One

The brown leather jacket snugly clinging to my petite body barely kept me warm except for in the broad strokes of sunlight. The dark orange hat crushing my thick, jet black shoulder length curls didn’t help to lift my sour mood. Upon pursing my dark pink, full lips allows my navy green eyes to flit around the scenery doing nothing to ease my scorned nerves. I hated the city that overflowed with tourists all of who could afford to spend a cozy night in a warm bed.

BELLFLOWER has done nothing but bleed me dry like a vampire—I’m not the only one either. No one in the once magical city saw human beings as human beings; they saw those who struggled as inhumane criminals. Yet if you had an animal that you had to leave behind with no help from the animal shelters; they’d crucify you anyway. The animal and homeless shelters all have one thing in common—they’re full of bullshit; not yearning to help those who struggle. They criminalize anything that is different from them, especially when what’s different barely can breathe.

If you mistreat a person, no matter the circumstance, surely you will mistreat an animal. Animals can survive in the wild—it’s a given fact even the most domesticated of animals could go wild and hunt for their survival. How are people trying to make it through seen so differently; they’re mistreated more than the animals people feign concern about? I’m struggling to understand the logic of our society—always have been unable to comprehend the nonsense. When the bench beneath my bottom shakes, my heart picks up speed as my brother tears me from my dark, bitter, treacherous thoughts.

“I have a plan.” George Reardon voices, running his hands down his black jean clad legs. His smoky gray eyes held determination as his short, black hair was messy; out of sorts. He was five foot ten with tan skin, and some curves to him. He looked like the utter mess that Victoria and I felt like we were.

“What plan? Did you manage to call him?” Victoria Reardon speaks up with hope slithering into her sea green eyes. She was five foot eleven, slim with a curvy waist, and fair skin. Her long, wavy, strawberry colored hair bounces as she eyes George who slowly begins to nod his head.

“I did call him.” George said, keeping his voice to a low hiss.

We were sitting in front of a gas station since we felt partly safe after having to flee a former camp of ours. It was mid-December. The holidays were a pain in my arse, reminding me that nothing good came of it.

“You’re being vague.” I inform George as if the twenty five year old doesn’t already know this. I watch George grind his jaw as if he heard something he didn’t like.

“It’s just us.” George breaks the news as a gasp flees the lips of Victoria.

I’m not surprised. None of our family members seemed to give a fuck about us unless it benefited them in some way. I rolled my navy green eyes, gnawing on my bottom lip as silence infiltrated the streets. I raise a black eyebrow. “Did everything suddenly go silent?”

Victoria raises her strawberry colored eyebrows, following my gaze to the stillness of the atmosphere. Goosebumps creep onto her arms. “Where did everybody go?”

George frowns, casting his eyes around the vacant streets. He shrugged since people were out and about—no matter what time of the day it was. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

A sickness grows in the pit of my stomach. I don’t have this feeling that everything was going to be alright. I shiver as the temperature drops below the normal for a cold blasted winter. “We shouldn’t ask you. You tend to jinx things, G.”

George scoffed, offended by the truth. He folded his arms to his chest, having been sitting between us. “I am not a jinx. You say it every time I perceive things a certain way.”

Victoria sucked in a sharp air of breath which caused George to cut his eyes to her. “She’s got a point. You do tend to jinx things. Every time you say something is going to happen—the opposite happens.”

“Whatever. You women are lunatics.” The twenty five year old, disgruntled George tells us.

Victoria is thirty and I’m twenty six. We weren’t young anymore, having been camping for quite sometime. She shrugs. “I’m sorry that the truth stings, George, but Melanie isn’t wrong. If you really think about it…”

I wait for my sister to keep speaking, confused about why she would have trailed off. I clear my throat, pushing myself to lean forward to glance past George in order to get a better view of Tori. “Tori?”

Victoria maintains this shocked expression as she drums up what she can explain to us. “I just remembered something. Do you remember how I said, Bellflower is like a parasitic vampire?”

“So?” I roll my eyes while George moans, finding her question insane.

“There is no such thing as vampires!” George hissed, becoming fed up with us. He proceeds to add something else as an afterthought. “Do you remember when you two thought the Backstreet Boys were real? It turned out to be a figment of your women’s imagination. No woman wants a guy who can dance, sing, and make you swoon in such a mushy, pathetic way.”

I grow irritated with George, shaking my head at him. He was the one who got the truth backwards since they did exist. I find Victoria side eyeing our brother before she meets my navy green eyes. “You were saying before the wannabe spoke up?”

“There was a rumor that Bellflower became colonized by vampires—overflowing, infiltrated by parasitic vampires, to be exact.” Victoria mutters, recalling what she had read somewhere in a book. She had been doing research on the hostile city of Bellflower causing me to frown.

“Do they look like people?” I inquire just as Victoria shakily nods.

“That they do. They also blend in with the shadows, cause the temperature to drop lower than the average, and they do have fangs. They don’t feed off blood, but energy—mostly negative.” Victoria goes into detail just as George begins a nervous chuckle.

I look over at my brother, unsure as to why he was chuckling in a nervous manner. “What’s wrong?”

Clearing his throat, George shrugs as he opens his mouth to speak. “I could have sworn I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think we should wait here any longer.”

Victoria takes a pause to process his words, cutting her sea green eyes around. She stands up, nodding her head. “What do you suggest we do then? I’m considering the old camp in order to bide our time.”

George seems to agree with our sister as he vigorously nods. “I’m with you.”

I find George agreeing unusual since he’s not one to really agree with us on much of anything. I mirror Victoria in standing up, just as George does. A trickle of a chill spreads down my neck to my spine allowing my concern and irritation to grow. Blue and red flashes in front of my eyes causing me to shield them. “Is that a police officer?”

Victoria scoffs. “It figures. Never fails when you form a plan—they always want to stop you or criminalize you.”

The police car stops right in front of us. A burly, beer gutted, red skinned man cuts his dark, beady eyes over to us. “Can I help you ladies?”

George rolls his smoky gray eyes. He hated how rude people could be—lumping him in with the female population. If anything, he was a man child; not yearning to adult. “We’re all good, Officer Brooks.”

The Officer cuts George a glare. He catches an attitude with our brother, not having realized there was a guy with us. “I wasn’t talking to you. Shouldn’t you be moving along?”

“We were just on our way.” Victoria replies, shooting Officer Brooks an uneasy smile. Something about the beer gutted, ginger seemed familiar—not just to Tori as memory tried to serve me correctly.

I know which direction we should head so I started walking with Victoria and George following my lead. I had my backpack of necessities glued to me as did Tori and George. Worry infiltrates every fiber of my being as Officer Brooks seems to wait, watching as we move along. “Isn’t he the same dick who has tried to run us over several times?”

George combs through his memory, coming up with the truth as he pouts. He slowly nods his head. “I think you might be right.”

Between the three of us, we grew quiet, not uttering another word to one another. We walked in silence, crossing the road quite a few times. The idea of returning to our old camp began to bother me as I freeze in my tracks, clearing my throat. “I don’t know about returning to an old campsite. What if some drug addict is waiting?”

“We should be safe behind the Bamboo Gardens, out on bus route seventeen.” Victoria mused, unable to buy her own words.

“It was hardly safe when we were staying there.” I remind Tori just as George releases a shaky breath.

“I’m not sure what we can do. I don’t know where we could go in order to be safe.” George informs us, biting his bottom. He stopped with Victoria a few inches from me.

I’m about to open my mouth to speak when a sharp hiss comes from my left. Narrowing my navy green eyes, I cut them to the darkness of the early morning hours. My brother, sister, and myself had been roaming downtown Bellflower since we were shit out of luck—nowhere to go. I don’t see anything while the small, barely visible hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “H-hello?”

George scowled with his gray eyes shooting to me. He slowly shook his head. “Can you not give the creature in the dark ammo?”

I nervously chuckle. “It’s not my intention, but I’m rather anxious if you couldn’t tell!”

Another hiss comes from the dark before something lunges into me, knocking me to the concrete pavement on the sidewalk. We were under a bridge off of a highway as I glare up at Officer Brooks with two sharp fangs protruding from his upper and bottom lip. This deep hatred for the burly man burns deep within me. “Get off of me, sicko!”

Officer Brooks is about to sink his teeth into me when George slams his backpack into the back of the man’s head. The Officer crumbles onto me causing bile from nausea to erupt in the middle of my throat.

George is sweating as he sets his backpack onto the concrete of the sidewalk. He clears his throat. “Tori help me shove this mother trucker off of Melanie.”

Victoria stood stunned and speechless before she processes George’s words. She rushes over, grunting as they push Officer Brooks off of me into the wet, dew flavored grass.

I had been struggling to breathe since the man had been pressing into my ribs, restricting my airwaves. “Help me!”

George extends a hand to help me to my feet as my mood further sours.

I brush off my leather jacket just as headlights come into view. Fear slithers into my heart causing me to frown. “Who could that be?”

A black limo pulls up next to us. The door of the back swings open to reveal a kind, youthful, smug yet familiar face. “Would you three care to join me or do you prefer the freezing cold of mid-December with a crooked Officer who’s due to wake up in a second?”

George snatches his up backpack, striding over to the limo, just as the unnamed assailant slides over to make room. He climbs idly into the back of the limo with us soon joining him and the stranger. “So…Uncle Matthew Sweet?”

“You have me confused with my father.” He corrects with a deep, amused tone in his hazel brown eyes. He’s got short, wild, dark brown curls with broad shoulders, a crisp skin complexion, and the height of a tall male. His lips were full, pink, smirking over at us. “I’m his son; Julian Sweet. He adopted me after marrying into your family—sometime down the road.”

George stroked his chin while I chose to soak in the newfound information. “Interesting.”

I raise a black eyebrow, finding the notion Interesting indeed. “Where is Uncle Matt?”

Frowning, Julian shrugs his shoulder—evidently upset about the question. He was in a dark blue blazer with tanned khaki pants, black boots, and a white v neck tee shirt that hugged his body; showcasing some muscle. “I’m not sure.”

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