Birth of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Realm) Read Free

around me. “What’s going on? You’re not crying, are you?”
    I sniffed and shook my head. “No,” I told him, but my voice sounded watery.
    “Don’t be like that,” he said, his voice soft and tender. “I hate it when you cry.”
    “Then why are you trying to ditch me?” I wanted to know.
    “I’m not trying to ditch you,” he said, gathering me in his arms and pulling me close. “It’s just, I know you usually have to go home early, and I didn’t want to leave my friends standing around.”
    “Are you telling me the truth?” I asked. His change of attitude was so abrupt that it left me suspicious.
    “Of course, I’m telling you the truth,” he insisted. “Haley, I just told you that I loved you. Isn’t that enough? What else do you want from me? You’re not going to start coming after my blood next. Are you?”
    “No,” I said with a small laugh, wishing that snot wasn’t dripping from my nose. “So we’re together now?” I wanted to know.
    “Of course, we’re together,” he said, brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I’m not going to just bang some chick and then kick her to the curb. I’m not like that.”
    “Okay, good.” I felt better. Tommy really did care about me. “I guess I was just having a rush of hormones.”
    Tommy shook his head. “I’m glad I’m not a chick.”
     
    When we kissed good night, Tommy whispered, “I’m really glad we did this.”
    “Me too,” was my reply, but I wasn’t being one hundred percent honest. I felt kind of weird about not being a virgin anymore. But as long as Tommy loved me, then I guessed it was okay. “I love you,” I said in a small voice, suddenly feeling acutely shy. Those were three words I’d never said out loud before.
    “Yeah, okay,” Tommy said. He was looking at his phone again. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
    I felt a little sick to my stomach as I crossed the street and headed into the house. A thin dusting of snow had fallen, and it made a crunching sound beneath my feet.
    “You’re home early,” Uncle Kevin said. He was still on the couch, but I could see the pint was almost empty beside him on the end table.
    “I didn’t want you to worry,” I lied.
    “Want to watch the game?” Kevin asked, shifting over slightly as if he was willing to make room for me.
    “No, thanks,” I said as pleasantly as I could, but that was definitely something I did not want to do. “I’ve got some reading to do for school, and then I thought I’d go to bed. I’m kind of tired.”
    “Suit yourself,” he said, his words quickly followed by a belch.
    Once in my room, I lay down on the bed and thought about what Tommy and I had just done. I was expecting to feel all squishy and warm, but instead I felt oddly detached. It was almost like it had happened to somebody else, and I was just a spectator.
    I could still smell the cologne that Tommy drenched himself with on my sweater. I wanted it to trigger a scent memory where I could revel in thoughts of our flesh pressing together in a passionate embrace. But instead, it kind of made me a little nauseated. I sat up, deciding to take a shower.
    Showering was the right decision because once I had undressed, I realized there was a fair amount of blood on my thighs. I had a flash of embarrassment as I thought about the seats in Mrs. Sherman’s car. Were they stained? That would definitely be pretty gross, but Tommy could probably lie and say I cut my hand or something. I wondered if I should text him with an excuse in case he couldn’t think of one but then decided it was too embarrassing.
    Shortly after that, I was ready to crawl into bed. But before I did, I took a precaution that a fellow foster child taught me when I was barely ten and we ended up in a house together for a few months. The wife was nice, but the husband could be a little weird. He’d be fine for a while and then get out of sorts. He’d mope around the house for a few days until he would decide