Her Lying Days Are Done Read online

“The man knows what he’s talking about,” Mill said as my mother did a double take, looking up at him. “Closest exit?”

  “Pool door,” I said, ducking to avoid the wood carving Mom bought in Costa Rica that was burning as the fire licked up the walls, the flames sending off waves of heat. Thus far the splash of gasoline had mostly confined itself to the curtains and carpet behind Mom, though some had gone astray, hitting around Dad and even making it to the wall behind where I’d been sitting. Several feet of fire blazed across Mom’s art, though, spreading rapidly.

  Mill nodded, and with my mom's arm wrapped around him, started toward the back door.

  My eyes stung, and as I looked up, smoke was billowing into the air, hovering along the ceiling like a dense, dark cloud. It had been gathering in stringy whorls, but now it was becoming dense as the flames fed it.

  How was it that both of the houses I had ever lived in were set on fire? And while I was in them, no less?

  Mill was dragging my mother through the haze of smoke, just ahead of me. I still had my dad, whose bare, slightly crisped arm could be seen underneath the new hole in his shirt, all pink and blistered already.

  I tried to cover my mouth and nose by burying them in the shoulder of my shirt sleeve. I was starting to get lightheaded, and the room was beginning to sway in front of me. I glanced over my shoulder, and my eyes widened.

  The whole dining room was now on fire. The table, the chairs…all of the food was engulfed in the glowing flames.

  RIP, the garlic knots. We hardly knew ye.

  “Come on, come on,” I urged Dad along, hoping that he wouldn’t look back and see what I had. It wouldn’t have broken his heart like it would have Mom’s, but still…

  This was our home.

  My head was splitting by the time we reached the sliding door, and Mill smashed it with his fist, and the glass just shattered like somebody had just thrown a Molotov cocktail through it. Too soon?

  I didn’t hear any complaints from Mom or Dad as he stepped through and pulled Mom out after him. When I reached the door, the hot, smoking room at my back, Mill grabbed Dad and helped him through before turning to me, gently grabbing my hand and helping out over the threshold.

  I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gasping for breath, hacking all of the smoke out of my lungs. It spewed from my mouth as if I had taken up vaping. I was going to get lung cancer before I was twenty, at this rate.

  Dad hobbled over to where Mom was, sitting next to a lawn chair instead of in it, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He was sputtering, but his burn was already forgotten. Mom was trembling, her arms tight around herself. She didn’t even notice Dad was there.

  I was taking in great gulps of the air, chill and flushing into my lungs like a soothing balm to the fiery pain that the hacking had produced. It was almost like I was drowning, like I’d gone a few extra steps and toppled into the pool by accident.

  Flickers of flame glowed in almost all of the windows of the living room, now, and if not flames, the bright amber glow of the fiery beast growing within.

  Mill, not needing to breathe, knelt calmly in front of me “Are you all right?” He brushed some stray hairs out of my eyes.

  I nodded; trying to talk sent me into another fit of coughing.

  “What…” Mom was gasping for air. “Was…that?”

  “That was a—” I started, but dissolved into another barking coughing fit.

  “Molotov cocktail,” Mill said. “It’s gasoline in a bottle, with—”

  “Yes, thank you…for the science lesson,” Mom said, coughing once more. “But I’m wondering why the hell a Molotov cocktail came through MY window?”

  I forgot what I was going to say as my eyes adjusted to the darkness around. My heart sank, and I grabbed Mill’s arm for support. “…Mill? Do you—”

  “I see them.” There was a quiet determination.

  Through the screen of the lanai, silhouettes slowly sauntered across the yard. A dozen? Maybe more? They all walked with a deliberate slowness, but were graceful, supple…predatory.

  Vampires. A whole lot of them.

  Their fangs seemed to flash as they caught the light flooding out from the fire inside. I thought I recognized a few of them even in the dark. I had seen more of the vampires of this local clan than I ever wanted to. I caught a few malicious grins pointed in my direction.

  Draven’s people. These were his vampires.

  I had fallen for this again. They had literally smoked me out of the house, except this time, I wasn’t alone. Mom and Dad were involved now, too. We were like bees, and they were trying to take our honey…or rather, our lives.

  Draven, the Lord of the Tampa vampires... He’d finally found me. Tracked me back to my own house, which meant…

  Now he knew I wasn’t a vampire.

  He knew who I was, really.

  My last great lie fell off the board.

  The circle of vampires closing in on the lanai was like a wall descending between me and safety. My old, peaceful, human life was now gone, over with, and the danger that lurked just outside the screened porch reminded me of sharks circling a weary swimmer. They loomed in the darkness, shadows with ill intent, every one of them exhibiting a hunger that would have been terrifying on anyone’s face.

  But the one that made my heart stop was the slender girl with the pretty face and the braided hair, standing right in the midst of them all, her arms folded across her chest, and a wide, wicked smile on her face.

  Jacquelyn.

  My best friend from New York.

  Chapter 3

  I guess life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to.

  I, for one, would have really liked to have lived a Draven-free existence, where I could spend my days in Tampa like an ordinary teen. Minus the vampire boyfriend thing. That wasn't ordinary, but I wanted to keep him.

  Life, however, doesn’t follow the rules that we think it should. It likes to wind up, sock us right in the teeth, all while pulling the rug out from underneath us. And so, we lie, tasting blood, toothless, rugless, on a bare floor wondering what just hit us. It was life, the sucker-punching bastard.

  That’s what it felt like, seeing vampire Jacquelyn standing there in front of me. Like life had sucker-punched me. Again.

  Mill helped me to my feet as I stared through the screen at her. He didn’t let go of my hand.

  She looked exactly like she always had. She was even wearing a jacket that she had borrowed from me before I had moved away.

  Did she remember that? Was she doing it on purpose just to spite me?

  “Jacquelyn, what…what are you doing here?” I asked. My breathing had turned into wheezing, and I tried to stifle the coughing that threatened to start again.

  Jacquelyn cocked her hip out the way she used to as a kid that annoyed the heck out of me and gave me the look; the look she used to give the other kids on the playground when they did something stupid or weird. Now I was on the receiving end of it. A smug grin appeared on her face, and she flashed her pointy, vampire fangs at me. “I came to town looking for you, Cassie…but when I stopped in to pay homage to the local lord... as one does in the vampire world... I ended up running into some of your friends instead.” She opened her arms wide, gesturing to the group around her.

  Low chuckles came from some of the vampires, like barks from a pack of wild dogs. Mill’s hand gripped mine.

  “Lord Draven’s got a bone to pick with you,” Jacquelyn said. There was a dangerous glare on her face now, and every trace of a smile disappeared.

  My blood had turned to ice, and my stomach fell, as though dropped out of a fourth-story window.

  “Is that…?” Mom asked, her eyes wide, face paling. She leaned forward, staring out into the darkness. “Jacquelyn Gustafson? Sweetie, is that you?”

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Howell,” Jacquelyn said in a falsely sweet, high pitched voice. She bent over, her hands on her knees as she peered into the lanai like we were some kind of exhibit at t
he zoo. “I just love your new house. It’s so... You.”

  “On fire is us?” I asked. Jacquelyn ignored me. Mom was looking between us. It was as if her heart had been ripped out and stomped on. Appropriate reaction to seeing your daughter’s childhood friend standing in your backyard, apparently unconcerned about the burning building just a few feet away.

  “Did you know that your daughter ruined my life, not once, but twice now?” she said, still carrying on that disgustingly sweet voice. She cocked her head to side like a child, her braids swinging. “First, when she lied and made me the laughing stock of the school in New York. And again just a few weeks ago.”

  She did a twirl like a bride trying on a wedding dress, even giving us a little curtsey as she came to a stop.

  My stomach twisted in knots. The sarcasm was washing off of her in waves.

  “What’s she talking about, Cassie?” Mom asked, looking up at me. It freaked me out to hear the tremble in her words.

  “She’s a vampire now,” I said. Better to not beat around the bush. If I was committing to this whole turning over a new leaf, then I might as well go all in, right?

  “Vampires,” my mom muttered under her breath. “Your boyfriend’s a vampire, your best friend’s a vampire. Everybody’s a freaking vampire. Are your father and I vampires, too, in your mind?”

  “Well, you’re kinda sucking right now, but no, you’re still human, so far as I know,” I said. I gritted my teeth, my eyes fixed on Jacquelyn, who was grinning a wide, toothy grin back at me.

  My mind flashed to the lodge burning, and how she had tackled me. We had tumbled down the hill together, so fast that it was like we were caught in a dryer, flipping end over end. I remembered the wet scent of the earth, like my grandmother’s garden I had helped to weed when I was little. I remembered the scrapes and cuts on my bare arms, the stinging of the smoke in my eyes. She had bashed my head against the ground again and again, all the while the stars hung sparkling above us.

  I wondered if she knew how truly devastated I was that she got dragged into this mess.

  How heartbroken I still was.

  “Seriously, what is with you and all this vampire nonsense?” Mom asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Mom, I think that you’re focusing on the wrong thing right now,” I said.

  “You told your parents about vampires?” Jacquelyn said, her hands on her hips. “Wow. Kinda like the ‘broken clock is right twice a day’ thing, I guess even you manage to spit out a truth between the lies every now and again. Probably by accident.” She tossed back her head and let out a barking laugh.

  I cringed as her verbal blow hit home.

  “You know what happened after you left, Cass?” Jacquelyn asked. “I got chased out of town. Like something out of a monster movie, can you believe it? When I went home, my parents kicked me out because even they knew something was wrong.” Her eyes narrowed, her lips a taut line. “I tried to get them to understand that I was just a little changed. But do you know what my mother did? She threw a knife at me. Called me a demon, said I was possessed. She screamed that she didn’t have a daughter anymore. That her daughter was dead.”

  Mill tensed beside me. I wondered if any of her story was hitting home for him.

  “Well she was right…” Jacquelyn smiled. “I am dead.”

  It struck me just how similar our lives were all of the sudden. I had been chased out of New York, and now she had been, too. We were both running from our pasts. Our new lives were completely saturated with vampires. Her parents had written her off, just like mine had.

  At least mine hadn’t kicked me out yet. Or thrown dangerous objects at me. Again, yet.

  I tried to swallow around a dry throat. With a sinking heart, I realized ultimately that we both had to leave Onondoga Springs because of choices that I made. Terrible choices. Choices that had hurt a lot more people than just me.

  Where had she gone after they’d kicked her out? What were those first few days like? I couldn’t help but wonder how terrified she had been. What was she going to do? She’d had all of eternity stretching out before her now…with no one to help her.

  “But I don’t understand…” It was Dad who spoke this time. “What are you doing here in Florida?” He had an earnest look behind his glasses. “Especially if you’re a vampire. You realize this is the Sunshine State, don’t you?”

  Oh, good, it sounded like at least one of my parents was coming around on the vampire thing. Yay for progress.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Jacquelyn said with a shrug. “Because everything that has gone wrong— everything I’ve lost, every single person who’s turned on me, hated me, every piece of my life that’s been shattered to shards... all of it... every last thing... is Cassie’s fault.” She pointed a black-nailed finger in my direction.

  It was like she was a lion in waiting, watching for the moment when I let my guard down. It was like she had known that what she said would back me into a corner. It did. It hit me like a bat, and I felt my heart breaking all over again.

  She was right to be angry with me.

  It was all my fault.

  “Cassie.”

  It was Mill’s voice, low and gentle. He could probably see the strain on my face, see the tension in my stiff shoulders.

  He had been with me in New York. He had seen everything that had happened between us. He’d watched as I struggled my way through that misadventure, protecting my family, my home, my friends. He’d seen what she’d done to me, physically and emotionally, and had carried me away from that fight as I was broken and bleeding.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Mom said, shaking her head.

  “It makes a lot more sense if you start to consider that vampires are real,” my dad said. Yay Dad.

  “Too complicated for you, Mrs. Howell?” Jacquelyn asked. “I’ll spell it out. I thought I’d come here and pay back Cassie for everything she did to me. I figured since she burned down my entire life... that burning down your house was a nice place to start.”

  My heart did a somersault.

  Jacquelyn laughed like she had just heard the best joke of her life, and with a wave of her hand, vampires had started edging closer to us. Some were right up against the lanai, their beady eyes peering inside, fingers pressed against the screen. Others were still hopping the fence into the yard, as gracefully as the hunters they were.

  “Don’t kill her,” Jacquelyn said, flipping one of her braids between her fingers. “Draven wants her alive. The rest of them...” She shrugged. “Bon appetit.”

  I felt as if a bucket of ice had been dumped over me. Mill tensed beside me, and a low snarl sounded deep in his throat.

  “Who is Draven?” Dad asked, apparently missing that Jacquelyn had just rung the dinner bell on him and Mom.

  Yeah…now was not the time to be explaining all of that right now.

  “Cassandra,” Dad said in the tone he only used when I stayed up too late or went over our data on the cell phone bill. “Answer me.”

  The fires inside the house were still roaring behind me, crackling and snapping. I tried to find an answer that would make sense, but nothing came to me. Smoke was starting to accumulate in the lanai, held back just enough by the screen that a billow was beginning to cause that scratching in the back of my throat again, as though I were going to choke.

  “Oh, he’s just the Lord of the Tampa vampire territory,” Jacquelyn said, giggling, when I didn’t answer. “Cassie stepped on his toes, big time.” Her eyes focused on mine, and it was like staring into endless pools of darkness in the dead of night. “Cassie... I want you to hear this and know what’s coming. We’re going to kill your parents, and then your boyfriend. Slowly. In the worst ways you can imagine. Then I am going to take you, kicking and screaming and crying— I hope, for the funsies of it— to Draven.” Her smile was low and malicious, and there was no joy in it, only the promise of pain— pain that she wanted to inflict on me, pain of the sort that seemed infinite, endless— the ki
nd that her smile suggested she would enjoy every single moment of. “He’s expecting us.”

  Chapter 4

  Every time I thought that my life couldn’t get any worse, it surprised me.

  It had never occurred to me that Jacquelyn hated me so much that she would track me down, halfway across the country, to literally set my house on fire and then threaten to kill those people about whom I cared the most.

  It was like something out of a movie. Not as though the rest of my life since moving to Florida wasn’t already like a movie.

  The vampires were starting to get antsy now. A few had crawled up on top of the lanai, staring down from its metal frame between the screen panels as if we were some kind of exhibit at the Busch Gardens Zoo.

  Some were gnashing their teeth. Others were licking their tongues over their fangs, grinning viciously.

  The fight was inevitable. My heart started to race, beating like it was trapped in the same sort of cage that I was. I didn’t see a way out. I had enough experience. Mill, Iona, and Lockwood had all been there to help me learn to protect myself.

  And this time, it wasn’t only to protect myself. It was to protect Mom and Dad, too. It was such a hopeless situation.

  I was ready to fight anyway. Thankfully, it seemed, Mill felt the same way.

  Taking a deep breath, I fell back into the fighting stance that he had taught me. I bent my knees, put one foot behind me to brace, and held my hands up in front of my face to block any attacks to my neck.

  Mill did the same, and we stood between the flimsy door of the lanai and my parents, who were completely unaware of what was about to happen. I figured it was best not to tell them.

  My heart thundered against my chest. Mill could hear it for certain. There was a dull roar in my ears as I faced death head on once more. I wished that I hadn’t left my stakes upstairs to burn. I wondered if they would survive the fire. If they did, I should sleep with those in from now on, ignoring the possible punctures to the skull.

  A loud crinkling sound startled me, and some of the other vampires as well. I thought maybe they had broken down the door, but it was intact, Jacquelyn and two others still standing behind it, barring our escape.