Diary of a Newborn Vampire (BOOK #1)

Val's Questions

    Dear Diary,

Vampires don't exist. They can't exist. And I can't be one. I am dreaming. I have to be dreaming. This stuff doesn't happen in real life. People don't become the monsters they read about. I can't be one.

I washed the blood and dirt out of my hair and off of my body. The shower woke me up more than I wanted. Waking up in this reality--this nightmare reality--meant coming face to face with the ugly truth. I wanted everything that was happening to me--the way I attacked those men, the red eyes that now replaced my blue ones, all of it--to be a horrid dream. I wanted to wake up in my warm bed in a reality where I was Ava, the queen of everything. The girl who had everything.

Funny how this morning I woke up in this very place as a very different person. All day I had this sinking feeling in my gut. I just knew something was going to happen, something bad. But I shrugged it off like usual. Nothing else bad could happen to me, I had thought.

Someone knocked lightly on the bathroom door. I half expected it to be Liv, still here and still frightened by what she witness downstairs. But a different voice spoke through the wood.

"Ava?" Val asked, muffled by the only object standing in between her and the horrid monster her sister had become. "Are you alright? Liv just left. She looked really freaked out. I'm worried. What happened to you? Where have you been?"

I gripped the sink tightly, feeling it curve to my fingers. When I lifted them back up, slight indentions were left in their place. "Val, right now is not a good time."

My throat had begun to burn again as I stood in the shower. The dried blood going down the drain made my mouth water. The blood of my attackers didn't last long in my system. I was already feeling weaker but at the same time more alert than ever.

I could smell Val from the other side of the door. She had a different scent from Liv. Something more pungent. Almost unappetizing. Good, I thought to myself. Maybe I would be less prone to attacking her if she smelled bad.

I curled into a ball on the linoleum, hugging my knees to my chest, and ducking my head in between my knees. My bathrobe smelled odd now. Funny how you don't really think of yourself having a certain scent until you're no longer yourself.

"Please, Val. Just leave me alone." My hair hung wet and tangled over my shoulders, and the mark on my neck was no longer a bloody mess but now a clear indentation of teeth. If she saw me now, she would freak out just as much as Liv had. Maybe even more.

"Ava," she whispered against the door. "I'm worried about you. Liv said something about the way you were acting." She paused for a second, and then her voice became louder and clearer as if she was leaning farther into the door. "She mentioned your eyes. That they were red."

A sob escaped my throat. "No, Val. I'm fine. It's all just a misunderstanding."

"Really?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Because Liv made it sound like something serious was going on. She seemed so scared. Come on, Ava. Just open this door for me. Let me see your face."

"No, I can't. Everything's fine, Val. Just go away."

My chest heaved now. The aroma of her blood forced my head to spin. And she was bound to break down the door and make it worse. I didn't want to do to her what I did to those men. Val was the only family I had left.

I could hear her walking away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't sure how I would get out--through the window, maybe. I pulled myself from the floor and wrapped my robe more tightly around my body.