Darkened Days Read Free Page A

frustration.
    “Etienne didn’t tell you?”
    “Etienne fed me. That’s it.  He’s sexy as hell and just as rude.  And that bitch that hangs around with him all the time…she didn’t let him stay after he forced his fucking blood into me.”   Huh , she thought, look how easily that word is coming now.
    Henri came to her and dropped down beside her.
    “Okay.  I don’t know how much you know, so I’m going to start at the beginning.  You’ve certainly figured out some of it by now.  Basically, we’re vampires.  You understand that?”
    “I understand you think you are.”
    “For good reason.  We are.  So are you.  Whether you want to believe it or not.  If you drink from a vampire, a large amount quickly, and keep ingesting it, vampire blood begins to change you.  I know you can feel it.  You can see it.  There’s a virus in the blood that changes you on a genetic level.  It makes you different than anything else you’ve ever been. Different than anybody else has ever been...except for the few of us who are vampires.  Yeah, I heard you when you first woke up.  Buffy wannabes.  But that isn’t real.  This is.  What we are, what you are now, Starla.  It’s very real.”
    Starla rolled her head sideways and looked at him beneath darkened iris’ s. 
    “Real?  We’re vampires?  The wal king dead?  We live on blood?  Uh, huh.  Got it.”
    Henri got it too.  Sarcasm.  She didn’t believe.
    “This is where the education comes in.  Etienne is supposed to make sure all of his “makes” are indoctrinated.  Doesn’t surprise me he hasn’t .  He’s an ass.  But I’ve already said that before.  Sorry.  Okay, listen closely.  It’s not my job, but I’ll go through it with you.  You are a vampire.  Well, officially, they don’t usually use the ‘a.’ As in ‘we are vampire.’   Humans who have been altered at the cellular level to need blood to maintain health.  We are not the walking dead.  We are not dead at all.  Dead is dead, even for us.  It’s just that it takes a lot to kill us.  Bullets won’t do it.  A broken neck won’t do it.  We don’t get sick and we don’t age.  So you, my lovely little coffee haired beauty, will always be this young and hot.  We do eat regular food, and a hell of a lot of it!  But you won’t ever get fat or high cholesterol or heart disease.  Sinking in?”
    With a slight nod, Starla mumbled, “Sure.”
    “So being fed massive amounts of blood, going through extremely intense pain this past week…what did you think that was?”
    “You guys are psychos.  And you poisoned me.   Most of the time I really thought I was going to die.  I really wanted to die through much of it.  So, yeah, I think you are all delusional.  Although you seem to be a nice psychotic.”
    Henri stood up.  “Thanks.”
    Holding out his hand to her, he said, “Come over here.  Look in this mirror.  Tell me what you see.”
    Starla pushed herself off the hard floor, took his hand and slowly followed him across the room to a huge dusty old full-length mirror propped in a corner.
    “I though t vampires had no reflection.”
    “That’s movie vampires.  We are not fiction.  We’re still the same person we always were, with incredible enhancements.  Come on, you’ll see what I mean.”
    She eased up to the mirror and hesitated.  At this moment she was afraid to confront the possibility he was telling the truth, and although at heart she was sure she didn’t believe his wild claim that they were vampires, something inside told her to prepare herself.  Coming up from the side of the mirror, she made herself step forward and turn to face her image.
    A woman stood there, frightened and breathing hard.  She looked a lot like the girl Starla had seen in mirrors all her life.  But there were startling changes that could never have happened in a week.  A week of pain and deprivation had left her dirty and she was sure she smelled,