Page 4 of Lucy

CHAPTER 2

Lucy

“No, I am not leavinghere. I don’t care what you say!”

I plugged my ears like a four-year-old and started humming—loudly. Viv and Joanie had just spent the last twenty minutes telling me how wrong I was to hide away.

“Lucy,” Joanie’s tone was placating, and loud. I suppose so that I could hear it over my humming. “You can’t live the rest of your life in a cave. There is an entire world out there to explore.”

I unplugged my ears for the briefest of moments. “There is an entire world to explore in these caves. Did you know there is an entire jungle down here? And that it has its own river system? I could explore for eons and never get bored.”

Viv’s eyes narrowed. “What about people?”

“People are bad,” I parroted what I had always been taught. “We kill first, ask questions later, right Veti?”

Helvetica actually lived on the outside before the Master brought her here to take care of me. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I knew she had another life before me. I just didn’t like to think about it.

Veti was completely on board with leaving the caves. In fact, she had already begun packing. As I watched Veti rushing around, her eyes alight with happiness and excitement, a part of me felt terribly selfish.

What right did I have to keep Veti with me?

I wasn’t a child anymore, and I had already gone through the change.

“What’s that, Lucy?” she asked distractedly.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again. If she wanted to leave, I wasn’t going to make her stay.

I pasted on a smile that must have looked as horrible as I felt, because Veti stopped rushing about and came over to me. She took my hands in hers and I felt immediate comfort. Although in appearance, Veti didn’t look much older than I was, in reality she was centuries older.

“I won’t leave you here, Lucy. If you choose not to go, I will stay with you. I promised Marcus.”

“Who is Marcus?” Joanie asked.

“Master,” I said with a sad smile. “I can’t leave without telling him where I am going.”

“Is there no way to contact him?” Viv looked around the cave with its magical torches and furnishings that, for the most part, I had conjured up. “No, I don’t suppose you have internet down here?”

“Inter-what?” I asked.

Joanie and Viv’s jaw dropped open simultaneously.

I laughed, “You can certainly see that you are sisters when you both look at me that way.”

Viv snapped her mouth closed. “I am the queen of the vampires.”

This only made me laugh harder; even Joanie had a suspicious cough.

Viv’s cheeks were red as she commanded, “I demand that you come with us.”

I shrugged. “Well, according to you, I am your sister, and from what I understand of the family dynamics, sisters rarely agree. So, I will respectfully decline your order. Goodness, I am really good at this sister-business.”

Joanie’s brow arched. “Looks like you’ve cornered the market on snarky.”

“Is she always this stubborn?” Viv asked Veti.

Veti sighed. “This is Lucy in a good mood; don’t catch her in one of her rages. After all of the damage that she does we end up having to move to a different section of the cave. There is a wicked temper on the girl, no doubt about it.”

I snorted. “That was a long time ago.”

---