The Monster Apocalypse

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Paul cowered down against the cold cement again. He thought he would be safe. He thought he would survive his father's umpteenth threat that the teenaged vampire would once again be a dead man.

But as Brin's mother pressed her face in between the bars and grinned down at him like she wanted to munch on his brain for a midnight snack, Paul realized the severity of his situation. He realized, for the first time, this could be it.

"You kissed my daughter?"

"I... uhh..."

"You put your wicked vampire lips on my precious little girl?" Mrs. Skar shook her head in disappointment, then revealed her sharp, giant fangs at the front of her mouth.

Paul scooted forward and narrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "With all due respect, Mrs. Skar, you're a vampire now, too."

She tapped her long fingernails against the metal bars and noticeably bit down hard on her yellowing tongue. "Which is exactly why we have to maintain her innocence. She doesn't deserve to be pulled into our world."

"Our world?" Paul wasn't afraid of this woman. Just days ago she was making him hamburgers with raw meat and soups with strained, tasteless tomatoes. "You've been a vampire for one day, Mrs. Skar. You don't know the half of what it means to be us."

"You know what? I don't really care what you think. You're a little punk. You're nothing to me. And you're nothing to your father. All you've been to that wonderful, caring man is disrespectful from minute one. For over a hundred years he told me. What kind of a son does what you do? Why can't you just listen to your father?"

"Because every time I listen to him, he threatens to kill me! It's not what I would call a normal, loving relationship—"

"Yes, well..." Mrs. Skar trailed off for a moment. She wrapped her fingers around the bars and pressed her head even closer to Paul's, even though she didn't seem to have the desire to physically open the cell door. "I can't really argue with that. Since you are going to die tonight." She snickered to herself a little, like she was looking forward to watching Paul be torn limb from limb. "But it's something you could've avoided. If you had just been the kind of child we all hope for. I had one with Brin. We've had our little tiffs over the years, but she's always come back around. You, on the other hand, have made your father look like a fool, time and time again—"

"And I can't argue with that. He is a fool. I don't have to do anything to show the world that."

"He's not a fool. You're the fool, Paul. You're a little piece of shit who lied to me, lied to my daughter. You think you can make her happy. You think you can actually be her boyfriend?"

Mrs. Skar had been so polite to Paul in the last two weeks that he was having difficulty talking to this new darker version of her. It'd been so long since he saw someone turn into a vampire, that he forgot that the personality changed, too, even if that person was, as a human, the kindest, gentlest person on the planet. Once that person became a vampire, he or she turned a little, or a lot, darker. Always.

Which is why Droz was so upset when Paul started developing a soul, as early as 1915. One hundred years ago.

"I love your daughter, Mrs. Skar," Paul said. "I don't know how or why, but I do. She's the first person in forever... to get me. And I know she feels the same way."

Tessa finally pushed her face away from the bars, and took a step back into the hallway. She stood far away from the cell for a second, tapping her feet loudly and annoyingly against the hard surface of the ground.