So You Think Your Sister's a Vampire?

by ID Johnson

  “So, you only convince people of things when you think it’s right?”

  “Or when I’m ordered to, yeah,” he confirmed, replacing the lid.

  “You just do everything Aaron tells you to do?” I knew his name came out of my mouth like it was poison on my tongue, and I silently wondered when I had become so hostile to the man I’d only met once.

  “Well, that’s kinda what being someone’s boss means,” he shrugged.

  “Do you like him? Is he your friend?” I needed to know if every single word of what I was saying here would get back to the guy who kept sneaking into my sister’s room.

  “Of course,” Elliott shrugged again. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  I was frustrated and I huffed, my arms still folded. “You going to tell him everything I’ve said to you?”

  He weighed his options. “No, I don’t need to tell him anything about what we’ve talked about so far.”

  I was skeptical. “You’re not going to tell him that my brainwashing session didn’t work?”

  “Now, why would I go tell my boss that I failed?” He chuckled again. “Besides, I could make it work if I wanted to, Cassidy.”

  Feeling bold, I began to speak, not considering the consequences. “No, you can’t. I have my ways of remembering. You could try, but I’d remember the things I’ve seen again. Eventually.”

  “Really?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Is that a challenge?”

  I’d said too much. He could destroy my phone, raid my room, annihilate the notebook, track down my friends, and brainwash them, too. “No,” I said quietly. I was silent for a long time, the weight of his stare crushing me into the sofa cushions. “I just… wanted to know what was going on with my sister. I feel like she’s in some sort of danger.” Did I dare tell him I thought she was a vampire?

  “Your sister is fine.” He wasn’t doing that thing with his eyes when I glanced up at him, but I was inclined to believe him.

  “Did she kill Drew?”

  “No.”

  I believed that, too. “Did one of her friends kill Drew?”

  “No.”

  “Did someone kill Drew?”

  He took a deep breath. “I can’t say.”

  That was a yes. Drew had been murdered. I shook my head, not sure what to think about that. “Were you and your associates there when Drew died?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it before he shrugged.

  Also a yes. Frustration grew. My hands became fists. “Did you or one of your associates kill Drew?”

  “No.” This answer came very quickly.

  I stared at him for a long time, making sure I could believe him without any brainwashing voodoo. I did. I believed that none of Elliott’s friends had killed Drew, but they knew who killed her. He wouldn’t tell me that, though. I swallowed hard, trying to determine whether or not to ask him the true question that was burning in my mind. I wanted to know if my sister was a vampire.

  “Look, Cassidy, I think this is probably enough Q and A for now. I can’t really tell you anything more, and even if I could, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

  “I’d believe you.” I jumped on that quickly. I wasn’t sure if I would or not, but I wanted him to think I would.

  A smirk broke across his face. “Okay, but… I still can’t tell you anything else. I will come back though, soon, and talk to you again, as quickly as I can.”

  “But… I have so many more questions.”

  He was still smiling at me. “That’s good. I just can’t answer them. And you need to stop searching for the answers, too, lil girl, because you’re just going to end up going down the wrong path. The answers aren’t out there,” he gestured out the window. “If they were….” He didn’t finish that sentence. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  I was frustrated again. A sort of a half-groan, half-growl came out of my throat. “Can I have your phone number?”

  He looked surprised again. “What for?”

  “So that I can call you.” It seemed obvious. Perhaps the doctor wasn’t as smart as I had given him credit for.

  “I know that,” he replied. “But why?”

  I ran both hands through my hair. “Because I trust you. Despite your lies and trickery. I think you’re being honest with me now.”

  “But I can’t tell you anything else.”

  “Sure you can,” I countered. “Aaron can’t prevent you from answering simple questions, can he? Like, when’s your birthday?”

  “July tenth.”

  “See? And… where were you born?”

  “Oklahoma.”

  I nodded. Thanks to Emma, I already knew that. “Easy peasy. How old are you?”

  “Ha,” he said, standing, “I can’t tell you everything, Cass.”

  “Why not?” I asked, following him as he headed toward the door. I found it a bit odd that now I was running him off. I even assumed he’d want to stick around and talk to my mother, let her know the brainwashing had gone as expected.

  Elliott paused at the door. “Because… you wouldn’t believe me.”

  That was a dare, and I knew it. He wanted to know what I knew. “I would. What are you, like, twenty-seven?”

  He couldn’t contain his laughter then as he pulled the front door open and stepped out onto our porch. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

  I stepped out, too, and closed the door behind me. Luckily, I was still wearing my coat. I just realized I’d never taken it off. “Why is that funny?”

  “It just is. How old do you think Aaron is?” Elliott took the three steps down to the sidewalk that ran to the porch quickly, but not nearly the speed I’d seen my sister move.

  “I don’t know. Twenty-five?”

  He stopped and spun to face me. “You think he’s younger than me?” He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath, but all I understood was “pretty boy.”

  Elliott continued to walk toward his motorcycle. I followed, undeterred. I had felt the shift in the tides; somehow, I had won him over, and he was going to help me. I could just feel it. He flung one long leg over the bike and rested on the seat, turning back to face me. “Cass, you’ve got to let this go. When you’re older, all of it can be explained to you. For now, just trust us. Trust your parents.”

  I stopped next to him on the curb. “How old is Jamie?”

  I’d stunned him a few times with my questions, but he wasn’t expecting this at all. “Jamie?” he said, his forehead puckering. “How do you know…?”

  A smile crept across my lips. “I have my methods. How old is he?”

  Elliott stared at me in such a way that I felt as if my blood began to run backward. I wasn’t afraid of him, necessarily, but I felt like a line had been crossed, like he was no longer able to joke around with his new co-worker’s younger sister. “Cassidy,” he said quietly, “whatever you know… whatever you think you know… you need to be careful. Not everyone is as willing to let infractions go as I am.”

  Infractions? What was he talking about. What was it about Jamie that had struck a nerve. My smile was long gone. I took a step back.

  Elliott continued. “I don’t want to scare you, Cass. I don’t. But… clearly you know things we didn’t realize you knew. You should try to forget them. For now, anyway. I could take them from you. I’m not going to, not right now, anyhow. But, please, don’t go poking the bear, okay?”

  I nodded, slowly, not sure why. I felt like my veins were on fire. “I’m… sorry.” It seemed like the right thing to say.

  “Give me your phone.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Lucy’s text was still on there—a lot of them, for that matter—if he read what we’d been talking about…. But I didn’t have any choice. I reached into the pocket of my jeans and handed him my unlocked phone.

  He didn’t keep it long, only a few moments, before he handed it back. “Cassidy, tell your friends—Emma and Lucy—none of this concerns them. Tell them you talked to me, and you’re no longer trying
to figure out what happened to Drew. You understand that your sister is going to be working for a security company out of Kansas City for a little while, but she’ll be back shortly, okay?”

  I nodded. He hadn’t brainwashed me. He wasn’t talking to me like I was a silly high school girl. His tone conveyed that everything he’d just told me was for the best, for my safety. “Okay, Dr. Sanderson.”

  “It’s Elliott,” he said, managing a small smile. He reached out and patted my shoulder, and I felt like he was my big brother, trying to protect me. “Take care, Cass.”

  He started the bike, and I stepped back away from it. He didn’t wear a helmet, but something told me he didn’t need one. As the bike sped away, I continued to gawk after it until he rounded a corner, disappearing from my sight.

  The front door creaked behind me, and I turned to see my mom approaching. She didn’t have on a coat, and she had her arms wrapped up against the early December breeze. My feet were still planted in the dead grass between the sidewalk and the street, my phone burning a hole in my palm.

  “Did Dr. Sanderson leave without saying goodbye?” my mom asked, coming up behind me.

  “Yes,” I replied. “He seemed like he had somewhere he had to be.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, she put her arm around me, turning me toward the house. “What did the two of you discuss?”

  My answer came naturally enough. “He said that Drew’s death was a tragedy, but these things happen, and I shouldn’t worry about it.” I glanced up to see a satisfied smile on my mom’s face. “He also said I shouldn’t worry about Cadence. She’s working in Kansas City now, but she’ll be back soon.”

  We’d reached the front door. My mom pushed it open. “That Dr. Sanderson is a smart fellow,” she said, stepping into the foyer.

  “Yes, he is,” I agreed, going inside and closing the door behind me. My mom was headed toward the kitchen, her favorite room in the house. “I have some homework,” I called after her. It wasn’t true, but I did need to go make some notes on our conversation before I forgot everything and get Lucy to back up her texts since I was pretty sure mine were all gone now.

  “Okay, honey,” my mom called. She would get back to making dinner, and I would get back to investigating whether or not my sister was a vampire, even though I’d been strictly warned not to do so.

  As soon as she was out of the room, I unlocked my phone and looked to see how much damage had been done. I opened my text exchange between Lucy and Emma, expecting it to be eradicated. Shockingly, everything was still there. I flipped to my pictures. The ones of Jamie, which Emma had sent to me, and the ones I’d saved of Eliza were also still there. “What did he do?” I asked aloud, checking my emails and social media. Everything was exactly the same.

  It took me a few minutes to find it, but when I did, I almost dropped my phone. In my contacts, I found it. “Elliott Sanderson,” and a phone number.

  Chapter 17

  “So… maybe he’s just hoping you’ll call him instead of snooping around,” Lucy said just before she shoved another cheese-covered french fry into her mouth. Her full mouth should have deterred her from saying more, but it didn’t. “Maybe he’s the good cop.”

  “He’s not a cop.” Emma rolled her eyes. “He’s a drug dealer.”

  I held back a giggle. “She’s not being serious, Em. It’s just a saying. Good cop/bad cop.” Sometimes Emma couldn’t tell when people were being serious. She also wasn’t good at plays on words, puns, or idioms.

  “Oh,” she replied, chewing on her ham and cheese sandwich. “Well, if Elliott is the good cop, who’s the bad one?”

  “Aaron,” Lucy replied, sticking her finger in her mouth to remove the last bits of cheese before reaching for a napkin. “He tried to blame everything on his boss, right? Saying he couldn’t tell you stuff or Aaron would get mad?”

  “Yes.” That was the impression I’d gotten anyway. I’d called both of my friends the evening before to go over everything with them, but this was the first time we’d gotten a chance to talk about it in person. I had warned them both about how serious Elliott had gotten when I’d asked about Jamie and how he seemed to think we should let this whole thing go, but both of them were undeterred, though it had given Lucy chills when I explained that Elliott knew both of their names. But then, I thought it was possible he’d gotten that information out of my phone. Everything was starting to blur together for me, and I wasn’t sure what to think about much of anything anymore.

  “So, your sister never came home yesterday?” Lucy asked. “She went shopping with Eliza and then went straight to Kansas City?”

  “I guess so,” I said with a shrug. “I sent her a text last night before I went to bed, and she said she was in KC having a blast, and she’d call me soon.” Cadence’s messages hadn’t been long, and I hadn’t pressed her. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be exactly forthcoming with information.

  “I just wish I knew what it was about mentioning Jamie that had set him off,” Lucy thought aloud before taking a swig of her pop and moving the empty can back away from her.

  “I have no idea.” I had been wondering about that, too. “The only thing I can come up with is that he didn’t think I knew about Jamie, so when I did, it threw him off.”

  “Why wouldn’t you know about him, though? People have been talking about him at your house.” Emma wadded up her napkin and shoved it into her plastic sandwich bag.

  “Right, but they didn’t realize I’d been eavesdropping. It must’ve been an eye opener to Elliott that I know more than I should know if all I knew is what they had told me.”

  Both of my friends went over that again in their heads before either of them spoke. “Well, I went over the social media accounts on both of them and couldn’t find anything,” Emma said. “No links to accounts for Elliott, Aaron, or Christian.”

  “The information I found out about vampires does seem to suggest it is possible,” Lucy said, avoiding eye contact with Emma who was still skeptical of our theory about the undead. “And it would make sense that Elliott wouldn’t want to mention that to you.”

  “Right.” I didn’t know what else to say. Of course, he wasn’t going to come out and tell me he was a vampire--and so is my sister. “The only thing is, he said that his associates didn’t kill Drew.”

  “There could be warring factions of vampires,” Emma offered. I stared at her for a moment, wondering if this meant she was starting to give in to our theory. She shrugged. “That doesn’t mean that I believe in any of it, but isn’t it possible that your sister is on one side of a vampire conflict?”

  “That is a good point,” I agreed. “I mean, even in Twilight, not all of the vampires are on the same side.”

  “Why does everything have to come back to Twilight?” Lucy asked. “There are other vampire books, movies, TV shows.”

  “I know,” I shrugged. “It’s just the one I know the best, I guess.”

  “Maybe we should call Stephanie Meyer and ask her if she thinks your sister is a vampire.” Lucy laughed at her own joke.

  “I bet a lot of people ask her questions like that.” Emma was quite serious. “They must think she is the foremost expert on vampirism.”

  Before I could say more, I realized Liam was crossing the cafeteria, headed right for us. I took a deep breath and tried not to choke on it. “Hey, ladies,” he said, that winning smile beaming down on us as he pulled out a chair between Emma and I and had a seat. “How’s it going?”

  Lucy had declared just a few days ago that she was totally over him. She shrugged and began to play with her fingernails. “Hey, Liam,” she said, bored.

  Emma said nothing, only stared at him, as if he had intruded into our private conversation and couldn’t be excused. She had her arms folded on the table and was peering at him behind her glasses.

  “Hi Liam,” I said, once words could escape my lips again. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, I was just wondering if I could come over and get s
ome help with my algebra this afternoon,” he replied, smiling at me. My insides began to melt. “I mean, if you think your parents won’t mind.”

  “No.” His eyebrows raised, and I took a deep breath to try again. “I mean, no, they won’t mind. You can come over.”

  His countenance changed and his eyebrows lowered. “Cool. Right after school work for you?”

  “Sure. You can ride home with us if you want. My mom won’t care. She can take you home when we’re done.” The thought of having Liam in my car made my pulse race. From this day forward, whenever I got into my mom’s vehicle, I would smell hints of Axe Apollo body spray.

  “Cool,” Liam said again. He brushed his bangs out of his right eye. “I’ll text my mom and let her know. Meet you out front after school?”

  “You got it.” I tried to sound cool, but I knew it came out like something a goofy little kid would say. Still, I couldn’t help but stare after him as he got up and sauntered away.

  “Gag,” Lucy said, shaking her head.

  “What?” I asked, turning on her like a mama bear protecting her cub.

  “What?” she repeated. “He’s such a fake. I’m totally over it.”

  “I know. You told me that already.” It was fine with me if Lucy didn’t have any interest in Liam. That was just one less girl who’s way cuter than me trying to get him to ask her out. I told her that the other day, and she rolled her eyes, insisting I was cuter than her. Luckily, Emma had been there to tell Lucy her eyes were prettier, but I had a nicer smile. Good ol’ honest Em.

  “I just think you need to be careful,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “I think he’s using you for your computation skills.”

  “So, you think a guy like Liam could never like me? Thanks.” I gathered up my tray and my empty Dr. Pepper can.

  “It’s not that,” Lucy proclaimed, following behind me. I was walking pretty quickly, though, and she rushed to keep up. I wished I could walk as fast as Cadence. “It’s not that at all. He’s just not a genuine person, Cass.”