A Grave Problem

4. A New Life

Just like Hana promised, she taught Mia everything she knew about being a vampire. At first it had been really hard for Mia to transition. But after a little more than a year, Mia was finally starting to get comfortable with who she was. She'd discovered that she needed to go out about twice a week in order to be able to function. The only problem was that the town she lived in wasn't all that big. As far as Mia knew, Hana had been the only vampire in town. But now that there were two of them, that meant twice as many attacks. Hana had been worried that this might be a problem.

"You're going to have to be more careful." she'd told Mia.

"Why?" Mia had never been caught - she'd never even been close to having anyone suspect her. So what was Hana's problem?

"There's not really enough people here for both of us."

Mia narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just that people are starting to get suspicious. I mean, if we lived in a bigger city, it wouldn't be a problem. But here, where everybody knows each other...Just be careful, ok? I don't want to have any problems."

Mia narrowed her eyes. After a minute she nodded, deciding not to say anything. She was annoyed at Hana for suggesting she wasn't being careful. After all, it was Hana's not being careful that had gotten Mia into this situation in the first place. But even though she thought it, Mia decided not to actually say anything. As much as she hated to admit it, Mia needed Hana; she was the only other vampire Mia knew.

Still, over the next few weeks, Hana stayed on edge. Mia had hoped Hana would calm down a bit, but she was convinced that there just weren't enough people in their town to support the both of them. Mia didn't see what the big deal was. Being so new to the whole thing, she wasn't used to looking for the signs that the people around her were getting worried. As she looked back on those conversations with Hana now, she couldn't believe she'd missed it.

If she hadn't been so reliant on Hana, Mia would have talked to her other friends more. She was sure she would have seen how worried everyone actually was. It wasn't until things got too bad to ignore that Mia finally saw what was going on.

It had been getting harder for Mia to find people out alone, but she managed to write it off as a coincidence. It was getting colder outside, so of course people wouldn't be out as much. But when people started actually avoiding her on the street, even Mia couldn't ignore that. Even in daylight - when she wasn't out hunting - people would stare at her. She even had a few people cross the street when she'd walk by. It wasn't long before everyone she knew was avoiding her like the plague. She asked Hana about it, but she just shrugged.

"I told you, there's not enough people here for both of us. They were bound to get suspicious sooner or later."

"Yeah, but why are they suspicious of me?" Mia could see people being worried in general, maybe even suspicious about her and Hana, but not worried about only her. Mia only hunted with Hana; if they thought something was wrong with Mia, why didn't they seem to have the same problems with Hana?

"People have been asking a lot of questions lately. And a lot of the students remember how you got attacked by something last year but weren't really hurt. They think something's wrong with you."

"And you didn't say anything?" Mia could almost understand how Hana hadn't stood up for her, even though the whole thing was her fault in the first place. But to not even tell Mia that people were saying these kinds of things? Who would do that to a friend?

"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry - I really do like you. But you're on your own with this one."

Mia couldn't believe that was the way Hana really felt. It was true Hana hadn't exactly been a great friend - after all, she'd attacked Mia in the middle of the night just because she was there. She'd taught Mia everything she knew, sure, but she wouldn't have had to do that if she hadn't messed up so bad in the first place.