“I’m going,” I said adamantly to Broderick, gripping my bow in my left hand. “If they’re after me I deserve to know why.”

“We can send you a memo,” Broderick said, dropping a netted bag of lemons into a canvas backpack along with a few packages of crossbow bolts. “Have you ever been in a real fight? And by that I mean a fight where you didn’t get one of the most important people in your life killed?”

“Excuse me?” I clenched my fist, my face beginning to burn a deep red. “There was NOTHING I could do for Meredith!”

“You’re gods damn right there wasn’t,” Broderick zipped the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then lifted a heavy black crossbow from his desk and rested it in both hands. “You want to know something, Jasmine? The mirrors we use to travel, they have a neat feature, they capture events that they see. We were able to see the entire fight, and you know what? You got her killed. Yeah, I’m probably going to hurt your feelings but quite frankly dear, I don’t give a fuck. She told you to run, out the front door. If you’d done that, she wouldn’t have had to stay to protect YOU.”

“That’s…fuck you!” I shouted. “How dare you?! I loved Meredith! How fucking DARE you?!”

“You apparently loved the idea of showing up more than you loved the idea of keeping her alive. How does it feel, Jasmine?” Broderick looked at me, the expression on his face wasn’t anger so much as it was condescension. “How does it feel to pretend you’re the victim instead of being the one that killed her? Understand this, you made a mistake. It’s not the first one you’ll make over the millennia. I’ve gotten people killed myself, and it’s not a good feeling, but here’s the thing, you need to own up to it. You need to come to terms with the fact that you valued your pride and vanity over her life, only then are you going to fucking grow up.”

Broderick walked out of the room, leaving me to fume by his desk. I glanced toward the door and saw Rhea leaning against the frame, arms folded, one foot up behind her resting against the wall. She looked over at me and shook her head.

“You’d better listen to him,” She told me. “You get a little taste of immortality and you think you know it all? You know shit. Stay here, keep your head down, before you get your mother killed too.”

“For all I know, she’s already dead,” I spat out.

“She’s your mother,” Rhea said, lower her leg and turning to leave the room. “If she were dead, you’d know.”

I let out a shriek of anger and slammed my fist down on Broderick’s desk. I couldn’t believe that they could even SAY that to me. I hadn’t gotten Meredith killed, I’d tried to save her. This was complete bullshit and now they were off on some fucking adventure that was all about me, without me. The basement grew silent as everyone left, through one of the mirrors, without me obviously. Funny thing, they could use the mirrors as long as I wasn’t along. Maybe that was the real reason.

“Hey Jasmine,” A familiar voice said. I turned around to see my sister standing in the door. I was still getting used to the fact that she was taller, and way older than me. I knew that it had happened, and I knew HOW it had happened, but to see it, oh my god. “You feeling alright?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Things are just…you know.”

She nodded.

“Well, while they’re gone, I’m on babysitting duty, so come on little sis. We have a lot of catching up to do anyway.”

“Little sis,” I smirked. “You know I’m like thirty-five, right?”

“Mmm not from where I’m standing,” She grinned sardonically. I blushed. “Come on, let’s go, I don’t want to carry you out of here, but I swear I will.”

I reluctantly followed her up the stairs and allowed her to lead me to a car. It was a pink convertible – not what I’d been expecting her to drive at ALL. I’d expected something black, like a hearse. I mean, she was a vampire, right? She saw me staring at the car and shook her head, then walked right past me and opened the passenger side door.

“In,” She spoke with a commanding voice. I flinched a little bit, then walked to the car, unsure if I’d done so under my own power or because she’d told me to. I guess it didn’t matter. She closed the door and walked to the other side, throwing the car into gear and pulling out of the parking spot.

“So where do you live, anyway?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Some underground lair, or an abandoned church? Where do vampires live?

“Don’t you think that’s a little insulting?” She asked. I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not, but then she cracked a grin. “I live in a house, a house you’re pretty familiar with.”

As soon as she said that, I noticed that she was pulling onto a familiar street. A really familiar street. In fact, she pulled into the driveway of a home that I’d known for the first eighteen years of my life.

“Meghan,” I whispered. “Are we…going to see mom and dad?”

She shook her head, I sighed in relief as she patted my hand.

“Let’s go inside, little sis,” She unbuckled her seat belt and stood up, waiting for me to join her on the other side. As I did she took my hand in hers and walked us up the driveway. Reaching the front walk I felt my knees begin to buckle. I didn’t want to go in there. I was immortal, I shouldn’t have felt the way I did, it’s not like they could hurt me. But the memories. Oh gods, the memories they kept flushing back into my consciousness like dirty water, swishing around and permeating my existence.

“Meghan?” I said questioningly.

“It’s okay hon,” She reassured me. “We need to do this.”

I let her lead me up to the front door, my body was numb as we walked through the front door, and even more memories began to dig their way out of a grave I’d dug for them more than a decade ago. As we stepped inside though, the house was different, very, very different. It was more feminine first of all. I mean, it wasn’t pink or anything but it definitely had more of a female touch. I guess the best way to put it would be ‘college girl’, it had that vibe to it. Mom and dad were nowhere to be seen, but I kept expecting them to appear at any moment. My body was tense. I looked up at her, I think I was trembling. She smiled and led my past the dining room and down the hall, to her room. It looked largely the same, though fewer posters on the walls, and a laptop sitting on a glass desk in the corner.

“Do you remember how much time we spent in here?” She asked as she led me over to her bed and literally lifted me onto it. She sat beside me and threw an arm around me. “Dad hated you for it.”

“Yeah,” I remembered. “He thought…he thought I wasn’t manly enough, I mean he…wanted me to do boy things like, I don’t know…what do boys do?”

“I have no idea,” She admitted.

“Meghan, where are mom and dad? What happened to them? Whose house is this?”

“Well, Jasmine, honey, when you disappeared I…I head a breakdown of sorts, I guess. With you gone, mom and dad, they turned their anger on me. I guess I got a small taste of what they’d put you through. I mean I guess it was going to happen anyway, since you moved out, but…maybe it was worse, I don’t know. Sometimes people take their grief and turn it into rage. When I was seventeen, I met Jothron. There was just something different about him. Mom and dad hated him, I loved him. Of course it would work that way.”

“Of course,” I nodded, interrupting her.

“He came here, to my room one night, said he could set me free, so of course, I took him up on it. He took me away from here, and he changed me. At first it was amazing but…he turned out to be so much worse than they were. He controlled every aspect of my life. He…I…I was his slave, until one day, I found a way to turn on him. I killed him. He was stronger than me, but I found a way to kill him. Then, in my blind rage, I came back here and…I took mom and dad, I locked them up, in the basement, and I told them everything, everything they’d done to me, and to you. I…tortured them for months, and I told them why. I made sure they knew, and they tried to apologize. Especially dad. Oh, he groveled, he didn’t want to die. He begged me to kill mom first. I think at the end she realized what a scumbag she’d married but…I wasn’t really feeling charitable. Once their bodies were found, I put a bid on this house, the moment it went up on the market, and, well, here we are.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I shook my head. “I should feel something, anything at all but I just feel…”

“Relived?”

“Relieved,” I confirmed.

“You and I,” She told me. “We’re free now. You got the mother you always needed. I got revenge for both of us. There’s going to be danger ahead, little sister, but don’t be afraid, I’m with you every step of the way. So tell me, what’s one thing you always wanted to do while you were in here, back then?”

I grinned sheepishly.

“Try on your clothes, obviously.”

“Well,” She said, standing up and gesturing toward the closet. “Nothing stopping you now.”