Undead and Unforgiven(93)

“You remember Ancient Me in the future, right? That particular detail hasn’t vacated your brain while you’ve been running around implementing phase one of Getting Daddy to Love You, right?”

She reddened. “That’s not—”

“And you remember how I’d— How shall I put this? How in the future I took over the fucking planet and ruled over a desolate winter wasteland, right?21 You recall that? Vaguely?”

“But that’s— We fixed it. When we came back the timeline was changed so that could never—”

“Maybe one of the reasons Crone Betsy took over was because somebody outed vampires and she had to take on the world, you oblivious shithead! Did you ever once think of that?”

She hadn’t. I could see it on her face. She rallied pretty quickly, though, and I saw some of my own “this has caught me off guard but I’m surging ahead anyway, so fuck it” attitude come to the fore. “That won’t happen. The tyrant Betsy made Marc a vampire . . . you made him a zombie.”

“No, fuckwit, Ancient Me made him a zombie!” Somehow Old Me had gone back in time, raised recently suicided Marc as a zombie, and disappeared back to her own timeline, never to be seen again. “How can you forget this really important shit when you were there? Oh, but I know how.” I stood, because I was kicking her out. “You don’t give a shit about saving the world. Outing us isn’t about protecting people, it’s about proving you’re good and I’m not. So, prove it. Actually help people instead of stirring up shit. And did it never occur to you that I might tell the world you’re the Antichrist?” I wouldn’t. I had no interest in speeding up anything that would make her embrace her birthright and drag the planet into her sad-ass idea of a necessary war between good and evil.

“Yes.” She’d slumped back into her seat, which was too bad because, like I said: time to go, bitch! “But who’d believe you?”

I just looked at her. “So. Many. People. Now get out.”

“What?”

“I said get out. You’ve abused my good nature for the last time, Laura.”

“Good nature!” She was on her feet again—excellent—and practically choking on the words. “You’ve never been—”

“Oh, shut up. I genuinely don’t care. Go away now. Forever, if you like. Oh, and tell Dad that I haven’t forgotten about him. Well, I have, in that I’m not tracking his ass down anytime soon, but he— Oh my God, he left.” I could see it at once. Laura had the worst poker face ever. “He’s gone! Isn’t he? He helped you make a mess and then he snuck out of town and left you with the broom.” I laughed again. “That is so like him! That’s exactly like him. He’s not anything like you’d hoped, is he? Oh, God, that’s hilarious.” Chuckling, I shooed her toward the door. “And speaking of terrible parents who continually disappoint, your mom says hi.”

Oooh, that got her. She’d been stumbling toward the door, fending off my “shoo, shoo!” motions, and now turned so quickly she nearly fell. “What? When did you see my mother?”

“In Hell, just before I kicked her ass out. Again. And that time I did lie: she didn’t say hi. She didn’t say anything about you at all. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” We were at the front door by now, and I was pretending not to notice my roommates scrambling out of the entryway, like I hadn’t heard them sneaking close to eavesdrop the minute I entered the parlor. “If you ever needed a reason to turn your back on your parents and live by your own code, you’ve got it now. You don’t owe either of them a thing: you can be true to yourself.

“But you won’t. You’re locked into showing everyone you’re good. But you can’t do that by just being good. No, you have to show them someone who’s bad and force a comparison. You picked the wrong girl for that one. Again.”

“Stop pushing,” she snapped. “I’m going!”

“Well, finally.” I wrenched the door open. “If I see you again—”

“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me, that’ll definitely show how good you are.”

“—I’ll slap the shit out of you, probably in front of witnesses. It’ll be hilarious!” I giggled at the thought, gave her one last shove, and slammed the door in her furious confused beautiful red face.

Then I leaned against it and blew out a breath. Whew! Stressful, but satisfying.

Which was the perfect description of my life, come to think of it.