Ready Or Not

A Giant Middle Finger

**Lydia**

There's no good way to tell your family you're stupid and you're sorry, but...for a bit there, you had almost enjoyed yourself. Not that I wanted to be careless and threaten the wellbeing of our little pack, it’s just that it had felt incredible to just fall into instinct and detach for a few moments. I hadn't been able to turn my brain off like that when we'd cleared a bank full of people on our way to get to Theo, and then Anna. I'd been too focused on my family. So yeah, I'd enjoyed myself a bit. Until reality came crashing down.

I never want to do anything that would put my best friends in any kind of legal hot water. And I sure as hell don't want to go back to whatever I was before Theo found me. That was the furthest thing from human I've ever been, and I terrified myself during those years. Mostly because I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing, so obviously things would be different now but I still have zero desire to be an animal.

Anna had reassured me that's not who I was anymore. She's promised to remind me of that from time to time. And at first, yeah, I'd been upset with myself for losing control and coming so close to getting caught when we'd just gotten more or less back to normal (whatever “normal” is), and I felt bad that Theo had to cover my ass. But after our movie was over and the boys had crawled into Anna's bed and she had crawled into mine, I lay awake for a long time.

Duke's tail kept finding its way to my face and Anna was being a bed hog, so I'd gone to the living room with a blanket and thought. I spent so much time denying myself. Why? Because of the stupid rules the humans had put in place? Granted, vampires had helped make the rules, and we agreed to them, but...how the hell could they really enforce them? Every vampire I'd heard of going to prison went more or less of their own volition. They recognized they had broken the law and agreed they needed to be punished. But what was keeping them within those walls, really?

What could they do to me? To any of us? It was a stupid line of thought, and I shook it off, channel surfing until I finally fell asleep. It was still too early when Anna found me in the morning. She pulled the remote out of my hand and her deaf golden retriever made himself at home on top of me. He never thought he was a lap dog until Anna moved in with me. She’d turned him into one the first day I’d left her alone in my apartment. Our apartment.

She hadn’t anticipated how anxious being alone would make her. Theo, Daniel, and I hadn’t left her alone since we’d first moved her out of her place and into Theo’s- it had been months. So when I came home, I found Duke on my couch, Anna peeking out from under him looking content and snuggling him, and I just haven’t had the heart to tell the beast he’s not allowed on my furniture. Not when he makes my Anna feel so safe and happy.

She did kick him off the couch though, but only so she could take his place on top of me. She tucked the blanket up to my chin and sat on my legs. “You want coffee?” she asked.

I squeezed my eyes closed against the morning light. “Always.”

“Well when you get up, you can make me some too.”

I groaned and tried to pull the blanket up over my face but she wouldn’t be budged.

“Why did you wake me, little one?” I asked, sounding grumpier than I meant to.

She shrugged and shifted off of me, instead stretching out next to me and resting her fluffy slipper clad feet on top of my legs. “You don’t sleep out here. Ever. Not overnight. Naps are one thing, but if you’re out here at night it’s because you’re with one or all of us, or you can’t sleep because you’re thinking. So I thought you might want to talk. Besides, I was awake and didn’t feel like wasting the day in bed. So I got up, and it was almost unavoidable that I’d wake you up.”