I touched my neck. “He didn’t bite me. At least… not that I remember.” I ran over to the mirror and checked my neck. “See, it looks normal.” Remembering our mother’s neck, I covered my mouth in horror. “Oh, my God… mom! She has that thing on her neck! Remember?”
We both flew out of the bedroom and began knocking on her door.
“Come in,” she called.
Her room was dark except for a candle burning slowly on the nightstand.
“Hey,” I said, in a low voice. “Um, sorry to bother you. We were just wondering if we could check those bites on your neck. To make sure they aren’t infected.”
She rolled over and gave us an exasperated sigh. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to check my neck?”
“Sorry,” said Nathan. “Um, we saw this news report about these mosquito bites that get really inflamed if you don’t care for them correctly.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If you don’t clean them good… um, eggs will grow in your neck.”
She sat up and shrieked. “What?! Eggs! Look and see if anything is growing in my neck!”
Nathan bit back a smile as we stepped closer to examine mom’s neck.
“Fine, I’m convinced,” he whispered, looking at me. “Check it out.”
I was, too. The swelling had gone down but the two holes could have definitely been caused by a vampire. Not that either of us were experts, but we’d watched enough horror flicks to know what we saw.
“Mom, we have to talk to you,” I said, stepping back. “I know this is going to sound crazy but you have to believe us.”
She looked at both of us. “Okay, spill it. What’s on your minds?”
We started over from when we’d spoken to Amy, her warnings, and how she’d killed herself. Then, I told both of them how I met Ethan and how he’d called me Miranda and had almost made me run away with him.
She threw her head back and laughed.
“It’s not funny, mom,” said Nathan. “This Ethan guy looked like he was ready to attack me tonight and I had to use a gun to scare him away.”
“Nathan, I doubt the gun would have killed him, anyway,” I said. “He only left you alone because I told him to.”
“Whatever,” he snapped. “This guy is some kind of monster. Whether it’s a vampire or demon. He flies, he growls – he isn’t normal!”
She threw her hands up in the air. “It’s… I don’t know how to react to this. I can’t just accept the fact that you both think this kid is a vampire. As far as my neck goes, I’ve never met Ethan, so if you think he bit my neck when I was having a cup of coffee and didn’t notice, you have another thing coming.”
“Do you feel different at all?” I asked.
She glared at me. “For Heaven’s sake, Nikki! I’m not going to turn into a damn vampire!”
Nathan and I looked at each other. We knew it was pointless to keep trying to convince her that there were vampires in Shore Lake. Unless she saw it for herself, there was no way she was going to believe us. Nathan had reacted the same way.
She rubbed her temples and then stared at us, again. “Look, I’m going back to bed and I suggest that the both of you do the same thing. In the morning, you’ll both realize how crazy this sounded.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“Goodnight, mom,” said Nathan.
“I love you both, but if you wake me up to talk about vampires again, I’m getting rid of cable!”
Chapter Nineteen
“Okay, I’m not leaving you alone anymore,” said Nathan as he paced back and forth in the kitchen. We were both too shook up to sleep.
“Fine,” I said, taking a sip of coffee.
He wagged his finger. “We should talk to mom and see if she’s willing to move back home, too.”
My jaw dropped. “But what about Duncan and our new jobs?”
“What about… there’s a vampire after you, Nikki? Or should we call you ‘Miranda’?”
I sighed. “What if he follows us anyway? He said he’s been looking for me and now that he’s found me, we are supposed to be together.”
“How romantic,” snickered Nathan. “If you ask me, I think he just wants to get into your pants.”
“He almost did,” I mumbled.
“Good thing I heard those groans and whimpers coming from your room, which was gnarly, by the way. Do you know how disturbing it is to hear your sister getting it on with a vampire?” He shuddered. “It’s sick.”
I smiled. “Thank you for being a nosy brother, Nathan. You probably saved my life. At least, my virginity.”