AN: Thank you so, so much for reading this. I just wanted to acknowledge the people who have been giving this fic love - as a small-time writer, every review blows my mind. I'm so grateful that people like my work. If you enjoy this or want to see more, PLEASE let me know. Thank you again and I hope you enjoy the final chapter.

Liz sank back on the couch and took a deep, trembling breath as she ran her hands over her face, taking care not to smudge her eyeliner. This situation could go a few ways. She listened to the soft receding click of Elizabeth's heels.

One thing first – she fucked up that conversation. The whole plan was to be as gentle and reasonable as possible, and try to sell it to Elizabeth by taking Tristan off her hands – a moody, impulsive firecracker of a man who would almost certainly in time push her buttons. In that way, it would look like Liz was doing her a favor. That's not how it had come out, and she momentarily pressed the heels of her palms into her temples. Her speech had gone way off the mark, straight into insolence.

The look on her old friend's face was recognizable. She felt like Liz was trying to one-up her, push her out of her spot, maybe take something she had marked for her own. What she had said was petty, and underhanded, and she guessed she had tapped into something ugly between them. Dominance. But this wasn't a battle for dominance. Liz just needed more of Tristan in her life. She took a deep breath, curled up on the plush of the couch, knowing she may have damned them both. She waited for the tight, timely click of heels, and by the time she heard it and turned to see the handle turn, she was steeled for the second half of their conversation.

Liz rose to see Tristan, head bowed somewhat, close behind Elizabeth, who was still wearing that particular smile. Her stomach jumped, and she twisted her decorated hands together and wondered if she hold her lover's sweet gaze, or drop it and attend to the Countess instead. She found herself momentarily wound up in guilt, and motioned helplessly at Elizabeth, and uttered – "I told her."

They were both in danger now, most importantly, him. Maybe if she had never brought it up, they could have lasted forever. In secret. Maybe they could've run away, and he could've bit her, and they could've been two eternal lovers, turned out by the world, always with each other. A teenage daydream gone rogue.

But that's not where they were now, and the crude neon 'WHY AREN'T WE HAVING SEX RIGHT NOW?' sign behind her head flickered ominously. Tristan looked as if he was going to say something comforting until the Countess raised her hand to silence him. He gave her a shaky, tentative kiss on the cheek as she prepared drinks, and she said simply, "Sit, love. Who needs a drink?"

"I'll get them," started Liz, and the Countess waved her away. "You two sit." The two parties sat uneasily, and Liz momentarily put her hand on Tristan's arm as he settled.

"When you are what I am, you don't feel things as normal humans do," started Elizabeth, unstopping a crystal decanter. "Emotion is like a flavor in my mouth," she said, pouring three glasses. "I can taste it. Joy tastes like strawberries." She capped the decanter again and brought the glasses over to the uncomfortable pair. "Hate is like ice chips in a martini. And love is rosewater. I enjoy them all, except for one." Liz wondered momentarily, as she murmured a thank-you and took the glass, if it had been poisoned. As Elizabeth drew back, she made her point.

"Betrayal." Liz felt dry-mouthed, but unable to drink.

"That has the taste of the char on a piece of burnt meat." She looked clearly, distinctively, into Tristan's face, and then Liz's.

"Yes," she affirmed, gesturing to Liz. "The one in the dress has more balls than you." Liz's stomach curdled, first with hurt, and then with hatred. After all these years on earth, and all this time with her, Elizabeth was still somehow ignorant. Rude, ignorant, petty, transphobic… she was shaken out of her own mood by Tristan's motion to her right, drawing forward, towards the Countess.

"What do you expect?" he hissed. "That I'm just going to spend my life crying over your broken promise?" Oh here it was now, it was breaking the dam. The truth. Truth was happening here tonight, and it was going to hurt somebody. "I know I'm dumb, and I'm just a model-" Liz's heart clenched, and she reached for him before realizing that this wasn't the time, because Tristan was up in Elizabeth's face now, and he wasn't finished. "—but I know you. It's not that you get bored and you move on. Moving on is the point of the whole thing." The Countess had stopped smiling and was staring, snakelike, into Tristan's flushed face. "THAT is your orgasm," he spat. "You collect us, and create us, and get us addicted to the light of your love just so you can take it away." He lowered his voice. "You feed off the heartbreak." Liz was clenching her glass too tightly and set it down without taking her eyes off Elizabeth. She was, as always, wearing her glove. But Tristan still wasn't done. This was becoming too much. "Knowing we're out there, suffering over you." For a moment, the Countess looked simply bored, but then Tristan finished with such fury that it made her draw back: "Well, not me. I was made for more than that. For a real love."

"Please," Liz cut in, suffering the Countess' stare. "After all I've done. Let me just have this one."

The Countess took a deep breath and looked down at them both, finding her strange, tense smile again. She looked into her ex-lover's face, and she must've seen that he had started to cry. "Is this what you want as well?"

Sweet relief. Tristan immediately moved towards Liz, and put a hand at the back of her neck to bring her into his chest from where she was sitting. She wrapped her arms around him and they stayed silent like that for a moment, the Countess neither looking at them or ignoring them completely.

They lost a minute looking at each other until she spoke again. "Fine." They looked towards her, and she drew closer, and with some horror, Liz realized she was distraught. She was torn up, but she was dealing with it, and her makeup was still set, but her eyes were brimming, and her cheeks had started to blotch. "You may have him."

What came next happened so suddenly that Liz didn't react until Tristan had hit the floor. The Countess had simply, in one fluid strike, swept her clawed glove across his neck with enough force to open a gash that widened like a yawning mouth. She had done it and stepped back, giving him room to drop, and had torn down everything Liz had believed to be true about her in one go. "He's yours," the Countess murmured as the man fell to his knees, a hand at his throat to try to quell the free blood. "Bury him." Then she turned on her heel and breezed out of the room, slamming the door behind her as Liz's mind fogged, on her knees, trying to stop that powerful, warm rushing, staring at Tristan as his eyes stopped registering sight.

"Oh, god," choked Liz, holding Tristan's head up, watching his eyes roll. "Oh, god, help. Help me, help me, help me, help me, someone, please, please, help-"

Somewhere in the neither, the fates had their scissors poised to cut the fragile red thread of Tristan's life clean in two. The blade was flexed against the thread, and their otherworldly fingers stayed patiently in the scissor's holds. All they had to do was wait a few minutes, until his body drained enough, too much for his body to breathe. It was a simple matter of time before the blades could close.

In the gloom of the Countess' room, lit by a dull standing lamp in a lonely shade and the corner-store glow of neon signs, Liz held her lover, cradled his soaked neck and chest against hers. She had wrapped her scarf around his neck and just held him, terrified to move, as every time she shifted there was a new gush against her arm. She shook with sobs, but she kept them quiet, and she begged for help.

"Oh, Lord . That won't do anything," snapped a prissy voice from behind Liz's shoulder. She startled and turned to see leaning over her shoulder, pouting her thin lips at the scarf; once a sky blue, now soaked rich, almost black-red. "I've got some thread. I think he's got a shot. Give me just a moment. Get- get out of the way." More than asking, she pushed Liz out of the way, easing Tristan out of her hands and resting him back on the carpet.

"It looks like a lot of blood," she said, business-like, already threading a needle from her blouse pocket. "But it's less than you'd think. And look, take a look." She shushed Tristan as she clamped her apron over his neck and slowly propped him up against the couch. His head lolled bonelessly and his eyes fluttered as spoke again, the needle held between her teeth. "It's actually not as deep as it looks. Oh, he's passed right out. You'll want to compose yourself and get me some first aid. And grab Alex. Run." The room spun, but Liz found her feet and held her bloodied hands out, unsure of what to do for a moment, before she was able to line her thoughts up. First aid. Alex. Run. And she did, smearing blood on the inside of the door, smudging it into her dress as she picked it up, gasping, running.

She found some bandages, antiseptic spray, medical tape, and painkillers in a box in the hall closet, and she found Alex two floors down – nearly spun straight into her as she rounded a corner from the stairs.

"Jesus," breathed Alex. "I found the baby. What hap—"

"Come with me," gasped Liz, now thoroughly out of breath, doubled over. She dropped a roll of medical tape and nearly overbalanced trying to scoop it up. "The hotel needs you. Just come with me." She smeared crusting blood up Alex's arm in her effort to grab her. The two flew down the stairs, Alex trying to ask questions, Liz like a wall, still crying, shaking from head to toe. This endeavor took 6 minutes.

On the way back to the room, they slammed straight into the pair of European girls who had met their deaths a few weeks prior. Both of them screamed and fell against each other; Alex swore; Liz had a coughing fit. "What the fuck," breathed one girl, "What the fuck are you doing ripping around the hall like that?"

"Do either of you know any first aid? Any surgery? Any… care—any hospital technique?" pushed Liz. "Any experience as a nurse?"

"I am a nurse," offered one of the waifish girls, wide-eyed. "I was only on my third month in my residency program, but I'm certified-"

"Come with us," snapped Liz, and grabbed her two. This took five more minutes.

It was another five minutes until Liz burst back into the Countess' room, finding Tristan's eyes glazed and unfocused, his palor grey, his entire shirt a perfect crimson. Liz shut the door and turned to Alex and the girl. What was her name? She had forgotten it immediately after meeting her, right after she died. Now she wish she knew it.

"If either of you can do anything for him, please.. please help. Do something. Help us."

Alex was already taking her coat off and tying her hair up. The blonde European needed more convincing.

"But I don't have gloves," she emplored." Liz gave her a look that promised violence and shoved her handful of supplies towards her. "Take this. Do something. If there's anything left to do…"

"Don't be dramatic," snapped Evers. "It just LOOKED bad. She really tried it with this one, but she didn't quite make it." She scooted aside to make room for Alex. "I'm always cleaning up after her. She's usually thorough with things like this, though… that's where cockiness gets you." The European girl set to work cleaning the wound up, gently swabbing around where Evers was still holding a compress on the gash. "What happened?" murmured Alex.

"Countess tried to kill him," Liz said noncommittally, folding her arms around herself, senses slowly coming to her. She had a headache from how hard her blood was pumping. Alex looked over her shoulder, eyes looking for an explanation. Nobody got special treatment here. If you were killed, you were left alone. She had gotten the impression that nobody really cared about anyone in this hotel. "I just…. Thought he was so young, and that he didn't deserve to die like that," offered Liz. The excuse didn't sound even remotely convincing to her own ears, and Alex didn't look like she bought it. "I'm just getting sick of the bloodshed, I guess. Call me sensitive."

The European, who had just committed her first double homicide four hours prior, raised her eyebrows. "He's very pretty," she said, still cleaning blood off Tristan's throat. "Was he her boyfriend?"

"I guess," offered Liz. "I don't know what he did to piss her off so badly, but I just came up to… talk to her, and I found him in here. Hate to see a pretty face go to waste. I'm a sucker for beauty." She patted herself down, looking for a spare cigarette. Of course not – she hadn't brought her purse. "Does anyone have a cig? It's been a fucking day. You, blondie?"

"I do, actually," said the girl, putting down the swab and digging in her back pocket. "Here. Menthols okay?"

"I don't give a shit," said Liz, and snatched it from her. It took a minute of searching for her to find a lighter on the Countess' dresser. Where the fuck was she, anyway? Was she that upset over Tristan? Had she stormed off somewhere to go feed, or kill some more, or screw someone else over?" Liz unlocked the balcony door and stepped out, hearing Alex and quietly prepping each other to make the first stitches. She closed the door behind her and lit the cigarette, breathing in deeply, listening to the whoops and laughter from people below on the street.

While Liz closed her eyes and steadied herself, the fates looked at this woman out on the balcony, running her hand over her smeared makeup, exhaling smoke and holding herself in the nighttime glow of the Los Angeles nightlife. They looked at the pale, blood-soaked man crumpled against the art deco couch, attended by three women holding him, stitching him, wiping blood away. They looked around at the Countess' indulgence; her inlaid marble with neon signs, the abstract, human-tall artistic nihilism. They saw into her cabinets; the rows and rows of coats, heels, dresses. They looked into her personality; a beautiful, ice-cold blonde woman out at an exhibition, without her new husband, gazing down her nose and sculptures; not seeing art, just hoping for death and pleasure. The fates considered both the lion and the lamb. They looked again at Tristan, and they pulled their scissors away.

By the time Liz had finished one of the only prayers she had said in sincerity in her entire life and stepped back into the room, the bleeding had stopped completely. The gash that had yawned open before her eyes like a laughing mouth was stitched closed with small, precise increments of thread. His face and neck were almost wiped clean, but his shirt was drenched, and his eyes were closed, his breathing slow, as if in deep sleep. She looked at him like she didn't care, but tapped her fingers against her lips; a nervous tick when she was holding back tears. Her heart welled.

"I think he's going to be alright," breathed Alex, and stretched, finally standing. "She got really, really close. But since she turned him, he'll regenerate the skin over time." She took one last long look and helped the European tourist to her feet. "It was a close one."

"I owe you now," blurted Liz, twisting her hands against her dress. The trio looked at her oddly; three inquiring looks all in a row. "I'm just doing what I do," offered Mrs. Evers. "I've always been good with stitches."

"Like you said, it would've been a shame," said Alex. "For him to die so young."

The four of them were silent for a moment, having saved one man in a graveyard, someone on the brink of death in a field of corpses. Liz suddenly felt momentously hypocritical. "Tell him he's going to need to keep that thing clean, and be gentle with it for at least a week," said Alex as the other two women cleared out, snapping the door shut behind them. "At the same time, I'm new to this, I don't know how quickly the regeneration works…"

"Thank you," breathed Liz, and in their privacy, she gave Alex a deeply tender look, an expression in her eyes like an audible sob. "This was really, really important to me."

"Well," said Alex simply, still looking curious about Liz's intensity, "He's all yours now." Between the receding clicks of her heels, Liz crouched down before Tristan, wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of her hand.

He was hers now.