Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

would want to hear about that.”
    Mark’s absence wasn’t really noticed until the third day. Chatter had begun lightly but really broke out into full interest by then. From what I overheard, no one really knew that much about his family. Curtis Simon, an African American who was probably going to be the class valedictorian, seemed to know the most about Mark and his family. I sat close enough to him and his friends at lunch one day to overhear him say that while he had never met anyone else in Mark Daniels’s family, he had once been at his home in Westwood.
    “Actually,” he told the others, “it looked like no one else lived there. He never talked about his parents much at all.”
    I saw him look my way.
    And then, in a loud voice, he added, “He was probably so brokenhearted he couldn’t go on attending school here.”
    Everyone laughed.
    Later that afternoon, Curtis approached me in the hallway and asked me if I knew anything about Mark’s disappearance.
    “Did he call you or anything and tell you he would be leaving?”
    “Mark never called me,” I said. “I never gave him my phone number. Maybe his father lost his job or something. I couldn’t care less,” I added, and walked away.
    “Well, pardon me, Miss Hot Ass!” he shouted after me.
    If anything, all this did was alienate me more fromthe rest of the student body. The only one who seemed to notice, however, was Mr. Burns. He asked me if there was anything wrong, anything he could help me with.
    “I’m fine,” I told him.
    “You come to me if you need anything,” he said. “Anything at all, Lorelei. You wrote a very good paper on Lady Macbeth,” he added.
    I thanked him but tried to avoid his eyes and his interest in me the rest of the week. Word finally spread that Mark Daniels’s family had moved away. When I arrived home, I immediately told Daddy. He was in the kitchen talking with Mrs. Fennel. They both looked at me and were quiet for a moment.
    “Well, maybe it’s over, then,” Daddy finally said. He smiled. “Let’s just continue as if none of it ever happened.”
    I looked at Mrs. Fennel. She was studying me so hard my heart began to race.
    “Okay, Daddy,” I said.
    When I stepped into my room, I looked at the bedroom window through which I had almost been pulled into oblivion.
    The bloodstains were finally gone.

10
 
Back to Normal
    Ava was true to her word. Suddenly, she wanted to include me in everything she was doing. We went shopping together to keep up with some of the latest fashions. Ava was far more of a fashion guru than I was, but in her way of thinking, it was all work-related.
    “Daddy places no limits on our budget because he wants us to be walking sticks of dynamite out there,” she said, half kidding. She looked at me and added, “Neither of us really has to depend on clothes, though, Lorelei. But why not take advantage?” She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh and, more important, to have her include me in everything she thought for herself.
    Sometimes we just took rides with no particular destination in mind. She would pop her head in my doorway and say, “Let’s get some fresh air.”
    I loved that, because just cruising was conducive to talking, to exchanging thoughts and ideas the way sisters should. I learned a lot about her youth during those rides, how she had always been so envious of Brianna, until that night when Brianna made the mistake with the married man. She had often questioned me about itwhen I was younger, acting as if she was unhappy that she had not been the one to have actually seen it all. I would have gladly changed places with her.
    “I told myself I would never disappoint Daddy like that, if I could help it,” Ava said. “Of course, I did with that stoned man,” she sadly admitted.
    “He’s forgiven you,” I told her.
    “Maybe. In any case, Lorelei, Daddy forgives only once. Remember that.”
    I didn’t want to ask her what that meant, what would happen if she or I seriously upset Daddy more than once. At this point in my life, I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever being so angry at me that he would disown me. When I was younger, I had had those fears, but I felt closer to him now, and although I wouldn’t say it to Ava, I did still feel that I was his special daughter.
    We continued to have these good, intimate talks. Sometimes we just sat on the beach in Santa Monica and watched people sailing or simply sunned ourselves. She became more and more open about