Three weeks later…

I’d been staying with some mages while recovering from the silver-laced gunshots. They had examined me and the amulet, and also questioned me, Kevin, and Jack about the ceremony. They were trying to piece together what her ceremony had been meant to accomplish. I’d told the vampires about the ancient book I’d seen in Kevin’s memory, the one that Lady Ann had been consulting, but they hadn’t been able to locate it.

The conclusion so far was that the amulet had been what turned me, although they weren’t sure how yet. One thing that they had been able to determine was that the amulet was tied to my life force. So for now it stayed with me, hanging from a chain around my neck under my shirt.

There was a knock at the front door. I answered it, and found Jack standing on the front porch. He grinned as I stepped outside and pulled him into a hug. His arms tightened around me, pressing me against his chest. My backpack straps dug into my chest.

After a moment he loosened his arms and looked down at me. “Where’s your binder? I didn’t feel it.”

I grinned and let go of him to step back. “So it turns out that being a vampire does have a few perks after all.” I grabbed the bottom of my T-shirt and lifted it up to show Jack my perfect, scarless chest. “The vampire doctor that treated me for the gunshot wounds gave me top surgery.”

Apparently vampires healed quickly and without scaring, but they couldn’t regrow much tissue. If your arm got cut off and the severed arm was reunited with the stump it could be reattached, but if the arm got lost, you’d be spending the rest of eternity with only one hand. The good news for me was that it meant that after the doctor took out my breast tissue, it wouldn’t regrow. And vampire healing left me without any visible scars.

“Wow, I’ll say.” Jack put a palm flat on my chest, running it down my bare skin before pulling his hand away with a sigh. “Wish we had time to properly enjoy it. Looks like you’re ready to go?”

I nodded and dropped my shirt front to heft my backpack. “Let’s roll.”

“That really everything you own?” Jack asked as we went down the steps.

“Yeah. Since I was declared dead, I couldn’t exactly go back home and pack up my things.”

The vampires had used the incident at the park to fake my death. The official story was that I’d broken into the park to kill myself. I’d gotten cold feet and pulled the gun from my head at the last second. The gun had still gone off and the bullet struck a propane tank that had subsequently exploded, killing me.

Such a stupid way to go. It didn’t make me feel any better that it was a lie.

We got to the street, and I stopped short at the sight of Emily’s white sedan. The bullet holes had been badly patched, making it obvious he was still driving the same car.

I pointed to the car as Jack unlocked the car with the key fob. “Why are you still driving Emily’s car?”

Jack got in without answering and I threw my bag in the backseat, then got in the front passenger seat. The cloth of the front seats still had red stains from our blood. I gave him another questioning look as I buckled my seatbelt.

Jack put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb before answering. “As you can imagine, she was a little pissed when I showed back up with her brand-new car shot up. I ended up agreeing to buy it from her so she could get another new car.”

“I’m sorry.” I winced. “At least it’s still drivable.”

“You mean unlike my other car that got shot up?” Jack let out an amused laugh, letting me know he wasn’t mad.

I gave him a small smile. “I hope you blamed me for everything.”

“Totally.” Jack barked out another laugh.

I laughed with him for a moment before sobering. “Stacy said you went to my funeral.”

Jack’s expression hardened. “Yeah. Your parents are both alive and well. The rest… Are you sure you want to hear the rest?” We stopped at a red light and he turned to look at me. The red lit his face up eerily in the dark, and I shivered at the ominous look in his eyes.

“Yes. What was it like?”

Jack sighed, but the light turned green and he had to turn away from me to watch the road. “All the pictures they put out of you were pre-transition, and they only called you by your dead name with ‘she’ pronouns. Your mom recognized me from the Ren Faire when I tried to talk to her about getting your legal name on the tombstone, and she refused to talk to me. I’m sorry.”

I’d been expecting something like that. I thought I’d be angry at having my worst fears confirmed, but instead I only felt resigned. I’d done my best to make up with them before my death and they’d pushed me away. It didn’t matter now, anyway. That was now literally a different life.

Jack seemed to sense my conflicting thoughts and kept quiet, for which I was grateful. I watched the dark streets flash by out the window for the rest of the long drive to my home for the next little while.

The vampires’ house for new blood, as it were, was out in the middle of nowhere southeast of Portland. PCA owned ten acres of land that the house sat in the middle of. A safe place for new vampires to learn to control themselves and their abilities.

Stacy had explained to me that new vampires lived together here for their first decade as a sort of probationary period, under the supervision of an elder mentor vampire. There were two other new ones living here at the moment, in addition to the mentor. The oldest was coming up on the end of her time here, and was in the process of moving out.

In the meantime, since there were only supposed to be two at any given time and all the current residents had refused to share a room with me even temporarily, I was going to be relegated to sleeping in a light-proofed box in the corner of the living room. A coffin. I was not looking forward to it.

I’d argued with Stacy that since I’d already proved I could control myself, I shouldn’t be subject to the same restrictions as other new vampires. I’d lost. Stacy made it clear that I’d already been given enough exceptions to the rules by being allowed to live. Going through the introductory time out of society was mandatory for every new vampire, and that if I didn’t submit I’d be destroyed, control or not.

Just my bad luck that Lin was the current house mentor. She’d applied for the position on the basis of her boyfriend being the next vampire turned, but now was stuck with me—which at least explained her antagonism to me when I’d met her at the safe house.

Jack turned off the highway, and we rolled down a very long driveway that wound its way through the woods. At the end we came to a stop in front of a big old two-story farmhouse, remarkable only in the fact that all the upper story windows were blacked out. The only light came from a flickering porchlight that only served to make the house even creepier looking.

“Last stop.” Jack turned the car off and got out with me. While I stared up at the dark house, Jack got my backpack out and handed it to me.

“Don’t go!” I dropped my bag onto the pavement and flung my arms around Jack’s waist, bursting into tears. “Did Stacy tell you?”

Jack hugged be tightly. “That it’ll be a year before you’re allowed a phone? Yes. I’ll miss you a lot, but you’ll be fine. You’re my fierce tiger, remember?”

I pulled away and stuck my tongue out at him. “I’m never going to live down that nickname, am I?”

“Not ever, Tiger.” Jack laughed and ruffled my hair. I laughed with him, wiping away my tears.

The door to the house creaked open, spilling a square of brighter light out onto the porch. I recognized Lin’s profile outlined in the doorway. She had her hands on her hips.

“Time to go,” I said, leaning over to grab my bag.

“One last thing,” Jack said, stepping between me and the house. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

“Yes.” I grinned widely and got up on my tiptoes to give Jack a kiss.

“I’ll be waiting for you!” Jack called after me as I made my way toward the house.

I sighed deeply, stopping as I got to the porch and turned to wave goodbye to him one last time.

This was going to be a long year.

---

---