Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Meet the Parent: Part One

Modern Day (set after the end of Revelations)

I stood on the pavement, staring up at the grubby little house that I'd once called home. It had only been a matter of weeks since I'd left here, as a human, and moved into Belle Morte, where I'd died and become a vampire, but already that felt like a lifetime.

In many ways I was still that same girl. In other ways, I would never be that girl again.

Edmond Dantès took my hand. "Are you ready to go in?"

"Not yet," I said.

I tore my gaze from the house and looked down the street. Two of the streetlamps were out, creating patches of darkness between the bright yellow glow from the others.

All my life I'd lived on this street. I remembered playing here with June, when we were kids, riding our bikes up and down the pavement, always trying to avoid that pothole that still hadn't been filled. The bikes had been rickety and rusting in patches, donated to us by a neighbourhood family once their own kids had outgrown them, and we'd both been aware that we had to be very careful with them since Mum couldn't afford to have them repaired or replaced, but we'd loved them.

When I closed my eyes, I thought I could still feel the wind on my face and in my hair, the jolt of the bike beneath me, the sound of June's laughter as she beat me in yet another race.

Back then, I could never have imagined that the day would come when June's laughter would be silenced forever.

I could never have imagined that I'd fall in love with a vampire either, or become one myself, but here I was, fangs and all.

"Okay," I said. "I'm ready."

As we walked up the path to the front door, it occurred to me that this was the first time that I'd see Edmond in my old house. I knew he'd been here before, looking for me after Etienne's goons had kidnapped me, but I hadn't been here then. It was also the first time that Mum and Edmond would formally meet. Technically they'd met at June's funeral a week ago, but that day had been about mourning June's loss, not about introducing Mum to my boyfriend, and even if I'd wanted to, she'd left Belle Morte shortly after the ceremony.

Before June had become a donor, Mum had been indifferent to vampire houses. Now, unsurprisingly, she hated them.

I hoped that, one day, she'd be able to visit me properly at Belle Morte, but she'd made it clear that that wouldn't be today.

Knocking on what had, up until a few weeks ago, been my own front door felt very strange, but I'd had to leave my key behind when I became a donor, and I'd never got it back.

A couple of moments passed, then Mum opened the door.

She looked like she'd aged about ten years, her face drawn and hollow, her eyes smudged with exhaustion, and her hair, slightly browner than mine or June's, scraped into a knot on top of her head.

Her expression softened when she looked at me, but there was suspicion in her eyes when she looked at Edmond. From anyone else, that would have made me bristle and want to leap to his defence, but I couldn't exactly blame her.

"Come in," she said, gesturing.

I hugged her as soon as I stepped inside, and she stiffened against me before hugging me back. It was only for a second or two, and maybe it had been an involuntary flinch, but it still stung.

Wisely, Edmond didn't try to hug her.

Mum led us through to the living room, and Edmond and I took a seat on the tattered sofa.