Wolshire

Chapter 16

Casper

Two Days Later

Victoria hadn't had another outburst, but since that day, there were moments when she wasn't fully 'here.' Truthfully, we'd all been extra nice to her.

"Here." I held out a mug of tea I'd made my parents buy. "Now my parents think I'm drinking tea, so you'd better come around often and drink these."

She laughed slightly. Victoria continued staring out my window. She sat on my bed, looking beautiful, her gaze fixed on something I knew wasn't outside my window.

My mom had designed my room, and I glanced at the mirror that she'd hung in case I ever decided that I cared about what I was wearing. I kept looking at the mirror and didn't notice that Victoria was trying to get my attention.

"Casper!" She grabbed my shoulder.

"What do vampires look like when they look into mirrors?" I wasn't thinking when I spoke. The words just flew out of my mouth. "Err, what?"

"No, it's fine." It wasn't fine.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I've just never seen you look into a mirror. There's a mirror by the front door, and you've never looked at it once." I said. I was still looking into it.

"I have noticed it, but I do not like looking at myself." She wasn't going to look in the mirror. She stayed staring out the window, not even looking at me once during our conversation. She barely even moved.

I drank her tea, realizing she wasn't going to touch it. "Anne?" I said, thinking of a nickname for her.

"Not my middle name." She chuckled.

"Tori?" She made a disgusted face. "Well, would you rather be called Melanie, then?"

She laughed, "Absolutely not."

"Fisher?"

"If you call me Fisher, I will not respond." She tried to hide the smile on her face.

"Okay, Fisher."

She looked straight down to her fiddling fingers with a tiny little smile on her face.

"What are you thinking about?"

"London."

"What is in London?"

"I do not know. Why do not you read the journals I left in your loft?"

I remembered the night I went looking for Victoria's clan. "I found one of your journals. It was in French, however, but it said something. I can't remember exactly." I thought about it and my memory came up blank. "I'll just go read them-"

"Wait, did you say you cannot remember?" Victoria's head shot up, and she grabbed my wrist using her vampire speed.

"Fisher, stop it." She didn't let go. "Victoria!" She pulled me close, holding on to me with my shoulders, staring intently into my eyes.

"You did not read any journals written by VAL; you figured that they were fake, and you will pack them up and give them to me in boxes." The room shook as she spoke.

Hours Later

I was packing up a dozen journals that VAL had written. "Who do you think VAL was? She wrote so many fake journals for it not to be significant in some way."

"Probably someone who wrote books. You know, fictional ones."

"Well, that's a lot of fake books for one person to write." I picked up a book. "What do you think VAL stands for?"