Chapter Text
"The truth is this,
every monster
you have met
or will ever meet,
was once a human being
with a soul
that was as soft
and light
as silk.
Someone stole
that silk from their soul
and turned them
into this.
So when you see
a monster next,
always remember this.
Do not fear
the thing before you.
Fear the thing
that created it
instead."
Chapter 26
"Eden." Missy supported her broken wrist with her thigh and tried to reach Eden's body with her other foot. Eden's blood soaked through the ankles of her jeans. It was cold. It should have been warm. "Eden!" She sobbed, but Eden's face was sitting in a pool of blood that was coming from the open (by which she meant open on both sides) wound in her chest, her eyes were open wide but too shiny, and lifeless like a taxidermy animal's.
The pool of Eden's blood spread until it wet her hands. It was too much blood, there wasn't that much blood in the human body. It was only a little over a gallon, this was way more than a gallon of milk. Why was it so cold? She hadn't been dead long enough for it to be cold yet. "Eden," she wiped her nose with her unbroken wrist, smearing blood on her face. "please get up." She said brokenly. "Please don't leave me alone with him."
Patrick crouched down by her feet. "Shh," he grabbed her toes and wiggled her foot. "Hey," he said gently, "hey," until Missy looked at him. "she's dead."
Missy buried her chin in her shoulder and cried, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly that it actually hurt, like a child who thought the monster under their bed couldn't hurt them if they couldn't see it.
Patrick grabbed her chin in his right hand and turned her head to the side. A broken wrist made her remarkably cooperative. He stuck the tip of his thumbnail through the skin behind her ear like a lancet. His nails were so sharp it didn't even hurt that much, though maybe her broken wrist was stealing some of the thunder. He did it so slowly that she felt his nail go through her skin like popping the plastic film on a microwave dinner with a fork. He knelt between her spread legs with his hands on her kneecaps. He wasn't even putting all of his weight on her and it still hurt. He leaned in, turning her head to the side again with his face, and put his lips over the puncture wound behind her ear and sucked hard like he was trying to give her the world's worst (the world's best?) hickey.
Now that did hurt.
He sat back on his heels, licking around the inside of his mouth dramatically like a dog trying to get peanut butter out of its gums. "Teenagers." He sighed. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his ring finger even though there wasn't any blood on him and licked his finger. "You know," he said absently. "some vampires prefer feeding on children, because," he laughed through his nose gently. "they think they taste better. The blood's supposed to taste better the younger they are, but I've never bought into all that. You see," he grabbed her hand and entwined their fingers automatically. She couldn't even stop him from doing that. "it's the fear," he said, with his face so close to hers that she could smell the blood on his tongue. "that really makes the difference, and nobody is more afraid," he laughed. "than teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. Hm." He stroked the side of her face with his free hand and Missy closed her eyes reflexively.
"And I find," he raised their entwined hands and took his fingers out from in between hers and wrapped his fist around her index finger at the same time. "that a little trauma," he snapped her finger, the pain was so shocking that she held her breath automatically. "makes the meat taste even better." He cut her lip with his fingernail and licked up the thin blood trail that ran down her chin. He sighed almost like he was aroused. "And you've had enough trauma for someone twice your age haven't you, Missy? I mean, Mommy Dearest messed you up so much for me already, there's not much else I can really do to you." He grabbed her pinky by itself, and Missy's breathing sped up like he was sitting on her chest. He smiled and laughed at her at the same time. "But that doesn't mean we can't try, right?"
The pain woke up her like it always did. Missy unclenched her fists, and there were four, deep half-moon marks on both of her palms from her fingernails.
This had been going on for weeks now. Two weeks and one day, if she was being pedantic, and it was hard not to when her birthday (or V-Day, according to Paul) was literally only a month away. With a literal deadline hanging over her head like an ax, it was no surprise she wasn't sleeping well.
True to his word, David hadn't brought it up since or tried to pressure her once, though he'd had many opportunities to do so. She hadn't told any of them about her nightmares either, not even Paul, who'd been stuck to her like Peter Pan's shadow sewed to the bottom of her foot ever since Dwayne changed her.
Dwayne, oddly enough, seemed to want little to do with her anymore. Not that she blamed him. She wasn't exactly good company these days, between her swooning episodes and sleepless nights, despite what Paul being all over her like white on rice and a glass of milk and a paper plate in a snowstorm might lead someone to believe.
Maybe Dwayne did feel guilty, despite what he said. The only time they'd spent together since he changed her was when he gave her his blood every couple of days. It wasn't the same as the real thing, but at least this way she didn't have to give up being all human just yet. She didn't have that much longer to enjoy it regardless, and between feeling sick and tired all the time, and sleeping all day, there wasn't much time for her to enjoy anything, let alone the little things about being human like the sun on her face or shaving her legs.
The sun was still up. She was getting better at waking up when it went down, but she still occasionally woke up before the boys did (their internal clocks were better than hers) and she enjoyed those moments, few and far between as they were, when she had the cave to herself, when Star and Laddie were still asleep, and before the boys woke up. She didn't have to worry about waking Laddie up, as long as the sun was still up a grenade going off on his pillow wouldn't wake him up.
Her legs hung off the armrest of the musty, old loveseat that she slept in. One of the boards was broken and it sagged in the middle like a hammock when she sat on it, and it smelled like her grandmother's basement, but she slept like the dead, no pun intended, during the day, so she didn't notice.
She tightened her ponytail out of habit and sighed. The bags under her eyes felt huge and puffy, but despite how tired she was, she couldn't seem to fall back to sleep.
"Bad dreams, kiddo?"
Missy's breath hitched.
That was the other thing she hadn't told any of the boys.
Sitting down, with his back against part of a collapsed archway, Patrick had his legs bent, his arms propped up on his knees. He ran his hand through his short brown hair, mirroring her, and Missy was surprised by how young he looked now. He must have been in his thirties when he became a vampire, but he was short, she could tell even though he was sitting down that she had almost half a foot on him, and the matching luggage under his eyes made him look even younger. "You know why I think you won't tell your boyfriends about me?"
"Because you're not real?" Missy asked tartly.
Patrick huffed, tilting his head. "Aw." He clucked his tongue patronizingly, and Missy looked away spitefully. "We both know that's not true." He stood up and clasped his hands together behind his back, cracking his back and neck like he'd been sitting there for hours watching her sleep. He put his hand on the armrest by her head and leaned in, but didn't touch her. "A part of me is gonna be inside you always, sweetheart." Missy clenched her jaw, but she couldn't get away from him without touching him, and touching him would be like acknowledging that he was really there.
"Who says I'm not?" Patrick pinched her cheek so hard her right eye closed. "You're not exactly the most reliable narrator, babe. And that stake went through both of us, remember?" He put his hand over his heart. "My heart," he tried to stick his hand under her tee shirt but she grabbed his wrist with both hands and held it still. "and your heart." He leaned across the space between them and kissed her cheek gently.
"It's you" Patrick sang quietly. "and me" he tucked her hair behind her ear gently. "forever."
"You're not real." Their faces were so close that her lips touched the stubble on Patrick's chin when she made 'Y' sounds. "You're dead."
Patrick tilted his head, his dark eyes touching her face like a lover. "Who are you kidding, angel?" He laughed through his teeth. "I'm the only thing you be can sure is real. I'm your lighthouse, Missy."
"You're a hallucination of a dead, psychotic vampire I set on fire."
"You say the sweetest things."
"Just shut up." Missy turned over, using her left arm as a pillow on the armrest. "I'm trying to sleep."
Patrick leaned over her and kissed the side of her head. "Sweet dreams, Missy."
She heard him sit down, and not long after, he started singing again under his breath. "Sara, smile. Oh, won't you smile awhile for me, Sara?" Missy pulled the blanket over her head, but it didn't help. Why would it when the noise was coming from her head? "Sara, smile. Oh, won't you smile awhile, Sara?"
"Come on, just a little bit." It was hard enough to ignore Paul when he wasn't holding a Styrofoam cup in her face, poking her in the corner of her eye with the straw, but it was impossible to ignore him when he was sitting on a cramped loveseat with her (it wouldn't be cramped if Paul wasn't sitting on it with her), with her legs in his lap and a book propped up on the pillow in hers.
"Get it out of my face, Paul." She said, for the hundredth time, pushing the cup out of her face with the back of her fingers. "I don't want it."
Paul poked her in the lip with the straw. "Just pretend it's fruit punch or something."
"Paul." She said warningly.
"You'll get sick if you don't eat something." This wasn't a new argument for them. Ever since she almost died, Paul had been sticking to her like gum on her shoe. She was Dwayne's problem now, David's words, not his, but that didn't seem to hamper Paul's enthusiasm in the slightest.
"I don't care." She did care, but she'd like to at least pretend she had a choice in the matter, and just because she was a half-vampire now didn't mean she had to enjoy drinking blood. She knew it was Dwayne's blood in that cup and not an innocent person's, and she was hungry, but it was the principle of the thing, and she wasn't backing down no matter how annoying Paul was.
Paul sighed and leaned back against the loveseat, looking over his shoulder. "Dwayne, come on, help me out here."
Dwayne gave him a look that said how much it wasn't his problem.
"Come on, Miss," Paul poked her in the lip with the straw again, trying to get it past her clenched teeth. "just one little sip."
Missy squeezed the corner of the book so hard her thumb left a huge indentation on the page. "I swear to God, Paul, if you make the airplane sound again, you're going to wake up tomorrow with a tan. I'm going to grab you by your ankles and drag you outside while you're sleeping."
Before Paul could rebut, she held The Last of the Mohicans up in her front of her face petulantly.
"Missy."
She was halfway through turning the page when David's voice stopped her. Before, it would have been impossible for her to hear him over the music that Paul insisted on playing at an earsplitting volume that would have been too much even if they weren't all vampires. The little drummer boy in her head was having a field day, and she couldn't focus on the page even if she tried. Still, David might as well have been sitting next to her his voice was so clear.
"David." She peered at him over the top of the book, frowning, even though he couldn't see it.
He was smoking a cigarette without touching it. He gestured with his head at the collapsed stone and the hole in the wall that led up to the entrance of the cave under Hudson's bluff. "Let's go."
"Go?" Missy's eyebrows went up to her hairline. "Go where? With you?"
No, the look David gave her said, with the Loch Ness monster.
So far, David had kept his promise not to force her into making the change from half-vampire to full vampire, but Missy had also been very careful not to be alone with him in the meantime. It wasn't that she expected David to go back on his word, not exactly anyway, but he was a vampire and a murderer, and he'd tried to kill her more than once, though not if you ask him, so that she wasn't exactly excited to be alone with him should come as a surprise to no one, least of all David.
"Don't make me ask twice, Missy."
Maybe a month was just too long for David to wait, or maybe he expected her to go back on her word.
She looked at Paul, who was chewing on the end of the straw, virtually guaranteeing that she wouldn't be drinking out of it later when she was hungry enough to ignore her principles. "Do you know what this is about?" She asked. "I only ask because you look guilty and that usually means you know where David is taking me."
"Uhh," Paul lifted her legs instead of answering and slid out from under them.
Missy shut the book with one hand and frowned. "That's not an answer, Paul."
David sighed audibly, and Paul looked over his shoulder at him. "You probably shouldn't keep Dad waiting."
"Right," Missy said quietly. Even David's generosity had limits and repeating himself, Missy was finding, was all of them.
David knocked on the front door with the back of his hand, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Try not to speak." He said. At Missy's expression, "or do. I'm sure I'll enjoy that."
The front door opened and Missy was uppercutted by a gust of air from inside the house that was warmer than it was outside, it blew her hair into her mouth, and she could smell vanilla, the artificial kind like in candles, and lemon glass cleaner. She slicked her hair back from her face with both hands and looked up at the tall, awkward looking older man in the doorway. He stared at them over the top of the beige plastic frames of his glasses with his mouth pursed like he had a whole lemon in his mouth. He looked like a dad who just caught his teenage daughter's older boyfriend hiding under her bed.
"David." The tall man said, frowning deeply.
"Max."
"You're late."
"Wouldn't have been," David replied, coolly blowing the smoke from his cigarette sideways so it didn't hit Missy's face. The way he said it left no doubt in Missy's mind that she was being implicated as the reason for their tardiness, and she bit her lip to keep from saying otherwise, not because it wouldn't be true, but because she didn't think either David or Max cared.
Missy thought he could see easily over both their heads the motorcycle parked a little ways down from the white gate with the "trespassers will be eaten" sign on it that they walked through to get to the wooden walkway that led to the house, but David made them park further away and walk the rest of the way (she hadn't asked why, but seeing Max, she understood) so there was no way he could actually see it.
He didn't look happy. Missy could relate, she was rarely happy to see David either. Max looked down at her like he could hear was she was thinking, and Missy wanted to kick David for throwing her under the bus. She gave him her school picture smile and Max smiled thinly in response and clapped his hands, holding them together. "Well, come in, quickly." The "-before somebody sees you." went unspoken, but Missy got it anyway.
David seized her by the upper arm, steering her gently into the house with one hand. Missy glared at him, but didn't pull her arm back, or try to chew it off, which seemed just as reasonable to her.
Max's house was too modern for Missy's taste, too much neon, and the lights were too bright for her sensitive eyes, but it was warm and clean, and it didn't smell like cigarette smoke and dust.
Missy immediately felt out of place in her old jeans and denim jacket.
"Sit." Max gestured to a white couch and Missy balked, looking down at her jeans and dirty tennis shoes. "Please."
David evidently didn't share her reservations. He sat down on the couch like he lived there, his coat spread out dramatically on either side of him, propping his dirty boots up on the glass coffee table.
Max shook his head and turned to frown at Missy. "Sit." He said again, and it wasn't a request this time.
Missy immediately sat down, her shoulder bumping David's. He looked sidelong at her, and she scooched over, crossing her right leg over her left at the knee.
"Excuse me. I have to go check on dinner." Max gave David's feet a passing smack, knocking them off the coffee table, and disappeared through an open doorway into, presumably, the kitchen. He had to duck to avoid hitting the top of his head on the door frame.
Missy turned to face David a little, whispering in a high, almost inaudible voice. "Dinner?"
David withdrew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his coat, tapping one out. He put his feet back up on the coffee table.
"David," Missy glanced at the doorway like she expected Max to come through it like Norman Bates at the end of Psycho. "why are we here?"
David lit his cigarette and took it out of his mouth with the same hand that was holding his lighter. "Max wanted to get to know the newest member of his family."
"Family?" Missy said. She felt all of the colors drain out of her body like a cartoon character. "Max is a vampire?"
David exhaled gently through his nose. "Head vampire." He corrected her, at which point Missy nearly passed out.
Max was the head vampire?
"I'll tell you, those boys of Max's have been a real thorn in my side—"
"—those boys of Max's—"
So this was the Max Patrick was talking about. David's vampire equivalent father, which would make him her vampire great grandfather. "He's so normal looking," Missy said sotto voce.
David laughed with his mouth closed. "Not what you were expecting?"
"Hardly." Missy couldn't close her mouth.
"Appearances can be deceiving," David said with a verbal shrug. "Max has been perfecting this one for a long time."
Somehow Missy didn't doubt that, but she still didn't know why she was here.
"David." Missy's head turned like a bird dog. David turned, albeit more slowly, to look too. "I smell cigarette smoke."
"No shit" was what Missy's raised eyebrows said.
David stood up, and Missy grabbed his arm in response. He put his cigarette back between his teeth slowly, holding her gaze.
"Where are you going?" She whispered.
David leaned down, prying her hand off his arm at the same time. "Outside." He whispered back sarcastically. "To smoke."
"You can't leave me alone with him!" Missy pointed at the open doorway. She didn't even want to be alone with David, let alone with Max. "What if he wants to talk to me?"
"Don't ignore him."
"Try one."
Missy looked at the plate of vanilla cookies as he set it on the coffee table. "Just one." He added firmly. "We don't want you spoiling your appetite before dinner."
Missy had never had less of an appetite in her life, but she took one anyway, lifting it delicately with two fingers and putting it on her thigh on the napkin Max handed her. "Thank you." She said automatically.
A white German Shepherd trotted out of the kitchen and made a beeline for Max. He sat down at his feet, between him and Missy. The dog's shrewd brown eyes were fixed only on her.
"This is Thorn," Max said absently.
"Hi, Thorn." Missy said to the dog who she was sure didn't care, and "he's a really pretty dog." to the vampire who smiled for the first time somewhat genuinely.
"Say thank you to Melissa, Thorn." The German Shepherd barked at her, and Missy let out a surprised laugh in return.
"Well?" Max stared at her over the top of his glasses.
"Well?" Missy echoed.
"Aren't you going to try it?" Max indicated the cookie on the napkin on her thigh. "I want your honest opinion."
Missy wanted to ask if the Suzy Homemaker routine was for her benefit, David was outside smoking, and she couldn't imagine him sitting here eating vanilla cookies with Max anyway, but she already knew Max was the head vampire, so if it was for her benefit, she didn't know why he was doing it.
It also occurred to her that Max probably heard all of that because he was a vampire.
She shoved the whole cookie in her mouth and smiled nervously.
"Hm," Max said.
Missy gave him a thumbs up, chewing slowly, so she would have an excuse not to say anything for at least a minute or two.
Max narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and tilted his head. "Would you like to help me set the table, Melissa?"
Missy's jaw would have dropped if her mouth wasn't full, so she just nodded.
Setting the table with Max was a surreal experience. Max hummed while he cooked, and asked her questions the whole time.
"How old are you, Melissa?"
Missy set a plate down on the table noisily. "You can call me Missy. If you want to." She added hastily.
Max looked up from the saucepan. "How old are you, Missy?"
Missy squeezed the plate she was holding nervously and put it down next to the other one heavily. The place settings were too close together, so she moved them apart a little. "Seventeen."
"Hm," Max said without looking at her. "you look younger."
Missy huffed in amusement. "That's what I hear."
Max tapped a wooden spoon on the edge of the saucepan to flick the excess spaghetti sauce off of it. "Parents?"
Missy clenched her jaw, rearranging the silverware absently. "Dead."
The rhythmic tapping of the wooden spoon paused and resumed a few seconds later. "Condolences."
"Thank you."
Max pulled a single piece of spaghetti out of the pot and put it in his mouth. "Have you graduated?" He asked her while he chewed.
"Didn't get that far," Missy said with an embarrassed smile.
"Ah. Well, none of my boys did, so you're in good company." Max hung the black and white checkered hand towel he'd been carrying on his shoulder on the handle of the oven and turned to face her. "Speaking of, why don't you run outside and tell David dinner is ready? I'm sure he's run out of cigarettes by now."
Missy stepped outside onto the patio and pulled the door shut behind her with a comically loud sigh. David was leaning against the house smoking, and he looked at her over his shoulder. "Dinner's ready." She said by way of explanation at his raised eyebrows.
David held his cigarette between his thumb and index finger and offered it to her. Missy furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head, her mouth open a little.
David shrugged with his eyebrows and exhaled smoke through his nose slowly. "Getting along?" He asked her, and Missy shrugged, putting her hands in her jacket pockets. It was typically Southern-California-in-May chilly outside, so she was glad she remembered to put it on again after Max made —by which she meant his request for her to do so barely resembled one her take it off.
"He seems nice. He asked me a lot of questions. I don't know if he likes me though."
David dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. He put his arm around her neck as and whispered into the side of her head. "He hasn't killed you yet."
"Now, Melissa, let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?" Missy dropped her fork loudly. It hit the edge of her plate and flipped over, flinging spaghetti sauce on the table runner and the side of her glass. The silence that had previously only been interrupted by the sounds of forks on plates (only she and Max were actually eating) was shattered by Max's sudden declaration. "I don't usually invite half-vampires into my home, you must understand that and the danger it presents to all of us," Missy didn't, but she nodded anyway. "but after speaking with David, I've decided to give you the opportunity to speak on your own behalf before I made my decision."
"Um," Missy wiped the side of her drinking glass with her napkin and used the condensation to clean up the drops of spaghetti sauce on the tablecloth. "I'm sorry —just, um, what decision is that...exactly?"
Max peered at her flatly over the top of his glasses. "Whether or not I'm going to kill you."
Missy's heart tripped over its own feet and missed a few beats. "Kill me?" Her tongue suddenly felt too big for her own mouth. "Why —why would you kill me?" He was the head vampire, she was a two-week-old half-vampire. She was more of a danger to herself than anyone else.
Max chuckled quietly at her thoughts, removing his glasses with one hand, and a handkerchief from his pocket with the other. "There are rules, Melissa. We don't just go around giving people our blood willy-nilly." If she wasn't terrified, she might have laughed. Head vampire or not, it was hard not to laugh when anyone said "willy-nilly'. "What Dwayne did just isn't done, but here we are," Max put his handkerchief back in his pocket and sighed. "and now we have to talk about the consequences." He put his glasses back on, took them off, and put them back on so they were straight. "Now, I've already spoken to David about this, but he seemed to think that talking to you would affect my decision." Missy couldn't help but wonder what sort of effect David had been hoping for. "I'd like to hear what you have to say."
Missy had no idea what to say. She didn't ask for this, being a vampire was like a gift from her grandmother, she just had to suck it up and pretend she liked it when she visited.
David, who was sitting next to her, took a drink of her water to hide the fact that he was laughing at her. "Well?"
"I don't know." Missy bit her lip when Max raised his eyebrows behind his glasses and added hastily. "Sir."
Max chuckled.
Missy's lungs deflated like a whoopie cushion with a nervous laugh.
Max leaned his forearms on the edge of the table (he must have been raised to keep his elbows off the table too) and folded his hands. "I understand you didn't ask for this, but you seem to be making the best of things and I admire that." Missy kept waiting for the "but", but it never came. "I've taken your participation in Patrick's death into consideration."
Oh, that could go either way, Missy thought.
"And my boys like you."
"I like them too." Present company excluded.
David smirked out of the corner of her eye but didn't say anything.
"You have the right temperament for a vampire."
"What?" Missy asked before she could stop herself. "Not wanting to be one?"
Stupid. Stupid.
Max smiled. "Exactly. Patrick wanted to be a vampire very much, and you saw yourself how that turned out."
Missy didn't know if that was more of an indictment on Patrick or her, considering her part in killing him. She reached over and took her cup back from David with her middle finger and thumb on the rim.
"David tells me you two have come to an agreement regarding your eighteenth birthday."
Missy nodded her head, a mouthful of water sloshing around audibly. She put her glass back down in front of David. "Yes, sir."
Max regarded her coolly. "Do you plan to honor that arrangement?"
It would be disingenuous to say she knew how to answer that question. That her outlook was uncertain was obvious, especially to David, but one truth remained, whatever the future held for her, in a month, she'd be dealing with as a vampire. She immediately felt David's eyes on the side of her head. "I do."
"Then I have no objections."
Missy glanced at David, who was cleaning under his nails with his butter knife. "Really?"
"Really." Max said, sticking a cotton candy forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.
"I can go?"
Max waved dismissively as he chewed. "David will take you home after dinner. Unless you'd like to stay for dessert?" Max gave her a smile that reminded her way too much of Patrick and Thorn picked his head up off the floor and growled at her.
Missy never ate so fast in her life.
Max walked them out. David waited for her to put her jacket back on (he never took his off) while Thorn hung his big white head over the arm of the couch and stared at her. She untucked her hair from the collar of her jacket and frowned. "Max?"
"Yes?" He said, eyebrows raised.
She almost didn't ask, she lost her nerve so fast. "You changed Patrick into a vampire, didn't you?"
Max tilted his head, furrowing his eyebrows. "You're very intuitive. Yes, I did."
Missy knew she was treading on dangerously thin ice with this line of inquiry, but she couldn't help herself. "He was a psychopath. Why would you do that? You had to know making him a vampire was a mistake," the word vomit just. Kept. Coming. "why didn't you do something about it?"
Max took off his glasses and sighed, cleaning them again even though they were already clean. "A father can't murder his own children, Missy."
The door shut behind them so closely that the doorknob hit her on the tailbone. She suddenly felt lightheaded even though she just ate, and grabbed David's shoulder to steady herself. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he lit a cigarette. "Holy crap." She said breathlessly. David raised his eyebrows wordlessly. Missy smacked him on the shoulder with her other hand and shook him. "Holy crap!" I mean, understatement of the freaking century, but yeah. "You could have warned me." She tucked her hair behind her ear, putting her left hand inside the collar of her tee-shirt to feel her heartbeat even though she could already hear it. "Star doesn't know about him does she?" Otherwise it wouldn't be David's death Star was holding out for.
"No." And it went without saying that she wasn't supposed to tell them either.
"I can keep a secret." Missy said.
Smoke dripped out of the corner of David's mouth in blue rolls as he smiled. "Me too."
The wind picked up, blowing her hair into her face again. She buttoned her jacket, the pin on her left shoulder jingling like a wind chime as she jogged after David. She tucked her hair behind her ear again. "David? Can I ask you something?"
David exhaled loudly. "No."
Missy furrowed her eyebrows. "No I can't ask you or just no?"
David glanced sidelong at her.
"You don't even know what I was going to ask!" Missy said indignantly.
"Of course I do."
Of course he did.
David stopped, and Missy stepped on the back of his ankles, running into his back. "And the answer's no."
"But—" She knew David was right, as much as she hated to admit it, and she really, really hated to admit it. She couldn't walk back into her old life like nothing happened, she just thought what she wanted was a little more attainable. "It's not unreasonable."
"It is." David said. He started walking again. "What do you expect to happen?"
"Nothing." Missy said heatedly. "I just want to say goodbye. You said yourself I have loose ends, well Edgar and Alan aren't the only ones, and Renee's never going to stop looking for me unless I give her a good reason to."
"Are you planning on killing her?" David asked coyly.
"What?" Missy's tennis shoes kicked up dirt as she stopped abruptly again. "No. Of course not."
"Then she's never going to stop looking." David said without stopping.
"You're not going to kill my stepmother, David." She panted, running to catch up with him.
"Your problems are my problems now." David said. "If your bullshit lands on my door, me and mine all have to deal with it. Like it or not you're mine now."
Missy held her bangs up off her forehead like she was trying to keep the sun out of her eyes. "If people come looking for me I'm not the only one they're going to find."
"I know that."
"So this needs to be dealt with, David," she turned him around. "you said so yourself, I'm not saying kill her, she's my stepmother, she tormented me but I don't want her dead, I just want to talk to her, explain," at David's look, "as much as I can, so she'll leave me, us, all of us, alone." Admittedly she had an ulterior motive in returning to Queen Anne, but her personal catharsis was none of David's business, the Renee situation needed to be dealt with regardless, preferably without David killing her stepmother. "Please." She squeezed David's arm, though she didn't know if that was helping or hurting her case. "I'll be careful, and I'll wear sunglasses at night so nobody recognizes me." David sighed. "I have to, David. I have to. How am I supposed to move on with Renee hanging around my neck like an albatross?" David sighed again, this time without making any noise at all, and Missy knew she had him.
"Okay."
"Okay?" It was too easy, that should have been her first clue.
"Okay." By this point, red flags were going up left, right and center. "But I'm going with you."
There was the other shoe. "David —I need to do this alone."
"This isn't about your personal catharsis. What happens if you slip up and she finds out what you are? Or god forbid," he said sarcastically. "you actually kill her. Do you even know what you'd do with the body? Or what you'd do if she called the cops? Or locked you in the basement, Cinderella? Did you think that far ahead?"
Not really, no.
"You have to promise you won't kill her." Missy bit her lip, chewing on the side of her mouth. "I don't care what she says, or what she threatens to do, you better promise me that you won't hurt her, David."
David huffed quietly. "I don't make promises I can't keep, Missy."
David killed his bike's engine and looked at her over his shoulder. The black plastic sunglasses she wore hid her eyes, but little else from him. He leaned on his handlebars and sighed. "We don't have all night, Missy."
"I know that." She clenched her hands on his shoulders. "I wouldn't want you to catch on fire." She said sarcastically, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair and pinning her bangs back. "You're my ride home." She looked at the innocuous blue gray house with the cherry wood door across the street. The lights were on.
"Missy." David said carefully. "You deal with it, or I will."
That was as good as a pep talk as she was likely to get from David.
She crossed the street quickly, the way her heart was racing at odds with her light jog. Her heart climbed up her throat as she climbed up the steps, something she never imagined she'd do again. She knocked on the front door before she could stop herself. Her mouth tasted like vomit.
The hall light turned on and the rectangular window above the door turned yellow. Renee looked out the bay window first like she always did, even though the house blocked the front door so couldn't see her. The front door opened inward, and Missy could smell the coffee Renee was drinking before she answered the door on her breath, Renee was the only person she knew who could drink coffee before bed and not be up all night, the vinegar Renee used to clean the kitchen, and the perfume she was wearing. It was called Poison.
"Oh my god."
"Hi, Renee." She said meekly, one eye closed.
She didn't know which one of them was more surprised, her or Renee.
"I should choke you." Renee said.
"That's fair." Missy said. "I did hit you with a vase. Which I'm sorry about, by the way, not about leaving, but I'm sorry I hit you, even if you hit me, I shouldn't have hit you back, and I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Renee's shapely eyebrows rose.
"Yes." Missy scratched her cheek by her nose. "I know you loved my dad," Renee's expression darkened like a piece of newspaper curling up in a fireplace. "I love him too, and I miss him, everyday, I miss my mom too, and I know I could have helped more, done better in school, fought with you less, and I'm really sorry, Renee." She inhaled tremulously. "I'm sorry."
Renee furrowed her eyebrows and opened her mouth wordlessly.
"Don't get me wrong," Patrick sat down across from her, his feet touching hers. "The foundation was all there. She," he laughed. "she really hated you. She just needed a little nudge, that's all. Nurse that resentment a little, sow the seeds of discord and watch 'em grow. And boy did they ever. She really loved your dad, and she was never gonna forgive you, you can take that to the bank." Patrick said with a "trust me I'm a mind reader" tone of voice. "She would have hated you forever anyway, kiddo." Missy closed her eyes and the tears she squeezed out felt like pinches on her swollen cheeks. "All I did was bring to the surface what was already there."
"You would have hated me forever anyway." Missy said quietly. "I'm sorry that I reminded you so much of him and that it hurt you so much. I don't blame you anymore, I just wanted you to know that. And to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?" Renee grabbed her wrist. "You think those Afterschool Special crocodile tears are supposed to impress me?"
"No," Missy jerked her arm back, and Renee let go immediately. "they're supposed to make you realize that you need to move on too, I don't want to hate you forever, Renee." Being a half-vampire put a lot of things into perspective, mostly "forever". "I don't want you to hate me forever."
"Too bad." Renee's buttercream colored cheeks were covered with angry red splotches. "You don't get off that easy. You don't get to just say you're sorry."
"I'm not staying with you, Renee. I can't even if I wanted to, which I don't. I'm not going to be your punching bag anymore and I'm not going to stay here with you so you don't have to be sad and alone. I'm seventeen, and I'm not afraid of you. You're just a person."
Renee slapped the taste out of her mouth and the sunglasses off her head. Missy licked her lips and took a deep breath. "You can hit me all you want."
"You're damn right."
David came out of nowhere and caught Renee's wrist with his hand. He grabbed Missy's chin with his thumb and forefinger and turned her head gently, looking at her face under the porch light. "Still don't want me to kill her?" He asked wryly.
Missy huffed.
"Get your hand off me." Renee hissed. She looked like a feral cat David was trying to pull out from under the porch.
"We need to talk, Mom." David pushed Renee into the house by her throat. She hit the entryway table and knocked one of the thick, decorative candles over with her elbow, dumping the bowl of glittery fake fruit onto the floor. David reached for the doorknob and Missy stopped him.
"David, you said you wouldn't kill her!"
"And I won't." David said mildly.
Missy's face was sheet white except where Renee hit her. "What are you going to do then?"
"Talk to her."
David was only in the house for thirty seconds. That had to be a good sign, right? You couldn't kill someone in thirty seconds, not if you wanted to get away with it, and David was smarter than that, he wouldn't kill Renee just because she slapped her.
"Well?" She asked.
"Well what?" David took a cigarette out from behind his ear and lit it.
"Did you kill her?"
"No."
Missy didn't believe him, but she wanted to. "Are you lying?"
"No." David exhaled quietly. "I just talked to her."
"What did you say?"
"That you were dead and she should move on." He held her sunglasses by the earpiece. Missy ignored him.
"What?" He sighed and put her sunglasses on her himself, pushing them up into her hair. "You hypnotized her didn't you?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"So you didn't kill her?"
"No." David said. Again.
"She really thinks I'm dead?" Missy tucked her hair behind her ear carefully so she wouldn't knock her sunglasses off her head.
"Unless she sees you loitering out here, yes." David put his hand on the small of her back. "Let's go."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me, she might remember you're alive some day."
"What happens if she does?" Missy asked.
"Let's hope she doesn't."
Vampires couldn't walk on hallowed ground. Missy didn't know for sure if that applied to half-vampires too until she climbed over the cemetery gate and jumped down, landing on the soft, green grass on the other side.
She was surprised by how long it took her to find her dad's grave. She guessed it had been a while since she was here. She cleaned the dead, dry flowers off his grave and sat down.
"Hi, Dad." She wiped her nose. "I miss you. Mom misses you. Renee misses you too." She looked down, swallowing awkwardly. "We didn't take care of each other like we were supposed to. I'm sorry." She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled something out. "I'm not going to be visiting anymore, Dad. It's hard to explain, but—" she tore up a chunk of grass the size of her fist and set it down beside her. "I'm okay now. Or I'm going to be. You can tell Mom she doesn't have to worry about me anymore." She turned her locket over in her hands nervously. The chain was broken, and she could see her blood in the links. The glass cracked in the fire, and the picture was a little warped, but she could still see their faces when she rubbed the dirt off the broken glass with her thumb. "Mom was with me when I was dying, and I know you wanted to be with her after she died, but we couldn't bury her." She put the locket in the hole she'd made and put the chunk of grass and earth back on top of it. "Now you guys can be together." She took a deep breath, smearing dirt on her face when she wiped it. "I miss you."
Missy. She wiped her face again, looking over her shoulder. Tick-tock.
Missy kissed her hand and pressed it against the headstone. "I love you guys, more than you know. I wish I could tell you, but I think it's going to be a really long time before we see each other again. I don't know if vampires get to go to Heaven, but," she cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say thank you, Mom, especially, and goodbye, I guess." She stood up, wiping the grass stains on her knees. She bent over and kissed the top of the headstone. "I love you."
"Feel better?" David asked her.
She felt lighter, but not better. She sighed tremulously, looking over her shoulder at the cemetery gate. "No, not really. But it's a start."