independence, getting Lonnie on board with my self-employment and his offering to get my father off my back. It felt like pushing too far to ask for more. It might have seemed like sad baby steps for a human, but these were giant furry leaps for werewolf kind.
I ran through the woods on four feet, scenting the wind, leaping over fallen trees. My prey was only a few hundred yards away, taunting me with the promise of a belly full of my favorite kill.
I paused at the edge of the tree-line, listening, waiting as my brain processed the flood of sensory information from the hunting grounds. The flat terrain. The number of targets. The dim light of the starlit sky. The scent of hot dogs frying in the grill.
I’d seriously missed Marv’s Drive-In Picture Show.
I shifted to my human form, pulling a pair of jeans and one of my nicer tops from my backpack. Fully dressed, I used the faint light from the drive-in’s streetlights to put my hair up in some semblance of a ponytail. I’d thought about make-up, but even with my keen eyesight, I didn’t think applying eyeliner in the dark would be a good idea. The bravest I got was applying some raspberry-colored lip gloss. Alex met me without a lick of make-up on and he’d been attracted to me then. What was the point of putting up layers of illusion between us on a date? He knew what my face looked like. It was sort of the point of vampire super-vision.
I’d told my parents that I was watching the twins for Jolene. And she had (reluctantly) agreed to confirm my story if they checked up on me. I didn’t feel great about it…but I also didn’t feel great about the prospect of telling my parents I was out on a date with a vampire they’d never met.
I walked out of the woods with my backpack slung over my shoulder, as if it was totally normal for a girl to walk alone for miles through the trees toward a drive-in. Carrying yourself with confidence, that was the key.
Marv’s was something of an institution in Half-Moon Hollow, built in the 1950s when drive-in theaters were all the rage. Even as the passion for outdoor cinema waned, Marv’s endured, with the same ancient window-clip speakers, the same old cement block concession stand and the same weirdly outdated playground equipment in front of the screen. The movies were also incredibly outdated because Marv couldn’t pay the distributors for recent releases.
Once upon a time, my parents had loved bringing me here. It was one of the few things we did just for our family, just for us. My daddy would buy enough food to make the back gate of his truck dip as we sat on it, watching 1980s classics. It was a place where I’d felt loved and normal. I was accepted by my parents, good enough for just one night at a time.
And suddenly, we’d stopped. Sometime around my turning twelve, Daddy was “too tired” to sit all night in an uncomfortable lawn chair getting bit by mosquitoes, and Mama didn’t like old movies. She said she never had, though some of my fondest memories involved her laughing so hard at that Steve Guttenberg robot movie, she had tears rolling down her cheeks. Based on what I heard, eavesdropping from the hallway, drive-in nights became another thing we gave up in order to keep the pack happy.
Towards the back of the parking lot, I spotted the music school’s black SUV among the neat rows of cars. I took the long way around, avoiding the foot traffic areas. I didn’t know if I would be recognized, but I figured the fewer people who saw me, the better. Alex was hopping out of the car before I was anywhere near it. “You look lovely.”
“Thanks for coming,” I told him.
He grinned, taking my hand in his. “How could I resist the invitation? ‘Would you like to go sit in a dark car with me and watch a weird old movie you’ve probably never seen?’”
“Yeah, I haven’t asked a lot of guys out on dates,” I told him, shaking my head.
“I find that comforting in a way that is probably outdated and unhealthy,” he admitted.
“The windows of your car are super tinted,” I noted, realizing I could barely make out the outline of his seats from outside the SUV.
“Well, it comes in handy, if you have to leave your house before the