Two Truths and a Liar

XVIII • Family matters

Harley

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"There are creatures beyond the world of day and waking. Monsters. We don't call them vampires, they aren't youthful or beautiful or glittering. They're dead. We call them Lamia, those grotesque things, and they want nothing more than to destroy life as we know it. And steal what we hold dear."

"So you're saying Leon is a vampire?"

"I'm saying it's possible."

"But..."

"I don't know. But I need to find him, and soon. Before it's too late."

Stay away from Leon.

It was easier said, in the presence of a girl who radiated pure power, cold and distant. She fought her battles. I let them happen, curled on blood stained floors.

I wasn't sure if I believed her, but there was something about her that compelled me to trust, at least, that there was something bigger she knew of that I didn't. Something dark, consuming our town slowly from the inside out, chewing up our incredulousness and spitting it out before it came for us too. There was nothing to catch our fall. We were taken under by our own inability to believe.

A time had passed since we'd talked. I would do what she said, but there was a feeling I couldn't ignore. Curiosity. It grew by the day, clawing into my mind, crushing the little sense of self-preservation I still had.

"If you need me, I'll be around."

I had a feeling I would.
And I was right.

I wasn't so stupid as to follow my own curiosity, but it always had it's own way of finding me. A curse in the form of a face, so familiar yet so strange.

A month ago, a girl named Jenna had told me he wasn't human. Today, I saw him across the room. He gaped at me, framed in a doorway in a place he didn't belong, his usually gelled hair now tossed and ragged, jean jacket slashed and torn. There was a scar on his face.

He looked at me, searching. Searching my features with eyes so lost I could've taken them for someone else. The burning curiosity in my chest ate up every other feeling, the heartache, a struck match in flame. And then something like sympathy.

We'd arrived around three, after getting dressed and dragged along with a hoard of cousins to a hair stylist who thought the only way to make something look nice was to put them under an unnecessary amount of pain. My scalp was raw from the comb, head aching from my cousins' lack of volume control. Dizzy, I stepped out of the car, pulling at the choking hold of my collar.

The church was quiet, footsteps echoing through its arched ceilings and over shined wood flooring. Despite towering over the outside buildings with its peaked roofs and enormous stained glass windows, the inside seemed even bigger. Marbled white ceilings and oak furniture, carved stone figures staring out from the walls in cold reverence. Silent. Distant. Until we made our way to a back room, where my aunt sat at a vanity surrounded by a few other women I didn't know. Her hair cascaded down her white, shimmering dress, ringlets and waves of warm brown all held together with an army of pearls. She turned and smiled, and the way her face lit up sent warmth through the entire room.

"Is that Harley?" She stood up, and one of the bridesmaids who held a camera in the other hand reached out to steady her chair before it fell. Always enthusiastic.

"Careful of the dress!"

Aunt Katie laughed, wobbling her way out of the cramped space between the vanity and the chair, her dress billowing around her. "It's alright, Marge!" she shook her head at me, grin broadening. "Sheesh, they don't make these things for moving, do they?"