A Beginner's Guide to Fangs (Vampire Innocent Book 2)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Aww, Dad.”

  “None of us know how things could potentially work out with everything that’s happened to you, but if you can give that boy some happiness, and you want to… that’s well within your control.”

  I gaze at my feet. Hmm. Pink toenails. Sophia must’ve ambushed me in my sleep again. How did I not notice that in the shower? Okay, maybe I do roll out of bed foggy.

  “Either there’s something incredibly fascinating concealed within the carpet pile, or you’ve developed an odd, sudden fascination with your toes.”

  “Hah. No, for a moment there I thought you were about to press for grandkids, then I noticed my nails are mysteriously pink. Speaking of which, where’s Sophia?”

  “The girls went to Nicole’s.” Dad pushes his glasses up. “And no, I wasn’t going there. I meant more in the sense of can a vampire even have boyfriends?”

  “Oh sure.” I twirl a hand around in the air. “Everything seems to still work.”

  “Right.” Dad faces back to the monitor, clearly not interested in any conversation that includes his daughter and topics other than rainbows and unicorns. “Oh, small favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sam tossed his Frisbee onto the roof. I’ve been meaning to drag the ladder out but haven’t had the chance to.”

  I leap to my feet and strike a superhero pose, fists on my hips. “I shall save the innocent plastic disc”―my posture slackens―“as soon as the sun’s down.”

  “Oh, right.” Dad glances at me again. “So, did you tell him?”

  “Yeah.” I idly stab my big toe at the rug. “Seemed like it was getting to the point where it would’ve been cruel not to.”

  Dad’s eyebrows go up. “How’d he take it?”

  “Well, considering I sent his father into the horizon never to return like twenty minutes before telling him I’m a vampire, pretty well.”

  “You know, you probably shouldn’t just go around telling everyone about vampires and stuff.”

  I fake sigh. “But, Dad, he’s not everyone. He’s my boyfriend.”

  He blinks at me.

  “Wow, did I just say that?”

  “You did.”

  “Little fast, huh? I mean I just broke up with Scott two weeks ago.”

  Dad stands and pulls me into another hug. “Hon, you broke up with him a lot longer ago than that.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  “Just a touch.” He chuckles. “Though, after an experience like that, I wasn’t expecting you to want to be around another boy.”

  Again, I wind up jabbing my big toe into the rug, staring down. “Well, like you said about more people having good fathers than bad, I guess. Scott went about as wrong as a boyfriend can go. The odds are on my side. Any other boy’s probably much better. At least, I’m sure this one’s not going to kill me.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? He’s got emotions too. This isn’t some kind of rebound thing, is it?”

  “Nah.” I shake my head, smiling. “I read his mind.”

  “We talked about that…”

  I sigh at the ceiling. “Dad. He gave me a creepy look. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to do anything. But he’s not a creep. He’s just socially awkward.”

  Dad gestures at himself. “Hon. This is socially awkward. What about that boy made you nervous enough to peek into his brain?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “You have time.” He grins. “Me, not so much.”

  “All right. Hunter―”

  The doorbell rings in Ashley’s signature triplicate. As long as I’ve known her, she mashes the doorbell button so fast it generates this mutant noise. Rather than three distinct rings, the first two combine into this staccato double-bing followed by a normal ding-dong.

  “Your friends are here,” says Dad. “It’s okay. You can tell me about why you mind read your new boyfriend sometime later.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I give him a peck on the cheek and run to open the door.

  Despite the stormy, gloomy, rainy mess outside, I feel like I’ve opened the hatch on a furnace. Okay, maybe ‘furnace’ is a bit of an overstatement. The wind hitting my face is closer to middle-of-summer Arizona than rainy Cottage Lake, Washington. Another bonus of being an Innocent vampire… I’ll never be chilly here again during the day. At least, if I go outside.

  Ashley’s red hair is soaked to the sides of her face. Michelle didn’t get out of her little Kia Soul, which she’s parked in our driveway occupying the spot Mom’s Yukon belongs in. Total Honey, I shrunk the SUV moment.

  “Hey!” cheers Ashley. “Wow, you’re not burning away to smoke.”

  “No. I thought I explained that already. Come in a sec. I need socks.”

  “’Kay.” She shuffles inside.

  I start for the back of the house, heading toward the stairs down to the basement. “You know, they have these things called umbrellas.”

  “You know,” calls Ashley, “they have this thing called severe laziness.”

  Laughing, I jog down the steps, claim my socks, and hurry back to the front door by way of giving Dad a hug. “Goin’ to the movies with Ash and Chelle. Be back after.”

  “Be careful,” says Dad.

  I pause with my right foot half in a sneaker. “I will.”

  With an inaudible sigh of worry, I finish putting my shoes on and stand. Ugh. I really do have to be careful. During the day, I’m not immortal. Well, I mean, I’m not getting older or anything while exposed to sunlight. My powers stop working, which includes healing fast. If Michelle goes off the road and I get a telephone pole through the face, that’s going to sting.

  Of course, the same would’ve been true for mortal me before this whole vampire thing started, but when I’ve got potentially thousands of years to lose instead of like sixty-to-eighty, it feels like a bigger risk. Or, hell, maybe I’m just afraid of dying dying because I’ve ‘been there done that’ and I don’t want to do it again. Speaking of which, I should go on Yelp and give that morgue a low rating. The beds are too damn hard.

  Ashley runs to Michelle’s Kia and hops in the back seat. She’s such a ‘kid sister.’

  I pull my hoodie up and dash from the door, suffering only a mild soaking in the twenty feet or so I have to run before hopping in the passenger seat. The smell of coconut-sweet is so strong it almost makes me gag.

  “You okay?” asks Michelle, patting me on the back.

  While I nod, Ashley sticks her head between the seats to peer at me. “I didn’t think you, like, still breathed.”

  “I do.” I pat myself on the chest and glance at Michelle after failing to spot the offending air-freshener. “Why does it smell like I’m sitting inside a giant coconut?”

  “Oh, I’m trying out a new skin cream.” Michelle backs out onto the cul-de-sac and pulls a K-turn.

  “Did you take a bath in it or is my nose on overdrive?”

  Michelle smirks at me.

  “It is a little strong,” says Ashley.

  “You can both go to hell.” Michelle laughs, shaking her head as she accelerates.

  I grip the seat and door handle. Three seconds later, on goes the seatbelt.

  “Oh, hey now,” says Michelle. “I ain’t that bad. Got my license a good two months before you, remember?”

  “Yeah so that means you’ve had it for three months,” I say.

  She holds her head high. “I’m still the most experienced driver in the car.”

  “The girl’s got a point,” says Ashley. She giggles and flops back in her seat. “Guess I should belt up too?”

  Michelle sighs.

  “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the other idiots,” I mutter while eyeing the road. The rain’s making everything blurry and drab. Perfect recipe for an accident.

  Michelle play-punches me in the shoulder. “It’s cute that you’re so concerned about us.”

  “While that is a definite factor in my present state of extreme fear, I’m al
so worried about me.”

  “Huh?” asks Ashley. “You’re like immortal now, right?”

  Over the next few minutes, I explain how the particular strain of vampire I became lets me tolerate sunlight when it’s not too strong, and that doing so basically takes away all my ‘powers.’

  “So, you’re like normal you?” asks Ashley.

  “Yeah. As long as I’m in contact with sunlight, no matter how muted by cloud cover.”

  Michelle glances at me. “Wow. That’s messed up. Guess it beats turning to dust.”

  “Oh, definitely,” I say. “Some of the other…”

  A dark blur in the door mirror catches my eye. Someone in a black mini-SUV is getting rather close to us, and his lights are off.

  “Some of the other what?” asks Ashley.

  “Umm. Chelle, watch that idiot behind us.”

  She looks at the mirror on her side and speaks as if to the other driver. “Sorry I’m not going fast enough for you. Want me to slow down more?”

  We ride in tense silence for a minute or two until a red light catches us. The no-headlight idiot pulls up alongside us on the left. The side windows are tinted super dark, but I still can’t help but feel like a little mouse being stared at by a giant eagle.

  “Uhh, I got a bad feeling about that car,” I whisper.

  “Why are you whispering?” Ashley again sticks her head up front between the seats. “They couldn’t hear us anyway. Two closed windows, plus the rain on the roof is kinda loud.”

  Michelle glances at the SUV. It kinda looks like the type the undercover cops use, but that’s not what’s bothering me about it. She drums her fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for the light to change.

  “Wait, you think they’re gonna like try and kidnap us? Find a car with three girls in it and follow us?” Ashley looks at the spooky SUV and back to me. “Think they’ll tie us up together?”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’d mind that,” deadpans Michelle.

  I gasp.

  Ashley blushes, but can’t hold back an impish smile. “I guess that depends on if they let us keep our clothes.”

  Michelle turns her head toward Ashley slow, like something out of The Exorcist. “Are you for real? Please tell me you’re just saying that to be creepy.”

  My jaw hangs open in disbelief. Like, I know she’s into girls as well as boys, but I had no idea she liked that kinky stuff. And, having Ashley crack a sexy joke like that is almost as awkward as if it came out of Sierra’s mouth. I frown.

  Yeah, Sierra would say random shocking things when she’s eighteen. Hell, she’ll probably start randomly spitting out remarks that’ll make me gasp and Mom faint by fourteen. Though, then again, my mother did whip out a masturbation joke the other day, so maybe that’s where Sierra gets it from. Ashley, on the other hand, has always been the innocent one in our little group. Hearing her say she wouldn’t mind being kidnapped if they tied us up together is… I can’t even.

  Finding out vampires existed wasn’t as brain numbing.

  “Ash, are you feeling okay?” I ask.

  “Umm, yeah, why?”

  Michelle steps on the gas the instant the light changes. She’s accelerating a little hard for my liking, but given the ominous SUV, I keep my mouth shut. We make an abrupt lane change and leave it behind. I twist back to look, but catch only a glimpse through the un-tinted windshield of two white guys inside: too far away plus rain for me to recognize faces.

  “Because you’re sayin’ shit that ain’t like you.” Michelle slows back to safe-on-wet-road speed.

  “Oh.” Ashley makes her usual childlike confused face. “Sorry. I thought it was funny. Like, we’d be locked in a room somewhere until it got dark, then Sarah would be like all”―she pantomimes tearing free of ropes―“rawr! and like kicking their butts.”

  Michelle and I both stare at her for a second.

  Did I take that the wrong way? No, she made that comment about clothes. Holy crap! Is my best friend, who I now know has a crush on me, fantasizing about me wearing nothing but rope? Gawd. Awkward. No matter how hard I stare into her eyes, I’m no more psychic than a brick at the moment. Ugh. This is driving me crazy. For once, I really want to see what’s rattling around in her little head but I can’t.

  I have a feeling her encounter with Aurélie might’ve had some unintended consequences. Hopefully, it’s some kind of lingering energy and not a permanent change to her personality. As soon as we’re in the theater, I’m going to take a peek.

  Every couple of minutes, I check the rearview mirror, but that black SUV is nowhere in sight.

  Whew. I melt into my seat and finally relax… right before we arrive at the theater. Ugh. At least we got here alive. Well, two outta three of us anyway. Michelle’s awesome. She drops me and Ashley off by the front before driving back out into the downpour to find a parking spot. We wait for her right inside the doors where there’s still too much daylight for me to check on Ash’s brain.

  Michelle pops an umbrella (yeah, she’s the smart one of the group) and hurries across the lot through the pelting rain. A moving dark spot drifts along behind her, a small, black SUV rolling by.

  Son of a bitch.

  They’re definitely following us… but why? Is it me or did creeps see a car full of young women and get ideas. Or is that even the same guy? Maybe I should ease back on the paranoia. It’s not like there’s only one mini Land Rover or Ford Escape or whatever that thing is in this area. Okay, I suppose the number of said cars with deep-tinted windows is much lower. And the odds of one happening to show up in the same shopping center as us so soon after seeing it in traffic are even lower.

  Yeah. They’re following us.

  Michelle collapses her umbrella under the awning and walks inside. “Come on, we’ve only got like five minutes before it starts.”

  I lean up to the window and watch the truck park a couple rows to the right from where Michelle left her Kia. Three guys hop out and scramble over to a TGI-Fridays, running like a pack of geeky seniors or college freshmen. Hmm. Maybe it isn’t the same truck, or my danger sense is malfunctioning in the daylight. Could’ve just been horny college guys spotting a car full of girls and having less-scary thoughts than kidnapping.

  Ashley and Michelle grab my arms and drag me away from the window into the theater.

  “We’re gonna miss it!” yells Ashley.

  We claim our pre-ordered tickets from the machine and head down the hall to the theater where Atomic Blonde is playing. Fortunately, we’ve only missed a preview or two. Some people think theaters are losing the media war to DVD because of ticket prices. I think it’s because of the twenty-minute-long ‘buy our snacks, stop talking, and turn off cell phones’ video in front of the movie followed by another half hour of previews.

  As soon as we’re in the actual theater and away from windows, a rapid, intense sharpening of my senses―and the air no longer feeling like ninety degrees―gives me a heads up that I can stop being paranoid about getting hurt. It’s kinda chilly in here to be honest, and being wet doesn’t help that. We head down the aisle to our usual spot for movie watching: like six rows back from the front and as middle as we can get. It’s been our preference ever since Dad took the three of us to see Race to Witch Mountain when we were in fifth grade. Actually, I think hitting that movie was the first thing we did as friends, like a couple weeks after we met.

  That thought gets me all kinds of worried about her. I lean close and whisper, “Hey Ash?”

  “Hmm?” She looks at me.

  Her thoughts are mostly focused on hoping this movie doesn’t suck. Underneath that, she’s barely holding it together, still upset over almost watching me die. Deeper still, I sniff a simmering mass of unbridled horniness. Nothing feels like her mind’s been tampered with. The girl’s just left her engine running. She’s also a little confused where best friend stops and girlfriend starts. Ash loves me like a sister and the trauma of almost losing me has fine-tuned her emotions w
ith a sledgehammer.

  And yeah, I know there’s some people who meet as kids and grow up to marry and spend their whole lives together. But one, I’m not into girls, and two, I think of her too much like an extra sibling. Okay, maybe a little different since there’s stuff I can talk to with Ash that I’d never tell my actual siblings about. But I don’t wanna have sex with her. Also, I’m sure she doesn’t really want that either. She’s just confused because she thinks she watched me die.

  If I was a better friend, I’d probably try to delete her memory of that night. Or maybe being a better friend means I don’t invade that trust. She’s not a robot companion I should reprogram when it’s inconvenient. At least she’s not under some kind of external influence turning her into a sexpot. Okay, so I do cheat a little, by giving her feelings toward me a faint nudge toward ‘friend.’

  “What?” asks Ashley. “Why are you staring at me like that?” She swipes her fingers at her hair. “Do I have something stuck to me?”

  “No. I was just a little worried.”

  Her right eyebrow goes up.

  “Shh!” hisses someone behind us.

  “Chill out, dude,” says Michelle. “It’s just a preview.”

  “About?” Ashley tilts her head.

  “What you said in the car.” I smile. “I overreacted.”

  She rolls her eyes, but winds up giggling. Now that’s a normal Ashley reaction.

  Relieved, I settle into the seat.

  Gah. More previews. Like half the time we go to the movies, I need to run to the bathroom before it’s even halfway over due to how long it takes the actual feature to start. That’s at least one problem I no longer have.

  Soon, Atomic Blonde starts, and the lights dim.

  Maybe twenty minutes in, Ashley grabs my hand.

  I glance at her.

  “Relax,” she whispers. “I’m just glad you’re still here.”

  I squeeze her hand back. “Yeah, me too.”

  We wind up holding hands for the first hour or so of the movie, which isn’t weird at all. Honest. Okay, I guess if we were a pair of guy best friends holding hands we’d get strange looks, but it’s totally a holy crap you almost died kinda thing. Eventually, the normalness of the three of us going out to the movies takes over and she calms down. At least until the main character winds up in bed with another woman… Ashley squirms in her seat and makes noises like she’s getting off from simply watching it. It can’t be the girl-on-girl thing so much as the sex scene in general.