Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

faces. After all, these were the only people in the world who loved them more than they loved their own lives.
    What bound a family together, especially one like ours, if it wasn’t trust and promises? You could betray your teachers, your school, and your friends, even your country, and it wouldn’t come close to the depth ofdisappointment after you betrayed your own family. Every breath you took, every ounce of nourishment you consumed, was a family gift. Once you broke that tie, you truly drifted at the mercy of impish winds and capricious fate. Who cared if you were injured or hurt? Who suffered disappointments with you and helped you recover? Who was there to share your success with as much joy? Who was capable of being as proud of you?
    Schoolgirls like myself would risk their parents’ anger and disappointment because deep in their hearts, they believed that no matter how deeply they had hurt their parents, there was always going to be a reservoir of forgiveness. I recalled a line in a poem we had read in English class last year, Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man.” In it he wrote, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
    Where else would such a thing be true?
    For the girls like me who risked their parents’ wrath, there was always that thought, that hope to cushion the danger, and wasn’t it the danger itself, the excitement of defiance, that usually won out in the end and got them to light that joint, take that ride, be with that forbidden boy?
    The great difference was that I had no cushion. For me, home was not someplace where I would have to be taken in. I was a trapeze artist without a net, a skydiver with no second parachute, a first-time swimmer with no nearby dock or shore, no lifeguard, no rope, nothing to save me from sinking into the dark depth awaiting with open arms and gleeful smile.
    No
, I thought as I drove out of the parking lot,
I amnot simply another defiant teenager.
I wasn’t taking this risk to enjoy the accompanying rush of excitement and adrenaline. I wasn’t charging forward with a shield on which was inscribed “Life’s unfair. I resent all unreasonable restrictions and rules.”
    And when I thought more deeply, questioned myself more closely, I also had to admit that I wasn’t doing this simply because I was attracted to a handsome, sincere young man. It was greater than him, greater than both of us. There was something in me that wasn’t in Brianna and Ava and Marla. It wasn’t something I could neatly wrap in the word
conscience
, either. Neither Daddy nor Mrs. Fennel ever had mentioned God in a positive way in our house. There was never any talk of prayer or its power. I couldn’t recall Daddy driving us past a church or a synagogue or even a mosque and not smiling disdainfully. If any of us mentioned anything whatsoever to do with any religion, Daddy would say, “Smoke and mirrors. More people are killed in the name of religion than anything else.”
    “What do we believe in, then, Daddy?” I once asked. It was at holiday time, and all the other children were preparing for services and celebrations.
    “Believe only in yourself,” Daddy replied. “Believe only in your own power.”
    And although he didn’t come right out and say it, he clearly implied that we should believe in him because from him came our power.
    No, neither conscience nor fear of punishments for doing something evil was what gave me the strength to make that phone call and drive off. Surely, my needto find another kind of love was part of it, but what I couldn’t understand or identify yet was that part of me that now didn’t fear being different from Brianna and Ava and Marla. In fact, it was drawing me in stronger ways. If anything, this was the most frightening thing of all, because if I wasn’t truly my daddy’s daughter, then who was I?
    And what would happen to me?
    Somewhere out there lay the answer, I thought as I looked west toward the Pacific, where I could see the clouds moving up from the horizon. As on most afternoons in Los Angeles, the marine layer had burned off, and a soft blue sky ceiling joined forces with warm breezes to put more energy into the legs of the joggers, more light in the smiles of the tourists who were already bright with the excitement that accompanied something special and new, and even more hope in the faces of the homeless I saw camped out along Ocean Boulevard. It helped me relax a little,