Author: Molly Harper

“Idiot,” I said, before grinning broadly and crushing his mouth to mine.

“We need to pick new pet names for each other,” he muttered as I hefted myself up from the ground.

Honestly, how did someone who never once got into a fight in school end up getting into so many of them as an adult? Missy was standing in the middle of the yard, in a worn circle of dirt. I felt like that first anonymous fighter who gets killed off in the Jean-Claude Van Damme cage-fighter movies. Missy smiled, and I circled.

“I guess we’re going to get to have that little catfight after all,” Missy said, rolling her shoulders.

“I’m not worried. If you kill me, my dead great-aunt will fix it so you spend eternity looking for your car keys,” I said.

I felt the power of Gabriel’s blood coursing through me, warming me, giving me that drunk driver’s confidence that maybe I could make it home. The burns on my arms had finally healed over. And the wound in my shoulder was a shiny, slightly sore memory.

“Question. Did you actually wear that Juicy Couture track suit with this in mind?”

Missy scowled. “If we’re going to talk fashion, shug, I think we need to start with those Payless specials you wear.”

“Ow, I wear cheap shoes, you got me,” I deadpanned. “Let’s just cut the banter and fight. I feel the need to warn you, I’m a hair puller.”

“I feel the need to warn you,” Missy said, before simply punching me right in the eye.

I responded by collapsing to the ground. That’d show her.

Can someone punch you in the head so hard that it actually decapitates you? Because Missy came close.

From my position on the ground, I could see the heel of Missy’s shoe on a collision course with my throat. I rolled, ramming into her shins and knocking her off balance. She fell on her butt with an outraged “uhff” and kicked up, launching me about twenty feet in the air. Giddy from the fall, I landed on my feet but didn’t have time to avoid the crushing kick to my solar plexus. I stumbled back, making a sound not found in human language, and struck out, punching her in the eye. She swung blind, dragging her frosted-pink nails down my chest. I swiped my fingers under my shirt and found blood streaked across them.

I grunted and stomped on her foot. She screamed and kicked me in the shin. I had no choice but to pull her hair, which was remotely shameful, even though I’d warned her. But it was surprisingly effective. Missy squealed and snaked her hands against my scalp, yanking hard. And soon we were just rolling around on the ground, cursing and screeching and ripping out handfuls of hair.

Without super hearing, I wouldn’t have heard Zeb whisper, “This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”

“Maybe they’ll get muddy,” Dick said. “Please, Lord, let them get muddy.”

Gabriel turned on them. “You two do realize this is a battle to the death, yes?”

Neither seemed particularly embarrassed.

After several ringing blows to the head, Missy tossed me in a limp pile at the feet of Dick, Gabriel, and Zeb. Gabriel helped me to my feet and gave me an encouraging slap on the back. Dick, however, took a hint from Burgess Meredith’s performance in Rocky.

“Would you kick her ass already?” Dick said, shoving me back toward Missy. “Come on, Stretch, man up. You can do better than this! Get mad.”

I nodded, rolling a dislocated shoulder back into place with a grunt and staggering back toward my opponent.

Behind me, Zeb yelled, “She tried to hurt Fitz!” He turned to Gabriel and Dick. “That’ll get her mad.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “She’s been framed for murder twice over, shot in the back, her arms were set on fire, and her parents are being held hostage. You think tampered dog water is what’s going to make her angry?”

“You tried to hurt my dog!” I wheezed as I lurched toward a grinning Missy.

“Oh, big deal,” Missy huffed. “It’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.”

“You tried to hurt my dog,” I said again.

“I would have been doing you a favor.” Missy sneered.

“Nobody. Screws. With. My. Dog.” I growled, punctuating each word with a punch to Missy’s face. I gave an upper cut to the chin that sent her flying back into a pile on the ground.

Zeb grinned at Dick and Gabriel. “Told you.”

I took a running start at Missy, hoping to drive my elbow into her chest. But she rolled out of the way, kicking me in the back of the head when I face-planted into the dirt. Ow.

I pushed up to my knees, but Missy tackled me, throwing me to the ground, cursing, and pulling my hair. I tried every move I’d ever seen on the rare evenings Zeb got me to watch wrestling: head butting, eye gouging, ear pulling. But nothing would get Missy off me.

Still rolling in our cartoon fight ball of flying fists and cat yowls, we knocked into the storage shed, popping the door open. A slew of Missy’s old Realtor signs spilled out, their pointy wooden stakes glinting like a dozen golden opportunities.

We glanced at the stakes, looked at each other, and dove. I landed first, with Missy grabbing my ankles to pull me away. I managed to snag one as she dragged me facedown over the grass. Spitting dirt and grass and a couple of foul words, I sprang to my feet. Missy was still on her back, hate and surprise radiating from her eyes as I lunged and drove the sign through her chest. Missy howled, wriggling to free herself from the spike pinning her to the ground.

“The heart, you moron!” she screeched, clutching at the stake. “It has to be the heart!”

“Oh, right, thanks,” I said, grabbing another sign. I screamed as I drove it home, aiming more carefully this time.

She looked down at the wood pinning her heart, disbelief flickering over her features before they crumbled away to dust. It happened in a wave, first the skin, then the musculature, then a bare skeleton that exploded in a cloud of particles. The sign swayed once, twice, then fell flat, pushing Missy’s smiling photo into the mound of her dust.

“Get the point?” I asked, offering the boys a triumphant smile.

Gabriel, Zeb, and Dick stared at me, aghast.

“What? Sarcastic postkill comeback. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in situations like this?

“Too harsh?”

21

You cannot control your family’s reaction to your new lifestyle. You can only control your reaction to your family. It’s best if that reaction does not include eating your family.

—From The Guide for the Newly Undead

Gabriel offered to wipe my family’s memories. It was so tempting to hide for a little bit longer, to let one area of my life stay the same for just a little while. But I’d had enough. The lies took too much energy, and, frankly, I was having a hard time keeping track of to whom I’d told what.

Gabriel wanted to stay and help me explain, which was sweet. But I didn’t think it was fair to put him in the line of fire. I wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t have to be. So, after sending everyone else home, I sat on Missy’s deck and stared at the newly unshackled pair. I insisted on leaving Jenny hog-tied and gagged for the duration of this discussion. Mama was too shell-shocked to argue, which I thought was a normal reaction to one’s first hostage crisis.

“Um, you probably have some questions for me,” I said finally.

Mama was dry-eyed and mad as hell. “Jane, what is going on? We got a call that you needed us at the house. And that awful woman just kidnapped us right off your front porch. Why would she do that? Why was she talking about vampires? Thank God your friends were here to help us, or I just don’t know what we would have done. Was that your Gabriel? The tall one with the dark hair? He seems very nice. Lovely manners. I don’t think I like the other one, though, the one in the vulgar T-shirt.”

“Mama.” I ignored the part where Mama negated my share in her rescue and stuck to the matter at hand. “Mama, you probably figured out, from what Missy was saying earlier, that I’m a vampire.” My throat tightened around every word. “In fact, if you think back on some of the stuff that’s happened in the last couple of months, you’ll see that there were some pretty big hints. And I understand why you didn’t see it, because you weren’t ready yet. And I wasn’t ready to tell you. But now I have to. I’m a vampire.”

My mother’s jaw hung slack. She paled. “You haven’t told Gabriel, have you?”

I would have laughed, but it wouldn’t have improved the situation. “He’s a vampire, too. In fact, he’s the one who made me a vampire.”

While they sat, stunned silent, I very quickly told them what really happened the night I was fired, my Shenanigans bender. I described Gabriel’s following me home to make sure I arrived home safe and my car breaking down. I told them about the shooting, though I omitted the identity of the drunken hunter. It just seemed petty now that Bud was dead. I also glossed over the more erotic aspects of Gabriel’s turning me, because I liked being able to look my father in the eyes. I would have to put that off for a while anyway, because looking him in the eyes at the moment made my chest hurt.

I assured them that I hadn’t fed on anyone living and planned to stick to bottled blood as much as possible. I judiciously omitted the Andrea episode. Daddy’s face contorted in alternating waves of rage, sorrow, and overwhelming curiosity.

Mama’s first question was “Have you tried not being a vampire?”

To which I responded, “Yes, for the first twenty-six years of my life.”

My father, who had remained silent and thin-lipped until this point, asked, “Why did you lie to us, honey?”

The hurt in his voice made my throat constrict. “To keep you from looking at me like you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m some kind of freak. Like you’re ashamed of me. Like you’re not going to want me to be your daughter anymore. I was scared, and I didn’t know how to tell you. And after a while, it seemed really difficult to fit ‘Guess what, I’m undead’ into a conversation.”

“But you didn’t just lie once, Jane,” Daddy said softly. “You’ve had months to tell us. You lied over and over.”

All I could muster up was a weak “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”

“Are you all right?” Daddy asked, tears of his own welling up. “Did—did it hurt?”

“Being shot hurt,” I admitted, reaching for his hand. His fingers wrapped around mine without hesitation. The weight that was crushing my chest seemed to wiggle loose. “Getting turned was just like falling asleep. I woke up three days later, and Gabriel took care of me. He saved me. I would have died without his help. Please don’t be angry with him or act weird around him. He’s a good man, for the most part.”

“What can you do?” he asked.

It took me a few seconds to catch up to Daddy’s question. He was asking about my snazzy new vampire powers, not expressing helplessness about my being turned by a guy with “shoves trees on people” tendencies.

“Oh, um, a lot of stuff, except, you know, eat solid food and go outside during the day,” I said.

“Even my pot pie?” Mama cried.

Yes, because in this situation, pot pie was what we should be focusing on.

I nodded. “But the upside is, I don’t have to feed very often. I can lift couches over my head one-handed. I’ve finally stopped running like a girl. I can smell fear. And you saw that I can hold my own in a fight. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

Daddy’s expression brightened. And yes, I intentionally left out the part about the mind-reading, because that tended to weird people out. Plus, it was a hand I didn’t want to tip to Mama.

After a long pause, Mama said, “Well, I don’t know what to say.”

Daddy checked his watch and marked the time. “It took thirty years, but it was bound to happen sometime.”