by Amira Rain
Quite red-faced, Mark nodded. “Well, I’ve been meaning to buy you a new one anyway. What color brand-new case would you like to go with it?”
With a very slight roll of her eyes, Jen picked up her fork and began mashing the pieces of potato on her plate. “How about blood red?”
After giving his throat yet another little clear, Mark said that was just fine. Wanting to spare him any further extreme discomfort, I immediately asked Carol how she’d first gotten started in writing, and for the rest of the meal, the topics of discussion continued to be things that were not vampire-related.
Dessert was apple pie, which the vampires at the table didn’t eat much of, claiming they were all stuffed. Meanwhile, seeming to have a tapeworm, Jen ate two enormous slices, both with large scoops of vanilla ice cream on top. I managed just one regular-sized slice plus ice cream myself, seriously contemplating how it was possible that Jen could eat so much and still maintain her extremely toned little frame.
Mark had mentioned to me once that he thought that her “bouts of hyperactivity” could have something to do with it, but unless these bouts included spending ten hours at a time on a treadmill, which they didn’t, I wasn’t sure how that could be true. All I knew was that when and if Jen was turned into a vampire, she was going to dearly miss food.
After dessert, Carol helped me and Mel load the dishwasher, even though we’d told her that she didn’t have to.
While scraping bits of food from a plate into the trash, she kind of sheepishly told us that she wished she hadn’t asked Mark to go on the hunting trip over dinner. “I should have waited until we were alone to ask him…or even just not ask him at all. I know that men like to just ‘hang out’ in the woods sometimes with no women around, and I probably should have just taken the hint. I guess me asking to come along was just an idea that I should have thought better of.”
Mel said that she was sure that her dad hadn’t been upset by it, and then she started to say something else. However, she was cut off by Mark, who’d been standing at the threshold of the kitchen for however long, leaning against the doorframe that led to the hallway, wearing a troubled, serious sort of expression.
“Carol, we need to talk. Mel and Sydney, can the two of you please finish up the dishwasher later?”
Mel said sure, after casting the briefest of micro-looks in my direction, which told me that like I was thinking, she thought her dad was about to tell Carol the “big secret.”
Metaphorically crossing my fingers for Mark, I went out to the dining room with Mel, where we began slowly wiping down the table, taking our sweet time, not wanting to go too far away in case Mark soon needed our help with Carol, like if she fainted or something, or even if she just wanted to have what Mark told her confirmed.
However, after a few minutes had gone by, and we didn’t hear any shouts for help, Mel and I decided that we were probably okay to head on upstairs, where we planned to do a little organizing in the baby’s nursery, which Hayden had already painted a pale yellow. We’d selected this color because we thought that it would be nice no matter if our baby was a boy or a girl, which we didn’t plan on finding out until it was born, both just wanting to be surprised.
Mel and I had just begin ascending the stairs, which were just adjacent to the dining room, when movement in the dining room caught our attention. It was Carol, and she was deathly pale.
“Um, girls?”
After exchanging glances, Mel and I both simultaneously asked if she was okay.
Walking over to us kind of funny, with herky-jerky steps, as if she was dizzy or her legs were feeling rubbery or something, Carol shook her head. “No, I’m not okay. Or, actually, it’s Mark that’s not okay. He’s having delusions or something. He actually thinks he’s a vampire.”
Stunning me, Mel suddenly elongated her fangs, showing them to Carol by snapping her jaw open and shut a few times, before saying that her dad was actually a vampire. “And so am I, as you can clearly see. And so is everyone else who lives in this house besides Jen and Sydney. Don’t worry, though, Carol. We’re the ‘good’ kind of vampires. We only feed on animals.”
After making some kind of half-strangled, gasping sort of noise, Carol went limp, eyes closing. Immediately, I made some kind of half-strangled, gasping sort of noise, knowing that she’d passed out and was going to hit the hardwood floor in about half a second.
I’d forgotten about vampires’ superhuman speed, though. Before I’d even finished gasping, Mel had covered the distance between the stairs and Carol and had caught Carol from falling.
Mel then lowered her to the floor slowly, cradling her head in one hand, and then looked up at me. “I had to do that. Just trust me, I just saved everyone about a week’s worth of drama in this house, maybe more. It would have just been an endless back-and-forth of emotional phone calls and visits between Carol and my dad, with him trying to gently convince her that he’s a vampire, and her gently insisting that he must be crazy.
He never would have shown her his fangs, because he wouldn’t have wanted to scare her. So, I kind of had to. Just trust me; what I just did was better for everyone in the long run. Hopefully, Carol’s subconscious will have processed everything by the time she wakes up…and if we’re lucky, her subconscious will have accepted it, too.”
Just then, Mark entered the dining room, becoming the third half-strangled gasper of the evening when he saw Carol. Within a blink, he raced over, asking Mel what had happened. She matter-of-factly basically repeated just what she’d told me, adding that she’d done what she’d done because she genuinely liked Carol and just wanted her to “come to acceptance as quickly as possible, without a lot of unnecessary emotional pain.”
Kneeling beside Mel and Carol, Mark sighed, raking a hand over his face, and then spoke seemingly only to himself. “With daughters like mine, I have no idea why I even thought that I’d have to share my secret with Carol myself or give her any proof that I’m a vampire.”
Still cradling Carol’s head, Mel asked Mark who he was talking to, and he said to just never mind.
Just then, Jen came bouncing down the stairs, gasping when she saw Carol. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Mel said yes. “She just passed out when I showed her my fangs.”
“Oh.” Without a trace of alarm or surprise left on her face, Jen hopped down the remaining few steps, came over to Mark’s right side, and crouched down beside him. “So, Dad, maybe this is a bad time, but I’ve decided I want something called an ‘easy bake oven’ even more than a new phone. I saw some girl using one on VideoTube, and now I just really want one.”
Although I loved Jen and had come to see her as my best friend by this point, I was starting to understand exactly why Mark sometimes said that he had to leave the house for “mental health reasons.”
Appearing far less tolerant of Jen’s antics than he usually did, he gave her a stony-faced sort of look. “This is actually a bad time, believe it or not. We’ll talk about the cupcake oven you want later.”
“It doesn’t just bake cupcakes, though, Dad. You can make cookies in it, too, and even something the girl on VideoTube called ‘miniature pudding pies.’”
Closing his eyes, Mark took a deep breath and let it out slowly before responding to Jen. “Sweetie? Please go back upstairs now.”
Springing to her feet, which was pretty much the only way Jen ever got to her feet, Jen said all right. “I’m gonna go watch some more videos now. I want to see if people can even make their own pizza bagels in the little oven.”
Mel told her to check the dimensions of the oven. “See if eighty-something pound spazoids can fit in it. If so, I might have my own idea of what to use the oven for.”
Jen was already bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and didn’t even hear her.
Mark soon carried Carol over to the living room and set her on the couch, where she almost immediately came to, moaning a bit. On his knees beside her, smoothing her hair, Mark asked her h
ow she felt, and she gave her head a little shake, frowning hard, looking completely disoriented.
“I think I’ve been dreaming. Jen was making little cupcakes…but then Mel took a bite of one, and the inside was filled with blood.”
Mark turned to look at me and Mel, telling us he could probably take things from here; so, Mel and I went upstairs.
Later that evening, Hayden called, wanting to hear about my day. I had to bite back a laugh.
“Well, my day went pretty well, baby kicking a lot, nothing out of the ordinary. However, we had Carol over for dinner tonight, and all I can say is that my evening has been a little more interesting.”
Once I’d given Hayden a summary of everything that had happened, I asked him how his own day had gone, and he hesitated for just a moment before responding.
“Well…things have been okay here, but I need to talk to you when I get home.”
“About what?”
“Oh…just about something that might not make you very happy.”
I definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
CHAPTER 21
I asked Hayden to please just tell me the “something” that he didn’t think I was going to be very happy about. “Now that you’ve already said that, I won’t be able to wait until you get home to hear whatever it is.”
After a long pause, Hayden sighed. “Things are really a mess down here in Indiana. This isn’t so much a Watcher community as it is a circus. People are constantly fighting, both verbally and physically, and in the meantime, people from neighboring cities are being killed by Warrens.
They’ve been literally draining people dry, almost just to antagonize us Watchers, I think, just like they’re daring us to do something. The police are blaming the killings on a serial killer.” Again, Hayden paused. “They need serious help down here, Sydney. They need strong leadership…and right now, there’s no one down here that’s fit to lead. So, until we can find a leader from a different community, I’ve decided to take over.”
“But—”
“Just for a few months. I don’t think it’ll take longer than that. And in the meantime, I’ll come home to visit as often as I can.”
“‘Visit?’ So, you’re going to be living down there full time?”
“Just for a few months, Sydney…and maybe not even that long. Trust me, I’m just as not thrilled about this as you are. I want to find a permanent leader for this community as soon as possible.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
“I just don’t want you far away while I’m still pregnant, Hayden.”
“I don’t want to be far away while you’re still pregnant. Indiana’s not that far away, though…and like I said, I’ll come home to visit as often as I can.”
With people being killed down in Indiana, and with Hayden possibly able to get a handle on the Warrens to stop that, I really didn’t feel like there was much else I could say, at least not without sounding horribly selfish. I certainly didn’t want anyone to lose their life just because I wanted my baby’s father home with me while I was pregnant.
So, feeling like I really had no choice, I told Hayden I understood. “Just please deal with things and try to find a new leader as soon as humanly possible.”
He said that he would, and that he’d still be home the following day to spend some time with me and collect some clothes. Before heading right back out again, I thought, already dreading our parting even though he wasn’t even home yet.
He soon said that he had to go, and we both said I love you before ending the call. Troubled, slightly anxious, and just generally unhappy, I tossed and turned that night, unable to fall asleep for hours.
After showering and dressing the next morning, I actually got back into bed, feeling tired and thinking that maybe I’d take a catnap before heading downstairs to make a big breakfast. By this point in my pregnancy, my morning sickness had all but disappeared, while meanwhile, my large appetite hadn’t gone anywhere.
Some days, I felt like I was eating as much as Jen, or close to it; however, I’d only gained eight pounds, which Nora said was just about normal for the stage of pregnancy I was in, and actually maybe even a little on the lower end of normal weight gain. She had encouraged me to eat healthy, whole foods whenever I felt hungry, which was advice that I had no problem taking. Although sometimes, her specific recommendation about “healthy, whole foods” went right out the window, especially if Jen was cooking something a bit indulgent, which she often was.
Taking my nap, I was deep in slumber when I was slowly pulled out of it by very faint noises coming from somewhere in my room. Still somewhere between sleeping and not sleeping, I just listened for a while with my eyes still closed, at first wondering if rain was pattering against the windows. The quiet noises I was hearing weren’t quite like steady rain, though, and in fact, the noises weren’t coming at any set interval.
It was more like, soft noise, ten second pause, quiet noise, fifteen second pause, and so on. I’d almost started to think that maybe I had a mouse in my room and should probably get up to investigate, when suddenly, something clanged on the hardwood floor. Alarmed, I flew up to a sitting position and saw Jen standing by my dresser, holding a bunch of metal measuring cups. One was on the floor by her feet. And on top of my dresser sat a small pale pink oven about the size of a toaster oven, with mini cupcake tins, bowls, and small boxes of cake mix beside it.
After hastily picking up the dropped measuring cup, wincing, Jen said she was so sorry for waking me up. “I just wanted to surprise you by having you wake up to the smell of baking cupcakes right in your room. I just thought it would be such a nice surprise for a pregnant girl. I didn’t mean to wake you up so soon, though.”
As unpleasantly startled as I’d been by the dropped measuring cup, I couldn’t help but smile a little, and I told Jen that it was fine, and that the idea of surprising me by waking me up with the smell of baking cupcakes had been a nice one. “Your new oven is really nice, too. You must have woken up at the crack of dawn to go to Box-Mart to get it.”
Jen grinned. “Yup. Me and Carol went.”
Suddenly remembering what had happened the night before, I asked Jen how Carol was doing.
Jen shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Practically the whole way to Box-Mart, she kept saying, like, ‘I can’t believe your dad’s a vampire. But then again, I can’t not believe it. But I just can’t believe it.’ I think she’s honestly fine. She was fine enough to eat a big fast-food breakfast with me first thing in the morning, anyway. We were both mad that the restaurant wasn’t cooking cheeseburgers and fries yet. We had to settle for pancakes, hash browns, sausage, eggs, and chocolate shakes.”
Just then, a strong breeze gusted through one of my bedroom windows, and a little box of cake mix that Jen had placed precariously close to the edge of the dresser started to fall. Lunging to grab it, she dropped all of the metal measuring cups in her hands, and they made a loud, extended clattering noise when they hit the floor.
Wincing, Jen stooped to pick them up. “Oops.”
Just a few seconds later, Mel poked her head in through the half-ajar door. “Everything okay in here?” Before I could answer, Mel spotted Jen. “Oh, never mind. Miss destruction is present. I should have known. Did she wake you up, Sydney?”
I said yes, but that it was fine. “Jen had a very sweet idea to wake me up with the smell of baking cupcakes right in my room.”
Setting the measuring cups in a heap on my dresser, Jen nodded. “Yup. Scientists say that waking up to a good smell makes all of your brain particles feel more alive or something, so I just thought that that would be a great thing for Sydney.”
Leaning against the doorway with her arms folded loosely across her chest, Mel sighed with her gaze on Jen. “What do you know about anything science-related? You’ve never even read a single book in your life.”
Whipping around to look at Mel, Jen snorted. “Oh, yeah? Remember those special ‘Dick and Jane’ books Dad
brought home for me that one time? I read those all in one sitting. I looked at all the pictures in one sitting, anyway. But let’s just say that I understood all the stories perfectly, and isn’t that the whole point of reading? Just to understand the stories?”
Wearing an expression that I couldn’t quite read, Mel just stared at Jen for a long moment. “I’m not even saying this to be incendiary, but sometimes I just can’t believe it.”
Again, Jen snorted, glaring at her a little. “Haven’t I told you a million times not to use college words around me? And what can’t you believe?”
“Sometimes I just can’t believe that we actually shared a womb for nine months. Our brains developed in the exact same environment. We share DNA, and are actually full siblings with the same parents. It’s just so unbelievable to me sometimes. And like I said, I’m not even saying this in any incendiary sort of way. It’s just that sometimes, I’m just…almost awestruck about it all. I just can’t believe it.”
Jen had long since stopped listening to Mel and had started flipping through what appeared to be her new oven’s instruction manual, which she now tossed across the room to Mel. “Look. Why don’t you make yourself useful and read the directions for this oven to me so that I can get these cupcakes put in. I’m having a special in-bed cupcake party with me, Sydney, and Wanted in about thirty minutes.”
Not moving to pick up the instruction manual, which had landed at her feet, Mel just looked at Jen for a long moment again. “Scientists should study us, you know.”
Jen scoffed. “Why? I think we already know what they’d say. ‘Here we have one egghead and one lame-brain.’ ‘The little one is one hell of a good driver, though,’ they’d say. ‘Not a single driving ticket, and in fact, she once got a praise from a cop on her parallel parking. Remarkable.’”
With a sigh and an eye roll, Mel turned and left the room. Sighing herself, Jen crossed the room, grabbed the instruction manual, and handed it to me, asking if I could please read it to her.
