I walk over to my bed and sit down as I take the picture out of my pocket. I wish it was different this time when I look at it, but it’s not. It’s right there in my hands in black and white.
Bishop and my dad are standing next to each other in the picture. If this was taken a hundred years ago, then my dad would have had to have been a vampire back then. Or at least have been a human but made into a vampire shortly afterwards. That’s not the story he told me.
My dad said that Bishop attacked him and my mom when I was only a baby. He told me that he’d been left for dead but another vampire saved him. He said he was turned and he vowed to get justice for my mother. That doesn’t add up with the time frame on this picture. I’m only twenty years old, so that means he would have only been turned twenty years ago. Yet this picture is evidence of his lie.
I never saw my dad mourn my mother, but I was so young. When he talks about her now he only ever has anger for Bishop. Everyone deals with grief differently and maybe vampires do too. He was pushed into a whole new world and still had a young child to care for. He has to miss my mom because why else would his revenge for Bishop be so strong?
I wonder if I’m remembering it wrong and suddenly I’m unsure of myself. Could I have this story jumbled up, or is he really lying to me? The one thing that has been drilled into me is that Bishop killed my mother and he should pay for it. Of course I want Bishop to pay, but what will it cost? I’ve never seen Dad with another woman, and it makes me think he can’t move on from her. It’s a sweet and sad thought, and maybe that’s why he’s pushing this so hard. If he can get the revenge he’s looking for, he can finally move on with his life.
But those pieces of the story he told me aren’t adding up with the picture I hold in my hand. My eyes go back to Bishop and I feel an odd tingling all over. Lately it’s growing and now I feel a pull towards him. I wonder if maybe it’s me wanting my own revenge—why else would I feel this way towards a man who ripped my family apart?
Not only did he take my mom from me but now he’s taken my dad. Gordon isn’t the dad he once was. Ever since he told me everything about him being a vampire and how he’d come to be, I’ve still seen him as the same person. My dad. He wasn’t a vampire and then a man, he was still the same man to me but the same can’t be said anymore. He can go from sweet to nightmare in two seconds and I swear at times I can see him holding himself in check. I wonder if maybe he’s going crazy. Perhaps Bishop is the reason he’s this way. The closer we get to him, the more unhinged my dad gets.
My dad always taught me to keep my nose out of his business and I always did. I trusted and loved him, but I’m discovering he has so many layers. He doesn’t see wrong in hurting innocent people if it means taking down something bigger. I found out about that six months ago when I walked in on it happening in our basement. It’s the same scene that flashed in my mind when the girl I helped escaped told me I’d been standing next to evil.
My dad told me he was doing what needed to be done that day. Afterwards I swear he tried to make me forget. I saw him use the trick on other humans before, but I never thought about him doing it to me. I nodded along and pretended as he talked. I didn’t know what else to do because I was more shocked than anything. I told myself he was only trying to protect me from seeing something terrible, but the nagging thought that he’d done it before haunts me. He’s made me question why some things from my past feel so fuzzy.
Could what that girl said be true? What if I’m on the side of a monster?
I stand from my bed and go over to the window in my room. The curtains are pulled back and I glance to the path I told the girl to take. I don’t see anything, but it’s too dark for me to, anyway. I wonder if I’ll still be able to use the path once my dad and his men discover my little secret. I don’t use it much now—it’s just somehow nice knowing it’s there. That my dad might think he keeps me under lock and key, but I know I can always get away.