Diary of a Newborn Vampire (BOOK #1)

The Red Eyes

Ava

I felt no emotion on the rest of my walk home. I wiped my mouth of the rest of the blood though some of it dried in my hair and hardening with the cold. All those men now lay dead and I didn't feel anything about it. I killed them and I didn't even care.

Through the front window of my house, I spotted lamplight in the living room where Val probably sat inside reading a book or watching late night TLC. I would have to slip in noiselessly past her and bolt straight to the shower.

My head felt like a thousand cotton balls had made home. I didn't know what was going on or if I was dreaming after all. It all felt like a dream--a nightmare, really. In real life, I wouldn't kill someone. No, I wouldn't be like this.

I slowly creaked open the door trying not to keep quiet, but the old hinges echoed a loud, ear-screeching sound. I pulled the coat I still had wrapped around me higher up to cover the spot on my neck.

"Ava, is that you?" a voice called from the living room, but it didn't belong to Val.

Liv stepped into the foyer still in my slinky black dress. Dark bags hung under her brown eyes and her makeup smudged down her face, surrounded by dark hair that hung in kinky curls and frizzed up at the ends.

She ran over without fully looking at me and threw her arms around my shoulders, squeezing me too, too tightly.

"Thank God, you're okay," she breathed into my neck.

My throat burned with the closeness. It was unnatural. The smell of her nauseated me and, I knew it wasn't just the scent of her perfume that made my stomach churn. Her natural scent--the smell of her blood--made my teeth ache like they had right before I attacked those men.

"After our fight, I looked everywhere for you," she spoke, her voice muffled while her head remained buried in my shoulder, "and I couldn't find you. Someone said you went upstairs, but you weren't there either. I went out, even to the diner just to see if you ran away there. Then I decided to come over here. Val said she thought you were still at the party or with me."

The scent of alcohol had died on her. I'd been pretty mess up after our fight and part of me hoped she felt the same though I didn't really believe she ever would, but right now she spoke like she meant it. Like Truth Liv and half-way sober Liv might've seen the same light for once.

"I'm so sorry for what I said, Ava. I swear I didn't mean it. You know how I get when I have too much to drink. Stuff just starts spilling out. Stuff I don't mean."

And then came the lies. Liv usually kept to herself, especially when it came to what she really thought about me. She meant what she said at the party. And I believed her.

"I'm sorry, too," I croaked. My head spun. I had to get away from her before the new me took over and treated her just how I had treated those men. "I didn't mean anything I said either. I was just mad, you know that, right?"

She pulled back with a light smile across her chapped lips. Then the corners of her mouth went down and her dark eyes widened with horror. Her feet shuffled back and she rammed into the end table. A vase of fake flowers fell and cracked sending shards of glass across the floor.

"Ava," Liv whispered, her voice unsteady. "Your eyes. What...how...Please tell me you're messing with me. This is some sick joke, isn't it? God, and here I was worrying about you."