“What's funny? I think you bit me,” I informed him.
He laughed harder. “I wish I could have seen myself. Oh, I just drooled on you.” He dissolved into fits of laughter, barely staying on his feet. Finally, he tried to calm himself. “I'm sorry, I'm still a bit drunk and that was funny. Now, come on, you’re walking me through a room full of drunk college students.”
The humans fell silent when we appeared at the top of the steps. Their eyes followed us, watching and waiting to see what I'd do. I wondered who was more nervous: them or me.
“Dan, what are you doing? That thing will kill you.” the girl from outside whispered, a hint of annoyance in her high voice.
I growled at her, irritated at being called a thing.
“Stop it,” my brother ordered me. He looked at the girl who had shrunk behind the short, stocky human. “If he wanted to kill me, he'd have done it already.” He planted himself firmly, refusing to let me take him to his dorm. Instead he raised his voice, eyes daring any of the humans to speak. “This is my brother. He’s very real, very dead and mostly harmless.”
I smiled, trying to look harmless.
“Don't do that. You'll freak everyone out,” he ordered.
I dropped my smile.
“Now you look like you want to eat everyone.”
“I do.”
“I should smack you.” He looked back at the humans. “I'd appreciate everyone not calling VF. Tommy's–”
“Hey!” I interrupted.
“Rick, Kate, Linda, Susie, Jerry, Casey, Arik, Kel, Tyler, Vinny, Matt, Scott, Michelle and Charissa. Now you know their names.” He jabbed a finger at me. “You're not going to eat any of them.” He turned his finger at the humans. “And no one is going to call VF. I'm not crazy or a sympathizer or any of that crap. If anyone can't deal with my association with my brother, then don't talk to me.”
I felt he wanted to march out of the building on his own, but he had started to shake. Sweat covered his forehead and a green tint was creeping into his skin. I kept one hand on his elbow, supporting him with as little contact as possible as we walked out the door.
The humans watched us from the building, hiding behind the glass doors. The short, stocky human looked conflicted, like he wanted to break away and help my brother, but didn't want to break away from the group of humans at the same time.
“I don't think anyone's calling Vampire Forces.”
“No one wants to get busted.” My brother weakly laughed, grinning. “That felt great, showing people you’re real. I don't have to make up excuses for leaving early. I can say, My vampire brother's coming to visit tonight.”
“They could still call.”
His smile faded and he shuffled to a bench, huffing as he fell onto it. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees with his head bowed. “I know. They could call as soon as we're out of sight. It just felt liberating doing that. I struggle with you and how I know people see you. And their perceptions aren’t wrong; you kill people. I wish it weren’t true, that I could change that truth. I wish I could turn back time, keep you from being turned, then life would be normal. I know it may not matter to you, but I wish people could see past the vampire and see you like I do.”
Anger bubbled up inside me. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have listened to Fallen and stayed away. Why did I keep ruining my brother’s life? My fists clenched. “I need to leave and stop ruining your human life.”
“We've been through this. I don't want you to leave.”
“If I was gone, you could get on with your human life, be with your girlfriend and forget about me,” I insisted.
“I don't want to forget you!” He sprang to his feet. “Don't you get it? There is no one else. Aunt Dee and Uncle Dick took me in because they were the only relatives I had left. They never even wanted kids, it's why they don’t have any. You're the only family I have. I need you.”
“You need me?” I echoed.
He slumped back onto the bench. “When everything's messed up and I feel like I'm going crazy, there's you. Always on time, always there, even more now you're a vampire.”
I sat onto the bench next to him. “But you said your life doesn't revolve around me.”
“It doesn't,” he assured me. “But you're the thing I cling to when I feel like everything's being swept out from under me. I need you to survive.”
That was all he needed to say for me to understand. I helped him back to his feet and we hurried as fast as he could to his dorm where we took a back stairway up to his room.
He groaned as I laid him on his bed. “Think my stomach has decided to hurl. I kinda like it better when I pass out and I’m not sick until morning.” Another groan had him up, tentatively sitting on the edge of his bed. He sat a moment, then laid back down, only to sit back up. “Maybe I better stay awake a little longer. Every time I lay down, that's when I feel like hurling.” He looked up at me. “Will you stay until the sun rises?”
****
The humans didn't call Vampire Forces. I had been certain they would as soon as I was out of sight. Instead, what they did was talk about it. The story of the party I crashed spread over campus, quickly turning into a legend with many versions blown out of proportion. My brother thought it was amusing, laughing as he told me the latest tales. Give it time and something will distract them, he assured me. Fallen was sullen about it. Said it was dumb to risk myself like that and when I stopped finding her, she'd assume I had been destroyed and would mourn my death.
Being the center of human conversation made me nervous. All it would take was one human calling Vampire Forces and I'd have to run. I started laying low, melting into shadows and trying to be invisible to human eyes. Sometimes the effort didn't feel worth it, hiding in the shadows as I waited for the humans to clear out, and then darting up the walls.
Only to find a sentence long note that said, Went to a Halloween party. Peace, Danny.
I folded the note, placing it in my pocket with the others. I wasn't sure why I kept the notes. Once read, I wasn't forgetting the message. Maybe it was part of the friendship concept I finally understood. My brother wasn't available to talk to me, so I reread his notes instead.
At least I had learned when he left notes, that meant he wouldn't be back to his dorm that night. It was disappointing coming back to check over and over, each time seeing a dark window.
That left Fallen, who was always willing to talk, but I wasn't finding her tonight. She had been insistent on her Halloween party. Begging until I pushed my will on her and forced her to leave. But the next night she was at it again, arguing I needed to go. After all, I went to a party my brother had been at, so why couldn't I go to her party too?
“Nice costumer, loser!” The voice came from behind me. “Hey, I’m talking to you! What are you, a suck wannabe?”
I turned, a bit shocked. The human was talking to me?
There were six of them, all dressed oddly. Some in bright colors, a few wearing odd hats, there was even a male in a dress. Their smiles and jeering faded when I moved towards them.
“Dude,” the one in the dress whispered. “I think that's a real vampire.”
“Do you think it's the one that was at that party a couple weekends ago?” another human whispered.
The rest of the humans muttered, each stating what they had heard.
I tilted my head at the one in the dress, stopping a safe distance away. “Why are you wearing a dress? Those are for females.”
They backed up a few paces, looking anywhere but my eyes. That was what I was used to. As much as I enjoyed talking to Fallen, I didn’t understand why she didn’t shy from me.
“It's Halloween,” the human in the dress said. “You dress up, go out and have a good time.”
“You need an excuse? You have good times on a weekly basis. Every Friday and Saturday.”
“There you are!” Fallen rushed over and gave the group an apologetic look. “Forgive my little brother, he thinks it's a rio
t to dress up like a leech and scare people.” She gave me a stern look, not giving me a chance to speak. “That's not funny, Billy, people might mistake you for an actual vampire and then you'll be in big trouble with Mom! I'm really sorry again. Don't tell anyone what a little twerp my brother is.” She pulled me away, her voice lowering so only I could hear. “What is wrong with you? How could you let them see you?”
“I didn't mean to, I thought this part of campus would be empty. It usually is,” I replied. “How did you find me?”
She gave me a blank look. “Luck.”
I didn't believe in luck. Luck didn't help me survive. Luck didn't help me find my brother three years ago. Persistence did. But what else described Fallen's ability to find me? She always found me as I was leaving my brother's dorm. Sometimes she found me before I talked to him.
“Come on.” She tugged on my arm. “We gotta hurry or we'll miss the party.”
“No.” I pulled out of her grip and fixed her with a long, icy stare. “Just because you think I'm gentle and not like other vampires doesn't mean you can drag me around like your pet. And I know what a pet is, apparently I had one as a human. Another pointless human activity, but that's beside the point. The point is I'm not your pet and I have no objections to turning you into my meal. In fact, I think I will. Right now.”
“You won't.”
“You don't think so?” I pulled my lips back, showing her my fangs.
“No,” she defiantly replied.
I growled, knowing she was right, but not wanting to admit it. “This is why sympathizers always end up dead. You're too stupid to know what's good for your own survival.”
“I'm not a sympathizer!” she shouted, giving me a hard shove. “I want to be a damn vampire!”
My annoyance disappeared. “What?”
“I want to be a vampire. Being human sucks. We're slow and we age every day and one day I'll die.”
“That's how it should be.”
She shoved me again, pounding her fists against my chest. “Says the vampire! What? Are you the only one who gets to be a vampire and live forever? Is that how it should be?”
“You wouldn't last as a vampire, you’d die by the end of the first night,” I told her with certainty.
Silent fury shook her body, fists clenched at her sides. “If you don't turn me, I'm calling VF.”
“Go ahead,” I replied and walked away.
****
Like the humans at the party, Fallen didn't call Vampire Forces, but for different reasons. The desperation in her voice told me she'd say anything if she thought it'd get me to turn her. I had to give her credit. She was tenacious.
She passed my hiding spot, walking along the sidewalk. Every few feet she stopped, holding her hand out and letting red drops fall to the cement. Then she moved on to a new spot and repeated. I watched until she disappeared, then darted in the opposite direction. I knew what the red drops were. That was begging me to kill her, not turn her.
I wasn't doing either to my friend.
I followed the red drops, a bloody trail, to her dorm. I hoped to find her two friends – the ones who hated me – and tell them what she was doing. Maybe they could explain to her what I obviously couldn't.
Through the door, I spotted Risen and Settle in the lounge, laying together on the couch and their eyes on the TV. A few other humans were present as well, but they sat at a table with their backs to me. Now I hoped luck was real and mine would last.
I ducked through the door, staying low to the ground as I darted up to the couch. I crouched behind it, keeping an eye on the humans at the table. Risen and Settle jumped when I appeared in front of them. I grabbed Settle's arm, pressing my finger to my lips, nodded towards the door and whispered my request before darting back out.
“Please, I need to talk to you about Fallen.”
“What? Did you kill her?” Risen demanded as he approached me.
“No,” I said. “But if you don't talk some sense into her, I will out of annoyance. She wants to be a vampire.”
Risen scoffed. “We know.”
“You do?” If her friends knew, why weren't they discouraging her?
“She talks about it all the time,” Settle sighed. “At first she acted like she wasn't serious, but the more we hung out with her, the more we realized she was serious. We've tried talking to her, but she won't listen.”
“That's what you meant that night you said you knew what she wanted,” I realized.
Risen fixed me with a cold, hate-filled glare. “Why haven't you turned her? I'm sure you leeches must want more of you around.”
“More would mean more competition and I don't like fighting for my meals.”
Risen scoffed again, his favorite thing to do. “So she finally asked you to turn her?”
I nodded. “Now she's walking around campus, leaving blood everywhere. I've been hiding from her for the past four days. She's my friend; I don't want to do that.”
The glare in Risen’s eyes softened. He sighed and for the first time met my gaze. “Look, we've tried talking to her, but she won't listen. The only good thing was she didn't know how to find any vampires.”
“But now she knows me,” I muttered, then winced. “Damn.”
“What?” The sharpness returned to Risen's voice.
“She knows about me. Knows about my hunger and how often I hunt... my name...” A knot of dread formed in my stomach. I snapped my head up, making the two humans jump. “What's her name? I have to counter any power she has over my name!”
Both humans looked doubtful, but finally Settle muttered, “Amber, Amber Tally.” She gave me a pleading look and a tiny hint of trust shimmered through the fear. “If you are her friend, please don't kill her. She needs help.”
What was I going to do? I couldn't have Fallen following me around, begging me to turn her, threatening when I refused. Killing her would be easy, a quick solution, but I didn't want to kill my friend.
I was turning into a human.
“I know someone who might be able to help,” I replied and left the two humans standing in the light. I crawled up the side of my brother’s dorm, sliding through the open window of his room. “I have a problem.”
“Does your problem consist of figuring out what Y and X equal?”
“No.”
“Then it's not that bad of a problem. I am way too close to failing this class and I'm not taking it again,” he replied without looking up from his homework.
“A human knows about me.”
“Everyone knows about you. Our little fiasco is college legend now.”
“No,” I said. “A human knows about me. I've been talking to one.”
His head snapped up, his pen slipping through his fingers. “What?”
I always felt bad not telling him about Fallen, but never understood why I was hesitant. Now I knew. I feared his reaction. “Don't be mad, but I've been talking to this human since the start of college. I kind of stumbled upon her. She helped me understand a few things about humans, about you.”
A long, silent pause as my brother looked at me.
“Okay, lemme get this straight, not only have you been talking to another human, but this human knows about me too?” he sighed, sounding exasperated. “You know, everyone at the party was really nice and didn't blurt out it was me who called you to the party. I couldn't believe that a single person didn't drop my name at some point, but by some miracle they didn't. By some miracle no one called VF. And you blurt everything out to the first human you see. What else?”
“She knows my name,” I mumbled.
He placed his hands on his head. “Anything else?”
“She wants me to turn her.”
“Jeez, a suck wannabe, those people are the worst.” He cast a glance at me. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her she wouldn't last as a vampire and now she’s following me.”
A laughed escaped him. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “What do you know about
her?”
“I know her name,” I replied. “Amber Tally.”
“What does she look like?”
“Long, black hair, pale skin, tall and thin. She wears a lot of black.”
“I've seen a few girls on campus that always dress in black, lit or art majors I think.” He rocked back in his chair, tapping his pen on the desk. “Is there any risk she'll call VF because you rejected her?”
“She threatened, but it was a lie.”
He relaxed a little. “If you're sure she's not going to call VF to spite you, I think we can relax. We have her name and I'll see what I can dig up on her while you're resting.”
****
The next night Fallen was absent from campus. Her scent hung in the air, but it was fading. I slipped through the shadows, on edge from her lack of presence. What if I had been wrong? What if she was at Vampire Forces, telling them about me, saying I hung around the college on a nightly basis? That I'm the vampire the humans on campus gossip about? What if Vampire Forces made the connection between me and what happened in New York City three years ago? I dreaded a repeat of that.
“I don't like girl problems,” I sighed as I slumped to my brother’s bed.
He snorted. “Get used to it. Girls are a nightmare to deal with.” He leaned forward, homework discarded. “Okay, I snooped around and found what dorm Amber Tally is in. I sweet-talked Mrs. Fable, the housing director, saying I needed to return something to Amber and she forgot to tell me her dorm room. Then I asked any black-clad people I saw if they knew her. There were two that looked at me funny when I asked.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Those were probably the two friends she was with when I met her. I found them last night and asked them to talk to her, but they said they tried and she wouldn’t listen to them either. The girl asked me not to kill her,” I replied.
“That definitely explains the stares.” He held up a finger, making sure I didn't interrupt. “Then I noticed something while standing in line trying to decide did I want tacos or pizza for lunch. This girl was staring at me. She was tall, thin with black hair and sad eyes.”
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