Aurora Sky Vampire Hunter - By Nikki Jefford Page 0,18

with water and turned into a river of red that swirled around the tile by my feet before emptying down the drain.

I touched the bandage Crist had affixed to my neck. "Can we go now?"

My mother smiled. "I don't know." She turned to Agent Melcher. "Are we free to go?"

Melcher swept his arm open. "Of course. Aurora completed orientation with flying colors. Next we'll assign her a mentor - someone who has been through the same process and can show her the ropes. Thank you for making the trip down, Mrs. Sky. Aurora, we'll be in contact."

I nodded, but couldn't meet Melcher's eye. I didn't ever want to look at Melcher again except to give him the finger, and even then I didn't want to look into those smug, conniving eyes.
Chapter 7 Resolutions
"So orientation went well?" Mom asked cheerfully as we got inside the car. "How should we celebrate? A movie? Dinner out?"

I bet she'd stop smiling if I told her I'd killed a man.

"I want to go home."

The reflection from the snow hurt my eyes. I shielded my face with one hand.

Once Mom drove through the gates she cleared her throat and asked how it had gone.

"We're not supposed to talk about it, remember?" I hadn't meant to sound so rude, but I wasn't about to apologize either.

"Oh," Mom said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break any rules."

I snorted.

"How long have I been away?"

Mom's eyes darted sideways then back to the road. "You don't know..." She stopped herself. "I dropped you off yesterday morning."

"Didn't Dad wonder where I was all night?"

"I told him you were spending the night with Denise."

"Denise is in Girdwood." Having a real holiday at the ski lodge.

Mom leaned forward into the steering wheel. "So, that's it for orientation? You're done?"

Yeah, I was done all right. Now I could get onto the training and killing.

I wished my mom would just shut up and drive.

"Yep, I get to spend the next semester being a normal teenage girl."

"That's great, honey."

My sarcasm really wasn't getting through to anyone.

Mom put her blinker on as she approached our neighborhood. Our street still needed plowing, which meant the car had to do the work of pushing through snow. She clicked open the garage door and pulled in. As soon as she turned off the car, Mom turned to me and said, "Tomorrow's New Year's Eve. I think everything will be better once we put this year behind us."

Great, another holiday.

I unclicked my seatbelt. "Wow, a new year."

Mom followed me from the garage into the living room.

"New leaf. New me. I feel some resolutions coming on," I said. "I resolve to break the sixth commandment." I stomped over the linoleum floor between the dining room and kitchen, calling out my resolutions.

"I resolve to live out the rest of my life in this godforsaken state. I resolve to get drunk for the first time. I resolve to finally kiss a boy. No, scratch that. I resolve to lose my virginity!"

Mom's face turned red. "Aurora, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"This isn't you."

"You're right. This isn't me." I turned on my heel and stormed up the stairs to my room, slamming the door behind me. The bang echoed through the walls. I ripped open my top desk drawer and threw a legal pad onto the surface with a thwack.

Aurora's Resolutions

I pressed my pen into the notepad so hard it indented the pages five sheets back.

kill first vampire

get drunk

kiss a boy

lose virginity

I stared at the list then leaned forward and crossed out kill first vampire.

Everything else should be a piece of cake.

I stuffed the notepad back inside the desk drawer then moved onto my dresser and began digging through my scarf drawer, dumping them onto the floor.

One scarf in particular caught my attention.

I snatched the red one out of the tangle of fabric and locked myself inside the bathroom. For a long time I stood in front of the mirror using my peripheral vision to check out the figure reflected in the glass. Whenever I tried to look at her, she was covered in blood and scars.

I focused on the bandage instead and peeled it off slowly. There were teeth marks in my neck rimmed in purple, blue, and red. I dabbed at it with a wad of tissue paper then threw out the bandage.

I wrapped the soft red scarf around my neck and remained in my room until Mom called me down to dinner.

"What's with the scarf?" Dad asked, knife and fork poised several inches off the