7. New Life
We arrived at the house sometime around noon. “Its ours,” Aiden said, pointing to a small cottage.
“It’s small.” From the driveway, it almost looked like a life-sized dollhouse. Not that I was complaining; at least we didn’t have to live in the woods. “You’ve been living here, right?” I asked.
“Mhm.” I stepped inside after feeling the russet door’s smooth finish. Everything was so much clearer with the cloud of humanity wiped away. The black leather furniture in the living room was warm and pliable in my hand like softened butter. I almost sat on the couch but froze when I remembered how filthy I was. Looking down at my bloodstained clothes in revulsion, I walked around the small place instead.
I opened the first door I saw, and it was my room. I could tell because the walls were painted a dusky grey and it was splattered with neon colors; I’d begged Dad to paint my room that way about a year ago. I knew how stubborn he could be though, so I quickly gave up when he said no the first time.
All of the new information from today-as short as it was-was filtering through my brain at a high speed. It was amazing how quickly I could process all of it. If I were human, I would have had a meltdown. There would be too much information for my relatively tiny and cluttered brain to comprehend.
Cutting off the lights in my room, I walked down the hall and opened the door, desperately hoping that it was the bathroom. It was, and I gladly hopped in the shower. I refuse to be bloody anymore, I thought as I rinsed the dried clots of blood from my hair. Once I was cleaned up, I took my dirty clothes and set out to find the laundry room. As I began to put my sweatshirt in the washing machine, a tiny box fell out of the pocket. I remember it instantly, and knew that the letter had said that the ring inside was Aiden’s.
I opened the only other door in the house that I hadn’t opened, and saw Aiden running around his room in small circles with a worried look on his face. At first, I thought that it was an odd thing to do, but I realized that he was no longer human. I shouldn’t expect him to do human things anymore, I thought. Then, I promised myself that I would never lose touch with my humanity.
It was mostly empty in his room; there was only a bed and a few books thrown haphazardly on the floor. When he noticed my presence, he stopped almost instantly and watched me with his eerily hawkish, grey eyes.
“Have you seen this box before?” I asked, still thinking that his room looked and felt unlived in. He took the box from my outstretched hands and lifted the lid. As soon as he saw what was inside, he dropped it, backing away rapidly.
“Where did you get this?” His eyes suddenly burned with intensity.
“In my closet at the old house. It’s just a ring, Aiden.”
“Did Dad see it?” His voice was deathly calm, but I could see that his emotions were finally about to bubble over.
“Yeah. It doesn’t matter anyway. He refused to tell me anything about it.” I shouted. Dad knew about it. Besides, it didn’t matter since he was gone.
“It matters because I’ve been searching every nook and cranny on Luna for an entire year. I did it all just to find that damn ring, and you have it on.” His breathing stilled. “Do you even know what it all means?”
“Well, I read the letter.”
He snorted. “The letter is extremely vague. It doesn’t mention exactly what we have to do. Only Dad knew what it really meant.” His eyes shifted slightly away from mine. “It doesn’t say that those ‘friends’ have to be changed by us into vampires before they can be of any help.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because you put on the goddamn ring! When we see whomever we’re destined to be with, it’s a done deal once we realize we love them. Then we have to persuade them to put on the ring and give up their life.”
“That doesn’t sound romantic.” I crinkled my nose in disgust.
“It isn’t. Unless your version of romance includes taking away their choices, their life.” So that was the way he felt about this new life. He thought of it as a curse, and I thought it was a second chance. I’d always wanted to leave behind my past, and finally the ‘change’ had made me forget almost everything that I agonized over while I was human.
“There’s nothing we can do to change it now,” I said. I’d started the chain; there was nothing we could do to stop it. “Don’t be so pissed off.”
“You’re happy about this?”
“Just shut the hell up, and let fate run its course. We’re gonna want someone else in our lives because frankly things aren’t the same between us. We can be happy,” I wagered. “Quit throwing a fit, and put the damn thing on.” He snatched it from me and forcibly put it on. Apparently, he didn’t like to be told what to do. He growled ungratefully.
“Tomorrow’s Monday,” he said. He grabbed my hand although it was not affectionate at all. Once he realized that our palms were touching, he grabbed me around the wrist instead. Then he began pulling me out of his room and down the hall towards mine. “Your hands are too warm for human interaction,” he said, trying to play off grabbing my wrist. “The Guardians control the element of fire. I thought you would’ve noticed by now. Apparently not.” I had felt the heat coursing through my blood. I tried to push it away from my fingers and hand. Aiden’s hand twitched in my grip, and I heard his breath hitch. “Better,” he forced out in a semi-pleasant tone. That’s how I knew he was lying; he hadn’t been nice to me since I woke up.
“I’ll finally be fifteen tomorrow,” I said, effectively changing the subject from my fiery hands. In all of this madness, I’d almost forgotten about it. What a shame. It wasn’t my real birthday, but rather the day that Dad had found us. No one knew when we were actually born. Dad knew that Aiden was slightly older than I was according to his development, so he put him in the grade above me. Later, we found out that Aiden was only a few months older after all. Since Dad had found us in August, we kept Aiden in a higher grade to fit the story.
“It’s not only your birthday tomorrow,” he said.
“I didn’t forget that it’s your birthday, too. That’s it, right?”
“School starts.”
“School starts?” I groaned. “What kind of school starts on the twentieth?”
“Luna Prep.” Luna Prep was known as the high school on Luna with the most spoiled preppies, but it was supposedly the best private school on the island. Only the best for Dad’s little monsters. “We’ve both got to rest before school tomorrow. Otherwise we might have massacre on our hands.” I kissed him on the cheek and quickly shut the door behind me; I was afraid that he would react badly to that much emotion. Sliding under the covers of my four-poster bed, I settled in for the night.
