by Hood, E. B.
We walked and talked. I came to find out that Lizzie and David had become real close since he moved here. David had shared almost everything with her. It was upsetting that he had told her so much, but, then again, I was pissed off at David in general. I shared my plan with Lizzie; I figured there was no harm; David will tell her anyway. Plus, I would be going to school with her and David.
Lizzie said, "I'll help."
"Why?"
"My father says you’re evil; my brother disagrees. I don’t know what to think, but, if I understand you, you’re not out for justice. It sounds as if your life goal is to kill the men who wronged you. I will not support a vigilante."
I stopped walking and looked at her. "What about justice? Is there any for me? Screw you; you don’t know what you're talking about. This is justice, and I will see those men dead. I don’t need your help."
Lizzie looked at me and calmly said. "I said I would help. You don’t need to get your panties in a wad. I just don’t agree with the way you're doing it, and you need to understand my part…I will help you because my brother is involved, and I think I can help you bring these men to real justice."
"Whatever, you are either on my side, or you’re not." I said trying to hold back my anger.
Lizzie turned and started to walk again. It forced me to start walking with her. "You're not dumb, Melabeth, and I very much doubt you see this world in black and white; good and bad. You cannot have me and my brother involved with the killing of this man. You do know this… don’t you?"
I felt like a child being scolded. "Yes."
Lizzie spoke with purpose, "Then understand that David and I will help you. We can help you blend in at school. We can help you gather evidence or information, but when the time comes to killing, it's all on you sweetheart. I will help in any way that doesn’t involve me and my brother in murder."
I stopped walking again; after a few more steps, Lizzie stopped. She turned and faced me.
Then I said, "Thank you… sorry, I guess. I do appreciate your help, and I don’t want you or your brother to be involved in the killing of Devon. Sorry I lost my temper."
Lizzie smiled, then turned and started walking again. Once again I flashed up next to her. Lizzie said. "You're not mad at me; you're mad at David, my no good brother; I still can't believe he put my mother in danger like that. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t seem like you are out of control or anything, but my mom attacking you was a given. If you would have defended yourself… well let's just not even think of that."
I added, "If I hurt or killed your mom, not only would David hate me, but my plans to get revenge would be ruined. I would have members of The Order trying to kill me because of David's stupid stunt."
“Yes, my mother’s death would really screw up your plans for murder; we can’t have that.” Lizzie said this with no real emotion.
“I didn’t mean like that… I am just glad no one got hurt.”
Lizzie and I walked along talking. She was not a super pretty girl, but she was not ugly. She hid her face when she laughed, but what I noticed the most was that she was smart. So many ways she reminded me of David; I liked her at once. We both agreed that David needed to suffer for what he had done.
Of course Lizzie was under the belief that David was suffering right this second. She figured minutes after we teleported that her mom was on the phone with her dad. Her dad would teleport home, so right about now there was a search for both of us. She also told me that she had taken me to her secret teleporting area and that no one else knew about it.
He had a good head start on them. The problem was that her secret teleporting area was about ten miles away from the Whites’ house.
I stated my idea, "We need to hitch a ride, before someone sees us. If any of The Order members catch me with you… well I think you know the saying, when the shit hits the fan."
"Hitchhiking is dangerous," Lizzie said. I turned and looked at her. She had a little smirk on her face, "That’s what I have heard."
I laughed, "That’s funny; I heard that it was dangerous to pick up hitchhikers."
Lizzie responded, "I think you are right… at least tonight."
Of course that brought back memories of being picked up by those brothers. It didn’t take long for me and Lizzie to catch a ride. Two girls walking at night time, who wouldn’t stop? The lady who stopped to pick us up gave us a ride all the way to the Whites’ house. It only cost us a lecture about how it is too dangerous for young girls to be hitching. We thanked the nice lady, and she drove away.
"Well it was nice of you to see me all the way home, but you should probably teleport home now." I wasn’t even sure why she came all the way here with me.
"Not going to invite me in?" Lizzie said with a straight face.
"Not a good idea."
"Well I would like to meet your family." Lizzie said, still just staring at me.
What on earth did she want? "Have a nice night Lizzie." And with that I started to walk up the driveway toward the Whites’ house.
I could hear and see Lizzie with my second sight. She followed me up the driveway just a few feet behind me. I turned and faced her. "What do you want?"
"To meet your family." Lizzie simply said.
"I need more reasons than that. My quote unquote family, are dangerous. So give me one good reason." I crossed my arms over my chest as I said this.
She let out a breath, as if the mere fact that she had to explain herself was exhausting. Then Lizzie said. "Look, I have always wanted to meet vampires before. There are not a lot of you guys around, so I thought this would be a rare experience, to meet vampires who might not eat me. Plus, when I get home, I am in for hours of lectures followed by a grounding. I probably will be stuck in the house for a month. My mom is going to be pissed that I teleported you out of there."
"Well that's not good enough. Goodnight, Lizzie." I turned and started walking toward the house again, and again I could hear Lizzie fall in step behind me. "Come on." I said as I turned to face her again.
She hid her face; which meant she was smiling. Then she looked at me and said, "You owe me big time." She crossed her hands over her chest like I had done and stared me down.
"Ok, your funeral." Me and Lizzie walked up to the Whites’ house.
When we got up to the door our timing was perfect. Michael and Lea pulled up in the truck. Lea looked a little upset, so I asked her as she hopped out of the truck. "What's wrong? Did everything go alright?"
Lea gripped, "Fine… until we got home." She went to the rear of the Jimmy and started unloading bags.
I looked over at Michael, "What's her problem?"
A small smirk crossed Michael’s face. "Lea is pretty good at feeling emotions, nowhere as good as Charlotte. Soon as we pulled up she could feel the anger off of you. She’s guessing things didn’t go so well with David."
"That’s not the half of it," I said.
Lizzie cleared her throat, "Hi, I am Lizzie."
I quickly introduced her, "Oh yeah… Michael, Lea, this is Lizzie. Lizzie is David’s sister." Michael started to speak, but I interrupted him. "Before you ask, let me help you two unload. It’s a long story."
Lizzie walked to the back of the Jimmy and said. "I will help too." And she grabbed a bag.
Michael lifted one eyebrow, and then said. "You know this is a bad idea."
I laughed. "I warned her."
Well the whole thing turned out alright. It helped that Alice was out. She had left with Ezra; Charlotte didn’t bother to tell us where. Charlotte could care less about Lizzie and went off to do God knows what.
That left Lizzie, Michael, Lea and I. We all had a good laugh of the retelling of what had happened at David's house. Lea thought it would be a good idea that I forgive David; she was relentless.
I told Lea, fat chance.
Lizzie was a lot of help. She threw half of what Michael and Lea had bought away. She helped me and Michael set up Goth outfits. She pulled old clothes of Lea
and Michael's out. Lizzie said we couldn’t come to school in all new clothes. She mixed and matched our outfits until she had made us a sizable pile of clothes. With enough different outfits we could pass for Goths, and we had at least nine days before we would be wearing something over again.
Michael and I dyed our hair jet black. Then Lizzie did all the makeup. She also showed us how to do it ourselves. It wasn’t too hard, a lot of white followed by some black lipstick and eyeliner. When I looked into the mirror, I was horrified. I was staring at myself in a full length mirror. I looked like some girl from the eighteen hundreds; that someone had just dug up.
Then I said, "Well, Devon will never know it's me. Hell, I don’t know it's me."
Everyone laughed at my reaction. It was early in the morning when Lizzie called her dad. I could hear him screaming across the room. Lizzie hung up on him, and then she said. "Well it has been fun. See you two at school Monday, that’s if my father doesn’t kill me."
She cast her teleporting spell, and off she went. I didn’t know what I thought about Lizzie. She was really hard to read. I could never tell what she was thinking. She was smart; that was clear enough. I didn’t know what she thought of me, but I felt like she was studying me like I was some kind of plant. I liked her; we would get along just fine.
I needed to go to bed. It was going to be impossible to change my hours, but I needed to get used to sleeping at night. It was three in the morning, and I was wide awake. Tomorrow was Sunday, and then we go to school Monday morning. Not a lot of time to switch the hours around. Michael warned me that we would be tired at school, but we must not fall asleep. If someone tried to wake us, they would probably call 911 because we were dead.
When we sleep, we don’t breathe; hell, we don’t move. In fact, I remember seeing Ezra and Charlotte in bed. I had walked in to ask some question, and there they both lay on their bed face up. They didn’t bother getting under the sheets or even getting out of their day clothes. I realized right then how weird it must have been for David the first time I slept in front of him on the bus. It was like staring at two corpses. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought I was at a wake.
I just lay down on my bed, when Ezra came in my room. He never knocked; then again he never needed too. I always knew when one of them was about to come into my room. I was still staring at the ceiling when he sat down on the edge of my bed.
Ezra said with a soft voice. "Nervous about school?"
"Yes" I said simply.
"You will be fine. Here is your ID. Your name is Melabeth Alice White."
I took the ID out of his hand. I looked at the photo; the girl looked like me, but it wasn’t me. "Let me guess who thought up my middle name." Ezra laughed. "Who is this girl?"
Ezra looked at me then at the ID. Then he said. "No idea, she looks like you. Just in case, it is always a good idea to use someone else's face on your ID."
"No one will question this?" I asked.
"If you ever looked at most people’s drivers’ licenses, you wouldn’t be asking me that. Plus you're not taking out a loan, and if you're wearing all the makeup you are right now, trust me, your own mother wouldn’t know who you are."
I looked over at Ezra’s kind face. He had soft eyes when he looked at me. "Thank you." Then waving my hand in front of my face, I said. "Do you like?"
Ezra shook his head in a no pattern. "Goodnight Melabeth."
He left, I guess Goth wasn’t his thing.
Chapter 14
The First Day
Monday came without a warning.
It was four thirty in the morning. Michael and I were supposed to leave for school at seven. I only had two and half hours to go. I was almost ready, Goth gear was all on and makeup applied. I just needed to paint my nails black. Gee, I wonder if it would match with the rest of my outfit.
I felt like a checker board.
The fact that I didn’t sleep at night and my nerves were a mess, I didn’t get a wink last night. I don’t think it will matter. I would be too nervous to sleep at school; in fact, I am two hours away from going and already thinking about chickening out. Maybe I should just let bygones be bygones. Get a grip, Melabeth. I can do this.
I could hear two vampires heading toward my room. They always made a little noise so that you knew they were about to come in. Otherwise, you could not hear any of the vampires moving around in the house. My guess was Michael and Lea were about to come in.
The door opened, and in came Michael and Charlotte; I guessed wrong.
Charlotte smiled at both of us, and then said. “My children are off to school. I feel like I should make you lunch in a brown bag or something. I hope both of you enjoy your first day. Also remember I am proud of both of you.”
Michael laughed. “You do know we are just going so we can kill someone?”
Charlotte gave him an over the top frown. “I can still be proud. I just will have to skip the bumper sticker. My kid is an honor killer. You two watch yourselves, and I mean it. You both will be outside during the day and putting yourself in danger if anyone figures out who you are. I will be worrying every day.”
I said, “Charlotte I promise not to do anything dumb during the day. We are just there to get info, not to start a fight. The fight will be later in a place and time of my choosing.”
Charlotte then said. “Still, I think that you are both old enough that we have a little talk. Now that you both are in high school I think if you… you know; you should have protection.”
I said, “What?”
Michael burst out with laughter and followed with. “What are you talking about? It can’t be sex; we don’t catch diseases. And we can’t get, or become pregnant.”
I looked at Michael as I felt… loss. I knew I couldn’t get pregnant, but something about hearing it out loud bothered me.
Charlotte was giggling, and then she pulled two small hand guns out from behind her back. “I am alluding to using this protection.” Then she tossed a handgun to me and Michael.
We all laughed, and Michael said, “I wondered where you were going with that.”
After that, we sat around and talked. We were soon joined by Ezra and Alice. I knew, with them in the room, Lea would not make an appearance. Ezra and Alice gave us gifts.
Alice gave a box to Michael, and Ezra handed me a small box, then said. “These will take away from the beauty of your eyes, but I doubt it will affect you as much as the outfit you are wearing.”
“More like a costume, Ezra.” I huffed at him, and then I took the box from him and opened it. Inside there were two contact lenses.
Alice explained, “Your eyes will not be the right color, and it will mess with your vision, but you will look more human. In the past we wouldn’t normally worry about hiding our eyes, but Devon will know what you are in a second if he noticed your eyes. So have a nice day and make lots of new friends. Of course, when I say new friends, I mean, snack pals.”
The conversation took my mind off of the time. We all talked about the day to come. The next thing I knew, Michael said. “Well it’s that time… ready Melabeth.”
“Ready as I’ll get.” Everyone said their goodbyes, and Michael and I went out to his Jimmy to leave for school.
Michael and I were in the truck heading to school when Michael asked, “Are you ok? You know this will be no big deal.”
“I don’t know that. I don’t know shit; I have never been to school in my life.”
Michael stared at me funny, and then turned his eyes back to the road. “Don’t worry, you'll be fine. Less resourceful kids go to school every day. Trust me when I say it’s not hard, just painful. It is kind of like a mind torture.”
I laughed. “Well, you took my worry away. Then you replaced it with a whole new one.”
“Is that all you’re worried about?” Michael asked.
“Well no, there is David. I want to see him, but I also would like to eat his face off.”
Michael burst out laughing. “Well, ho
ld off on that second emotion until we are off school grounds. Remember, no biting and no eating faces off while we are at school.”
That brought a smile to my face. “Yes, sir.”
The car ride felt as if it had only taken a few seconds. The next thing I knew Michael was fighting for a parking space. If I had a heart, I would be having a heart attack right about now. I had never been so nervous in all my life. Yet I have always wondered what it would be like to go to school.
I remembered living back in California with my father. I had just turned fourteen, and was still taking care of him. Life there was always crazy; you never knew when a drug head was going to do something stupid. My dad was really worried about me being spotted by the cops during the day. He knew if I were seen around town during school hours, I could be picked up by the police. So, I was on lock down at the house during school hours. All I could do was clean, read and watch TV, also try my hardest to stay away from the drug heads hanging around the house.
I remember asking my father, “Dad, why can’t I go to school?” Of course, this was a question I had asked him more than once.
My dad answered. “I have told you Mel, I would have to sign you up. Then they would take you away from me. Your grandparents told them lies about me. Do you want to end up in an orphanage? Well, do you? Because that’s what's going to happen to you… if you don’t learn to listen.”
With tears in my eyes, I replied. “Yes daddy… sorry.” Then I went to my room and cried.
I watched through my window as all the children my age left and came back from school. Someday I thought, someday I will go to school. Of course, when I was thinking that, I was imagining I would be alive.
I stepped out of the Jimmy. I had to already put my sunglass on; the sky was so bright. I followed Michael as he led the way. He told me first thing we had to do is check in at the office and get our schedules.
My time in the sun had been limited. I remember being outside in Colorado in February, while there was cloud cover and the snow still lay on the ground. It was now March in southern California. The sun was out, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning. I could already feel its rays.