Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

and then put the car in drive and headed away. Her silence was a deception.
    “What did you do?” she finally asked.
    “Nothing. I followed your advice, your orders. It really wasn’t my fault.”
    “You’re not telling me the truth,” she said, nodding. “Who is that boy, and what was he shouting?”
    “It’s a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He’s a relatively new student. I hadn’t said a word to him until today.”
    “So you did speak to him,” she said, practically leaping out of her seat.
    “I had no choice, Ava. He came over to me in the cafeteria.”
    “What did he say? What did he want?”
    “He wants me to go to a party with him this weekend.”
    She glanced back through her rearview mirror and then looked at me with a scowl on her face. “You obviously didn’t shut him down firmly enough.”
    “Before I could say no, he got up and left,” I said. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell her about his joke, using famous people as personal references. In fact, saying anything positive about him would be a disaster.
    “I don’t like this,” she said. “If he approaches you again, shut him down clearly enough, even nastily enough, to end it firmly, Lorelei. Did you hear me?” she asked when I didn’t respond.
    “Yes. I just thought…”
    “What? What did you think?”
    “That maybe a little more experience with boys would help me later on, help me become more like you.”
    “What? That is such a load of crap,” she said. “I’m going to have to tell Daddy about this.”
    “Why? For heaven’s sake, Ava, didn’t boys approach you for dates in high school? You said you were tempted a few times. Why make a big deal of this?”
    “Yes, I told you I was tempted, but I quickly shut that down and afterward never entertained thoughts of going out with any of them like you’re doing.”
    “Yes, you did,” I said, and tightened my arms around myself. “You’re lying. You just want to make me look bad in front of Daddy.”
    “If any boy asked me out, I’d tell him where he could get off,” Marla piped up.
    I spun around on her. “No, you wouldn’t, Marla. Don’t tell us that now. You were all excited in there that some boy might have approached me. You couldn’t wait for the details.”
    “I might be interested in the details, but I wouldn’t think of doing something Daddy told me not to do,” she replied, now looking more like Ava to me.
    Ava nodded. “She has more sense than you do already.”
    Marla smiled smugly at the compliment. I could feel it coming, the day Marla would be breathing down my back to become Daddy’s best girl. She was different from the way I was at her age. She was more sophisticated, sharper, more intent, and, despite her sloppy ways at times, more anxious to please Mrs. Fennel. It wouldn’t be long before sibling rivalry would be spelled in all capital letters when it came to what went on between her and me.
    “Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything wrong,” I said.
    “Oh, I’m not worried,” Ava said, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t.”
    We drove on in silence. I felt all the conflicts raging inside me. I would never say it now, but I was more than just tempted to say yes to Mark. I really wanted to go with him, to be part of something people our age were doing. Why wouldn’t it be good for me to have these experiences now? Wouldn’t it make me smarter, wiser for the future?
    Even thinking these thoughts created a battle within me. I tried to chastise myself, to make myself feel badabout thinking of doing something that would displease Daddy and in some way endanger the family. I could feel the tug of war going on in my brain, thoughts wrestling with thoughts.
    Why was any of this surprising, anyway? Daddy said I was stunning now. Ava taught me how to flirt and be attractive. Where did they think I was going to school, a nunnery?
This is just Ava’s jealousy again
, I concluded.
Daddy won’t be angry. He knows she’s been even more jealous of me these days. Let her go tell him. She’ll be disappointed in his reaction.
    She was frustrated when we arrived at the house, because Daddy was still away. I thought she would tell Mrs. Fennel as a consolation, but she apparently said nothing to her, because nothing was mentioned at dinner. Just after ten, when I was thinking of going to sleep, Daddy arrived. I could hear he had brought a woman home with him, so I thought Ava surely wouldn’t trouble him with her