Chapter Two

I wander, letting the repetitive sound of tires on asphalt push stray thoughts from my head. I will not think about Parker and Jacob laughing together. I will not think of Deb’s condescending gifts. My body wants to run, find a rhythm and focus on nothing but breathing, but I never run at night. Running’s an invitation for something to chase you. I want to be the predator, not the prey. Besides, I already ran five miles this morning.

Out of habit, I head to J Street, where more people gather at night—a vampire might find warm, drunk bodies and easily accessible necks there. After fruitlessly hunting all these years, I don’t really believe I’ll find one, but I still peek down the occasional dark alley, looking for anything odd. And I’m ready if I do find one. I’m fast. I’m more comfortable with a stake in my hand than a pencil. I spent years watching vampire movies and mimicking the moves of vampire hunters until my muscles remembered every action. I’ve seen every vampire movie twenty times. Not because I like them. I hate them—the scenes that make them seem good or sexy make my stomach turn—but they’re all I have. Because nobody knows shit about vampires except that they’re out there.

Vampires revealed themselves when I was eight—just two weeks before I found Mom with dripping wounds on her neck that looked like bite marks. The adults wrote it off as some type of animal attack. When she died, I didn’t know vampires existed yet because we didn’t have a television. But once I got placed in a temporary home where the television ran all day, I knew what really happened to Mom. I felt it in the way my skin froze watching that redheaded bastard on television brag about how he hadn’t killed anyone in a long time. His name was Gerald. There were a few others, but his face was on the television every day for weeks. The foster-whatevers I lived with at the time were obsessed with it. They had the news on constantly even though I said it scared me. They made me sit with them in the living room, all our dinners on trays, and watch news story after news story until all I could picture was that vampire’s smirking face. All I could imagine was his teeth on my mom’s neck, even though it probably wasn’t him. He lived in Paris, but it didn’t matter. I stopped sleeping.

That’s when I started hunting.

In one interview, they asked him if a wooden stake to the heart really killed vampires, and the bloodsucker didn’t answer, but I saw the way his mouth tightened and knew it was true. That was the first night I snuck out after the foster-whatevers went to sleep. I armed myself with pencils and made it only a block before I turned around and went back, but it felt good to be out there in the night doing something instead of crying and remembering.

A vampire took Mom from me. Me and Parker. I wanted to kill one, just one, to pay them back. If I could do that, I thought, then maybe I had a shot of smiling again and finding a family, because families liked happy kids, not kids who woke up crying.

Then one of the vampires killed a child not long after they tried to live “peacefully” with humans, and they disappeared again. By now most people have chalked the whole thing up to a hoax.

I kept looking though. It became a ritual almost. I had to check the night before being able to sleep. Eventually, I replaced the pencils with real stakes I carved, but the only time I used one was to threaten some guy trying to follow me when I was fifteen. He wasn’t a vampire, just a creep, but it turns out that stakes scare those, too.

The ten-year anniversary of vampires happened a couple of weeks ago, so every television station is still playing an endless stream of documentaries and movies. I came home the other day and found Parker and Jacob watching The Lost Boys. Laughing. Like creatures that killed people to survive could ever be funny. I wanted to run into the room, grab the remote, and throw it into the screen. But I didn’t. I’ve never told Parker how Mom really died. So I let them keep watching it while I went to the bathroom and threw up, imagining that evil fanged face being the last thing Mom ever saw. She must have been scared.

This time of year makes me edgy. It makes me want to be a vampire hunter for real. I’m strong enough—that was one thing I did have control over. I started running and lifting weights at fourteen. I figured it would take a lot of endurance to catch a vampire and a lot of upper-body strength to drive a stake into its heart.

I know there are people actually trying to track them down again. If I didn’t have Parker to take care of, I could travel—we still live in the same town Mom was murdered in, but surely I’d have found something by now if vampires were still here. I need to widen my search to bigger cities where there are rumors of sightings on vampire message boards. Sacramento hasn’t had any spottings in years, so for now I walk the streets out of habit and sometimes imagine what I’d do if I found one.

I reach back and touch the bottom of my backpack, feeling the shape of the stake there.

I take a deep breath and try to relax into my routine. I’m distracted tonight. I force myself to focus on the familiar.

Each side of the street boasts several neon signs with burned-out lights. I pass Cooper’s on the right, the C burned out months ago. Nobody cares. Certainly not the few patrons inside already teetering on their stools. I tuck my head down and keep moving.

The throaty and boyish sound of Def Leppard begging for sugar drifts from the next place along with high-pitched, forced laughter. I don’t have to turn my head to know what I’ll see—a short skirt riding high and groping hands. The night is nothing if not predictable. It may be why I love it now.

I keep moving, letting the familiarity fill and empty me at the same time.

I stop at a light pole on a corner and scan it. I may not be a vampire hunter, but I know how to hunt lost pets, and that’s something at least. No sign of Suzy, though, so I guess I’m not good at that either.

All the other pets must be home and loved tonight since there are no other posters, but my gaze catches on something else. I pause in front of a thick green piece of cardstock with a picture of a dove erupting from a magician’s hat. Gold letters loop across the top: LOSE YOURSELF. The date, time, and “J Street” are in fine print at the bottom. No address.

Someone’s taken great care in attaching it to the pole without leaving any visible tape. I grab the edge and pull. Maybe the address is on the back, meant only for the most ambitious to find. I flip it over. Nothing. No tape, either. I run a hand over the cold metal it was stuck to, coming up empty.

I shiver in the late evening breeze, or maybe from the thrill of a tiny piece of magic in my hands. I could use a little bit of illusion right now. Tonight I need some extra help pushing the bad memories away. Plus, I’m on the right street, even if there’s no address.

I keep walking, rolling and unrolling the green flyer, making the dove disappear and reappear. I still pause to glance down a dark alley or two, but for the first time in a long time, I have a different purpose.

There. A small flash of gold catches my attention, and I kneel in the middle of the sidewalk, running my finger along the gold-painted magician’s hat no bigger than my fist. The tip of a bird’s wing peeks out the top. A gold arrow beside it points forward. I grin, walking quickly, knowing what I’m looking for now.

I find the next one painted on the side of a trash can. The bird’s wing is farther out of the hat this time. The arrow points across the street. I wait for the cars to clear before darting to the other side.

I find the next one and then the next one—the bird rises out of the hat a little more with each painting. Mom would love this. She was always planning scavenger hunts for me after school with a note taped to the front door and a plate of cookies hiding at the end. She made the best butterscotch chip cookies.

Finally, I reach a navy door painted with the same small hat and a dove flying free above it. A Black girl sits perched on a stool beside the door. She wears a green sequined dress that pops against her dark brown skin and falls around her knees in points. Miniature silk flowers in an array of colors line the hem. Her black hair curls down to her waist, and as she shifts to look at me, the gold glitter sprinkled into her hair flashes in the light. She reminds me of Tinker Bell.

“This is what you’re looking for.” Her words jar me. Her voice is deep and smooth, like she’s a breath away from singing, and it feels like a kind of magic already. Her warm brown, gold-rimmed eyes stare right into mine like she’s reading my mind.

“How do you know?”

A soft smile spreads across her face, and she slumps a little on her stool like she’s breaking character. She nods to the flyer in my hand.

“Oh. Right.” I twist the paper again before tucking it away and pulling money from my pocket. I hold it out, but she doesn’t take it.

“Are you sure?” she asks instead.

I just stare at her. She’s the one who told me this was what I was looking for.

“You can’t go back, you know,” she says.

She must be in character, trying to unsettle me before the show even starts, but there’s an earnestness in her eyes that almost makes me step away from her.

But then she smiles again and waves my money away. “The first show’s on us.”

She hops from the stool in a swirl of flashing green, pulls open the door, and gestures toward the dark. I step into a heady mix of perfume, cologne, sweat, and alcohol. Underneath, the dank, old smell of the building bides its time, waiting to take control when the room empties. Old buildings always have that same mustiness at their base. It’s comforting. Something I can count on.

I step around the hipsters heading toward the booze. The gleaming metal stools contrast with the tired oak of the bar.

Unfortunately, there’s no music, and noisy shouts and drunk laughter grate on my nerves.

Someone bumps my shoulder. The crowd swells, and I let myself flow with it toward the seats set up in front of a metal stage draped with plain and simple twinkle lights, the kind I get sick of seeing around the holidays. They aren’t magical. If anything, they’re tacky.

I plop down on one of the black folding chairs near the front. I take the edge seat and regret it immediately as I shift my knees to the side every time someone needs to move past me. My toes still end up bruised. Drunkenness has no grace.

A blond boy with spiked hair sits down beside me. He stares at the side of my face as I focus on the stage, willing him not to speak to me.

The lights fade and the noise fades with them. Only jarred lights dangling above continue to flutter, barely illuminating everyone’s heads. Any remaining whispers die as a spotlight flickers on.

A girl stands with her chin tilted slightly down so her black ringlets fall against her cheekbones. She glows under the harsh light, and her strapless purple dress shimmers even with her stillness. The dress ends above her knees, leaving just inches of bare white skin between the hem and the top of her lace-up black boots.

She stays frozen long enough for the audience to fidget in their seats. Everyone holds their breath, and I realize I’m doing the same. I let mine go the second before the loud thrum of a violin bursts through the speakers. With the sound, one of her palms twitches upward, and a ball of flame shoots to life. There’s a moment of silence, aside from the low murmurs of a few assholes in front of me, and then her other palm opens with a surge of flame, accompanied by the violin.

This time the music continues, drifting away until the violin whispers just on the edge of our hearing before slowly growing as she finally raises her head. She stares out at us, face stoic, until the music hits a loud and frenzied high, and she jerks her hands toward the audience, sending harmless sparks above the heads of the first two rows.

Her palms close, and she smiles, taking in the few whistles and claps.

I don’t clap. I’ve seen similar tricks online with people shooting sparks from their hands and using hand sanitizer to light their palms on fire. It’s a cheap party trick used by drunk frat boys. I’ve never seen anyone maintain it as long as she did, but I crave more. I want the rush of seeing a new trick and believing for one glorious second that the magic is real and anything is possible. I want those childhood moments of wonder while standing at the edge of the stage watching Dad make Mom disappear and then reappear across the stage. Or those times at the dinner table with Mom when she made a card appear underneath my dinner plate while she was across the table. My parents were magic—even if Mom told me again and again that it was only illusion.

The music dies, and so does the little applause. Her boots click as she turns and walks to a table set up on the side of the stage.

She picks up three red balls and holds them out for us as if she’s asking for our approval before launching them in a couple of lazy arcs.

Some jerk boos and the crowd snickers.

She gives a small, mocking bow while raising her eyebrows. Her smile is back, but it’s different now, sharper.

Twisting and grabbing two more balls off the table, she launches all five in the air as she takes a few steps toward the center of the stage.

She’s flawless. The balls rise and fall in a pattern that looks effortless but can’t be. But it’s not enough to lose myself. It’s not enough to forget about Parker and Jacob laughing back at Deb’s without me.

And then, as if she can read the audience’s growing boredom, a single ball catches fire as it passes from her hand and back above her head, and then another and another until they all burn.

The audience applauds, finally satisfied.

They rise and fall like fireworks, the kind that explode downward like a wilted daisy.

I catch myself leaning forward in my seat before pulling back. The rest of the crowd is in awe with me. The boy next to me has his jaw ajar.

She completes a spin. The balls fly effortlessly like she never moved. She spins again, leaving two flaming balls in her hands and three flying through the air. Her purple dress blossoms like a flower.

Only this time, when she faces the crowd again, one ball slips below her grasp, and she catches it with the tip of her boot, kicking it out above the audience, where it erupts into ash like it was nothing more than a runaway wisp of paper from a bonfire. Before the audience can react, she lets ball after ball connect with her boot and soar above our heads only to become nothing.

She’s left with two flaming balls she tosses up and down in each hand. She stares at us impassively as she lops each one to the side, into one of the stage curtains.

The curtains blaze to life in green fire as she turns and stalks off the stage. People in the front row rise to their feet. My face heats in the second row. The fire is real.

Some people shout and others clap—the green flames don’t touch anything but the curtains.

Spike-hair turns toward me. “Amazing,” he breathes into my face, along with the overpowering stench of beer.

I wave him away, leaning into the heat wafting off the unnatural flames. This. This is what I was waiting for.

The audience is beginning to squirm when a white boy with green hair saunters onto the stage. In his hands, he bounces a deck of cards back and forth. They thwack as they gently hit one another. He glances at the burning curtains and snaps his fingers.

The flames go out, and the curtains remain whole, with no trace of burns.

“She’s so dramatic,” he says, grinning.

The crowd roars, and he just waits there, smiling like the world will always be on his side, and with a face like his, he’s probably right.

It’s the kind of face I hate.

Except his hair is the bright, deep green of forest ferns, almost shaved on the sides, longer and flopped over on the top. The hair of someone who doesn’t give a shit.

He wears fitted slacks that crease perfectly to his polished black shoes. His bottom half could be headed for a business meeting at any one of the sky-high office buildings down the street. His top half tells a different story. He has a vest, sure, black and pinstriped with green to match his hair, but he wears no shirt underneath.

I try not to notice the way his muscles flex slightly as he passes the cards between his two hands. It’s a ridiculous thought.

He paces at center stage. “I’m going to need a volunteer for this one.”

Hands dart up. I catch my own hand in the air and drag it back down before he can notice. Memory made me do it. I don’t really want to be up there, but for a split second, I was a little girl again, sitting on the couch in our living room, watching my mom in her best red dress ask for volunteers as she twirled a top hat in her hands. I’d dart my hand up, and she’d pretend to scan the invisible audience before calling me to the stage.

Maybe I do want to be up there. But the thought of standing next to him in his crisp black clothes while I’m dressed in my faded black tee turns my stomach. I definitely don’t have Mom’s grace and style, and I might enjoy my coin tricks, but I’ve trained myself to be a killer, not a performer. I clasp my betraying hands together in my lap.

His eyes narrow as he scans the faces in front of him. He pauses the movement of the cards long enough to lift a finger in the air and do a spinning motion. The spotlights shift off the stage and into the crowd.

People groan. I wince and lift a hand to shield myself from the glare. Turning slightly, I look down and away from the light. Black, shining shoes pause in front of me.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***