Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

either. Even back then, I had the suspicion, the hope, that Daddy might love me better than any of his other daughters because he saw that I was truly the special one in our family.
    I wasn’t all that surprised at what Daddy had said about sibling rivalry the night I wore the new dress. I always had the feeling that he encouraged it. He wanted usto be jealous of each other and especially covet the compliments he might give to one or the other of us. It was truly as if we were being taught to resent, to dislike, even to hate each other, just so we would be more competitive when it came to gaining his compliments, but then he would have his warm family moments during which he would remind Ava and me that we were sisters and had to look out for each other.
    “You’re both very special,” he would say. “No one will appreciate you out there as much as you will appreciate each other. Never forget that. In the end, you must be willing to die for each other.”
    I saw the way Ava looked at me. Fatal sacrifice?
Not hardly
, her eyes said.
    “You will never die for each other,” he said. “It will never be necessary.”
    Ava relaxed.
    “But you must live as if it could be necessary,” he warned, losing his smile quickly. “We have no one but ourselves. Never forget that.”
    Whenever he made pronouncements like that, it felt as if he had stamped the words on my brain and in my heart. I could feel the way they thundered inside me and quickly became part of who and what I was to be. I fed on his words the way most people fed on food. Nothing made me feel more special than Daddy talking directly to me and to me only.
    When I attended a private elementary school, I listened closely to other students to see how different their family lives were from my own, especially girls with older sisters. I was interested in how much sibling rivalry wenton in their houses and what their fathers or mothers did to encourage or discourage it. From what I had heard, no other parents wanted such resentment or competition between their children. They did their best to keep one or another of their children from feeling favored, but it seemed natural that sisters and brothers felt that their parents treated one or the other more favorably. It was inevitable, so maybe it was inevitable with us as well.
    Eventually, I decided that Daddy was being more honest, perhaps, by admitting and even encouraging sibling rivalry. Why pretend that it doesn’t exist in all families? Some of us might not know all of the secrets another one knows, but lying to each other was a form of betrayal, and betrayal was as big a sin as any in our world. We had our own religion, our own holy trinity: obedience, loyalty, and sacrifice. So when it came to facing the truth about each other, Daddy was most encouraging and continued to stress why sibling rivalry was a good thing in our world.
    “Not wanting it is like not wanting one or the other horse to win in a race,” he said. “How foolish is that? Someone, something, always has to be at least a little better, a little stronger, a little faster. It’s what nature teaches us and expects us not only to accept but to cherish and to embrace.”
    Who among us, then, would be a little better, a little stronger, a little faster? Who would indeed be Daddy’s best daughter? Who would serve him best? Who would give him the assurance he needed that he would live on? For our whole purpose in life was to do just that.
    I had no idea that was the reason for my beingbrought to live in Daddy’s home, even after I accidentally made that first discovery. I was too young yet to appreciate the full meaning of what I had seen and heard and how it all related to me. Even now, I didn’t think I understood it completely, but that would come. There was no doubt. That would come.
    Something had awakened me that night. Usually, I fell asleep easily. Maybe, now that I knew about it, it was because of what Mrs. Fennel put in my dinner. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she had forgotten to do it that particular night. However, even back then, I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever getting angry with or reprimanding Mrs. Fennel. Whatever the reason for it, my eyes just popped open, and I felt wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep, but suddenly, I heard Brianna’s laughter. It was obviously very late, but she was very loud. It sounded as if she was right outside my window. What was she doing right outside my window? And what was so funny so late