Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,63
than my vision.
But tonight, there was a flicker. A flash a quarter mile to the east.
“They are too close,” Mami told me once. “We leave them alone. We do not hunt nearby.” I had no idea who lived there, but I knew what that flash was.
Headlights.
I made for it without another thought. I leaped off the roof and rolled right into a run. I had never pumped my legs faster, never used the power of the last feeding so intensely, never felt the desert air rush over my face like that. I focused on the location of that flash, and seconds later, I stood just outside the property.
I had to be quick.
Darting to the building, I peered inside the closest window, let my eyes adjust to the lack of light.
Nope. Not there.
I rushed to the back door, aware of the sounds of the man inside shuffling about. There was some metal device on the roof, and I wondered if that was how he boosted his wireless signal so far out from his home.
Again, I peered inside.
His home was cluttered, full of scraps of metal, wires, motherboards, and other sorts of electronic paraphernalia. But not what I was looking for.
I spun around, saw my home in the distance. Terror rose from my gut, and I imagined my father climbing up on the roof to join me, discovering that I wasn’t there, realizing what I had done. Faster, Cisco! I told myself.
A light came on in another room. I heard water running. It had to be there.
I crept around the east side of the house, toward the tiny window where yellowish light burst forth. Jumped up and put my fingers on the windowsill. Went still, quiet. Then pulled myself up as slow as I could, hoping the man inside wouldn’t notice me. I squinted, trying to block the light out and—
No mirror.
He had no mirror in his own bathroom.
I let myself fall and landed on the dirt without a sound. I was darting away from the man’s house when I heard the squeak, the sound of a rusted hinge.
I spun around.
No one was there.
But it blew in the wind. The door to the mailbox. I ripped it open.
An envelope.
I pulled it out. Jairo Mendoza. And an address. An address! Oh, how had I never thought of that?
I said it over and over and over and over and over and over, and as I ran back home, desperately hoping my parents had not yet come to check on me, I repeated it.
I was on the roof seconds later, and when Papi came to join me, he said nothing for a while.
“This is nice,” he told me.
“Yeah,” I said.
I have an idea. I don’t know if it’ll work.
NoOneKissesLikeGaston: Okay, now I’m hooked. When does the next chapter come out? You should be posting these on AO3.
CanIScream: It’s not fanfic. Only fanfic belongs there.
NoOneKissesLikeGaston: I think it’s a good story regardless. Almost feels real lol
15 Notes
invisibleb0y
June 14, 2018
I did it.
I did it.
It was so much worse this time. I had no meteor shower to use as an alibi. We had just finished my lesson on some boring part of America. I hate when my parents try to teach me history because … well, usually they’d been there. At least for the last couple hundred years, that is. They trade giggles and knowing smirks, and they make secret references to things, and it frustrates me. They never tell me any of the good shit! They just stick to the high school textbooks they’d stolen, occasionally making comments about how “inaccurate” the text is.
It’s another way I live a separate life from them. And they designed it that way. My whole life is designed.
So when Papi said he was going to run to the school again to see if they had an Algebra II book, I told him I didn’t need algebra because I was a vampire. He thought it was pretty funny.
He still went.
Why? Why do they want to me to learn about stuff I’m not allowed to experience? Why should I care about history and math and science when they won’t let me experience the world?
After Dad left, Mami wandered over to where I sat, my back pressed against the wall, irritation running through me. She said she was going to head down into the cellar for a few minutes. “Be right back, mijo,” she said, running her fingers through my black curls and kissing me on the forehead.