Nocturnal (The Noctalis Chronicles 1)

I'd given Ava power. Shown her parts of my fragile underbelly. Humans put so much emphasis on physical power, but words were knives. They carved and maimed and killed. She could kill me more easily than I could kill her. Of course she had no idea of the power she held.

She told me to message her on that wretched device. I still had the phone I took from her that first night. I hadn't tried to use it yet. It made me think of Viktor and how he would know exactly how to use it and how I didn't know where he was.

After she left I pulled out the phone and pushed some of the buttons. It was dirty from being in my pocket. I didn't know why I kept it other than to remind me of her.

The buttons were tiny, but I clicked a few of them to find how to navigate the thing. It didn't take very long. I hit the call button under one of the numbers. It rang once and a voice picked up.

“Do you know what time it is?” a sharp female voice said. I clicked the phone shut without answering.

Fifteen

“To the left, to the left!” Despite her instructions, the tent doesn't go to the left and instead flips over, bouncing like a beachball. My mother's laughter cracks through the tension like a pick through ice.

“Damn. Are you sure we can't go to a hotel?” I say. Dad and I are sweating and, on my part, cursing, trying to get the tent up. It hasn't been used in so long it has this moldy smell that makes me think of old bread. It's going to take hours for it to air out enough for us to go inside. He and I haven't talked much since the night when he wouldn't let me see her. He's tried, but I've shut him down. The silent treatment will end, since we're stuck here all weekend. I'm trying to be a good sport, but neither of us is having a good time.

Mom is in her element. I forgot how much she loves this, and not just the nature stuff. She loves the no electricity, the sleeping on the hard ground, the cold, the rudimentary amenities. The sound of crickets and the smell of smoke that gets in your hair. The dirt and the work it takes to make a meal. All of it.

When I'd gotten back from my night with Peter, I heard her voice the second I closed the door. It was like a knife to my already bruised heart. I didn't even look at Dad as I went back to her room to see her. I was sure I would have punched him if I looked at him, so I pretended he wasn't there instead.

She was fine, but a little miffed at us for making such a big deal out of things. She smiled and asked me where I'd been. I lied and told her I'd been working, even though we both knew I had the night off. She stared at me for a second and closed her eyes, saying she was glad I was home. I squeezed her hand and waited with her until she fell asleep. I'd barely talked to Dad since then. He'd wanted to cancel the trip, but she'd stomped her foot and said we were going. So here we are.

“Okay, let's try this again.” Dad's wearing this old flannel shirt he unearthed from the back of his closet. I don't think it's seen the light of day since the last time we went camping. It's odd seeing him in anything but a button up shirt and dress pants. Even on the weekends, he wears khakis. Never jeans. He's sweating and he's got dirt on his hands. Not that my dad isn't a guy's guy, but he isn't the one who gets his hands into the dirt and digs and does the messy projects. That's all her.

We finally get the tent up. I check my cell phone for the millionth time. Tex is treating me like I've gone off to prison, instead of into the woods. It isn't even really the woods. The highway is five seconds away, along with a really nice hotel and lots of restaurants, and a ton of quaint inns. We're not roughing it too much. More than enough for me, though.

After a lot more cursing, we finally get the tent up and Mom starts making it all homey, unpacking sleeping bags and hanging a wind chime at the entrance. Dad keeps banging his head on it while he unloads things from the car. I almost laugh and then remember that I'm still pissed at him.

Dinner is hot dogs, in my case, the veggie kind, corn and sweet potatoes roasted on the fire. I eat twice as much as I normally would. There's something about eating something next to a fire that makes it taste like nothing else. We're not talking much, but that's okay.

“I missed this,” she says, looking into the fire. It moves across her face, casting shadows. “I didn't know how much I missed it. Just being out here with nothing else. No doctors or treatments.” She sighs and rubs her arms. “You know?”

“Yeah.” Dad gets up and puts some more wood on the fire.

“I want to keep this.” She leans over her chair and puts her arms around me. “Right here.” She says it in my ear and it tickles. I laugh and she giggles with me. “Remember that time the tent flooded?”

I do and we laugh about the old times. Even Dad joins in, talking about the time the raccoon got into our food and ate everything except Pop Tarts, so we ate those for two days. The fire pops and we have to keep changng our seats to avoid the smoke getting in our eyes.

Tex messages me about three thousand times to make sure I haven't been eaten by bears, so I finally turn my phone off, even if it means I won't get a text from Peter. Not that I'm thinking about him.

I'm so exhausted from the tent odyssey that I go to bed right after supper. My parents stay by the fire, drinking coffee and talking softly as the fire dies into coals.

My sleeping bag is lumpy and musty, but I fall asleep so fast I barely get a chance to put my mp3 player on shuffle.

I wake, however, in the middle of the night. One of my earbuds is still in, and the music is really loud. My dad is snoring so much, it almost drowns out the music. My back cracks as I move, and I wish for my memory foam mattress from home.

I struggle out of the sleeping bag cocoon and unzip the tent. I hope it doesn't wake Mom, but she's still in her own sleeping bag, her face peaceful.

The fire has burned itself down to coals, but I go and sit by their glow, rubbing my hands together. The night still has a bit of bite to it.

I've got five missed texts from Tex. Nothing from Peter. I want to send him a message, but I don't know what to say. I feel like we can't go back to normal conversation after the whole I'm-an-angel-vampire reveal. Not that our conversations were very normal in the first place.

I watch the smoke curling into the stars. It's so quiet.

Thinking about Peter is nice. Much nicer than thinking about my mother and how many times like this we have left. Part of me wants to wake her up, just so I can whisper ghost stories with her and watch her face and snuggle with herI should have brought a camera.

My phone buzzes, and I recognize the number as my old one. It's Peter. My heart does a little leap. I can't stop thinking about how I've shared one of my biggest secrets with him. Still, he shared a bigger one with me, so we're even.