Great, bring up the living daughter. One more thing Jenny had on me—two kids, a husband, and a pulse.
I reluctantly untied my sister. With an indignant squeal, she broke loose from the ropes and pulled her gag away. She was about to scream at me when I clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, whatever excuse you’re about to give, don’t. I’m not talking to you for a while. Not until the urge to throttle you goes away. Stay away from the house, and stay away from me. Pretend that I don’t exist. It should be easy enough considering the practice you’ve had.”
“Jane, get your hands off her!” Mama yelled.
I stared at my mother. “You think I’m going to hurt her, don’t you?”
Mama said nothing. Daddy wrapped an arm around her. “Now, Sherry—”>Gabriel wanted to stay and help me explain, which was sweet. But I didn ’t think it was fair to put him in the line of fire. I wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t have to be. So, after sending everyone else home, I sat on Missy’s deck and stared at the newly unshackled pair. I insisted on leaving Jenny hog -tied and gagged for the duration of this discussion. Mama was too shell-shocked to argue, which I thought was a normal reaction to one’s first hostage crisis.
“Um, you probably have some questions for me,” I said finally.
Mama was dry-eyed and mad as hell. “Jane, what is going on? We got a call that you needed us at the house. And that awful woman just kidnapped us right off your front porch. Why would she do that? Why was she talking about vampires? Thank God your friends were here to help us, or I just don’t know what we would have done. Was that your Gabriel? The tall one with the dark hair? He seems very nice. Lovely manners. I don’t think I like the other one, though, the one in the vulgar T-shirt.”
“Mama.” I ignored the part where Mama negated my share in her rescue and stuck to the matter at hand. “Mama, you probably figured out, from what Missy was saying earlier, that I’m a vampire.” My throat tightened around every word. “In fact, if you think back on some of the stuff that’s happened in the last couple of months, you’ll see that there were some pretty big hints.
And I understand why you didn’t see it, because you weren’t ready yet. And I wasn’t ready to tell you. But now I have to. I’m a vampire.”
My mother’s jaw hung slack. She paled. “You haven’t told Gabriel, have you?”
I would have laughed, but it wouldn’t have improved the situation. “He’s a vampire, too. In fact, he’s the one who made me a vampire.”
While they sat, stunned silent, I very quickly told them what really happened the night I was fired, my Shenanigans bender. I described Gabriel’s following me home to make sure I arrived home safe and my car breaking down. I told them about the shooting, though I omitted the identity of the drunken hunter. It just seemed petty now that Bud was dead. I also glossed over the more erotic aspects of Gabriel’s turning me, because I liked being able to look my father in the eyes. I would have to put that off for a while anyway, because looking him in the eyes at the moment made my chest hurt.
I assured them that I hadn’t fed on anyone living and planned to stick to bottled blood as much as possible. I judiciously omitted the Andrea episode. Daddy’s face contorted in alternating waves of rage, sorrow, and overwhelming curiosity.
Mama’s first question was “Have you tried not being a vampire?”
To which I responded, “Yes, for the first twenty-six years of my life.”
My father, who had remained silent and thin-lipped until this point, asked, “Why did you lie to us, honey?”
The hurt in his voice made my throat constrict. “To keep you from looking at me like you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m some kind of freak. Like you’re ashamed of me. Like you’re not going to want me to be your daughter anymore. I was scared, and I didn’t know how to tell you. And after a while, it seemed really difficult to fit ‘Guess what, I’m undead’ into a conversation.”
“But you didn’t just lie once, Jane,” Daddy said softly. “You’ve had months to tell us. You lied over and over.”
All I could muster up was a weak “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
“Are you all right?” Daddy asked, tears of his own welling up. “Did—did it hurt?”
“Being shot hurt,” I admitted, reaching for his hand. His fingers wrapped around mine without hesitation. The weight that was crushing my chest seemed to wiggle loose. “Getting turned was just like falling asleep. I woke up three days later, and Gabriel took care of me. He saved me. I would have died without his help. Please don’t be angry with him or act weird around him. He’s a good man, for the most part.”
“What can you do?” he asked.
It took me a few seconds to catch up to Daddy’s question. He was asking about my snazzy new vampire powers, not expressing helplessness about my being turned by a guy with “shoves trees on people” tendencies.
“Oh, um, a lot of stuff, except, you know, eat solid food and go outside during the day,” I said.
“Even my pot pie?” Mama cried.
Yes, because in this situation, pot pie was what we should be focusing on.
I nodded. “But the upside is, I don’t have to feed very often. I can lift couches over my head one -handed. I’ve finally stopped running like a girl. I can smell fear. And you saw that I can hold my own in a fight. You don ’t have to worry about me anymore.”
Daddy’s expression brightened. And yes, I intentionally left out the part about the mind -reading, because that tended to weird people out. Plus, it was a hand I didn’t want to tip to Mama.
After a long pause, Mama said, “Well, I don’t know what to say.”
Daddy checked his watch and marked the time. “It took thirty years, but it was bound to happen sometime.”