I heard a door slam, followed by a bizarre clawing sound. Bobby’s heart beat frantically, but his wasn’t the only one. Another heart pounded hard and fast, but it was quieter and not as rapid as a human.

It was the sound of a vampire’s heart. A very small, very hungry vampire.

By the time Bobby yelled again, Milo and I were already running out of my room. His room was way at the other end of the hall, but we could see Daisy, clawing at the door with her bare hands. She was strong enough to tear the wood, leaving bloody trails as it splintered out around her fingers.

Before we had a chance to reach her, she managed to tear a hole in the door big enough for her little body to wriggle through, and Bobby started screaming like hell.

2

Bobby had locked the door behind him to keep out Daisy out, but that didn’t help us rescue him. Milo got to the door first and tore into it.

Bobby kept screaming, and Milo dove through the hole before it was big enough. He sliced open his side pretty bad, but he wouldn’t have noticed at all if it wasn’t for Daisy. The scent of blood made her even crazier.

I reached through the hole and unlocked the door, deciding that seemed faster. Bobby stood on the bed with his back pressed against the wall. A nasty bite on his arm dripped blood all over the sheets, but he just stared wide eyed at Milo wrestling with Daisy.

When she wasn’t crazy with thirst, she was an adorable little girl with chubby cheeks and downy blond curls. But when she gnashed her teeth, trying to get at the blood running out of Milo’s side, she looked evil.

Her face contorted with a deep snarl. Her lips pulled back, revealing her sharp teeth, unnaturally large for a child. Her eyes blazed, and she moved like lightening.

Milo couldn’t move fast enough, and she kept biting him as he tried to pin her down. When she bit him, she wasn’t even trying to drink his blood. She just snarled and snapped at anything like a crazed animal.

I pushed Milo out of the way, and Daisy was instantly on her feet. I wrapped my arms around her before she could dive at Bobby, who still seemed to be her main target.

The way she wriggled made it impossible to hold her in my arms. She turned her head and nearly bit my shoulder, but I grabbed a clump of her hair on the back of her head.

She twisted around, pulling out chunks of her hair, and I had to take more drastic measures. I slammed her head down onto the floor, pressing her face to the hard wood, and I knelt on her back.

I felt guilty about it because this was a five-year-old kid I was fighting, but it felt a lot more like pinning down a piranha.

“Are you okay?” Milo jumped onto the bed with Bobby, but other than being freaked out, Bobby looked alright.

Daisy kept trying to bite me and clawed at the floor. Her pudgy little fingers bled, but she didn’t notice.

Abruptly, she stopped. She lay perfectly still and silent, just long enough for me to think that I had killed her, and then she started crying. Not like a whiny brat that didn’t get their way, but like a scared little kid that had gotten hurt.

I looked to Milo for help, unsure if I should get off her and risk her attacking again.

Within seconds of Daisy crying, Mae appeared in the bedroom.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mae shouted and pushed me off Daisy. It was much harder than she needed to, and I went flying into the wall, cracking my skull on the plaster.

Mae scooped Daisy up off the floor, and she had gone back to looking like an ordinary little girl. She hung limp in Mae’s arms, big wet tears running down her face as she sobbed. Her curls were sticking to damp cheeks, and her fingers hadn’t healed yet.

“That little monster tried to eat me!” Bobby said. He held his arm up to slow the bleeding, and Milo stood in front of him on the bed.

“I don’t care what she was doing!” Mae held Daisy fiercely to her. Tears stood in Mae’s eyes, and she glared at us. “She is just a child!”

“She is not just a child,” I said. “She nearly killed us all!”

“Oh, she’s just hungry.” Mae brushed it off. “And Bobby is a human. She’s not used to being around them.”

“I don’t care what she’s used to being around!” I shouted. “What would you have done if she killed Bobby? Or if she kills somebody else?” Mae shook her head, unwilling to look at me.

“I’m going to go feed her.” That’s all Mae said on the subject, then turned and carried Daisy out of the room.

“That was so ridiculous,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

Milo inspected the wound on Bobby’s arm, but despite the blood, it was fairly shallow. The intoxicating, sweet scent of him filled room, and my stomach rumbled.

It had been months since I’d bitten Bobby, but often times when I was hungry, I found myself craving him. I hungered for Bobby’s blood more than any other human. Standing this close to him, smelling him, reminded me that it had been over a week since I had eaten.

Milo had not taken it well when I bit Bobby before. Sharing a human with another vampire is unsettling. For weeks afterward, he’d followed me around like a puppy, causing many a fight between the three of us. Biting intensifies the feelings you already for each other. Eventually it faded, but even now, I felt protective of Bobby.

As Milo looked over Bobby’s wounds, he wrinkled his nose in disgust, smelling Daisy on the bite.

“You need to get it washed up and put a Band-Aid on,” Milo said, dropping Bobby’s arm.

“Alright.” Bobby climbed down off the bed. He looked down at his pants, splattered with droplets of blood, and sighed. “I’m gonna have to throw these pants out! Dammit! I loved these pants.”