A Beginner's Guide to Fangs Read online

  I just ate last night, but I’m going to need to grab a snack again tonight. While it’s awesome being able to go out in the daylight (sort of), it comes with three giant pains in the ass. One: whenever I’m exposed to the sun, it takes all my power to not go foom like a dried out Christmas tree. Aurélie thinks the sun steals my powers, but in my opinion, I still have them, but every ounce of effort is going to avoiding fireball time. In short, if I’m standing in daylight, I can’t fly, read minds, affect other people’s minds, grow claws or fangs, or do anything cool. Second: if I get hurt while I’m like this, the injury won’t heal. Kinda like how Scott’s little present of a knife wound left a permanent mark on my left breast. If something ‘kills’ me when I’m out and about in the day, that’s gonna be a real ‘game over’ moment for me.

  So basically, if I have the sun touching any part of me (even through clothes) I’m not too much different from a normal human. No powers, no super strength, no speed, and I’m squishy.

  The third major pain in the ass is how it makes me hungry so fast. If I’m a good little vampire girl and stay in the dark and don’t get into fights or use my powers, I only need to eat about once a month. If I behave myself. Yeah right.

  Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a shady spot at the Safeway to stand in.

  Why am I taking Sophia and Sierra to the store? Three words.

  Girl Scout Cookies.

  Yeah. They’ve got to take over their troop’s table at the store from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the last set of girls to do so. A few minutes to eight, their troop leader’s supposed to come by and pick up the table and stuff. Not that I plan on waiting around for her. At nine on the dot, we’re out. In fact, I’m probably going to call it a night closer to 8:30. No one racing to the store between then and nine is going to be interested in buying cookies anyway.

  “Ugh. This is so lame,” says Sierra from the passenger seat. “I look like such a dork.”

  Her mouse-brown hair’s down to her waist and she’s using it to cover half her face and her khaki vest, which is supposed to hold those activity badges or whatever, but she’s only got a few. Sophia, in the back seat, has so many patches on her green vest she’s going to have to hire one of her friends to wear a second vest for the rest of her badges.

  “It’s the uniform,” says Sophia. “Not like anyone… oh. Wait. They are forcing you to wear it. Sorry.”

  Sierra sighs and folds her arms. Of course, my eleven-year-old sister would much rather be home playing video games. “I can’t believe you don’t hate it. There’s no pink anywhere on it.”

  Sophia sticks out her tongue.

  “If you hate it so much, tell Mom you wanna stop going,” says Sophia. “Sarah quit when she was twelve.”

  “I was too busy with other stuff.” I shrug, but wink at Sierra. I know how she feels. No slam against the Girl Scouts, but it’s super annoying to be forced to do something when you’re not into it because ‘that’s what Mom did at that age’.

  “You drive like Grandma,” says Sierra. “This isn’t Bree’s mini. You can go faster than I can run.”

  I laugh. “I’m not going that slow. Just driving with care. I’ve got you two in the car, so I don’t want anything to happen.”

  “Yeah, Mom would totes kill you if you got us hurt,” says Sierra with a giant grin.

  “Mom can’t kill her. She’s immortal.” Sophia huffs.

  I catch the last half of her eye-roll via the rearview mirror. “Not at the moment I’m not. Sun, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Fangs are offline.” Sierra pantomimes some kind of robo-vampire thing.

  Sophia yawns. “The Girl Scouts are fun. I don’t mind going. We have to sell cookies to raise money for all the stuff they do. It goes to a lot of good causes.”

  “Yeah,” says Sierra, deadpan. “Like to the CEO who exploits child slaves to push highly addictive drugs”―she holds up a box of Thin Mints and shakes it―“on an unwitting population.”

  I blink at her. “Wow… When did you get so jaded?”

  Sierra drops the cookies back in the giant cardboard box between her feet. “I’m not jaded. I’m realistic. And besides, I’m a ‘cadette’ now”―she makes air quotes―“we’re not even supposed to sell cookies anymore.”

  “You’re mentoring me,” says Sophia. “I won’t be a cadette ’til next year. I’m still a junior.”

  Sierra raspberries at the windshield. “In this mentor’s opinion, we both look like total dorks.”

  “Seriously, who pairs a white polo with a khaki skirt,” I mutter.

  Sierra glares at me.

  The guy behind us beeps when I stop for a yellow light.

  “You totally could’ve made that,” says Sierra.

  “She’s driving right.” Sophia shakes her head. “Yellow means get ready to stop, not stomp on the gas.”

  “How long do we have to stay there?” Sierra gives me the side eye. “Can you like make Mom think we were at the store for the whole two hours?”

  Sophia emits a long, “Ooooh!” before gasping. “She’ll get in so much trouble if she mind controls Mom. You know that.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah. No mind control on the parental units. I promised.”

  The nanosecond the light goes green, dipshit behind me beeps. I decide to give him a ten count before moving.

  “Sare, it’s green,” says Sierra.

  “I know. Just messing with the idiot behind us.”

  Sophia turns around in the seat. “Holy crap, Sare. He’s huge.”

  I’m about to say ‘so what’ when it hits me that I’m pretty damn vulnerable at the moment. Grr. I signal and make the left onto the road by the Safeway. Fortunately, the impatient guy in the pickup goes straight―though he gives us the finger.

  Which Sierra returns.

  Ugh. My little sister flipping some guy off is both hilarious and unnerving. If Mom saw that, she’d kill me… again. She glances at me, no doubt waiting for my reaction. Of all the things a kid could do wrong in this world, rude hand gestures are tame. I chuckle, shaking my head.

  She smiles, proud of herself, but winds up rolling her eyes a moment later. “Do we really have to do this?”

  “Sierra’s just in a bad mood ’cause she’s got a boyfriend,” says Sophia.

  “I do not!” yells Sierra.

  Sophia giggles. “Elijah Lucas is totally in love with you.”

  “Not,” says Sierra, her face reddening in either anger or embarrassment―though I’m betting on anger. “He just asked if I’d go to a movie with him.”

  “Oh wow,” I say while pulling into the Safeway lot. “He asked you to a movie. This time next month, you’ll be married.”

  Sierra points at me. “If you say ‘it’s adorable’ or anything like that, I will end you.”

  I pat her on the head after parking.

  She snarls and glowers.

  That lasts about three seconds before Sophia bursts into laughter. I try my best to keep a straight face, but can’t. As soon as I crack up, Sierra laughs with us. Once that dies down, we hop out of the car. The girls shiver as a gust of wind goes up their uniform skirts. Me? I’m ready to melt. The parking lot feels like I’m trying to cross Arizona on foot in mid-August. Fortunately, I’m not sweating. Maybe it would happen if the temperature actually became warm. My vampiric nature does everything possible to appear lifelike, so I probably can sweat. This heat isn’t real heat, only the sun being a fiery little ball of bitchiness in the sky.

  My sisters each grab a large cardboard box of cookies while I get the biggest one from the trunk. Sierra, having a functioning brain, puts it back down and runs to grab a shopping cart instead of us all lugging this crap over to the storefront. We load the cookies in the basket. Head down, I avoid looking up at the sky while shoving the cart across the pavement.

  Three other girls from their troop are at the table with two moms. My sisters dart over and the kids explode into a frenetic flurry of conversation while the adults give
me a look mixed of gratitude and pity. They’re happy to get out of there and sympathetic to me being stuck here.

  “Where’s your mother?” The taller, somewhat heavyset mom blinks at me.

  “Busy with work stuff,” I say.

  The other woman winces, like she wants to leave but thinks she might be stuck here. “You’re a little young to be on your own, watching the kids.”

  “I’m eighteen,” I mutter.

  Both women stare at me.

  “Oh. Poor thing. You’re going to get asked for ID until you’re forty.”

  I sigh in my mind.

  “Don’t be jealous, Kim.” The short woman pokes her friend before waving at one of the other kids. “Come on, Andrea. Time for dinner.”

  The women whisk their charges off into the parking lot, leaving the three of us to set up shop on a scratched-to-hell brown folding table like from a school cafeteria. Sierra begrudgingly sets a bunch of cookie boxes out on display while Sophia prepares a clipboard and order forms. People on their way into and out of the store are about evenly split between warm smiles and gnawing their own limbs off to avoid eye contact.

  Sophia exploits the hell out of her blonde hair and green eyes, attempting the ‘too cute to resist’ smile at passersby while Sierra employs the lesser-known technique of a ‘buy cookies or I’ll pound you in the face’ stare. The girls get their first victim after maybe ten minutes, a little old lady in a blue sweater. She commits the mistake of asking what they have.

  Like a little pro, Sophia launches into an explanation of the different types of cookies. She oozes so much cute, Sierra leans away as if afraid of contagious adorableness. The old one promises to buy some cookies on her way out and wobbles into the store. Sophia grins at us.

  “What are we doing here?” drones Sierra. “I feel like such a dork.”

  “People who buy our cookies are supporting the next generation of women business leaders,” chirps Sophia.

  “Ugh.” Sierra shakes her head. “More like supporting some executive’s next Beemer.”

  I smirk at her. “You’re awfully cynical for eleven.”

  “It’s the big corporations taking advantage of”―she overacts a childlike face―“little innocent girls to push their cookies. It’s just like Globix Corporation.”

  “Huh?” I ask.

  Sierra launches into an explanation of the bad guys from one of her video games, some kind of cyberpunk dystopia thing where the corporations own everything. While she rambles, Sophia sells a couple boxes of cookies. Eventually, I can’t help but chuckle. I’d say something about it only being a game and whatnot, but sometimes it really does feel like we’re slipping into a scary world.

  Time drags on. A little after seven, a guy about Dad’s age pushing a full wagon out of the Safeway glances over at us, specifically at Sierra, and pauses.

  “Selling cookies?” asks the guy.

  Sierra looks over at him. “Actually, we just set up this table so people can see them.”

  The guy grins. “Duh. Here’s my sign, right?”

  “Huh?” asks Sierra.

  I snicker.

  Sierra gives the guy a ‘just shoot me’ look.

  “You got any Samoas?” asks the man.

  “Probably in the box labeled ‘Samoas.’” Sierra pats one.

  Sophia fires a ‘what are you doing?’ glare at her.

  He pushes his cart closer, out of the path of traffic emerging from the door, and leans over the table, perusing the boxes. “You look so happy to be here.”

  “I’m thrilled,” deadpans Sierra.

  The man glances at me.

  I raise my hands. “Don’t look at me. I’m just the big sister.”

  “Heh. I love this kid. She reminds me of how I feel at work.” He pulls two boxes of Samoas over in front of her. “I’ll take these.”

  She ‘enthusiastically’ takes his money, makes change, then mutters, “Thanks.”

  He smiles at the three of us and heads off into the parking lot in search of his car.

  After a while more of no one looking at us, Sophia starts trying to say hello to people when they go by. She reels one woman with a baby in by the guilt technique, but most people continue fast-walking around the table.

  Sierra catches a glimpse of her reflection in the store window and sighs. “Gawd, we look like such complete doofuses. These uniforms are so lame. Why do we even have to do this?”

  I pat her on the head again. “It makes Mom happy. You know she’s big into the Girl Scout thing. Besides. You can’t spend your whole life playing video games.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Challenge accepted.”

  A guy in a suit and really noisy dress shoes goes by, ignoring Sophia’s cheesy smile. I fold my arms and lean against the wall, maybe two steps behind my sisters. Not that I’m expecting any kind of trouble, but I’m still close enough to intervene if anything weird happens. For about another hour, shoppers mostly ignore us, which puts Sophia into a bad mood. And by bad mood, I mean she’s upset and sniffling. Sierra goes through a few minutes of guilt at that, then gets pissed off at people making Sophia cry by ignoring her. She sets aside her attitude and starts trying to do the smiling, approachable little Girl Scout thing. Aww. I keep my mouth shut and observe from behind. Sophia’s mood improves, and they tag team a few people into some Thin Mints.

  At a sudden upwelling of energy inside me, I whirl around to face the wall and bow my head. Red-orange light flares and fades on the concrete, a sign that my eyes give away the moment I ‘go online.’

  “Hi,” chirps Sophia. “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

  “Piss off,” says a man.

  I spin back around at the same moment a heavyset guy in a Seahawks T-shirt swats the box of cookies Sophia was holding up to him right out of her hands. It lands on the sidewalk a few feet away.

  Sophia gasps and jumps back.

  “Hey!” yells Sierra, leaning toward him.

  “You kids need to get out of here. Can’t go to the damn store anymore without some little kid sticking their hands out and begging for money. Last week, softball. Week before that, gymnastics. Don’t your parents have jobs?”

  “That’s no excuse to hit her!” says Sierra.

  The man looms at Sierra, and knocks a few more boxes off the table.

  I shove off the wall and walk up to the table. “Hey, shithead.”

  He glares at me. “You got a prob―”

  “Yeah. I do. Pick those up. And I think for being so rude to such cute, innocent girls, you should apologize by buying all the cookies you knocked over.”

  The man blinks. His aggression wanes to an expression like a scolded schoolboy. “Okay. Sorry.”

  Sophia tucks up beside me, clinging, while Sierra goes wide-eyed.

  After the jackass picks up all six boxes he’d knocked over―including the one he smacked right out of Sophia’s hands―Sierra totals it up on an order sheet, and the guy pays cash. The Safeway had been generous enough to give the prior girls at the table a stack of plastic bags. He stuffs his haul in one, and walks into the store without another word.

  “Dude…” Sierra grins at me. “Did you?”

  “He hit Soph,” I say. “He got off light.”

  “I thought he was gonna like really hit me,” whispers Sophia.

  “Oh wow.” Sierra notices the sky. “It’s after eight… sun’s going down.”

  I lock eyes with a well-dressed woman on her way into the store. “Hi. Can I interest you in some Thin Mints?”

  As soon as the Sentra comes to a stop beside Mom’s Yukon, Sophia flies out of the car like a little blonde missile. She races inside yelling and waving her clipboard.

  Sierra still hasn’t stopped giggling. She’s a little more sedate, and walks beside me as we follow the multicolored stone path to the door. Sophia’s orbiting Mom, waving the clipboard and cheering.

  Mom looks at us, eyebrow raised. “Where are the cookies?”

 
; “We sold them all,” says Sierra.

  “All of them?” Mom blinks.

  “Yeah!” Sophia bounces on her toes. “And we got more orders!”

  Mom looks over the three filled-up sheets, her eyebrows ticking up little by little. “That’s amazing.”

  Sophia squeals in delight.

  Perhaps too innocently, I walk past them on my way to the basement stairs.

  “Sarah?” asks Mom as I pass. “Can I talk to you a moment?”

  Crap. Busted.

  I freeze. “Uhh, sure.”

  “All right, you two. Well done.” Mom hugs them both. “Go get ready for bed.”

  “Aww, Mom…” Sierra whines. “I’m not even tired.”

  Sophia runs off without protest.

  “At least get ready for bed,” says Mom.

  “Okay.” Sierra starts taking the ‘lame’ uniform off before she’s even on the stairs.

  Mom folds her arms and gives me ‘the look.’

  “So, one guy got a little rude with them.” I explain the Seahawks fan who knocked the cookies right out of Sophia’s hands.

  “You helped.”

  “Well, yeah. Didn’t you ask me to take them because you had some court stuff?”

  Mom sighs. “No, I mean you helped.” She leans toward me making weird-eyes.

  I bite my lip and fidget. “Maybe some assistance of the inexplicable variety occurred, but you should’ve seen them. Sophia was in tears because no one would even look at her, and Sierra…”

  “I know she’s not too thrilled with the whole thing, but that’s no excuse to mind control people into buying cookies.”

  “But Mom―”

  “No ‘buts,’ young lady. Not only is that unethical, if those people learn you’re doing that, they might take you away.”

  Head down, I sigh. “Mom… I doubt the PIBs are gonna care about something like that.”