Real Vampires Don't Sparkle (66 page)

“You don’t know everything about me.” As soon as he said it, Matheus wished he hadn’t.

“I guess not,” Quin said. A bolt smashed through the window above them. Bits of glass rained down, sparkling under the overhead lights. “Which car?”

Matheus scanned the rows.

“That one, the BMW. Left, three rows back.”

Another bolt, this one through the back window.

“What about a nice Toyota?” Quin asked, motioning to the five-year-old Camry in the spot next to the Civic.

“The BMW,” said Matheus.

“We’re escaping, not shopping.”

Matheus raised his eyebrows.

“The BMW,” he said.

“Snob,” said Quin.

They ran, crouched over, through the cars. Matheus caught sight of his father, still frozen where Matheus had left him. Matheus pushed him out his mind. He had other things to focus on, like whether or not he actually remembered how to hotwire a car. In theory, he knew. In reality, he hadn’t been doing a lot of car thefts over the last ten years, and technology had moved on. He sighed in relief when he saw that the BMW was an older model. No fancy electronic key to fiddle with. Matheus bent before the steering column, ripping out wires, while Quin peered over the dash at the guards.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Matheus stripped a wire with his teeth. He spat the plastic coating onto the floor.

“Mostly,” he said.

“Oh, lovely,” Quin said. “Mostly. Thank you, that’s very comforting.”

“Will you shut the hell up? I’m trying to think.” That wire went to the power supply, so he needed the other red wire, twist them together, zap the ignition wire and—

The engine roared to life. Matheus sat up, revving the engine a few times.

“Well, damn,” said Quin.

“You should put your seatbelt on,” said Matheus. He threw his arm across the back of the seat, looked through the rear window, and slammed into reverse.

The car leapt backward, and Quin forward. He glared at Matheus, clinging to the dashboard as Matheus spun into a tight turn.

“I told you,” said Matheus. He pressed the gas to the floor, and grinned. “I do love German engineering.”

The BMW raced between the rows of cars, bouncing over speed bumps, the needle pushing forty, then fifty, up and up. The guards dissolved into a blur.

“What about the door?” asked Quin. “Sunshine, the door. Door, door,
door
!”

The sheet-metal door turned out to be the loser in a match with a two-ton car going sixty miles per hour. The hinges burst open, the thin metal warping around the path of the BMW, an unholy cacophony of metallic shrieks filling the air. Matheus didn’t even want to think about what the door did to the BMW’s paint job.

“I don’t think you’re going to get your deposit back,” Quin said.

Matheus jerked the wheel hard, fishtailing a little as he emerged from the narrow alley. He drove with lunatic speed through the warehouses and factories, cutting corners a shade too quickly, braking a little or not at all. He took the on-ramp to the freeway, merging into the sleepy, late night traffic.

Falling into position behind an 18-wheeler, Matheus eased off the gas. He dropped one of his arms, holding the wheel in a loose grip with the other. Next to him, Quin exhaled for the first time since they’d gotten in the car.

The city slid by, deep blue dotted with orange light. The truck took the next exit, and the lane ahead opened up. Matheus kept an easy pace, letting the lull of nighttime drives wash over him. Minutes passed with only the noise of the road moving beneath them.

“Your sister is something else,” Quin said.

“She saved our lives,” said Matheus, his grip tightening on the wheel. The speedometer needle rose steadily.

“I meant it as a compliment.”

Matheus ground his teeth together. He didn’t want to hear Quin’s compliments.

“You can slow down. No one’s chasing us.”

“How about I ram this car into a brick wall?” Matheus asked.

“Well, it would hurt a lot,” said Quin. “And it really wouldn’t be very productive.”

“Right,” said Matheus. “Productive. What was so productive about breaking my Goddamned fingers?”

“I fixed them.”

“Oh, well, that makes everything all better!”

“I was annoyed,” said Quin.

“Annoyed!” Matheus smacked his palm against the steering wheel. “You fucking piece of…. I don’t even have a word for what you are. Lower than shit. You’re what shit calls other shit when it’s trying to be really offensive. You’re shit’s C-word.”

“So sorry I didn’t live up to your high standards. Maybe next time I’m tortured for days, I’ll remember what a delicate flower you are.”

“You know what? Don’t talk to me.”

“In case you forgot, your father is the one doing the torturing. You remember him, right? Tallish, blond, looks exactly fucking like you. Forgive me for getting a little irrational.”

“I am not my fucking father! Fuck!” Matheus hit the steering wheel again. Hitting Quin seemed more tempting, but Matheus liked not being a smoldering corpse in a five-car pile-up. “If you even had an inkling of what— no, I’m not doing this. Just shut up.”

“What the hell was I supposed to think? Your father is Carsten Schneider. Jesus Christ, Sunshine, that’s a big coincidence to swallow. You said it yourself, you could be the traitor. And then, you’re talking about being human again, and it all made sense. Everything made sense. I don’t like being betrayed, Sunshine.”

“Don’t ‘ Sunshine’ me,” Matheus said. “In fact, don’t say anything. I don’t want to listen to your justifying shit right now, okay? Stop. Talking.”

“Stop overreacting,” said Quin. “You’re fine now.”

“That has nothing to do with it! I trusted you! Who do you think got them to leave you alone? Me, Quin. And what do you do? Break my fingers. Thanks for the help, Matheus, here’s some blinding pain.”

“You trusted me?” Quin asked quietly.

Matheus held the wheel with both hands. He stared”Unless you want to go head first through the windshield, I suggest you
shut the fuck up
.” at the road, the lights blurring into fuzzy streaks. He inhaled, then spoke with extreme care.

“Okay,” said Quin.

“Okay,” said Matheus. “Great.”

First, I’d like to thank all the lovely people at Curiosity Quills for discovering Real Vampires Don’t Sparkle on FictionPress, and offering me a contract. Especially, Krystal Wade, for that initial, unexpected offer, Lisa Gus and Kateryna Tokareva, for answering all my questions, Eugene Teplitsky, for whipping up the cover on the website, and Jade Hart, for handling the publishing of RVDS, volume one. Thank you to Alexandria N. Thompson, for the beautiful new cover. Thank you to Mary Harris, my wonderful, patient editor who put up with my inability to remember the difference between ‘further’ and ‘farther.’

I’d also like to thank all the readers on FictionPress who commented and supported the first version of RVDS. Writing in a vacuum is difficult, so your reviews and favorites were a constant help. Thank especially to my German-speaking ninja, for correcting all my horrible German translations. I hope you did eventually get to bake your apple cake.

Thank you to Emily Martin, for your friendship and love, and for letting me babble on about the imaginary people living in my head. Thank you to Margot Aldebron, for being my best friend and my number one cheerleader. Thank you to my parents, Ray and Pat, my sister, Jillian, my niece, Olivia, and my brother, Jeremy, for their love and support. Thank you to my aunts Jeanne Muise and Cindy Sutton, for spreading the word on Facebook and in real life. And a big thank you to the rest of my family and friends. You’re all a bunch of sarcastic weirdos, and I love you for it.

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Amy Fecteau
was born in southern Maine to kind and loving parents who immediately began inoculating her into the cult of sarcasm. Much of her youth was spent either bent over a book or attempting to fend off the vicious attacks of her younger sister. When forced outside, Amy did much the same things as other children: rode her bike, played house, called the dead from their graves to wreck her horrible vengeance. She wrote her first story at age twelve, the stirring tale of friendship and witch burning. She was cruelly robbed of first place in the district writing contest by Randa C., whose story of a handicapped girl overcoming her disability was nothing but a blatant grab for the judges’ sympathy. Fifteen years later, Amy would like to say, “Suck it, Randa” but that would be petty and childish, so she will refrain.