12
Holidays are a volatile time for new vampires. They will miss their biological families and their traditions. Try focusing on the things they won’t have to put up with anymore—gravy-pushing aunties, “whose pie is better” debates, holiday weight gain.
—The Accidental Sire: How to Raise an Unplanned Vampire
Dr. Hudson was taken into Council custody with very little effort from Jane. He hadn’t tried to hide, even after he arrived in the field and found his murder box empty. He just went back to his lab and continued working. Like, Oh, well, my attempts to incinerate the not-quite-interns failed. Guess I should find some other way to be super-creepy and cheerful.
He clearly didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, given the disjointed rantings he aimed at Jane as she had the undead emergency response team frog-march him to the “containment floor.” He was a scientist! He was only doing what others didn’t dare, bringing vampires into the new millennium! Jane was denying him greatness!
We were not present for said rantings, as Jane put us in Protocol: The Ladykillers, which involved us staying at River Oaks, surrounded by Jane’s family of choice and most-trusted UERT officers, watching horror movie remakes with Georgie. Because Prom Night made her laugh. But one of the nicer UERT guys, Ray McElray, let me watch the video of Dr. Hudson being tased, which felt pretty good, even after the fifth time I watched it. Ben made a still of Dr. Hudson slumped to the floor with his ass in the air while he drooled and peed his pants. I saved it as my laptop’s wallpaper.
Jane came home and assured us that it would be safe for us to return to work, that Dr. Hudson was secured in a holding cell under the interrogation floors, seven levels below our offices, and that he would be left there to think about his actions for a decade or two. While locked in a metal mesh box, standing upright, surrounded by pictures of clowns, and with heavy metal–polka fusion played at top volume.
“I’m not even going to ask if that’s really necessary,” Ben said.
“Agreed,” I told Jane.
“Yes, well, you try to put my kids in a death box and stake them out for the sun, I tend to take that a little personally.” Jane sniffed, patting our heads.
I would not allow myself to feel that little tingle of warmth in my chest at hearing her call me one of her kids. I just wouldn’t. I ducked my head and tried to keep the stupid smile off my face.
“I mean, having Georgie around is like having a child of my own, only I’m pretty sure an actual child would be ninety-two percent less terrifying,” Jane said. “But you, Ben, you are the low-maintenance childe I don’t remotely deserve. You are a genuinely good kid, and you have to know how much I appreciate that. And Meagan, you are the little sister I always wished I had. Kind, levelheaded, bright, and a total smartass. Also, because my mom would have been so distracted by your puppy-eyed adorableness that she wouldn’t have even noticed me. High school would have been a completely different experience. This is as schmaltzy as I’m going to get. I love you both. Good night.”
And the stupid smile would not go away, especially after the household went to the grave for the day and Ben sneaked into my room, snuggling against my back as we drifted off to sleep.
Jane loved me. And not just in the “Aw, you make my life easier and fetch me coffee” way. She fought for me, protected me, cared for me. She treated me like part of her family. And I wanted that. I wanted to belong to her family. I just wasn’t sure how to do that.
Work became almost routine again, without the threat of medical experimentation hanging over our heads. With Dr. Hudson in violation of his contract, he no longer had any privileges in the science department, and Jane was able to reassign his staff to Council outposts all over the world. Dr. Gennaro ended up sampling bat guano in the Amazon. Considering his participation in the whole “death test” thing with Dr. Hudson, I didn’t feel sorry for him.
The good news was that Jane was allowed to completely restaff the science department with noncrazy people. After she made them sign nondisclosure agreements the thickness of my geography textbook, she allowed them to perform another round of blood analysis and various tests of our endurance.
Hudson’s analysis of our blood had been spot-on, but the new scientists, led by a Dr. Denise Oxmoor, were doing a more complete analysis of our DNA to try to explain why we had so many animal and plant bits inside us. And while we didn’t need another test to know that silver was a horrible, no-good, very bad idea, we knew that UV exposure up to direct, high-noon levels couldn’t hurt us. Dr. Oxmoor and her assistant had to hide behind a special lead shield while we were exposed to tanning-bed lights. But now that we knew we wouldn’t explode into dust, the experiment was far less stressful. And the more we were exposed to the light, the less dramatic the drop-unconscious-to-the-ground reaction became. We could stay conscious. We were slow, I would admit, but we were up and moving around, more and more efficiently with each exposure. Dr. Oxmoor speculated that within a year or two, we might be able to move around during the day completely unscathed and undetected.
It was fun testing the limits of our “above-average vampire-ness.” We were thirty percent stronger than the average vampire. I managed to flip a car by its bumper, and it landed on its tires, but I had to think about guys who posted “Make me a sandwich” memes on Facebook to work up the rage for it. We ran forty percent faster. We read faster and swam faster—which was a way more fun test. Who knew the Council complex had an indoor pool below the interrogation levels? We could go around eighteen hours without feeding, but we got super-cranky and then passed out wherever we stood. (Ben ended up facedown in the ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle being used to test his mental acuity.) We could scent blood from three hundred yards, where the average vampire maxed out at one hundred. We could not fly but not for lack of Ben trying . . . by jumping off the top of the Council offices. Fortunately, his ankles healed right up.
Unfortunately, knowing that her “kids” had superpowers and could beat her up seemed to freak Jane out a little. That was what I was attributing my recent raise to, since previously I wasn’t really getting paid for my hours at the Council office. Also, I was named Employee of the Month for preventing Jane from using the copy machine. Apparently, there had been an incident. I’d been awarded a slot on the plaque for “preventing serious damage to company property and coworkers.” Ben got a bonus for helping Gigi complete a special section of her project early, and Sammy named a quadruple espresso with plasma drizzle the “Overby Overdrive.” So yeah, I think we scared Jane pretty badly.
The weeks seemed to melt together. Ben and I completed our assignments online. I maintained the high B average required by my scholarships, but Ben edged me out with a low A. Morgan and Keagan didn’t call as often, with exams and holiday plans and all manner of distractions taking up their schedules. I missed them, but I was spending a lot of time with Ben, so I couldn’t exactly claim I was holding up my end of the friendship.
Ben sneaked into my room just before sunrise more often than not, and we weren’t even having sex the majority of those nights. He just wrapped himself around me and fell asleep with his face tucked into my neck. It was an adjustment for me to sleep with someone else. Hell, I went on a camping trip with my boyfriend freshman year, and I made him sleep in a separate sleeping bag with a cooler between us. I’d never trusted someone enough to let him that close. It was nice being able to relax like that with another person, to be still with him, and to know that he wouldn’t hurt me.
Of course, on those days when he slept with me, Ben woke just before sundown to haul ass back to his room. Jane was cool and slightly scared of us, but she still had the power of yelling really loudly.
Before we knew it, it was Thanksgiving week, and Jane was going into a cleaning frenzy, getting the house ready for Jamie to come home from school. Of course, Jane was hosting a meal, because no one else seemed to have a house large enough to accommodate everybody. To my surprise, Ophelia was planning to stay here at River Oaks, rather than at the house in town that she’d shared with Georgie. I was pleased to see my friend again, but I noticed that talking about her made Georgie a little . . . edgy. Edgier than usual for Georgie, like “cut off from her Nintendo DS for twenty-four hours” edgy.
We sat on the porch, waiting for Jamie’s pickup truck to roll down Jane’s gravel drive. Georgie was rocking on her heels, biting her lip, and unbraiding and rebraiding her hair. I tried to ignore these tells for as long as I could, because I didn’t know if we had the kind of relationship where we had heart-to-heart talks. But honestly, I could only watch her pigtail herself so many times.
“Hey, Georgie, can we talk about whatever’s bothering you before you braid yourself bald?”
Georgie scoffed. “I’m not bothered. You’re bothered.”
“Georgie, you’re braiding my hair now, and I don’t think you even realize it.”
She yanked her fingers out of my hair and grimaced. “It’s difficult,” she admitted. “I feel like a different person when Ophelia is around. With Jane and Gabriel, I’m allowed to be the child I never was as a human. Ophelia always treated me as an equal, which I appreciated, but . . .”
“It’s a lot of responsibility to put on a kid, asking her to be a grown-up before she’s ready,” I said, nodding.
“Exactly,” Georgie said. “And Ophelia and I tend to feed off each other, egging each other on to be more cruel, more threatening. With Jane and Gabriel, I’m . . . reserved.”
“This has been a filtered version of you?” I asked, frowning at her.
“My point is that I don’t want to slip back into that pattern with Ophelia, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings by behaving differently around her. I’m not sure what to do.”
“Has it occurred to you that Ophelia may have changed while she was away at school?” I asked her. When Georgie’s little brow crinkled, I added, “Oh, yeah, undergrads coming back home for the first time? They make a point of being as obnoxiously different as possible. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ophelia came back with a nose ring, drinking soy blood substitute.”
Georgie cackled, bending at the waist and propping her hands against her thighs. “Is it wrong that I’m hoping for that now?”
“No, and here she comes,” I said, nodding at the headlights bouncing along the driveway. “Jane! They’re”—a Jane-shaped streak whizzed past us as Jamie’s truck slowed to a halt—“here.”
Jane had her arms around Jamie before he was fully out of the car. He was lucky his seatbelt didn’t get caught around his neck as Jane let loose her nonsensical joyous squeals.
Ophelia emerged from the truck in full eye roll. I laughed and hugged her lightly. Georgie hesitated a bit but eventually wound her arms around her sister’s waist.
“I missed you.” Ophelia sighed, bending her head into Georgie’s hair.
“I was promised that you’d have a nose ring,” Georgie said.
Ophelia looked up at me, and I shook my head.
Ben and Gabriel emerged from the house for manly shoulder pats.
“It’s good to see a familiar face,” Ophelia told me, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I have a feeling that after this ‘holiday’ dinner, you and I will be hiding in the basement with a bottle of scotch.”
“You are really overestimating my ability to handle my liquor, even when I was alive,” I told her.
Ophelia wrinkled her nose. “Yes, Morgan and Keagan told me about the Jaegermeister incident.”
“I still contend that the mascot should have moved out from under the balcony when he heard me say I felt sick. Also, having a Jaegermeister incident in college is practically a rite of passage.”
Jane had finally stopped squealing long enough to coolly greet Ophelia. She sighed, wiping at her wet eyes. “OK, welcome home! We’re all set up for you. Ophelia, I have you in the extra twin in Georgie’s room, first door on the left. Jamie, I just put fresh sheets in the yellow room across from the bathroom.”
“But that’s my room,” Ben said, frowning.
“Yeah, I thought you would double up with Meagan, seeing as how you sneak into her room most mornings anyway and then hustle back into your room as if we don’t know what’s going on,” Jane said.
Ben turned a whiter shade of pale. “Sorry, what?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Yeah, we’ve known for a couple of weeks.”
I made a weird death-rattle noise in my throat, like that chick in The Grudge. “Oh, that isn’t good.”
“Wait, they get to share a room, but we don’t?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes, because I just made things so awkward they will never have sex under my roof again.” Jane turned on us, smiling. “Didn’t I?”
Ben could only grimace.
“I know I should be upset about this because I have these confusing maternal feelings, but I also know that you’re technically not related and can’t get pregnant,” Jane said. “So I’m just going to ask you not to do anything that I will walk in on. Because there is not enough therapy in the world.”
“Maybe this wouldn’t seem so weird if we lived out on our own,” Ben noted.
“Don’t push it,” she told him.
“If it makes you feel better, we’ve never had sex sex under your roof, mostly just—” I said as Ben stared at the sky. Jane shook her head. “Right, not helping. Never mind.”
I woke up to the smell of turkey roasting in Jane’s kitchen . . . and it was awful, like hot herb-y garbage. There were only a handful of solid-food-eating guests, but Tess had spent the afternoon preparing a full Thanksgiving feast. There were werewolves coming, and they counted as three or four guests each.
As soon as the sun set, the house was flooded with people. All of the partners and children who hadn’t been available to show up for previous get-togethers arrived in full force. I met Libby’s boyfriend, Wade, and his son. Nola and her adorable redneck fiancé, Jed the shapeshifter, brought smoked ribs and some cabbage-based Irish food I suspected would have smelled disgusting even without my vampire nose. Jane’s human BFF Zeb’s kids shifted from two to four feet and started chasing each other around on the front lawn, which no one seemed to register as a weird thing. I, on the other hand, was shocked enough to do a blood spit take, which is super-gross and ruined a really nice silk blouse that Andrea was wearing. She was nice about it, despite having to change into Dick’s “I’m smiling because punching you in the face is socially unacceptable” shirt, which he kept in his trunk.
I worried for a second that I might be a danger to Libby’s human son, Danny, or to the Lavelle twins. But frankly, the half-werewolf cubs smelled like wet dog, and Danny smelled like little-boy sweat and garlic, not exactly appetizing.
I was looking forward to a holiday for the first time in a very long time. For once, I didn’t feel like I needed to hover around the edges of the room. I wasn’t intruding on some hapless foster family’s holiday gathering. I was part of the group. I was in the mix, stirring the blood blends as Tess directed and lighting candles in Jane’s ornate harvest-themed centerpieces.
“Look at you, being a joiner,” Libby said, sidling up to me at the sink as I was washing dishes before dinner.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” I said, smiling. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a group of people this large where I actually knew and liked most of them? I mean, even when my mom was still alive—” I took a quick breath and tried not to let my voice suddenly go quiet and sad. “When my mom was alive, holidays were still pretty small. When my grandparents were with us, it was the four of us, with a pretty small turkey and chuchitos, because my Guatemalan grandpa insisted that Anglo people food was too bland. And when it was just me and my mom, sometimes we scarfed down a turkey sandwich before she ran in to do a holiday shift. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a holiday meal this loud before. And they’re not even watching football in there; they’re just talking. I’ve never met people who liked to talk so much.”
“And if you let them, I bet they’ll talk to you.”
“I’m working on it.” I laughed. “I even talked to Collin earlier about Dickens versus Fielding, and he looked like it physically hurt to have a conversation with me.”
“Yeah, Collin’s got some issues with people and proximity,” Libby said, picking up a towel and drying the dishes I’d just rinsed. “It’s nothing personal. He’s just trying not to see your future.”
“Oh, sure. That makes sense,” I said, pursing my lips. “Speaking of proximity, did you bathe your kid in garlic?”
“Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re a new vampire, and you’re under a lot of stress . . . and yes, I bathed my son in minced garlic. I put it in his shampoo. I had to roll down the car windows on the way over here. But this is what you do when you’re a parent. You lose your mind, just a little bit.”
“You’re insane,” I told her.
“But I did it because I care, so it shouldn’t be counted against me.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
Libby cleared her throat. “I know that sometimes it’s easier to just take care of everything yourself, to close in, protect yourself. But eventually, that’s not enough. You’re not enough. You need other people.”
“Needing people is hard,” I told her.
“Yeah, and it occasionally blows up in your face. You lose friends, lose relationships, get your feelings hurt. But other times it’s pretty freaking awesome.”
“I know,” I said. And then I made a lot of ugly crying faces as my eyes burned with unshed tears. “It’s really . . . I love those weirdos in there.” I gestured toward the dining room. “Like way more than I ever thought I could, and it’s great, and it makes me feel all light and happy inside, like I’ve swallowed the freaking sun. Which is super-weird, considering that I’m basically a creature of darkness now. But . . .”
“But what, hon?”
“Is it weird that I still miss my mom?” I asked.
“No,” Libby assured me. “I had a crap relationship with my mom, and I still miss her. You two were really close, right?”
I nodded. “When I was on my own, I used to try to imagine how different my life would be if she had lived. I mean, it wouldn’t have been a fairy tale. We would have lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, and our car would have been at least ten years old—before we got it. But we would have been together. And I would have had somebody to take pictures of me when I was getting ready for graduation or prom. I probably would have gone to prom, which would have been very different from spending the evening working at Taco Bell. Anyway, that was what I thought about when I felt really sorry for myself. And now there are times I feel so guilty for not wanting it as much anymore.”
“Aw, Meagan,” she said. “That’s normal. That’s what’s supposed to happen. This is totally normal.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Suddenly, I heard a commotion by the front door. I heard Ben’s voice, raised, and I bolted toward the living room at a speed that left me sick to my stomach. Two people I didn’t recognize were moving toward Ben, who was standing stock-still with his hands clenched at his sides. I skidded to a stop between Ben and the middle-aged couple standing in Jane’s foyer, leaving two deep burn marks in Jane’s hardwood floors.
Jane grimaced. “Honey, we’ve talked about hard braking on the parquet.”
The couple at the door took two steps back, clearly frightened by the sudden appearance of a vampire. They were human. I could hear their heartbeats hammering in their chests. And I could smell the turmoil rolling off them in a stinky emotional potpourri—hope, anxiety, fear, uncertainty. I’d never smelled such fragrant humans. Humans that smelled a little like Ben.
I stared closer at the couple. The woman had Ben’s green eyes, though they were bracketed by worry lines. The man had Ben’s mouth and his straight nose. These were Ben’s parents. Jane had clearly invited them as some sort of holiday surprise. Which meant I was crossing quite a few boundaries.
“Oops,” I murmured, and realized that my fangs were down. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Overby. I’m going to move now, slowly, away from you. I’m sorry.”
Ben snickered. “Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, Meagan. Meagan, meet Bob and Kim Overby.”
“Just call me Bob,” Mr. Overby told me in a shaky, hesitant voice as I stepped backward, behind Ben.
Jane quietly shooed everybody else into the kitchen, leaving the living room open for our incredibly uncomfortable conversation.
“I was interrupting a hug, wasn’t I?” I asked, willing my fangs to go back into my gumline.
Mrs. Overby began crying softly, and Ben stepped forward to hug her so delicately he barely touched her.
His father patted his back and ruffled his hair. “Missed you, son.”
OK, now I was getting a little misty. I needed to get out of here. I crept quietly toward the kitchen door to join the others. Also, did Ben call me his girlfriend back there? Why was I just now hearing that?
We weren’t to that stage yet, right? I mean, sure, we lived together and worked together and spent most of our free time talking about our favorite fandoms. We ate most of our meals together. And we slept together most nights.
Holy hell, I was Ben Overby’s girlfriend. That sneaky little vampire.
Just as I reached the kitchen door, Mrs. Overby asked, “So were you turned around the same time as Ben?”
I stopped. Did this mean Ben and Jane hadn’t told the Overbys how involved I’d been in their son’s transition? I looked to Ben, who had a completely neutral expression on his face.
“Um, yes, right before,” I said. “But we met before we were turned.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Mrs. Overby sniffled. “That he has someone he knows with him.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Overby. I know this has to be a shock, and then not being able to see him for so long . . .”
She interrupted me before I could confess. “We knew this was going to happen eventually. I mean, we weren’t hoping for it. We’re not particularly happy about it. But no one can spend that much time around vampires and not end up getting bitten somehow.”
Mrs. Overby was trying to put a happy face on it, but she still sounded a little bitter. It was going to take quite a bit of persuasion to recruit her to the Meagan fan club. Or just the “not stab Meagan through the heart with a wooden stake when no one is looking” club. I’d never met the parents of a boy I was dating—was “dating” the right word? How did you get your special man friend’s parents to like you? Were there Jezebel.com articles about this sort of thing? Maybe I should call Keagan. She was pretty stable, romantically speaking. I mean, I couldn’t ask Ophelia, because she had obviously failed at securing Jane’s affections.
Mr. Overby added, “We’re trying to focus on the positives. Ben will never get sick. He probably won’t die in some silly car accident or something. In some ways, it sets our minds at ease.”
“And in some ways, it’s awful,” Mrs. Overby confessed. “He’s never going to have kids, never going to be able to go out during the day.”
“But if it means that we can keep seeing Ben, we’re going to focus on the positives,” Mr. Overby said pointedly.
He glared at his wife, who stared back at him, and then she turned to me and smiled brightly before asking, “How long have you two been seeing each other?”
Oh, right, because Ben called me his girlfriend earlier. I had sort of blocked that out for a second.
My mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t seem to find an answer that didn’t make me sound like a son-turning, tobacco-field hussy. Ben also seemed hesitant to answer. And we were saved by the proverbial bell when Jane came out of the kitchen in a beeline for the front door and locked it, punching the code for the scarier parts of the security system to come online. Huge outdoor lights shone from the trees onto the house just before large metal shutters slid over the windows. Several dead bolts clicked into place, and the front door made this shhhup sound as it hermetically sealed itself. Ben’s parents clutched at each other in alarm.
“Jane, what’s going on?” Ben asked. “Are we at war or something?”
Jane’s mouth was set in an angry line. “Dr. Hudson has escaped Council custody.”