Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down

by Lisa Olsen

“What, no…” His brow twitched in confusion. “Wait, you’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

  “No, but I’m starting to wonder if I should. Are you alright?” She reached for his hand. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Not wrong exactly, but…” He shot me a helpless glance, but I shook my head. This was something he had to do on his own. “I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.”

  “Oh God, you’re not going to propose, are you?”

  “No, of course not! Well, I didn’t mean it like…” Mason backpedalled quickly, when he saw her brows climb. “Not that I wouldn’t maybe want to someday, maybe, but…”

  “Nice save,” I murmured.

  Mason gripped the counter so tightly, I saw a hairline crack appear in the Formica. “I’m a vampire,” he said, going very still as he awaited her reaction.

  “Obviously,” she nodded without skipping a beat, waiting for him to get to the real point.

  “No, I’m serious, Hanna. I’m an actual, real vampire.”

  This was as deadly serious as I’d ever seen him, and Hanna must have thought so too, because she lost her glib attitude. “What are you trying to do here?”

  “I’m trying to tell you, I’m a vampire. As in risen from the dead, sleep all day, party all night, bloodsucking vampire.”

  Maybe not the way I would have put it, but his words had the desired effect, bringing a pucker of worry to my sister’s brow. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but this isn’t funny.”

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Hanna, I’ve been looking for a way to tell you this ever since I fell in love with you, and I can’t keep it from you any longer. You deserve to know the truth, and this is it.”

  “There are no such things as vampires.”

  “Show her,” I said gently.

  “Show her what? It’s not like that bullshit with the crosses or having no reflection is true.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Show her your teeth, or do something super strong… or fast.” Did I really have to lay it all out for him?

  “Uh huh, go ahead, convince me,” Hanna said, crossing her arms as she leaned against the counter. “Prove it to me.”

  “Okay, here goes.” Smiling wide, Mason extended his fangs slowly, watching her carefully for her reaction, which was less than impressed.

  “So what?” she shrugged. “That’s just a trick. Hollywood does that all the time.”

  “Not gonna do it for you, huh?” he nodded, undeterred. “How about this?” Grabbing hold of the refrigerator door handle, he snapped it off, easily bending the metal in half.

  Unfortunately, Hanna was still firmly rooted in denial. “That doesn’t prove anything. Look at his arms, he could bench press a Buick. I don’t know what that handle was made out of, for all we know it’s aluminum and I could have bent it myself.”

  “Oh, come on, Hanna…” I huffed. “What else does he have to do to get through to you, bite you?” Mason’s brows rose at that, and I quickly shook my head. No biting unless he wanted her to freak out big time.

  “Alrighty then,” he breathed, rolling his shoulders. In the blink of an eye he was at her side. Gathering her into his arms, he zoomed across the room to deposit her on the couch in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

  Hanna’s hands clutched the cushions, the whites of her eyes dominating her face as she stared at him in shock. “How did you…?”

  “I told you, kitten. I’m a vampire,” he said gently, perching on the end of the coffee table.

  “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.” She scooted back against the couch cushions, hugging one against her chest as a sorry shield. “You don’t just spring something like this on a girl. Mommy issues – sure, commitment issues – expected, maybe even a love child out there somewhere, but this… this is unreal.”

  “I wanted to tell you, but…” He shot me another helpless look, and this time I took pity on him.

  “It’s my fault he waited so long, Hanna. I didn’t want you to find out, so I made him keep his mouth shut.”

  My sister whirled on me, hair whipping out, her head snapped around so quickly. “You knew about this? For how long?”

  “Since before you met Mason.” It sounded bad now that I said it out loud. “You know how hard it is for me to keep things from you, but I really thought it was for the best. But now that I see how committed you are to each other…”

  An inelegant snort left her lips, and Hanna slid off the couch, her eyes wild. “I can’t… I can’t deal with this. I have to be… not here.” Without waiting for a response, she made a beeline for the front door.

  “Hanna, wait… Don’t go like this.” Mason started after her, but I held him back.

  “I think you should let her have some time to process. If you go after her now, she’s likely to lash out and say something she doesn’t mean.”

  “I can’t let her go like that. It’s not safe out there at this time of night.”

  He wasn’t wrong there. “Alright, I’ll handle it.”

  “But…”

  “She’s my sister, I’ll handle it.” I could keep her safe from any of the regular street rabble without breaking a sweat. “Maybe I can even calm her down. I’ll call you later.”

  “Tell her… Shit, nevermind. If she doesn’t already know by now how much I love her, I’m screwed.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I promised, offering him a brief smile before I hurried down the stairs in search of my sister. Not that I couldn’t have hunted her down on my own, but having a bodyguard came in handy for once, as Isak pointed out her direction as soon as I emerged on the street below. I held up my hands when they moved to follow, needing a few minutes of privacy.

  It didn’t take long to catch up to her, and I paced myself behind her, following her clipped paces as she stalked down the street. Where she was headed was anybody’s guess, I doubt she knew herself. I knew she’d heard me approach, but Hanna stubbornly refused to acknowledge my presence for a few blocks before she turned and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “This isn’t bullshit, is it? He was for real back there, wasn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I nodded carefully, not sure if she was mad at him or me or both of us from her tone of voice.

  “And you knew, you knew this whole time and you never said anything. Anja, how could you do this to me?”

  Mad at me. Ah well, I deserved it. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “So you let me keep dating a vampire without telling me. Sure, that makes total sense.”

  “No, I mean, I wanted to keep that part of it from you because his job is dangerous and I didn’t want you drawn into it. I even warned him off of you for your own good.”

  “That’s why he disappeared, isn’t it? That was you? And here I thought it was because he freaked out when we started to get too serious too fast.”

  “Well, it was fast…”

  “Damn it, Anja, that wasn’t your call to make!” she all but yelled, quieting with visible effort after she realized how deserted the street was. “No offense, but my relationship has nothing to do with you. You’re my sister, and I love you, but stay out of my love life from now on.”

  “I’m sorry.” My head hung miserably, what else could I say?

  “Jesus, what am I going to do now? I invited him to come and live with me.” A short bark of hysterical laughter bubbled out of her throat before it cut off with a squeak, her eyes flying wide with panic. “I invited him in… He can come in whenever he wants now, can’t he? And I invited him into Mom and Dad’s…”

  I grabbed a hold of her shoulders and gave her a light shake. “Hanna, it’s okay. He’d never come after you, even if you go back there and break things off with him.” I knew that deep in my bones or I never would’ve allowed him to keep seeing her in the first place.

  “How can you be sure? You barely know him.”

  “I know him pretty well.
”

  “Oh that’s right, my sister the vampire groupie. I forgot you knew about him before we’d even met. I guess that makes Bishop one too then, right?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Bishop.”

  “He has to be,” she continued undeterred. “Is that what his super secret job is about? Vampire stuff? And here I thought it was some kind of espionage. Are they all a bunch of vampires? What is it… the Order?”

  “I wouldn’t be throwing that name around if I were you. In fact, the less you know about it, the better.”

  “How come you get full disclosure then? How come I’m left in the dark like an idiot and you get to know the ins and outs of the undead club?”

  “It’s complicated.” I waited for her to press me for more details, unsure how I could answer without implicating myself as a registered member of the undead club (id chip and all!), but her thoughts tumbled in another direction.

  “How, how can I be in love with someone like that?” she wailed, hands fisting in her hair as she fell back against the front of the nearest building.

  “Someone like that?”

  “A ruthless killer. What does that say about me that I never once noticed a single sign?”

  “Not all vampires are ruthless killers.” Though he was, in fact, a killer – I’d seen it myself. I didn’t think that was what she meant though, she meant a killer without reason. The Order’s reasons for killing might be stupid and archaic, but they had all kinds of reasons.

  “How can you say that? By definition they have to feed off of others to survive.” She wasn’t wrong there, but I couldn’t think how to make her feel okay with it. “Oh, God… he’s fed off of me too, hasn’t he?”

  “I… that’s not something we really talk about, but I doubt it, not like you’re thinking. He told me once he doesn’t think of you like that.”

  “Oh, he told you once, did he? Well, that makes me feel better. I guess I have nothing to worry about.” She stared at me long and hard. “You’re so naïve, Anja. He’s a vampire. He can’t be trusted. Everything that’s come out of his mouth has been a lie. For all I know he’s been feeding on me from day one and that’s why he wants to move in with me, because he likes my flavor.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “How would you know? I noticed you’re not with Bishop anymore. You can’t tell me it has nothing to do with him being a vampire.”

  “It doesn’t.” I swallowed uncomfortably. “I told you, it’s complicated.”

  “No, it’s simple. I have to be out of my mind insane to have feelings for a dead guy. He can never love me back, he’s not even a human being for chrissakes.”

  “I’m one too.” It just came out. Once the words were said though, I didn’t want to take them back.

  “You’re what too? In love with a dead guy? Join the club.”

  “No, I’m a vampire too.” I waited for that to sink in, speaking when I saw I had her full attention. “That’s why I know all about Mason’s secret, and that’s why I couldn’t tell you any of it. I was protecting my own secret too.”

  “No… not you.” Her eyes widened with a different kind of fear, as if she doubted her own sanity. “You’re my sister.”

  “I’m still your sister, and I’m undead too.”

  “But how…? When?”

  “It happened last month.” God, was it only a few weeks ago? Several, at any rate. It already felt like I’d been dead for ages.

  “Who did it to you? Was it Bishop?”

  “No, it was Jake. Do you remember him?”

  “Jake…” she blinked, confused. I was pretty sure she didn’t remember him at all, she’d been pretty out of it the night he’d healed her with his blood.

  “It’s a long story, but basically I’ve been a vampire since before you even met Mason. So when I tell you there’s nothing to worry about with him, I know what I’m talking about.”

  “That’s why you quit going to school…”

  “It’s part of it, yes. The point is, it doesn’t make me a ruthless killer just because I need blood to survive.”

  “Don’t say that.” Her brow twitched in distress. “I don’t want to think of you all bloodthirsty and gross.”

  “It’s the truth. And it’s part of who I am now. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s hard not to lose control sometimes, especially for a newbie like me, but it can be done. Mason’s been around long enough to learn control.”

  “Super, so he won’t eat me the next time he wants a midnight snack and he’s too lazy to go down to the kitchen. Awesome.”

  She looked so small and alone, huddled against a building, arms wrapped around herself against the cold that I could barely feel. Maybe she couldn’t handle the truth? “I can make you forget, if you want. I can erase this whole conversation and tell Mason to leave you alone if you don’t want to see him anymore.”

  “You don’t know Mason as well as you think if you believe you can tell him to do anything he doesn’t want to do,” she snorted.

  “I know he’ll listen to me if I need him to.” My compulsion would see to that if he refused.

  “No, I’d rather know about it all. I wish you’d told me about this sooner. That’s a big part of this reaction, you know.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” We leaned against the building in silence, her breath steaming in the night, mine – not so much. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I have no idea. How can I possibly trust him now?”

  “He’s the same man you fell in love with. He just has an alternative lifestyle.”

  Hanna actually laughed at that, and I thought I saw a chance there for her to accept it and be happy. Just as quickly it was gone though, and the glum expression returned.

  “We should head back to the car. I can give you a ride home if you don’t feel like going back up to Mason’s.”

  “I have my car here, but thanks all the same.” Still, she fell into step beside me, heading back in the right direction. “What’s the deal with the car and the bodyguards really? Is that something to do with being a vampire?”

  “Yes and no. It’s not like you get a free pack of bodyguards and car service with every newly turned vamp, but I’m in sort of a unique position.”

  “What position is that?”

  “I’m the Jarl of the Northwest.”

  “Which means…”

  “It means I offer my protection to the vampire population as best I can, give them counsel, and try to keep the Order off their backs.”

  “I thought the Order was there to protect and serve.”

  “It’s not like the normal cops.” I was about to suggest she ask Mason more about them before I remembered I’d advised her not to pry into Order business. “Let’s just say they’re dangerous, and I do my best to make sure no one ends up tangling with them.”

  “No offense, but how are you able to do that if you’re a newbie? Why would they care what you have to say?”

  Boy, she really knew how to ask the hard ones. “That’s a whole other can of worms I’m not sure we should get into right now.”

  “Oh no, you started this. Now tell me everything.” She came to a stop and I hesitated over how much to tell her. The more people who knew my secrets, the more dangerous it was for me, but it was my sister asking. I wanted her to accept me for who I’d become; the least I owed her was the truth.

  After a furtive check to make sure we really were alone, with no sign of my protectors within hearing distance, I launched into a condensed version of my circumstances, including what it meant that Jakob was an Ellri. When I was through, I didn’t know what to expect, especially given her reaction to Mason’s news earlier, but she took the deeper details of my double secret life in stride.

  “Wow. I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with this the whole time and I had no idea,” she said finally, as we resumed our stroll back towards her car. “I’m really proud of you for holding it together.”

  “Really?”

&
nbsp; “Yeah, really. I don’t know if I could have handled it half as well as you have.”

  I didn’t realize how much I’d needed her validation before she said the words, but once said, they opened a floodgate of emotion and I pulled her into a teary hug. I tried not to notice when she froze for an instant, instead focusing on the way she relaxed and hugged me back.

  “I’m glad you know,” I smiled, pulling back with a sniff. “It’s nice to be able to talk to you like this.”

  “Who would have thought it, my baby sister, a big bad vampire.” She shook her head, looking to the heavens. “You were scared to death of Dracula when you were a little girl. I had to threaten to beat up Billy Parker when he chased after you with plastic fang teeth in Foster Park, do you remember?

  “I remember.” A soft breath of laughter escaped me as I recalled simpler times. “You can’t tell anyone about this, you know, and I mean anyone.”

  “Who’d believe me?”

  I caught hold of her will, for her own safety as well as mine. “I’m serious. Not Mom or Daddy… You can’t tell anyone about the existence of vampires, do you understand?”

  “I understand,” she nodded, and I hated the spacey tone of voice she replied with, but it had to be done. While I was at it, I made sure she didn’t discuss my Sire with anyone either, not even Mason, even though he already knew that secret.

  Before I let her go, it occurred to me that I could compel her to be okay with all of it. While she seemed to have accepted my news to some degree, I could tell she still had a world of doubts with the whole vampire thing, especially where Mason was concerned. I could easily smooth things over between them – I already had a hold of her will – but I remembered she’d asked me to stay out of her love life. Plus, as much as I hated that hesitation when I’d hugged her, she had a right to those feelings. In the end all I did was escort her back to her car, waiting for her to drive off safely before I gave Mason a call.

  “How is she? Is she buggin’?” he demanded as soon as he picked up the call.

  “She’s dealing, but it’s a lot for her to take in. She needs some time to process it all.”

  “Is she pissed though? She seemed kinda pissed to me.”