Not Another Vampire Story - 20
20. Better?
PG13. Tween, humor, middle school, angst, vampires, serial, teen, fiction, summer. #ReadFree
Read from the beginning.
Suggested Music: on AudioNetwork
Confrontation has it’s consequences, ones Sylvia doesn’t want to face.
For two days Sylvia wandered the world numb and neutral. She went about her days and classes and routine with her usual ineptness. The doorbell experiment with Matt in science class barely registered with her.
But she was pretty sure they'd managed an A-minus.
She did have enough focus to say No again when Matt asked her—again—to the first dance.
All the while, no one noticed, not Julia, not her mother, and not even Holly, that Sylvia knew.
Terry knew, and Sylvia knew.
And Terry wasn't telling anyone.
She watched the bustle of last hour class around her, seeing none of it.
That’s how they do it, she thought. They move among us like they have for centuries, unseen, in broad daylight, just like us. They’ve got a network of user-friendly companies like Dakmarr-Moore and ShowMe to hide them, right here, in society. No shadows and bat-caves. I almost believe it, like Terry told me to. His words seemed to go straight through my head and turned me into a spongy believer. We mortal-people just run along, living on the top of one reality, balancing on surface tension while vampires move among us, unnoticed on their networks embedded with ours. Actually, surface tension is our next science experiment. . .
". . . but I wish I could be there," Holly was saying as they walked home from school that blustery late September day.
Sylvia shook her head, her thoughts still stuck on her inner dialogue. When had they left class? Or got outside?
"You'd think that Julia would want to spend her birthday with Terry, not everyone else in her life."
Sylvia hugged her book bag closer to her chest; the bra was shifting, filling, making odd lumps against her ribs now. She was, as Julia put it, filling-out. "They're going out for dinner later, after cake and sherbet with Mom," she said, trying to get up to speed. "Can't you cancel seeing your dad that day?"
Holly sighed heavily. "Not so close to Christmas."
Sylvia groaned. Every time she opened her mouth, she meant to say "I saw Terry turn from a vampire into a man again!" but that wasn't what came out. Whenever she tried to tell Holly the truth about that day in Terry's apartment, the words took a turn and came out different. Like some latent power spell had enacted when Terry had told her 'Believe it', she thought.
Holly sighed again and smiled. "Two weeks to the first dance. I think we should go shopping. I need to get a new skirt."
Sylvia gave her a cross look, which was totally ignored by Holly. "Jamie won't care what you wear, Chocolate."
Holly smiled bigger. "Yeah, he's good like that."
Sylvia rounded up her courage. "What if he really is a vampire, Holly? He really likes Julia."
Holly's lips twisted in a wry smile. "Terry?"
"Yes, Terry."
Holly thought about the idea for a minute. "Did he bite her?"
"No. . ." Sylvia's eyes widened. "I mean, I don't think so." She felt a rattle begin at her spine. "If he did, does that mean she's a vampire?" Was she too late? Had the damage been done? She cringed. Had she failed to warn her sister?
"Yup." Holly nodded. "She'll be a vampire and there's no turning back."
Sylvia cringed, moving mechanically down the sidewalk. "So, does that mean she'd have to suck people's blood? And no more sunshine?"
Holly giggled insanely. "And she'll come after you in your sleep, Red. Think about that."
Sylvia stopped walking. "So . . . she won't even be my sister anymore? She'll be some creature of the night?" Vivid images from old movies ghosted through her head—women in wispy white nightgowns and fang puncture marks on their necks, oozing blood. She shuddered. "And she'll—?"
"Red," Holly snapped, shaking her shoulder. "Think! Are you serious? You know how weird you sound right now?"
Sylvia nodded. That was how they all—all those centuries of vampires—kept their secrets: Disbelief.
"You know that weird shit you asked Matt about?" Holly raised an eyebrow. "That prescription-thingy with the Alpha-2 and lab stuff?"
The word alpha jarred Sylvia back to the present. "Hey, how do you know about that?"
"Matt was talking about it to you in science, but you were too zoned-out to absorb. What's been on your mind, Red?"
Sylvia tried to recall the conversation with Matt but nothing came to mind. Maybe her ignore Matt button was still on. "What'd he say?"
"He said maybe it was like a Lego-piece. You know, it fit someone exactly." She waited for Sylvia to nod or at least blink. She got a blink.
"And?" Sylvia said, still dredging her mind for the conversation. Ignoring Matt had worked a little too well, it seemed.
"And it was like a supplement, like adding-in stuff that person needed but didn't have." Holly gave her a crooked smile. "Like insulin, but it wasn't that. Something different a person—that person—needed and didn't have."
And that something that the prescription made up, Sylvia knew, was blood.
The blood type was formulated for what Terry needed and didn't—or decided not to—supply for himself by other means.
She felt faint, like the ground was going to fold beneath her, like the sidewalk would snap her up and she'd disappear into concrete jaws.
She shook her head, bracing herself emotionally. "Oh," she said, taking a deep breath, trying to sift through Holly's damaging information. "Then . . . then I guess . . . that's better."
Holly frowned at her. "Better than what?"
Sylvia walked on down the sidewalk, the feeling in her synapses slowly returning.
What she'd learned the past few weeks added up to something she couldn't ignore, even with all of Terry's insisting that it wasn't true.
She looked at Holly. "Better than biting her."
Thanks to Sakurapu for sharing her story!
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