Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“Fine.” I sighed, though I kept one eye open a tiny bit, just in case.

“I feel like I’ve neglected you in your first nights as vampires. A good sire would have helped you balance out all of the things you feel you’re missing now that you’re undead by showing you all of the awesome things that you can do. Since you’re both without a good sire right now, I want you to close your eyes. Forget about what you can’t see,” Jane told us, and I smarted from that “without a good sire” comment. “Listen to the wind rustling through the dying leaves. Listen for the heartbeats of all the animals hiding in the woods. Take a deep breath, and take in all of the scents in the air around you. Smoke from a neighbor’s bonfire. The drying grass, which someone was supposed to mow yesterday.”

Behind me, I heard Georgie groan while Gabriel snickered. “Told you,” he said.

Despite my net fear, cutting off one of my senses really did help me pick up on new scents and sounds. I could hear dozens of fluttering heartbeats in the distance, the dry rattle of leaves. I could smell smoke and decay and dry, cracking earth. Each new sensation was layered on top of the last one, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It just helped me figure out my surroundings. For instance, I could smell a skunk waddling around somewhere off to my left. I definitely wanted to avoid that. And I could hear a dog barking in the . . . wait, that wasn’t in the distance. That was getting closer.

“No!” I yelled as Fitz came flying out of the darkness and threw himself at me. I’d braced for it, but I still went crashing into Ben. We landed with an “Oof,” sprawling across the grass. With doggy kisses on my cheeks, I opened my eyes. It was like seeing the world for the first time. I could see every star in the sky, not just white pinpricks on a black backdrop but the actual halo of light surrounding a center of brilliant fire. I could see every leaf falling from the trees surrounding Jane’s house. I could see the outline of every blade of grass.

“Whoa,” Ben whispered.

“Ouch.” I grumbled, trying to roll Fitz off my chest.

“Fitz, off!” Jane told him sternly. “Go!”

Fitz went running off into the trees.

“Better go catch him,” Jane said.

“Is this a trick?” I asked. “Like entrapment? Are you going to shoot me if I run?”

Jane rolled her eyes and shooed me away. “Just run.”

I dug my toe into the ground and took off. It felt like I’d been launched out of a catapult across the lawn. I’d never been a runner. My legs were long but had never had much power when I was human. Now I was streaking across the lawn so fast I didn’t feel my feet touching the grass. Gabriel and Jane followed Ben and me closely, laughing at our childlike enthusiasm for sprinting. Georgie sped ahead, just because she could.

I was dead, but I’d never felt so alive, like every nerve ending from the tips of my toes to my scalp was firing at full blast. And I once drank a Surge soda at a Katy Perry concert. I felt connected to every muscle in my body as I moved, hurtling myself into the next moment.

The manicured lawn gave way to long-abandoned pastures, outlined with rotting wooden fences. Ben was beside me, whooping as he ran. He jumped into a tree, climbing from limb to limb and then hopping down from the top without missing a beat. Could I do something like that?

A smelly little cow pond was coming up, about the size of a backyard pool. I ran at the rickety old dock that barely touched its shore and sprang off the end, leaping over the pond. I landed, sinking in the damp earth up to my shins. I laughed, yanking at my legs until I freed my shoes from the mud.

“You OK?” Ben yelled, zipping past me.

I called, “Yeah, but my shoes will never recover.”

Gabriel stopped and helped me shove my muddy shoe back on my foot. Georgie skipped around us, doing back handsprings in the tall grass. She stuck her landing, arms raised in a V of triumph, and did a little bow.

“Ophelia did something similar once,” she told me. “But her foot was stuck in a person.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are an extremely creepy little girl?”

Georgie shrugged. “Yes, but no one has seen them in so long that it doesn’t really matter.”

I started to laugh, which, I assumed, was not the reaction Georgie was expecting, because her responding giggle was more startled than amused.

“It’s a mad world, Meagan,” she said. “We have to use the weapons we’re given. People underestimate me because I’m small and cute. They just can’t imagine someone like me committing an act of violence. I use their ignorance to my advantage.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I plopped down in the grass and pulled her to sit next to me. In the distance, Ben suddenly veered right, toward the woods. I couldn’t hear exactly what Jane was saying, but it didn’t sound like Woo-hoo! Run faster that way!

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Something that is making Jane curse, which isn’t good.”

Jane was following on Ben’s heels like a sheepdog, heading him in the other direction. Georgie pursed her lips, her fog-gray eyes making secret calculations. Meanwhile, I lay back in the grass and watched the tiny movements of the stars overhead.

“Oh, his house,” Georgie said, nodding in the direction Ben had been running. “His house is five miles that way.”

I sat back up. “Oh. That sucks.”

Georgie nodded. “Truly. I met Ben’s parents once. Nice people. Smelled delicious.”

I stared down at her and shook my head. “Dude, no.”

Georgie shrugged.

Meanwhile, Jane was practically dragging Ben back toward us, her arm wrapped around his shoulders. “Ben, honey, we’ve talked about this.”

“I didn’t mean to, Jane, I just thought—”

“You just thought you’d pop into your parents’ house for a surprise visit?” She sighed. “That’s a little advanced for your first night out, don’t you think?”

Ben’s heartbroken expression tested the limits of the term “puppy eyes.” “I just thought about my parents, sitting at home, not knowing where I am or how I am, and I just couldn’t resist the urge to run home.”

“I understand, Ben. But we can’t take a risk like that with you, not this early. I told you, we’ll let you see them as soon as it’s safe.”

“Well, at least no one got stabbed,” Gabriel told her.

I raised my hand as if I’d missed most of my Intro to Cryptic-Speaking Vampires class, which I had. “What?”

“I’ll tell you about Jane’s first week as a vampire sometime,” Georgie whispered. “It’s hilarious.”

Ben dropped down in the grass at Georgie’s side, looking miserable. I felt a familiar flash of guilt for making it impossible for him to live his nice, normal life. But, like with most emotions that made me uncomfortable, I just tamped it down. I’d move along to something else, until they popped up again at some angsty, inconvenient moment. Emotional maturity—I was doing it wrong.