Not Another Teenage Vampire Story

“How is that possible?!” Her eyes widened at the octave of my voice. I controlled myself before I spoke again, “Have I turned? I don’t understand. I thought only Pugnas had red eyes.” A million questions were popping into my head but I struggled to gain composure. Mostly, I was revolted that I was going to have to actually drink blood.

Usually Victoria would’ve laughed at my mental breakdown but she was serious about this. “The red eyes aren’t a sign of Pugnas specifically. The colors of our eyes go from black to bright red. The redder they are, the hungrier we are. When you only feed on human blood, you become sort of addicted to it. Picture humans being like the fast food of blood. It tastes so good, you keep eating it, and eventually it’s all that you crave and you crave it every day. Except this kind of fast food makes you 10 times stronger than someone who eats healthy. Are you following me? I’m not as good at explaining things as Caleb is.” I nodded, surprisingly calm given the situation. I was definitely a different person than I’d been at the beginning of the summer.

“So the good vampires, they drink animal blood. So they aren’t thirsty as often?” I glanced around the empty café making sure there was no one in hearing distance.

“Right,” she smiled obviously proud of herself for explaining it right. “We don’t have to drink for months sometimes. But as punishment for going against what we are, we’re not as strong as the average vampire. It’s worth it though, not to be a monster.” We both stared off for a moment, thinking about the cruelties that would overcome this earth if the wrong side won this war. I could easily just escape right now with Victoria and come back for Max, I could prolong the war even more but that wasn’t worth the risk. As general to the Sanctusira Army, I owed it to my kingdom and to my world to finish this. I couldn’t just escape now, I needed to figure out a way to end it for good.

Victoria seemed to be thinking along the same train of thought. “Just come back with me now, we could get Caleb and Gavin, go back to the kingdom and strategize. It’ll be easy.”

I shook my head. “No Vic, it won’t be that easy,” I started but the words she spoke caught up with me. “Wait a minute, where’s Gavin and Caleb, what about Katrina? I thought you guys went back to Sanctusira?!”

Her eyes got wide like she had given away information she didn’t want to reveal. “It’s not my fault,” she pleaded. “I told him what you said. That you were gone for good, you were safe, and not to look for you. But he didn’t buy it. He won’t let us leave the state until we find you. I went back to Sanctusira on my own but Caleb and Gavin have stayed here, looking for you.”

“Katrina?” I questioned.

“We don’t know where she went. She said something to make Caleb… angry after you left and they kind of went at it. We haven’t seen her since.” I tried not to flinch as I thought about Caleb and Katrina going at it. Why did I even care about Caleb so much? Sure we had some history, like a 100 years of it but I was nothing to him now. Why couldn’t I return the favor? Did I love him? I quickly pushed the thought out of my head. There was no time for love now.

“Well none of that matters, what matters is I’m in a position where I can catch him Ryan off guard and we don’t’ know when we’ll have that advantage again. So I’m staying.”

She sighed and reached into her bag. She came out with a silver shiny thermos. My eyes grew wide as I guessed what was inside. Slowly, she slid the metal cylinder across the table. The noise it made as it scratched against the wooden table seemed to echo throughout the whole café. I forced myself to swallow the lump in my throat and reached for the lid. “Not here.” She muttered and I nodded thankfully. There was something so official and terrifying about drinking blood. I grabbed the thermos and fit it in my messenger bag. “You should go now. Your friend is growing impatient.” We both glanced at the entrance and sure enough Craig was pacing in front of it, looking sort of agitated. I laughed a little at his lack of patience.

“You vampires notice everything.” I murmured as I walked out. I heard Victoria laugh behind me. I smiled. They heard everything too. Craig didn’t say anything as I approached him and we walked together naturally. My mission was accomplished; I was ready to go home and scheme. Ha-ha, I sounded so diabolical. I was interrupted by Craig sniffing rather obnoxiously. When I looked at him I laughed, his face was scrunched up and his eyebrows were pushed together like he was confused about something.

He sniffed again. “Why is there a small sheep in your bag?” My eyebrow raised and I burst out laughing. What can I say, anything that random made me laugh. His face didn’t change though. “I’m serious, there’s a sheep in your bag!” I just laughed more. This broke any of the little tension we might have had and we started talking like we were old friends.

“So you’re in love with that Caleb guy, and you don’t have any feelings for the human Max kid?” He asked after I had explained everything that went on in the past month. Surprisingly, he listened intently and took it all in.

“No, I don’t think so.” I said.

“Well then can I drink him?” He said it so casually, it caught me off guard.

“WHAT?!” This time he was the one to laugh at my expression. Slowly I started laughing too until we both couldn’t contain our laughter anymore. “You’re not serious, right?” I asked once we were both able to breathe.

“Of course not.” He said too fast. “Well…”

“CRAIG YOU CAN’T EAT MAX.”

“But he smells like butterscotch!” he whined, dragging his feet dramatically.

“I’ll buy you a Butterfinger.” I laughed again. I’d almost forgot what it was like to act so carefree.

“That’s not nearly as fun.” He pouted but then joined in on the laughing. “I have an idea!” he suddenly shouted, making me jump. He had a bright gleam in his eye. “I’m going to help you see Caleb, so you can talk to him, just once. Set things straight and tell him to go home.”

Now I was really in shock. “You’d do that?” Tears started building up in my eyes.

“Ew, only if you don’t cry.” He gave a disgusted look but I knew he didn’t mean it. “Maybe during the Formal I can distract everyone. Speaking of that, I was informed by Ryan that you need to buy a dress for that while we were here.”

Everything had just happened so fast. “What…” Before I could even ask what on earth he was talking about he dragged me away into the closest store.

We spent the whole day finding everything to go with this one little black dress I picked out. All the accessories we bought, including this little ring me and Craig got a kick out of that said Bite Me on it, we charged to Ryan’s credit card. We made sure to get the most expensive things we could and we succeeded. The total of it all came out to $3,672.00. I know crazy right? It’s true though. He also explained what the Formal actually was while we were shopping. A formal was the word Bellatorians used for a party. They were throwing a party at the clubhouse. The clubhouse is a place right down the block from me. It has a pool, a rec room, and a huge party room. It honestly creeped me out the building looked so old and dark. But anyway, the higher class residents of Bellatoria were all coming to see me, the proud new addition to their kingdom, their little captured angel.

“Why are you so nice to me for no reason?” I questioned Craig on the walk home. We were approaching the building.

“There is a reason.” He murmured loud enough for me to hear. “I can’t tell you yet. You’ll remember though.” Before I could press further on the subject he laughed. I looked over at him and he was staring intently behind the building. “Looks like Butterscotch was planning on ambushing you on your way home.” He whispered, moving closer so only I could hear. “This should be interesting,” he started laughing. “I’ll be watching from up there.” He nodded to the roof and with that he was gone.

“CREEPER!” I screamed in no general direction.

“Who’s a creeper?” Max asked as he came around the corner of the building.

“Oh, no one.” I glanced up to the roof and smirked before I felt something warm around my hand. It took me a second to realize he was holding it and looking down at the ground. “Max?” I asked softly squeezing his hand.

“Can we talk?”