“Oh my goodness!” she squealed.
“Wow, I’m impressed.”
“Well it’s not that big. It’s like, what, two hundred pounds?”
“Probably more.” I said. “You couldn’t have budged it yesterday, and you easily lifted it today.”
“Yeah. Cool!” She turned to me. “Can you pick it up?”
“I guess.”
“So try it.”
“What?”
“What, are you afraid I’m stronger than you?” She started laughing, but not at me, mostly just out of the weirdness of it all. “AM I stronger? Like, are new vam... whatever we are, stronger?”
“I don’t think so. Sorry to let you down.”
“So pick it up.”
“Seriously?” I asked “You’re going to make me get my hands dirty?”
“Baby.”
I bent forward and grabbed the rock. And I lifted it, but it was everything I could do to get it off the ground. Great, she really is stronger than me. Just like in the stupid dream.
She was laughing. Not a little, either. Practically rolling on the ground. I was actually sort of embarrassed. And then she tried to get it under control, and resorted to occasional snorts.
“Shut up.” I told her.
“Sorry, honey.”
“You still have to listen to me.”
“Yeah, sure. Hey let’s race! Maybe I’m faster than you too.”
“Jess,”
“Come on, scaredy cat.”
She took off running, and I chased after her. And she was faster than me. Oh man, this sucks. So what, she’s going to better than me at everything? This isn’t happening. I’m not used to being bested physically. First Julius and Joanna, now Jessica. Maybe it’s the name starting with J. I think I’ll change my name to Janelle or Josephine or something.
“I still know more than you.” I told her, when I caught up.
“Yeah, but I can learn. Will you ever get faster?”
“You suck.”
“So far just those little packets.” she said. She made a face. “The taste is pretty bad, isn’t it?”
“You get used to it.”
“Is it any better right from the source?”
“You will never find out, hopefully.”
“So what’s next?”
“I don’t know, Jess. I’ve never actually tried to teach anyone this stuff. You just have to kind of learn. Like... don’t do anything extreme. If someone is pushing you around, it’s kind of best to let them. It makes you appear weaker.”
“Yeah, I already picked up that you do that, hon.”
“Don’t run fast around others. Basically you have to do your best to appear a weak, clumsy, normal girl.”
“That clumsy thing may work for you, but it’s not my style.” she said with a laugh.
“Well you need to try.”
“Do I have to be as bad as you? Can’t I just try to act like I always do?”
“You can try, I guess.”
“So,” She reached out and ruffled my hair. “What do... our kind do for fun?”
“Watch movies. Shop. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you ready to go home? I’m still kind of weak.”
“Oh don’t use that for an excuse, you know I beat you.”
“You did. But I need to rest. And maybe eat again.”
We walked home. We were several blocks away and I saw Barney in the front yard, putting something on the post for the mail box. He was bent forward, his pants slid down in the back.
“You’re brother is disgusting.” I told her.
“Yeah.” she said. “What brought that up?”
“His pants.” I said, pointing.
“Huh?”
“Look, he needs a belt. Maybe I’ll have to buy him one.”
“I don’t...”
“Oh wow, you're kidding!” I said, more excited than was really warranted. “You can’t see him.”
“See who? Is he somewhere?”
“Oh ha ha! You were so certain you were better than me at everything.”
“He’s in the front yard?”
“Yeah, are you blind?” I said, laughing again. “I have better eyesight than you. A lot better, apparently, since I saw him a while back.”
“So?”
“Oh I get it.” I said. I stopped walking. “You’re stronger than me because you’re bigger and stronger than I was as a human. You are faster because you’re faster than I was before. But I had eagle eyes before my change, and you have glasses that you refuse to wear.”
“I don’t need them.”
“Now you don’t.”
“I didn’t before. The eye doctor even said we could wait, they weren’t that bad. Mom insisted I get them. Ya know, I did notice that I looked different when I looked in the mirror earlier. Like... smoother, or something. But it was like I could see every pore.”
“You’re eyes are better, just not as good as mine. And you do look a little different. Anyway, I had perfect eyesight, and now I have much better eyes than you.”
“I’m still faster and stronger.” she mumbled. She’s mad. “So seriously, we can’t read minds, or compel people to do things, or see the future or anything?”
“Nope.”
“Well what good is all this then?” she asked, laughing.
“You live a long time, you heal quickly, you get to be strong and fast and a lot of normal rules of society really don’t apply to you anymore.”
“What kind of rules don’t apply?” she asked.
“Stuff like age requirements. Come on, I’m over eighteen. But I still have to work hard and come up with a really good fake ID to get into an R rated movie.”
“So can we just take stuff?”
“There are times when it can be necessary. But that doesn’t make it right. So we don’t do that, unless absolutely necessary.”
“Right. So can I skip school now, ‘cause I’m really not feeling it. Why do I need a senior year?”
“School is healthy. It lets you be around others your own age.”
“But they already bored me before. What’s it going to be like in ten years?”
“Oh.”
Well I explained this before, but maybe she didn’t understand what I meant. It’s really difficult to explain to someone, but I can try. And I hope she isn’t upset by this.
“You’re stuck, Jess.” I told her. “At seventeen. For a very long time.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean... look, this sounds messed up, but if your experience is anything like mine, you’re going to stay interested in things seventeen year olds are interested in. Over time a lot of things seem to fade away, and you don’t really get older. I mean even in your head.”
“Right, got it.”
“You do gain knowledge. Sometimes. But even some of that fades if you don’t continue to use that knowledge. It’s really hard for me to remember stuff from when I pretended to be older and went to college, for instance.”
“Got it.”
“I don’t think you do. But you will.”
“Well then,” she said. “You seem much more responsible and in control than most fifteen year olds. Are you saying you haven’t developed?”
“It’s out of necessity. And fear. When I let myself relax, I get very much like I was before. I was a little immature, to be honest.”
“Got it. Oh I can see Barney now.”
“About time.”
We were back up in the bedroom, her sitting at her computer while I was getting undressed so I could take a nap. She was looking at travel sites. Apparently she thinks we’re just going to take a long vacation now.
“Wake me up in time for dinner.” I told her. “I don’t want lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, and Jess?”
“Yeah.”
“Please stay home. At least for a few weeks, until you get a better hang of everything, I’d feel b
etter if you didn’t go anywhere without me.”
“What’s to get the hang of?” she asked.
“Controlling yourself, mostly.” Plus I worry she’ll slip and attack someone out of some weird bout of hunger. Hey, I never saw someone right after they changed before, so maybe that blood lust things isn’t as far fetched as I thought.
“I can control myself.”
“I know, Jess. Just humor me?”
“Yes Mom.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Okay, okay. Sleep well.” She leaped over to my side and hugged me. “I’m really glad you did this for me.”
“Yeah.” I’m not. “I’m tired.”
“So should I get a doll now, too?” she asked. She laughed. “Maybe it’s a vamp thing. Maybe we all have them, and you’re not just being a little kid.”
“I’m not a vampire.” I said. I laid back and closed my eyes.
I’ve condemned her to this. To watching everyone she loves dies. To never feeling safe. To never being normal. To never being able to lay out in the sun ever again. To always and forever being a cannibal. As much as I try not to think of it like that, it’s what I am. I live off of human blood. I’ve condemned her to never being able to love.
I dreamed of perfect days and perfect nights with Teresa. Of long walks in the parks, of snuggling up to watch movies. Of love making. Of long vacations to places I’ve never been. I dreamed of mundane things, like her and I folding laundry and doing dishes. And then I woke up crying.
“It’s okay.” Jess was saying to me. It sounded like she had said it several times already by that point, based on the tone of her voice. “Everything is fine, honey.”
“I hate this.” I mumbled.
“I know.”
“You don’t know! She left me. She left me because of this, because of me being whatever the hell it is I am.”
“She loves you, Brynne. She just can’t handle it.” She patted my hand. “Maybe after she has time to think...”
“It’s too dangerous for her. She needs to go away and never think of me again.”
“Honey,”
“And I’ve condemned you to the same thing.”
“You don’t know that. I could find a perfect guy somewhere, and he could be alright with this.”
“And he grows old and dies while you remain seventeen years old.”
“Well that’s depressing. Maybe I could change him too, and then we...”
“No!” I sat up. “Don’t ever think of doing that!”
“Relax.”
“I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t... I felt so guilty, and so alone, and... now I’ve turned you into some... some unnatural creature.”
“Brynne, stop it.”
“And you can never have love now. That’s the worst part.”
“I have you. I love you.”
“But you’ll never be able to be in love with someone, never be able to have someone be in love with you. You’re alone now, too.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I really wish Teresa...” She stopped when the phone started ringing. “Maybe that’s her. It rang before, when you were asleep. Maybe she thought about it, and she wants you back.”
“That’s not... that’s... is that the phone Barney got me?”
I looked over at the phone, on the dresser. Watching it from over here won’t really do any good, I guess. I should answer it.
“He-hello.” I said. I leaned against the dresser.
“We need to talk.” he said. Heavy Italian accent.
“Who is this?”
“You called my colleague Saturday.” he said.
“Um,” His colleague. Hah. “I talked to someone Saturday.”
“Is this the girl that claimed to be a vampire?”
“Not exactly.” I said. “Close enough.”
“Close enough?” he asked.
“I don’t like to think of it that way. I don’t attack people, I just get my blood from blood banks.” Why do I have to keep repeating this? I went over a hundred years telling nobody, now I seem to have to tell everyone.
“We need to talk in person.” he said.
“No, not... look, I... you have to stop them. The ones in Wichita.”
“We’ll talk about that. Where are you now?”
“Look, I... I’ll come to you. Pick a place.”
“Miss, this is no time to play games.”
“My name is Brynne.” Brilliant. They just need to look for every Brynne in Kansas. There can’t be that many of us. “To whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Paolo.” he said. “And the rest we can discuss in person. Where can I find you?”
“So you can come kill me?”
“Brynne,” he said. He sounds like a salesman, even with the accent. “We simply want to speak with you.”
“Look, I don’t even care any more.” I said. “Kill me, whatever.”
“No!” Jess shouted.
“But I have some ground rules.”
“Such as?” he asked.
“You wait until after I help you hunt down Julius and Joanna.”
“That can be arranged.” he said. His salesman voice makes me doubt his intention on following through on that, though. “Now let’s meet.”
“The people that have been helping me, you have to leave them be. They are good people, you need to promise they won’t be harmed.”
“I promise.”
“Okay. Okay. There’s a rest stop on highway four hundred, a little East of Wichita. I’ll meet you there tomorrow at noon.”
“Keep in mind, we will be protecting ourselves, should you decide to try anything funny.”
“I won’t.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
“Wait!” I said, hoping he wouldn’t hang up.
“Yes?”
“How will I recognize you?”
“We will see you.” he answered.
“Well don’t you want to know what I look like?”
“I imagine you’ll be the only vampire there, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hung up. Jess was looking at me, waiting for details. Dripping with curiosity, I would say. She looks scared. Or excited.
“So we go at noon.” she said.
“No. I go at noon. You’re not going anywhere near there.”
“I’m not staying behind.”
“You need to stay here. They could kill you, Jess. You’re not having anything to do with those people.”
“And they could kill you, too. I’m not just sitting by and letting that happen.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“I agreed to do what you said, Brynne, but I’m not letting you go off alone like this.”
“Jess,”
What, it’s dangerous? Telling her that won’t help. So what do I tell her? I mean if she comes along they might very well kill her. I’d rather they not even know she exists. But I have to tell her something.
“You have to stay behind to protect your family.” I told her. “In case the others come looking.”
“That’s a lame excuse and you know it.”
“Jess,”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Yes.” she insisted.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too dangerous.” I wasn’t going to tell her that. Great. “Look, I... if you come then they’ll just kill me on the spot because I changed you.”
“You think they’d do that?”
“They might.”
“Then you can’t go!” She grabbed onto my hand. “You’re not leaving me. I can’t do this by myself.”
“Jessica, they aren’t going to hurt me as long as they think I can help stop the others.”
“Are you sure?”
“He promised.” Well, not exactly.
“I don’t like this.” she said.
“Me either. But it
’s the only way.”
“I hate this.”
“Look, I’ll be able to concentrate much better if I don’t have to worry about you or your family. So stay here. Maybe go check on Teresa, too. Secretly, of course. Just go visit Tony and check on her while you’re there.”
“Honey... okay. You swear you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
The evening was kind of tense. Really tense. Jess told her family I was going tomorrow, and they all spent the whole night trying to talk me out of it. And Barney wants to go along. I tried to explain to him how dangerous it was, but he won’t listen. I don’t really have any way to get there, other than running anyway, so I guess he can drive me. They won’t hurt him. I don’t think they will, at least.
Tuesday, June 21
We were most of the way there, and I was really nervous. Barney kept talking about
football. I don’t know why he keeps talking about football, but he does. I’m getting a bit sick of it. I suppose he’s trying to distract me so I don’t worry, but it’s not working. I hate football.
My phone started ringing. It’s really not a good time to talk. But I have to make Jessica feel better. I have to calm her down. Even if I’m not calm. She needs that from me.
“Hey Jess. Look, we’re almost there, I can’t talk long.”
“Hey Love.” she said. Not Jessica. “It’s me.” She’s crying.
“Teresa!”
“I’m sorry I freaked out.”
“No, it’s okay baby.” I said.
“Brynne, you be careful. Jess told me what you’re doing.”
“She did?”
“Yes. Please don’t die.”
Brynne, Non-Vampire (The Non-Vampire Series Book 1) Page 22
