Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

you scared him off and he withdrew from college,” I said, unloading some dishes from the dishwasher.
    “You sure it wasn’t Buddy who called you at school today?” she asked.
    “I’m sure.” I spun on her. “Stop talking about him, Ava. I know it hurts your ego that he didn’t fawn over you, but you’ve got to get over it.”
    “What? Me get over it? Please. He’s a boy. I’ve been with men. I was obviously too much for him,” she said, but my sharp comeback was enough to get her to walk away without another word about Buddy.
    I remained in the kitchen to pretend to do something more for dinner. My whole body was shaking, and I didn’t want her to see.
    Later, at dinner, Marla insisted that I give her a blow-by-blow account of what had happened to me in school. I tried to sound bitter about it, even though I had deliberately arranged to get caught, but I was afraid that Ava saw I was overdoing it, so I stopped explaining and blaming the other girls.
    “Why keep talking about it? None of this school stuff really matters to us, anyway,” she said. “We go through the motions to please Daddy. And Mrs. Fennel, of course. Can’t say as I’ve always pleased her,” she added with a laugh, which raised my eyebrows.
    “What did you do to make her unhappy?” I asked, seeing an opening into one of the darker hallways in our lives. It wasn’t only Mrs. Fennel and Daddy who kept the keys to our vault of secrets. Each of us inherited some of that, Ava the most right now, since she was the oldest.
    She laughed. “I guess it’s all right to tell you now. Once I brought a boy home to play a video game with me.”
    “You did?” Marla exclaimed before I could.
    “You don’t remember that, do you, Lorelei?”
    “No.”
    “I was only in the sixth grade, but I invited this boy, and his mother brought him over. Actually, in the back of my mind, I thought I was doing a good thing.”
    “How would that be a good thing?” I asked. I was interested to see if anything had been different for her when she was growing up with Daddy and Mrs. Fennel.
    “Helping Brianna find someone new. He was big for his age and very strong. Boys in seventh, eighth, and even ninth grade were afraid of him. I didn’t know our rules about whom to choose and not to choose for Daddy back then. I thought I’d bring him around for Brianna’s consideration. Boy, was Mrs. Fennel angry. Neither of you have ever seen her that angry, and I hope for your sakes you never do.”
    “What did she do when the boy was brought over?” Marla asked.
    “She let him stay, of course, but as soon as his mother came for him, she pounced on me. Daddy was away at the time. I thought she was literally going to kill me and bury me in the backyard or something. I went to sleep shivering that night.”
    “What happened when Daddy found out?” I asked.
    “He was angry, too, but nothing like she was. He came to my room the next morning and woke me to tell me more than I knew about our lives up to then, so I wouldn’t make the same error again. I cried, and he held me and told me it was all right. When Daddy forgives you, you feel forgiven,” she said. “I wasn’t as terrified of Mrs. Fennel the next day, but I swear, she glared at me with fire in her eyes for at least a week afterward. It was like two hot coals cooling down. I complained, but Daddy told me not to be upset with her. He said she was only being very protective and had gone through her own difficulties.”
    “Is that when Daddy told you what happened to her husband?” Marla asked.
    I looked at her resentfully. Why was Ava growingcloser to her, telling her things at her age that she had never told me?
    “Not exactly then but not long afterward,” Ava said. She was quiet for such a long moment I thought that was it, but then she said, “She had made the nearly fatal mistake of falling in love with someone.” She turned to me quickly. “That’s why she has the thoughts she has about love.”
    “Why was it nearly fatal?” I asked, holding my breath. Would she tell us more?
    “She told him too much about us and herself and put not only herself in danger but Daddy, too, and the others, of course.”
    “I can’t believe Mrs. Fennel would have done that,” I said.
    “Love,” Ava said out of the corner of her mouth. “Just because she’s very old doesn’t mean she can’t keep learning things, too, you know.”
    “So, what happened then?” Marla asked.
    Ava smirked. “Try to