Prologue
Asha Higgins huddled in the junked-out hearse she’d called home for the past seven days. Funny that she’d picked this particular type of automobile to hide in. After all, this may very well become her final resting spot if she didn’t find food—or appropriate clothing soon. She hadn’t picked this car intentionally. At the time, she’d been running, crying and bleeding, and had only needed someplace to hide—somewhere safe and away from Daddy Tom.
Her hands shook as she thought of the person who had tormented her days and nights for the past four months.
Daddy Tom’s belt couldn’t reach her, and she would never again feel the sting of the leather biting into her flesh. Now that she was free, she no longer had to refer to him as her daddy, but the conditioning via open palm and belt was proving too hard to break.
He wasn’t her real father. He wasn’t a blood relation at all. Daddy Tom was just the latest foster parent. And, like the others, he’d failed her.
Daddy Tom hadn’t been the first person who had done her wrong in her short life. No. Asha’s troubles had begun on the day she’d been born—well, technically even before that. Her mother, Mavis, had been a crack whore. It wasn’t something Asha liked to talk or think about, but every foster parent she’d ever had seemed to like bringing that fact up. Asha believed it was to remind her of her station in life. As if she could ever forget.
‘Your mom was addicted to crack while she was pregnant with you.’
‘You were born addicted to crack.’
‘Your momma couldn’t stay clean. She whored for drugs instead of taking care of you.’
‘Her pimp strangled her dead in an alley.’
She’d heard those words and more her entire life. How could she ever get past any of that to make something of herself? They all said she was doomed to walk in her mother’s footsteps.
She would prove them all wrong.
She wouldn’t hook up with a low-life and she definitely wouldn’t let said low-life talk her into doing drugs. She would graduate high school, something that her mother had never done. Go to college and get a job—a good job. Then, one day, she would come back and visit all those foster moms and dads who’d thought that she would fail and end up in a dumpster.
She had many dreams where she went back to those houses wearing an expensive suit and had a driver waiting for her at the curb. She wouldn’t just tell them that she’d made something of herself. She would show them.
But the plan for now was to hide out as long as it took for the case workers to forget about her then hitch a ride to California. In California, she could audition for television shows. She’d read in one of those teen magazines that talent agents were always searching for up-and-coming movie stars. Along with all the bad stuff her foster moms seemed to like to dredge up from the past, the foster dads had used to also tell her—in their very pervy way—that she was pretty. At least she had that going for her. Being pretty would make her a lot of money in Hollywood. She had read that, too.
Outside her hiding spot, a dog’s bark sounded in the distance. Three large German Shepherds roamed the auto salvage yard, keeping her company at night. She hadn’t found out that little fact until after she’d scaled the chain link fence with its rolled barbed wire at the top, and landed on the other side. For a brief moment, when they’d come running at her, baring sharp teeth, she’d thought to scurry back the way she’d come, but fear had stopped her. Not the fear of the three dogs growling at her, but the fear of what she had known awaited her if Daddy Tom got his hands on her again.
Blood from the open sores, caused by his belt, trickled down her leg. Her lip had been so puffy she could hardly speak. Her right eye had been completely swollen shut and the other had dripped with tears. She had gone to her knees and begged the dogs to grant her safe passage or end her life quickly.
The dogs had spared her that night, showing more compassion than any human ever had.
They’d huddled around her, licking her face and hands and whining. The old adage was true—animals were more compassionate than human beings.
She’d been living with them and finding comfort in their company ever since.
Instead of nightly beatings and inappropriate groping, she had snuggles and love. After the dogs finished their nightly patrol, they would scratch on the hearse door and she would let them all in, where they would curl up by her side and she could feel safe enough to fall asleep.
They weren’t ideal living conditions, but they were a lot better than where she’d come from.
A gust of wind blew past the vehicle and a cold breeze entered through the passenger side window, the only one that was missing a pane of glass. Every night she’d promised herself that when the workers left for the day, she would venture out to find another hiding spot, possibly another car that had all its windows intact. But that never happened. In all the days she’d been concealed in the gutted-out hearse, none of the workers who roamed the yard during the day had come close to looking into it. She convinced herself that she’d found her safe haven.
Another gust of wind blew, and this time, she shivered as the chill hit her skin, making goosebumps erupt in its wake. She wasn’t dressed for the cold New Jersey weather. All she had on were flimsy shorts and a camisole nightshirt. The very items she’d worn the evening she’d fled. She didn’t even have shoes or socks covering her dirty feet.
I can find a cardboard box or something. Then I can block that window.
Asha lifted the blanket she’d stolen from one of the offices and peered out of the window. Nothing to see but cars and more cars. She could’ve roamed and easily found something to plug the window with, but the night terrified her. She’d been in enough foster homes to learn that nothing good ever happened at night.
Giving up on the idea of leaving her sanctuary, she lay back down and tried her best to rearrange the blanket so that she had a piece between her body and the metal frame and still had some to wrap around her shoulders and legs. When the dogs came back, they would provide extra warmth. She smiled at that thought.
A scratch sounded on the door.
Just in time.
Asha scurried to the door and pushed at it. The door creaked and groaned its displeasure as it opened. Instead of three dogs with tails wagging, Asha glanced down at black high heels. As if in slow motion her eyes moved up to see black stockings, skinny legs, a red pencil skirt, cream blouse and a pale white face with large, red eyes.
The girl appeared younger than Asha’s fifteen years. She was small and gangly with wispy white-blonde hair. She looked like an angel. But the warning bells in Asha’s head fired in succession, indicating this little girl was anything but.
“What are you doing here?” Asha peered around her. People like her didn’t come to this part of New Jersey, and definitely not alone.
“I might ask you the same question.” Her voice was soft and musical.
Her voice is so pretty…so calming.
“You might, but I won’t answer.”
No one else stepped from the shadows. The girl was alone. Another runaway? Asha mentally shook her head. Everything about her was off. She was too calm, too clean and too well-dressed. She didn’t belong.
The girl chuckled and even that didn’t sound real. “You sure are a feisty one.” One of the dogs howled again and the girl lifted her chin to the sky and tilted her head in the direction of the noise. “You’ve made friends with them. They want to protect you, but they’re too afraid of what I am to come any closer.”
Asha’s heart slammed against her ribs, the warning bells louder now. “What do you mean?” She peered into her eyes. The coloring wasn’t right, but no matter how hard she searched her brain she couldn’t grasp what it meant. She should have been scared. But she wasn’t, not really. “What are you?”
“I’m a Vampire. A child of the night.”
She said it so causally, as if it was normal to proclaim such a thing. Asha let out a snort. “Yeah, right. And I’m Queen of Sheba.”
The girl didn’t crack at smile, but behind her eyes was a hint of amusement. “Nice to meet you, Queen of Sheba. My name is Clarissa.”
Run.
She couldn’t move.
“So, tell me, Queen. Why are you out here all alone?”
Something tugged in her mind. The defiance that she’d had just moments before slipped away. “I ran away from my foster home.”
“Why?”
“He…he…” Asha fought with an unknown force inside her brain. She didn’t want to say those words out loud. Saying them made her dirty. It made her sad. It made her feel powerless. “He touched me.” As the words fell from her mouth, tears fell from her eyes.
Clarissa was silent as Asha cried and let everything out that she’d pent up since running away. After the last tear spilled down her cheek, Asha wiped it away. As she did a weight was lifted from her shoulders. She sat back and grabbed the blanket, tucking it around her.
“Well, I can leave you here to be caught and returned to that place or—”
Asha shook her head vehemently. “I’m never going back there. I’ll kill myself first.”
Clarissa stepped forward and put a finger over Asha’s lips. “Or I can take you home with me.”
Asha used a dirty forearm to wipe her wet cheeks. “Wh-where do you live? I don’t want to go to another foster home or group home.”
“That’s not what I have in store for you, my child. I have something better.”
“Like what?”
Clarissa squinted at Asha in such a way that her smooth features became distorted, sinister, scary. “Do you want to be powerful? So powerful that no human would ever think to lay a hand on you again?”
Asha nodded. She never wanted another person to abuse her. She wanted to make her own way in her life. She wanted to be something more than her mother had ever been. She wanted something better than the life she was living and the life she would be condemned to live if she stayed on her current path. “Yes.”
Clarissa extended a hand. “Come with me.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Asha took the cold, hard hand in hers.