Dracula's Secret

8

Remington's POV: 

Shortly after excusing himself, Ricky came running down the hallway with my book in his hands. When did he get that? How did he get that? I looked at the coffee table. Wow, that's quite remarkable that I didn't notice that. "I know!" He shouted. If Sebastian were in the room, he'd be biting his nails right about now. "I know that you were there! " 

"I was where? " I giggled stupidly. It may have been the drugs that was making this fun, but it may have also been the fact that he seemed so crazy while he was doing it. 

"You were in my house! I can prove it too!" He held out his phone to me, and on it was an image of fingerprints on his refrigerator, and they matched that of the ones on the book that he'd taken. It's quite interesting that he went to such great lengths to prove his sanity. The lengths themselves make him seem a bit psychotic. 

Emerson stood up and started guiding Ricky to the door. "Please, Remington and I have things to discuss."

"He's unnatural!"

I clicked my tongue. "You aren't all there yourself."

"Please don't come again, and tell no one about this!" Emerson continued, shoving Ricky out the front door despite the protests from the latter. Finally, the door was slammed shut. I feel like I should be worried about the future to come, but I just can't bring myself to care. As I predicted, I was approached by my younger brother. "If Sebastian was here, do you know what he'd be doing to you right now? How could you let it happen again?"

I shrugged. "I have no control over my powers."

"Have a little bit of fight. You just let them take you over. It's quite infuriating, especially when you freak out intelligent people." I don't know if he was insulting the other people that I've made acquaintance with in my lifetime, or if he was saying that intelligence was a bad quality to have. Either way, my indifference was setting records.

"It doesn't work like that." I traced my finger over on of the lines on our plaid couch.

"What are we going to do with you? Do you want to get sent away?"

"Maybe that be for the better. You can pretend like you don't have a junkie brother." 

The look of hurt on Emerson's face was absolutely priceless, and it killed me to see. But I only told him like it was. What did he want for me to do? Lie to him?

"You think that I'm ashamed of you?"

"You are."

"I'm not!" He looked me in the eyes. "I looked up to you for everything. You kept everyone together when Dad left.....or at least the other one. And you were always more of a brother to me than Sebastian. I wanted to start a band with you because you were the best singer that I'd ever known. I don't usually get upset with you over these types of things because I really don't care. I understand that you have powers. I understand that you're still young and reckless. I don't mind it. But you destroying yourself, selling yourself out to drugs, and than thinking that I don't like you anymore.....that's just complete and utter bullshit!"

"I didn't know that you were good at heart-to-hearts. It's a damn shame that I don't have anything to say back." I looked away from him. This time, I didn't want to see that look of disappointment and hurt in his eyes. 

"If that's how you feel, then I'm done." I heard him storm off, and then slam the door to his bedroom. 

I sighed as I picked up Dracula once more, reading more of the margins than the actual text. The book wasn't half bad, but the margins was where everything good was. After seeing that tree the other day, and hearing information from that girl who seemed to know everything about me, I decided that I may as well do a little bit of research on my 'heritage.' Unfortunately, most of what I read was rather useless information. A lot of it was simply annotation of whoever previously owned the book. There was however, one thing that I read that I found interesting. It stated that not everything in the book was fact. It stated that real vampires usually have no idea that they even are, and this is because they have no weaknesses, except for possibly the steak to the heart. In fact, they don't even remember living as long as they have. Imagery may make this a bit easier. 

I wonder if that's true. I stood up and walked into the foyer of my house, where there was a shelf of old books that I'd found in the attic of Mom's house. Or I guess that she may not have been my biological mother after all. I took a scrapbook off of one of the shelves. Inside was a bundle of sepia images from the twenties and thirties. For the most part, they weren't relevant, but there was one that caught my eye. Of a man that looked exactly like my father.....

.....and a boy who looked exactly like me.