Safety is Relative

Chapter One- A Fresh Start

Safety is Relative, my Dad once told me.

It depends on how you look at it.

 

For example, many more people have a fear of flying than a fear of driving. Why? Cars are familiar, and we see them every day. Most people don’t crash their cars.

Planes, however, are different. The only time they are in the news are if they’ve crashed or exploded. They don’t seem safe.

But safety is relative, depending on how you look at it.

Millions more people are killed every year from car crashes than plane crashes.

So whilst being in a car may seem safer…in reality, planes are so much more.

 

I didn’t understand this concept at first.

It was only after, that I understood.

Because moving to the safest place in the world doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. A village in the middle of nowhere, with the highest ratio of slayers to humans in the country. No vampire would dare set foot in a five-mile radius of the place.

So you’re safe, right?

Wrong.

What if some of the deadliest killers in the whole of history decided to live there too? No-one looks for a vampire in a vampire-free village.

Doesn’t seem so safe now, does it?

The sign reads: Welcome to Kirking. It’s worn and weathered, the cracked wood split, but the painted-on words are bright and fresh, like someone has recently gone over it. A heavy branch dips over the sign, and as we drive past, the white words are swallowed by a flash of the green leaves.

I turn away from the window and see that Sorrel’s head has dipped forwards again onto his chest, his neck at a painful right-angle. I give Ash, who is obliviously listening to his iPod, a hard glare. Why hasn’t he bothered to put our little brother’s head back up? Why do I always have to?

I push Sorrel’s head up with more force than is necessary, and he wakes up.

‘Rue…’ he moans, blinking. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, feeling guilty.

‘We’re nearly there now, Sorrel,’ says Dad.

I feel Quinn flick the back of my head. ‘That wasn’t very nice,’

I turn around and give him the evil eye, but when I turn back he just flicks my head again.

‘Mum, Quinn is flicking me,’ I complain.

‘Don’t start fighting,’ says Mum wearily, ‘I know it’s been a long day, but we’re nearly there now.’

‘I don’t know why we had to move so far away anyway,’ says Ash, wrapping his headphones up and sticking his iPod in the seat pocket.

‘You know why we had to move,’ says Mum quietly.

We are all looking at Ash. This is a forbidden subject to discuss.

He shrugs. ‘Yeah, I know we had to move. I just meant why so far?’

There's silence.

Finally, ‘you’ll like Kirking,’ says Mum, ‘It’s very small, and very safe.’