“Where is he?”
“Seriously, dude. Where is who?”
He pushes harder into my chest, close to breaking my collarbone. “The one who made you.”
“How should I know?” I rasp due to his nearly crushing my trachea. “I haven’t seen him in weeks. What did he steal this time?”
The asshole eases back a little on the pressure, giving me an up-and-down look before emitting a dismissive pff. “Just a pretend vampire.”
I roll my eyes. “So? You’re a genuine douche and I’m not jealous.”
He gives off an angry snarl, then flings me at the back end of a big white SUV. My attempt to slam on the brakes with flying doesn’t stop me before impact, though it causes me to crash into the window rather than punching through it like a human javelin.
The part of my personality most like Sierra comes out to play. Growling, I launch myself at him, irrational anger making me go for a punch to the jaw. He blurs to the side, catching my fist and slamming me into the column with my right arm chicken-winged up behind me. Great. I feel like a nameless bad guy setting herself up to be owned in a Stephen Segal movie. Just charge in like a freakin’ moron.
Did I mention my father likes Eighties movies?
“You’re a cute little girl,” mutters the guy. “So I’m gonna let that slide. Your sire did some real stupid shit in LA. The boss wants his head on a spike. We find out you’re covering for him, your unlife is gonna be real short.”
Being up against a concrete surface does give me the advantage of leverage. He might be stronger than me, but he still only weighs about 190 and even a weak vampire like me can drag a car around. I push off the column hard enough to send us both tumbling. This dude apparently can’t fly since he goes straight over on his back and slides halfway under a Jeep. I catch myself in midair and land on my feet, claws out, shaking from adrenaline as much from fear. He’s stronger than me but I could be at least close in speed. Claws might put me on even footing… but is taking things up a notch a mistake?
Damn. Not thinking straight. Too pissed about being manhandled.
He slides out from under the Jeep and stands, chuckling at me. “You best put those things away before you get hurt niñita.” My attempt to glare likely fails to hide my lack of confidence, since he laughs at me again. “Lucky thing I believe you haven’t seen him.” He shakes his head. “Not surprised he left you to fend for yourself. Like fishing. Too weak, throw it back.”
It doesn’t feel like he’s going to attack me again. No longer afraid for my unlife, I let go of some anger at being grabbed and threatened. Dalton did something stupid and somehow this guy traced him back to me. Honestly, I’m more pissed off over feeling weak than I am at his threats. The best part about being a vampire is supposed to be not having to be afraid of guys anymore. Well, there’s flying. Okay, the second best part is not having to live in constant fear. I’m simultaneously furious at losing that as I am scared. My pride isn’t worth escalating this confrontation to a bloody mess of claws, especially when there’s a real good chance it’s going to be me getting the worst of it.
He keeps staring at me until I shrink my claws back to normal fingernails. His ‘yeah, that’s right’ smirk almost makes me leap at him to tear his throat out, but I’m more mellow than that. Really. This isn’t my fight.
The guy gives me a pitying head shake, then walks off. It takes me a few minutes of standing there to calm down enough to realize I still need to fly home… and grab the trash bag holding my wetsuit. Damn. I can’t win. Still going to get home like twenty minutes late even after putting Dr. Mercer on fast forward.
As soon as I’m in my bedroom, I pull my cell phone out and call Dalton.
It goes straight to voicemail.
“Hey. It’s me. Some dick from LA just showed up here and threatened me. What happened? Are you still alive? Wait… dumb question. You know what I mean. Look, I have no idea what’s going on or where you are—or if this number still even goes to you. Whatever. Just be careful.”
Ugh.
I hang up, toss the phone on the bed, and peel myself out of the wetsuit. After drying off, I slip into sweat pants and a loose shirt, then flop on my bed. So much for doing schoolwork tonight. I’m too damn worried. Calling Aurélie might help, but that could also obligate me to go back out in the rain since she will probably invite me over. Laziness and the urge to stay dry wins. The LA douche just threatened me. Since I don’t actually know what the heck Dalton did or where he is, I’m not too worried. Maybe it’s a good thing that idiot thinks I’m a ‘fake vampire.’ Not sure if that’s a dig on being an Innocent or just that I’m five months old. Pretty sure anyone my age as an undead is on the weak side.
Grr. I hate being made to feel helpless, but perhaps, in this case, it works to my advantage. They’ll either ignore me entirely or underestimate me. Honestly, I’d just as soon stay the hell out of whatever crapstorm Dalton set off.
Right. Okay. I’m good. Homework might even help me relax, especially the reading assignment. Nice warm bed, safe bedroom… wait. Something’s missing.
I think I’m going to make myself some tea.
11
Deals with Darkness
Hunter and I have epic sex in the middle of a sprawling forest.
In my dream.
I wake up Thursday afternoon in a haze of delirious passion that gradually mutates to the disappointment of realizing I’m not surrounded by massive snowy pine trees, but the rather ordinary confines of my bedroom. My craving to be in his presence almost pulls me straight out the door despite broad daylight. Grr. This is so frustrating. Bright days feel like I’m trapped in a dungeon cell.
In fact, a literal dungeon might be preferable. At least that would offer the physical stress relief of attacking a locked door and fighting to escape. I groan in irritation, roll over, and grab my phone from the nightstand. It’s 2:18 p.m., and the weather app shows ‘light clouds.’ Hmm. Is my internal sun detection wonky or is the internet wrong? Feels like it’s a bright one out there due to the overall lethargy plaguing my body.
Though, I suppose it could be actual lethargy.
My plan worked: all caught up with school stuff, so I am free and clear of any responsibility to do anything until after class tonight if/when there’s more homework assigned. My cheese samples are gradually gathering mold in the outer basement inside a glass tank. The freedom of having several hours to myself is nice, but that idiot from last night is still on my mind.
It occurs to me that my left foot feels a little cold. One of my pink fuzzy socks is missing. Sure, they’re big on me and it’s possible it might’ve slipped off in the middle of the night—but I don’t toss and turn anymore. When I’m out, I’m out. E.g. I sleep quite literally like a corpse. Stealing one sock off a sleeping Sarah doesn’t sound like something Blix would do. For that matter, it doesn’t really sound like something any of my siblings would do. Is there a new ghost around?
My wardrobe doesn’t contain much pink. These socks happened three years ago as a birthday gift from Grandma Sheridan. Super fuzzy pink socks with rubberized treads on the bottom. They’re basically meant to be worn to bed or around the house, not inside shoes. I try to keep pink at arms’ length, but these I like. Sentimental value and all. Grr. Annoying, but there are more pressing things on my mind at the moment than tearing my room apart to find a stray sock.
Dalton’s number is still going to voicemail. As much as I’m hoping to stay the heck out of whatever he got himself involved with, it’s in my nature to worry. The guy did save my life—relatively speaking. Without him, I’d be dead, my family all kinds of messed up. Ashley… ugh. That girl would have been a complete wreck for years if I’d died. I hate to say it, but Michelle probably would’ve handled it the best. She’s tough. And I haven’t known her as long as Ash. Yeah, she’d have been sad for a while but, like I said, she’s tough.
No point calling Aurélie now. She’s definitely not an Innocent vampire. And at her age,
she’s way out when the sun is up. The gift of consciousness during the day is one of the bigger advantages I have. Apparently, Innocents are rare enough that many vampires don’t believe they exist or even that it’s possible for a vampire to wake up easily before the sun goes down. This gets me wondering if the one who threatened me understood what I am. About the only real thing I have over them is possibly invading their sanctuary before sundown. Which is great if all I do is sneak around or steal stuff. Trying to kill them in their sleep would not end well for me.
They’d spring awake and be kinda mad. Though, if it’s just a single guy sleeping alone, I’d be able to lop his head off pretty easily—at least physically. Not sure about the mentally part. It takes a certain kind of personality to be able to chop the head off someone that’s helpless, and that’s not me. And why am I debating murdering other vampires?
After a huge yawn, I stretch and get out of bed, creeping to the door to check the light levels of the basement. Dad covered all the windows down here with five layers of automotive tint film, so even when it’s brutally sunny outside, I have the run of the entire basement. I suspect this is part of the parents’ nefarious plan to keep me as a laundry slave. Just throw the dirty clothes down the stairs and the creature in the basement goes to work.
Chuckling to myself, I head up the stairs to the kitchen door. Really, it doesn’t bother me at all to take over the laundry. Mom’s definitely got her hands full with other things. Heck, on nights when there isn’t a load of homework in front of me, I often go on cleaning benders around the house. Mostly to kill boredom and help out. It’s the least I can do since I’m basically an adult freeloader at this point. It helps that they no longer have to feed me, so all they’re really ‘spending’ on me is a room that would’ve been empty anyway.
But, I know they want me here. That clinginess to my family that came over me after realizing I’d been murdered also hit the parents. Both of them had been looking forward to a lessening of the chaos by having one baby bird leave the nest and move to California for school. Now, they’d guilt trip me if I tried to go anywhere else. Mom’s almost even gotten used to me doing housework unprompted. Okay, admittedly, prior to my Transference, I hadn’t exactly been the most helpful almost-adult daughter around the house. We never really fought, but I’d go out of my way to disappear before she could ask me to do stuff, and when she did catch me, I’d grumble as I worked.
Weird how death can change someone’s attitude, right?
The kitchen is bright, but not nuclear. Feels like my face is hovering in front of an oven set to 350. It’s also a complete disaster. What the hell?
I lean out the door a little more, looking around at an array of spilled sugar, glasses all over the counter, big spoons, a few puddles, and half a grocery store’s worth of Swiss Miss boxes. What in the heck? Back to my room I go, to trade my nightie for a purple long-sleeved sweatshirt and jeans. With my powers online in my lightless room, the voices of several tween girls reach my ears. Both sisters, and that’s probably Megan and Nicole as well. They sound oddly far away and they’re talking about hot cocoa for sale.
Well, that explains the explosion in the kitchen.
Once dressed, I brave the over-amped warmth of the upstairs world and peek out the living room window. The girls plus Sam have set up shop with a small table at the corner where our cul-de-sac joins the street. A chain of Dad’s extension cords runs straight from the front of our house, out over the road, all the way to the table. At each point where cords join together, they’re propped up out of the slush on cinder blocks. Reasonable children sell lemonade in the summer, not hot cocoa in mid-November. I don’t even want to know whose idea this was or how it got started.
Sierra, Sophia, and Nicole pretty much look the same from behind while bundled up in winter coats. All three are skinny, though Nicole’s not quite as stringbeany as my siblings. I can, however, tell them apart from hair color. Sophia’s blonde. Sierra’s got light brown hair, and Nicole’s is black. Megan is both taller and thicker than the other three.
They have three electric kettles on the table to boil water. Since we don’t own three electric kettles, Megan and Nicole likely brought one each. Seems they expect to do quite a bit of business for some reason. No idea why. We’re not exactly in a high-traffic area here. Also, there’s probably a good reason why everyone knows what a lemonade stand is and no one has ever heard of a hot-cocoa stand.
What could they possibly feel the need to generate money for?
Naturally, suspicion falls on the dance studio, but those places usually make the kids sell overpriced chocolate bars as fundraisers. And as far as I can recall, they aren’t planning an organized trip anywhere to compete or perform in some national thing. And, Sam’s out there. Then again, he’d be happy to help his sisters with something like this.
Whatever.
I’m about to ignore this particular new weirdness, but a police car rolls to a stop by the table. Crap. They didn’t drive by, spot the stand, and circle around—they came straight to it. That tells me someone probably called them to complain. What is wrong with people? I dash out the door and run across the slushy cul-de-sac, squinting at the intense light. Without a house above me, the sun prickles at my exposed skin—fortunately, that’s only my face, hands, and bare feet. It’s definitely ouchy enough to compel me to go inside if at all possible, but I’m not emitting smoke and my sisters need me.
Sierra’s in the midst of explaining to a big, bald officer that they saw a story on the news about spouses and kids of soldiers killed or injured overseas struggling financially, so they wanted to raise money to donate to a charity that helps them. They’re selling hot cocoa for three bucks a cup with all the profits going to that.
“That’s very thoughtful of you girls,” says the cop.
“Are we doing something wrong?” asks Sophia in a small voice.
He leans back, thumbs hooked on his utility belt. “Technically, any sort of vendor stand requires a permit, but… a bunch of ten-year-olds doesn’t strike me as a ‘commercial venture.’ What do you think, Ed?”
The other cop grins. “Nah. Carry on. And”—he pulls out a wallet—“I’ll take a cup.”
All four girls cheer and get to work preparing two cups of cocoa. The bald cop makes a radio call ‘for backup,’ explaining the situation here. Within fifteen minutes, I think the entire Cottage Lake PD and even some Woodinville officers show up to buy cocoa. Sierra finally notices that I’m standing barefoot in a slushy puddle and gives me this ‘eep’ look before shivering in sympathetic chill. I don’t really notice the cold. Looks worse than it feels to me.
Controlled chaos continues for a little over a half hour. A few firefighters and even an ambulance crew or three show up to buy cocoa. Sam and Megan operate the e-kettles, the boy making frequent runs back and forth to the house to refill with water. I’m not entirely sure where so much cocoa mix came from, but this has the stink of Dad’s handiwork to it.
When the dust settles and all the emergency personnel have left, I nudge Sierra. “So, umm. What happened?”
“Some ass—I mean jerk called the police on us.” She peers up at me with this ‘beyond done’ expression. “Take a wild guess who around here would be mortally offended that people under the age of eighteen exist.”
I chuckle. “Neidermayer.”
“He was staring at us while the cops were here,” says Sam. “Seemed kinda angry.”
“Oh, that’s awesome.” Sierra grins. “The prick complained, then he had to stand there watching the police buy cocoa. Sometimes, I love karma.”
“Police karma,” mutters Sam.
Megan and Sophia groan.
I glance over my shoulder at Neidermayer’s. He’s on the left side of the cul-de-sac in the house closest to the street. Sure enough, the old bastard’s in the window glaring at my siblings and their friends. The look on his face, you’d think he observed a pack of hooligans spray painting graffiti on people’s houses and car
s, not selling people hot cocoa to raise money for charity. Any chance of me letting it go dies a withering death when he shoots me a nasty stare. Like, what the heck did I do but stand here being sort of adulty?
Grr. That man.
The kids seem to have things reasonably under control, so I head back inside to get away from the irritating sun daggers stabbing me in the face. The pain stops the second I’m out of direct sunlight, though it’s still uncomfortably warm. For a few minutes, I stand there in the living room fuming about Mr. Neidermayer being such a prig. I’m eighteen and mature. So, letting something like that go is a perfectly normal adult thing to do. Right?
Only, I’m not as mature as I pretend to be.
Eyes narrowed, I head upstairs to Sam’s bedroom. It looks empty, but I know better. “Blix?”
The closet door creaks open and a small grey head pokes out, one floppy ear dangling.
“How would you feel about a little deal?”
A tiny hand grips the edge of the door. He regards me for a moment with a measuring stare, then walks out into the room. He’s not quite even up to my knee, but folds his arms in an ‘okay, I’m listening’ sort of posture.
I sit on the rug so as not to tower over him so much. “Neidermayer.”
Blix emits a sound that must be impish for ‘ugh.’
“Right?” I roll my eyes. “So, he just tried to mess with Sam and the girls in a big way. Think that deserves some payback. I want you to mess with him—and yes, I’m giving you permission to prank someone—but no injuries, okay? Get him back for Sam. I’ll let you pick a new Ps4 game in return. How’s that sound?”
Blix grasps his chin in three fingers, head tilted in contemplation. A moment later, he gives a thumbs-up and holds out a hand to shake.
Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire (Vampire Innocent Book 7) Page 14