the last time she had a friend? Hakan wasn’t a friend. He was necessary; he loved her; but he wasn’t a friend.

Eli remembered the first boy she’d killed. That boy had been her friend of sorts, but Eli had greedily drunk his blood after ripping out his throat. That had been a long time ago. Eli had more control, now.

I’m lonely, Eli realized. How long had it been, two hundred years? Had it really been that long? Probably. Eli wasn’t even sure of today’s date – what year it was. After so many, it was hard to tell one from another.

As old as she was, emotionally, Eli was still twelve. When not lost in blood lust, she was a kid, a twelve year-old, kid.