Birth of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Realm) (22 page)

Chapter 33

Haley

Being a vampire was more boring than being alive. It was hard to imagine, but it was true. All I did was work, try to find something to eat, and then pass out before the sun came up. The next day, I would start the whole process over again. And then there were those long hours between finishing work and actually going to bed. Nothing is open at 4 a.m.. And no one is around. I started wandering the woods, snagging any small animals that were foolish enough to be up and messing about in the middle of the night. I’d sucked the juice out of a couple of raccoons and a stray dog. I didn’t feel good about any of it, but my impulse was to jump some bag person asleep under the public pier, so I figured at least I was restraining myself from murder.

I had kind of expected Dorian to keep coming around and pestering me, but he’d apparently disappeared. Pretty typical behavior for people in my life that were supposed to actually care about me. The longer he was gone, the more I wished I had just said yes to him when he’d offered to be my mentor in the parking lot of the Stop-n-Save. At least then I’d have somebody who could answer a few questions. And maybe even show me how to fly properly. I’d tried a few more times since jumping off the house, but my progress was slow.

I couldn’t be too mad at myself for blowing Dorian off. How was I supposed to know that vampires really existed? Me going crazy seemed like the much more plausible reason for all the strange things that had happened. But I’d let Dorian know that I wasn’t all that interested in his help, and he’d taken me at my word, disappearing into the night. And now I was on my own.

I’d read somewhere that when you were in a crisis, you had a better chance of survival if you followed a plan. Even if you had a crappy plan, it was still better than just succumbing to the crisis, apparently. So rather than just freaking out, I was trying to stay focused. I was going to keep working at Darlene’s Diner for a few more nights, save up a bit more money, and then move to Chicago. It was a major city, so I figured there had to be some vampires somewhere. I knew for a fact that Chicago had plenty of bars and nightclubs that were open late. I would just lurk around there until I figured out who the bloodsuckers were and then introduce myself.

My one little indulgence before I left town was going to be the Tiburon High Winter Formal. I figured I could show up looking stunning in my amazing dress, just to let them all know that they didn’t get to me. And then I would get the hell out of town and never look back.

I kept using my influence on the patrons at the diner. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but that didn’t stop me. It felt like stealing. And in a way, I guess it was, but I figured the clientele would all be happy to pitch in if they knew they were paying to drive a vampire out of town.

Debbie was surprised when I sprang a request on her to get the night of Winter Formal off so I could go to the dance. She was more than happy to switch up the schedule for me, but she was also a little confused. “Do you have a date?” she asked, rather hesitantly.

“Absolutely not,” I told her. “I’m going stag.”

“And do you think you’re going to have a good time?” she wanted to know.

“Probably not,” I said with a shrug. “But I’m going anyway. If only to prove a point.”

“Haley,” she said, reaching out and squeezing my shoulder. “Maybe you’d better rethink this. Things rarely go the way you expect when you set out to prove a point.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. Then I held my breath so I couldn’t smell her and gave her a hug. What I hadn’t told her was that after the night of the dance, I wasn’t coming back to work. Not ever. I was going to break into a used car lot and steal a car. I didn’t want to be a thief, but there was absolutely no place selling cars late at night, and I wasn’t going to wait around for a midnight madness sale.

“All right, all right, if it means that much to you,” Debbie said, patting me on the back. “Just don’t take any crap from any of those nasty girls.”

“Don’t worry,” I said
, suppressing a giggle. “I definitely won’t.”

“Just remember,” she told me. “Things can be tough in high school sometimes, but you won’t be a teenager forever.”

Chapter 34

Haley

Even though I was a senior, my only point of reference for a high school dance was what I’d seen in movies and on TV. Apparently, a lot of it was pretty accurate. The dance was in the high school gym, which had been scantily decorated with crepe paper streamers. Snowflakes and stars made out of tinfoil hung from the rafters but were so far from the floor they had very little visual appeal.

As I had been getting ready for the dance back at Uncle Kevin’s, I’d realized that I didn’t have an appropriate coat. It didn’t really matter. As a vampire, I never really felt hot or cold. Still, it looked a little odd as we shuffled in, all the other students showing up bundled in nice coats they’d borrowed off their parents, while there I was in just my gown with no sleeves.

Uncle Kevin actually had something nice to say about my appearance as I was leaving the house. He hadn’t dared to call me a slut since I had broken his finger. Instead, he’d whistled and said, “Who’s the lucky man?”

“Nobody special,” I said as I headed out the door. I wasn’t all that adept at walking in high heels, but I found that if I simply floated a quarter of an inch above the ground and mimicked walking, it saved me from wobbling all over the place.

Everyone else attending the dance arrived by car. There was a line to get into the parking lot. Once inside, I realized that I had actually needed to buy a ticket in advance to attend the dance. That was a detail they never addressed in the movies. It wasn’t a problem for me. I just used my influence to make the parent volunteer believe I’d handed her a ticket as I walked on into the gym.

As a mortal, I’d never enjoyed the fragrance of a high school gym. It always smelled like tumbling mats, floor polish, sweat, and old socks. But as a vampire, the smell of so many young bodies mingling together made my stomach growl. I’d filled my belly with as much blood as I could get that evening, sucking dry a dozen slabs of meat and draining two dogs and a cat who were unfortunate enough to cross my path. And it was a good thing I had because I couldn’t have handled entering the building if I’d had any significant hunger pangs. I forced myself not to think about all the fresh young blood surrounding me. I had to focus on where I was and what I was doing, or it wasn’t going to be a very pretty dance.

For once in my life, I was standing in my high school, and I actually felt beautiful. I could feel the admiring looks of a couple of guys who’d never previously given me the time of day. I heard a few whispered, “Who the hell is that?” type comments and felt a tingle of excitement when the amazed response was always “Haley Scott.”

My triumph didn’t last for long. I’d only been in the gym for a few minutes before I heard one of the Laura’s say, “Ashley, I think your cousin is here.”

Ashley's quick-witted response was, “She can’t be here. I think she’s dead or something.” It was so nice to know how much my cousin really cared.

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s her,” the Laura said. “And she’s definitely not dead.”

“Oh …” Ashley said rather hesitantly. “That’s good.” But you could tell by her tone that she wasn’t really all that excited to find me still on the planet and attending the dance.

I heard some guy say, “If she’s dead, then I want to nail a corpse.”

His date scolded him by saying, “Sean, stop it. That’s gross.” But all the guys were laughing anyway.

Where a few seconds earlier I had been feeling confident and even receptive to my classmates, I suddenly remembered how much I hated them. They were just all so … I couldn’t even think of the right word. If they’d only known about the dagger-like canines that I was concealing behind my red lipstick, they would have shut their mouths.

“Oh, my God! Haley!” I heard someone say, and the next thing I knew a pair of arms were flung about my neck. It was Erika. She pulled away from me to look me over. “We heard you were dead,” she exclaimed before hugging me again.

I ground my teeth together trying not to inhale the freshly scrubbed scent of her.

“Are you all right?” she asked when she’d finally released me. “What happened to you? I heard you wrapped your car around a telephone pole or something.”

“No, I’m fine,” I insisted, trying to take a discrete step backward to put a little space between us. “A tree ran out in front of my car. But I didn’t get hurt or anything.”

“I’ve left you like a hundred messages,” Erika told me. “Just in case you were alive. But you never picked up your phone, so I assumed the worst.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I lost it during the wreck and haven’t had time to get a new one.”

I had a moment of feeling normal and human and good. It was so nice to have someone actually care about my well-being. Erika was worried about me, and that made me feel so much better. “I’m afraid I have some bad news though,” I said.

“What?” Erika asked, shooting a suspicious glance around the gym.

“I got a little cut up during the crash, and I bled all over your sweater. I’m afraid it’s trashed,” I confessed. “I can’t get the stain out.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Erika exclaimed; then she gave a small laugh. “My God, it’s a sweater. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Me too,” I told her, and I meant it. Not that I was alive anymore or anything, but I was glad that Erika was actually worried about me and thought of me as a friend. It was too bad that the entire time we were talking, I was having an internal argument with myself about ripping her throat out. “Who are you here with?” I asked, thinking maybe she needed to get back to her date.

“No one, really,” she said. “I just came as the seventh wheel.” She nodded over toward Ashley, the Maybe-Lauras, and their dates. There was something seriously wrong with Tiburon High when someone as beautiful and genuinely nice as Erika didn’t have a date to Winter Formal.

“Didn’t anyone ask you?” I wanted to know. “I thought you had a date.” I don’t know if I’d thought she’d had a date or  just assumed she did.

Erika’s face flushed, and she looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I had one, but … you know. It didn’t work out.”

“Why not?” I asked. The guy had to be a complete idiot if he had a date with Erika and then blew it.

The girl frowned and then looked around the room uneasily. My question had obviously made her uncomfortable. “Let’s just say that after your accident, I saw a lot of people’s true colors.”

“What does that mean?” It was hard to imagine that my fellow classmates had managed to become bigger jerks after my supposed death.

“Forget about it,” Erika said. Grabbing me by the hand, she added, “Come on. Let’s just dance and have a good time.”

A new song came on as we moved to the center of the gym where a few people, mostly girls, were dancing. I felt the bittersweet sensation of knowing that if I hadn’t been such an idiot and slammed into a tree while texting, then Erika and I would be friends. Real friends.

But that was death for you. The longer I was a vampire, the more I realized how challenging it would be to have any kind of relationship with someone who was still alive. I didn’t want to thank Erika for her friendship by killing her.

More couples moved out onto the dance floor. I decided to stop thinking about everything for a few hours and just enjoy the dance. I could pretend I was human and normal and out with a friend having a good time. It was something that I’d always wanted. I closed my eyes and started to dance.

“Who is that chick in blue?” I heard some guy say. I sensed some random dude was pointing at me. “The smoking hot one. Look at that body. She definitely doesn’t go to our school.”

“Are you kidding?” was the reply. “That’s Ashley's cousin. Haley something.”

“You’re kidding,” the first guy exclaimed. “Did she always look like that?”

“Hey, Tommy,” I heard another guy ask. “Didn’t you nail that?”

“Hell, yeah, I did,” Tommy crowed. “Do you want to see the stains?” There was a slapping sound, and I assumed that he was high-fiving one of his friends.

“Slut,” some girl snarled. It had to be Sheila. And I knew the word was directed at me rather than at her charming date.

My whole body immediately stiffened. Somehow between dying and becoming a vampire and everything I’d had to deal with after that, I’d blocked out the full humiliation of what Tommy had done to me. But that didn’t mean anyone else had forgotten.