Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,23
think I’ve shared more than five words with a vampire. And definitely not one so … lovely. I shake my head. A lovely vampire. Yeah, right.
She looks at me with piercing clarity. “Wow.” Her voice is breathless, and her expression falters a little. “You really think we’re all bloodthirsty monsters? Not all of us are crashing through towns like a bunch of pubescent boys on the Internet without parental controls.”
“You need human blood to live, don’t you? Yes. The end. Besides, you’re in clear violation of the Home’s agreement.”
“You need food to live, right? But you’re not out here plowing through every grocery store in sight. You eat meals. You have prepared food. Feeding doesn’t have to be a frenzy.” Her voice is intoxicating. Delectable, even. But I still have to sit on my hands to stop myself from punching her.
“You’re not the only one who wants to be a normal teenage girl,” I offer, my guard slowly yielding. Besides, it’s not like I could kill her in front of all these people.
“Is that how the big scary slayer ended up in a tiny little skirt as captain of the cheerleading team? She just wanted to be a normal girl?”
“How’d you know I’m captain?”
“I can smell dominance,” she says.
“Seriously?” Admittedly, there are plenty of things I don’t know about vampires.
She lets out a melodious laugh, tipping her head back and exposing her long neck, clad with a plastic tattoo choker, like those you might find at the mall. I remember stealing a package of them from a Claire’s when Peach and I were on a field trip to Dallas in middle school.
“Not in the literal sense,” she says. “But you seem like the kind of girl who’s either in charge or not participating at all.”
“Ouch,” I say with a genuine laugh. “A little too real.”
“Besides, your sweatshirt says CAPTAIN.”
I look down at the cursive embroidery above my heart. “Touché.”
Her hands settle in her lap as she closes her eyes, leaving herself completely exposed.
I feel like a behavioral scientist, and this is my one chance to truly know my subject. A fleeting moment. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What if I say no?”
“I’ll ask anyway.”
“Of course you will,” she says.
“How old are you really?”
She smiles, her eyes still closed. “What if I told you I was hundreds—no, thousands of years old? That would make for a good story, wouldn’t it?”
“You didn’t really answer the question.”
Her smile melts. “My body is forever seventeen. However, I’m eighteen and one hundred and eighty-four days old. Pretty anticlimactic, huh?”
“Meh. A vampire is a vampire is a vampire.”
“A slayer is a slayer is a slayer.” The disgust in her voice is palpable.
“Hey, I’m still alive,” I remind her.
“It’s not like I woke up one day and decided to become a vampire. My humanity was violently stolen from me. I’m continuing on, the only way I know how.” Her voice is sweet. Innocent.
That’s enough to silence me for a moment. “I didn’t have much of a choice in my own fate, either, you know.” And it’s true. As much as I hate to admit it, Alma and I share this one thing in common.
“You don’t seem too disappointed by it.” She reaches over me, and my whole body tenses in defense as I grip her forearm, prepared to snap it in half. “Stand down, kitty. Just opening the window.”
My hold loosens, and she pushes the lever on the window, a gust of crisp November wind funneling in and the stale bus smell immediately dissolving. Alma breathes in deeply through her nose.
A fallen piece of hair from my ponytail dances in front of my face, and Alma takes a bobby pin tucked inside her braid. In one seamless motion, she smooths my hair back, twirling it briefly with her finger, and slides the pin into place. “So tell me, sweet slayer, if you’re so committed to your destiny, why are you wasting your time on the cheerleading team?”
I touch my hair where her hand just was, and it takes me a long moment to gather the words I’m looking for. “I’ll always be a slayer. Until the day I die. But I’ll only ever have these four years of high school. I answered your question. My turn now. You never answered me. Resurrection Home for Wayward Souls. Are you going or coming?”
She sighs. “Being a maker is kind of like being a parent. Anyone can do it, but not everyone should. You could say that the last year