Page 47 of Hunting My Vampire

“Let me help you,” he insisted. “I think I know who is behind this attack.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure yet but I’m close to finding out.”

I shook my head.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said, suddenly tired. “I can’t be with you. It’s too much. My head hurts and things have changed.”

There was pain in his eyes but it affected me less that I thought it would.

“I need to rest,” I said and went inside.

I went into Princess’s room and lay down next to her on the bed.

Pearl would soon come home and then Princess would be able to live with her again. I would miss having the little girlaround but a part of me was also looking forward to being on my own again, responsible for no-one but myself.

I could feel Jack out there, watching the house. Watching me.

He wasn’t the kind of person who would take well to rejection but he would get used to it. I wasn’t going to change my mind.

What he wanted was an idea of me. Not who I really was.

The real me was not a girl who wore high heels and dresses and flew in private jets to fancy restaurants for clam linguini. The real me could be bitchy and mean and liked to arm wrestle men in bars and win.

I stayed home for a few days, then went into work.

“Should you be here?” Fuzz asked me anxiously when I showed up one morning.

“I can’t hang about the house anymore,” I told him. “I’ll wash cars, anything.”

I cleaned out the workshop and helped him re-spray a little Ford that had been done over for an 18th birthday present.

The thought gave me a lump in my throat.

My 18th birthday had passed without any kind of celebration. Nobody knew when my birthday was but such was my life. I had never allowed myself to get all teary-eyed about it. I had been marked by tragedy, it had made me hard and tough.

I had liked being like that. Being alone was part of the territory.

Love wasn’t for everyone, certainly not for me. But there was some sadness about the end of the relationship and Fuzz picked up on it.

“You liked that bloodsucker, huh?” he asked with a small smile on his face.

I shrugged. “I like dogs too; doesn’t mean I have to get me one.”

He grinned. “You’ll get over him,” he said.

“Probably,” I answered, keeping my voice light.

“Been a lot of them around, lately,” he said, telling me about seeing vampires around the workshop.

“Were they asking after me?” I asked.

He shrugged. “They’d came in, looked around, I don’t know. Maybe.”

I didn’t want to go away and leave Princess but if I was in danger, then perhaps leaving town was a good idea, for her sake as well.

I thought about it and mentioned it to Fuzz.

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