Authors: Mary Milligan
“Alright, but call in at M
idnight. It’s…”
he stood straighter as he spoke
,
pushing himself to his full height and authority.
“Yeah,” I
interrupted; I’d seen this show before
.
I worked really well on the PTA
,
and I was sure it scared the crap out of the
Shadow-born
.
I was Caden Reece’s little girl
,
I wasn’t afraid of him.
“I know,”
I finished,
the man wa
s going t
o make me crazy someday. Really,
he wa
s extremely
p
aranoid
. I loved him anyway.
“Love you,
” I said and gave
him a quick kiss on the cheek
. T
he stubble fro
m his
beard scratched
me
.
“Damn, shave once in awhile
, D
ad.” I
patted his cheek and
laughed as I walked out the front door.
He
rubbed his cheek where I’d pecked him.
“Be careful,” h
e warned as he let me go.
I could see the concern in h
is eyes.
I was all he had left
. O
f course
he worried.
Sometimes
,
I wished he
would
find something other than me to occupy his time. His career wasn’t enough
; like an inner city cop,
it just made him more paranoid.
Laurna
,
my best friend
,
was waiting in her brand new car. I
didn’
t
know what it wa
s
,
something sporty.
Laurna would know
,
but
it wa
s
important to her,
it wasn’t to me.
I kne
w
her car
wa
s
black,
went
fast
, and cost more than the average American’s gross annual income
. “So your dad’s
okay with us going out tonight?
”
H
er voice had an almost musical quality to it
. The car still had that new car and lea
ther smell. I took a deep breath
through my nose.
S
he knew
the answer was a big fat
‘
NO
,
’
but at least he
did
n’t follow
me anymore.
I called the cops on him once, claimed he was a stalker.
It was big f
un until I got home that night. H
e didn’t think it was as funny as I
had
thought it was
,
and at the
time,
I’d still been a minor
.
I shrugged
. W
hy answer a question she alrea
dy knew
the answer to?
She laug
hed
,
put the black car into gear
(
hey,
somet
hing else I knew it was a stick)
and pulled
away from my house.
Her
blond hair flew
around her like a little tornado as we pull
ed
out
, and
I was
thankful for the ten-
thousandth time that I
had
cut
of
f most of mine
.
My hair
was red
,
and most of it didn’t even reach my chin. I didn
’t keep it long
because
it wa
s
to
o
easy to grab onto.
Laurna talked me into this
cut
. S
he
’d
explained the messy look is supposed t
o be sexy. I was
just glad it did
n’t have a lot of upkeep. I brush
ed it when I go
t up
,
put a dab of the
funky styling product
she
’d
bought in
to
it
,
mess
ed
it u
p on purpose
,
and let it go. To my surprise,
I love
d
that.
Laurna and I had
been
friends since the second grade. A bully had been taking her
and most of the other
kid’s
lunch money.
He was a big kid, f
ifth grade if I remembered correctly
,
but I’d grown up with my dad and nobody knows how to fight dirty like an AoD’s little girl.
I stuffed him into the trashcan and gave her back her cash.
Afterward
she had dragged me to her lunch table and introduced me to
,
well
, everyone
.
It was the start of a firm friendship. I took care of her physically and she took care of me socially. Believe me
,
I needed it.
Back
then,
she had been a pretty little thing
.
Now s
he wa
s
gorgeous
. T
he kind of girl people
t
ook
notice of.
I thought it was a kind of curse. She couldn’
t just go to the mall and pick something up without having to turn down several date offers.
She c
ould keep it.
I didn’t want it. Okay maybe
I did
a little…
I mean it wouldn’t hurt my feeli
ngs to have someone notice me, o
ne really hot man just for
me.
Yeah
,
I could live with that.
Her blond hair was naturally
wavy;
she used
all kinds of
product
in it
, and took
something like an hour to pe
rfect it every day.
Her makeup wa
s
always in place and never looked
like she
put it on
.
Her fingernails we
re real. Who ha
d
real fingernails anymore?
S
he always had
them
done up in a
Fre
nch manicure
.
Her figure wa
s round in all the right places and flat in the
correspondingly correct
places.
I was
just flat everywhere. I had
no butt and no chest. I
t was all the muscle
,
but
hell,
I was
built tiny
,
wait the word is petite yeah, because
I was
5’6
”
which was
n’t
too
small
,
but the res
t of me was
little.
Laurna wa
s 5’7
”
and
was
much more
shapely
than
I was
,
we could
n’t share clothes
.
She always smelled
like honeysuckle. It was s
ome expensive perf
ume she preferred
.
I was
lucky if I remember to
sprits
myself after a shower with the body spray she
’d
bought for me for my birthday one year. I usually smell
ed
like deodorant
,
Dove original scent
.
She talked
incessantly;
I talk
ed rarely, and it worked for both of us. The radio was
blasting on her favorite channel and the rhythmic thr
um covered up whatever she was
rambling on about.
At that moment, everything was perfect. The night air, the music,
a friend that was more like a sister to me
.
I nod
ded
like I knew what she was saying
.
She smiled at me
because she knew
I wasn’
t really listening.
I was like that with music
I just go
t lost in the rhythm, pulled into the tempo, and all
else was gone. She hit
the
radio button and I was
plunged back into the vehicle w
ith her. I look
ed
sheepish. “What?
”
I
t wa
s almost a complaint
.
She bit her lip
,
and I knew I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “I want to
go to Deception.”
Her face was
full of hope.
I did
n’t want to go.
However,
I managed not to scream Hell No
at her
. I
t was
a struggle.
I
took several deep breaths
.
Deception wa
s
a new
nightclub and
she knew it wa
s
a place
I avoid
ed
. She did
n’t know why
,
and I
couldn’t
tell her
.
I wasn’t even sure how that conversation would go. Me: “We can’t go there honey cuz it’s chock full of
Vamp
ires.” Her: “OoooKay
. S
omebody’s off her meds!”
I must ha
ve made a face because she sighed.
“Whatever
. W
e can go somewhere else.” She
was
disappointed
.
I
could
hear it
in her voice
,
and it was
her birthday
. I
t’s just bad karma to disappoint your best friend on her birthday.
I started to nod before the words left my mouth.
“Just this once,
” I ask
ed
while
rubbing the leather seats for comfort.
Tactile comfort
…
I needed something solid beneath my h
ands were trembling pretty badly and I did not want her to see it
.
“Really,” her face lit up and I realized my discomfort would be worth it. Besides h
ow could I say no
? I
t was
her twenty-
first birthd
ay
,
and if Deception
was
where she wante
d to go
,
that’s where we would go
.
It’s okay,
I remind
ed
myself.
I was armed
to the t
eeth
I reminded myself.
I was
the
tough the daughter of an AoD and AoLi,
Shadow-born
didn’t scare me. I continued giving myself that
pep talk
.
Even though I
knew,
it was bull
.
I was scare
d. Scared for me and scared for
Laurna
. She lived in a happy world where there weren’t
really
monsters hiding under her bed. S
he
did
n
’t know the real world, but I did
. I
could
protect us both;
I took a deep breath,
I hope
d
.