The Silent Girl

human
.
    Behind her, she heard Frost yell: “Rizzoli?”
    She didn’t stop to answer him but kept up the pursuit. The figure ahead was moving fast—too fast. Her legs pumped harder, muscles burning. The air was so cold, it seemed to sear her throat. She saw the figure clamber over a fence and drop out of sight.
    She scrambled over it, too, felt wood splinters bite into her hand. She dropped hard on the other side, and pain shot up her shins. She was standing in an enclosed yard.
Where is he, where?
Frantically she scanned the shadows, looking for some telltale flicker of movement.
    Did something just slink into that shed?
    Clutching her weapon in both hands, she approached the shed doorway. Inside was only blackness, so thick it seemed solid. She inched forward and stood on the threshold, trying to peer inside. Seeing nothing.
    A sound in the darkness raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The sound of quick, desperate breaths. They didn’t come from the shed, but
behind
her.
    She swung around and spotted her quarry, crouched and cowering in the shadows. It was garbed all in black. As she shone her flashlight in the eyes, the arms came up, shielding the face from the glare.
    “Who are you?” she demanded.
    “I’m nobody.”
    “Show yourself! Stand up!”
    Slowly, the figure rose to its feet and lowered its spindly arms. The face that stared back at her was an unearthly white; the hair gleamed jet black. The same color as the hairs they’d found on the coffin pillow.

M AN, HE SURE
LOOKS
LIKE A VAMPIRE,” SAID Barry Frost, staring through the one-way mirror at the pale young man sitting in the interview room.
    The subject was eighteen years old and his name was Lucas Henry. Transpose the first and last names and it became ominously familiar:
Henry Lucas
. Did his mother realize she’d named her kid after one of the most prolific serial killers of all time? But the boy in the next room looked more frightened than dangerous. He sat huddled at the table, a black forelock drooping over his white brow. With his jutting cheekbones and his deeply sunken eyes, he looked like a living skeleton. Multiple studs pierced his lips, nose, and God knew what other parts of his body—so many studs that he’d set off the metal detector when they’d brought him into Boston PD headquarters.
    “Why the heck do kids poke holes in their skin?” said Frost. “I never understood that.”
    “It’s a Goth thing. You know, death, pain, oblivion.” Jane snorted. “All that fun stuff.”
    “He’s sure not having any fun.”
    “Let’s go make his night even more enjoyable.”
    As Jane and Frost walked in, Lucas snapped straight in his chair, eyes wide with apprehension. Despite his grotesque piercings and the black leather jacket with the death’s-head decal, Lucas looked like just a scared kid.
A kid who may have wrapped his skinny hands around Kimberly Rayner’s throat and squeezed the life out of her
.
    Jane sat down across from him. Noticed that the boy’s eyes, heavily rimmed with black eyeliner, were bloodshot from crying. “Are you sure you don’t want an attorney?” she asked.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
    “I take it that’s a no.”
    “She was alive when I left her. I swear it.”
    “Tell us how you came to know Kimberly Rayner.”
    The boy took a deep breath. “I first met her a few months ago, when we were both hanging out in Harvard Square. We recognized each other immediately.”
    “I thought that was the first time you met.”
    “What I mean is, I knew at once what she was. And she knew what I was.”
    “And that would be?”
    “Different. We’re different from other kids. From everyone else.”
    “Every kid thinks he’s different.”
    “I mean
really
different.”
    “Like how?”
    He took a breath. “We’re not human,” he said.

T HERE WAS A LONG SILENCE. FROST, STANDING IN the corner, rolled his eyes.
    “Funny,” said Jane. “You look human to me.”
    “That’s just on a superficial level. But if you examine my cells, if you look at them under a microscope, you’ll see that I’m different. Since I was just a kid, I’ve known that I wasn’t like everyone else. I don’t need food like you do. I can survive perfectly well on just air and …”
    “Wait, don’t tell me,” Jane said. “Blood?”
    The boy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”
Oh, you think
?
    “Are you telling us you’re a vampire?” asked Frost, managing to keep his face perfectly