Once Gabriel started with their summer excursions, that’s when she really became intrigued with people. They went to places flooded with tourists, places like Ocean City, New Jersey, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Each vacation bought her more and more freedom. Gabriel and Mother knew she could more than handle herself should some stranger try and take her or make her do anything she didn’t want to, but they also knew she was stealthy when she needed to be.
Last year, they wound up in York, Maine, where she discovered the wonder of boys.
And the true face of what she and her family really were. What Gabriel really was.
Monsters.
She’d hated her brother ever since. He said she’d get over it. You can’t change who or what you are. Of course, she knew what they were. She always had, but Mother and Father managed to live alongside humans for years without much trouble. They were humble, careful, and smart enough to know what would happen if anyone found out that they were vampires.
God, thinking it made her want to do another sweep of her surroundings as if someone might have the ability to read her mind. She didn’t want some beach city bastard trying to shove a stake through her chest or some religious freak burning her for Jesus.
It wasn’t quite like everyone thought. They weren’t that hard to kill. Her father suffered a heart attack. His father fell ill with pneumonia. If you shot one of them in the head or hit their vitals, that would do the trick, too. They weren’t deathly allergic to the sun, although it did tend to weaken them and make them slightly more lethargic, but November loved its warmth and the beauty it dropped on the earth. She was quite certain she would die if she couldn’t be out in the day.
They could fly, possessed above average strength, and moved faster than you could see. Drinking blood enhanced these abilities greatly. They needed to drink, but the amount to maintain health was minimal and did not have to be human. November had spent the majority of her life surviving off the occasional rabbit or fox. Her kind was able to get by for quite a while without a good dose of blood, but along with lessening the potency of their gifts, it made them more susceptible to viruses and disease.
She’d only drunk the blood of humans three times that she could recall. It was the memory of her last that still deeply saddened her.
It was Gabriel, of course, who demanded it of her. Gabriel, who in the last couple of years had taken to dressing in black, sleeping in a coffin, and even talking like some sort of noble jerk straight out of a bad Hollywood horror movie. It was almost like he was getting into character. She didn’t understand it, but figured it was maybe a strange phase he was going through. By far the worst change in him was his willingness to kill and the lack of remorse he seemed to have in doing so. He made excuses for taking lives, trying to convince her to do the same. He’d insisted that she would need the extra boost for their move here. He’d taken an elderly gentleman from a bench somewhere near Cleveland. He promised not to kill the man, to return him to where he’d abducted him, so at the time, November didn’t feel so bad. She drank until she was full, and not a drop more. Mother did the same. When it came to Gabriel’s turn, he gorged himself. When the man began to convulse, Gabriel let him go, only to then grab hold of the man’s head and snap his neck.
The awful cracking sound the man’s neck made haunted her. Gabriel claimed it had been done out of necessity. Saying they couldn’t chance the man seeing one of them again before they left and remembering what they’d done, although that seemed unlikely as they were leaving the next night.
She learned more than she wanted that day. Her brother was not like Mother, Father, or herself. He was going to be trouble. Somewhere, sometime, he would do something that would threaten their safety. She was hopeful it wouldn’t happen until he’d gone off on his own, but he’d yet to leave her and mother, claiming she wasn’t strong enough to take care of herself or Mother. That they’d be dead in short order. November knew better. Despite all his skills and arrogance, Gabriel was a coward.
* * *
Stepping from the beach to the slim path into the woods, she felt a chill sweep by and knew he was there.
She stopped and said, “You can come out.”
Gabriel dropped from the tree behind her.
“Ah, little sister, you’re getting good.”
He always acted so surprised when she knew he was there before he revealed himself. She always knew. Even last summer before he tried to ruin her life.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Now, now, no need to have a poor attitude. You should be happy I’m looking out for you.”
He snaked around her, practically whispering the last line into her ear.
She shrugged him off, turned and crossed her arms.
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Oh, darling,” he said.
She hated it when he spoke this way. Calling her darling, the word spewing from his mouth like he was some sort of noble gentleman casting it upon a peasant.
He placed his hands on his hips and flipped his long black hair. “I know you think you’ve got enough defences to take care of yourself, and you do possess admirable control of your abilities, but don’t hate me for being cautious.”
“That’s not why I hate you.”
“Oh, please,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset about that silly boy from last summer? Really? Is that what this is all about?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. His conceit and callousness made her seethe all over again.
He stepped forward and reached for her shoulder. November swung her arm, knocking his hand away.
Rubbing the wrist she’d struck, acting like it actually hurt him, more of a pathetic attempt to gain her sympathy, he said, “I see.”
He turned, placed his arms behind his back and gazed toward the beach with a sigh.
For the tiniest second, she almost felt bad. It was possible, a slim chance but possible nonetheless, that he was being sincere in his watching over her. Deep down, he may have meant well with all his intrusive behaviour, but he was just too self-centred and childish to understand how his actions and reactions affected others, or more precisely, how they affected her.
“I’m going home,” she said.
She left him there to brood on his own.
She was sure he’d follow her, but he did not.
She prayed that Rocky had made it home already. For the briefest of moments, she considered turning back and checking to make sure, but thought better of it. She’d never forgive herself if she led her brother right to him.
* * *
Gabriel hadn’t always been a devil.