“Well I’ll be around tomorrow,” he said finally, turning to walk to his truck. Lily shook her head, still feeling a little awkward and walked back into the house to put A. J. to bed and try to get some sleep herself but as she laid on the bed next to her already asleep son sleep refused to come. The events of the day kept running through her head. It had felt so good to do something so normal. She felt normal and that hadn’t happened since she had been changed.
The next day Lily got up with a yawn, only after about five hours of sleep and not surprised to see that A. J. was missing from her room. He was probably spoiled rotten by Sandy, she thought with a smile. She scratched her head as she plopped down the stairs. “Good morning!” a girl said cheerfully, appearing from nowhere and startling Lily half to death.
“Good morning,” Lily said slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. Not too many people could sneak up on her like that! She walked into the kitchen with the girl following behind her. She opened the fridge and hesitantly grabbed a small black thermos.
“What’s that?” the girl asked, looking at Lily intently with a pencil and a pad of paper in her hand.
“Um breakfast… who are you and what are you doing here… at ten in the morning,” Lily asked, glancing at the clock on the wall, trying not to sound rude then started to drink the warm blood. It had been nearly a month since she had last drank blood and she could start to feel her vamp a little edgy.
“I’m Eliza, my dad’s the new enforcer,” Eliza said with a matter of fact tone bringing Lily’s attention back to her. “And well, there’s this assignment for school where we have to do a report on somebody. It can be family, or our hero or something like that,” the girl explained. “I had done the report on my dad, but that was before you came. I decided to trash that one and do a new one on you,” She finished and Lily choked a little.
“On me? What? Why?” She asked surprised.
“Cause you’re cool…. is that blood your drinking?” Eliza asked the pencil poised and ready for action.
“Uh… yeah,” Lily admitted feeling a little awkward.
“Awesome,” she exclaimed and wrote something down.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to keep the one you did on your dad. It’s a lot more work to have to go and write a whole other report,” Lily argued, really not wanting to be the subject of some school assignment. What’s next they’ll be asking to dissect her for the biology class?
“Totally sure! My report’s going to be the coolest by far,” Eliza said with a look of total determination that Lily had seen on her uncle’s face a few times and that look never meant any good for her. God help me, she silently pleaded.
It wasn’t until the evening that Lily managed to give Eliza the slip. The whole day that girl had been hammering her with questions. The girl was tenacious and hungry for information. Some things she didn’t mind answering but others, like how she had become a hybrid, Lily refused to really give a solid answer. She almost swore that Eliza was writing her biography instead of a two-page school report. What was it with the Lacrosse family and dogging her heels? Lily sat on the picnic table and sighed in contentment at the silence of the night, finally feeling at peace, but it didn’t last long till she heard someone walk up to her. Lily cringed and waited for the bombardment of fresh questions.
“Hey Lily,” she heard James say.
“Oh, it’s you, James… thank God,” she said with a sigh of relief as she turned to look at him.
“Whoa wait a minute… did you just said “It’s you, James, thank God?” He asked with a look of shock on his face and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah that’s what I said… you have a very persistent niece,” she told him.
“Ah, Eliza… I heard she’s decided to do her assignment about you. I think she’s quite enamored by you Lily,” he teased and Lily shook her head.
“Oh, I bet your sister just loves that,” Lily said flatly.
“Actually Harley and Keon both think it’s kind of cute,” he said, sitting on the picnic bench with her. “How are you not freezing? It’s like ten degrees out here,” he demanded, with a shiver.
“I don’t get cold when I’m in vamp mode or as I like to call it committing temporary suicide,” Lily replied with a smile.
“Committing temporary suicide?” James repeated.
“Well, it’s technically true. I die every time I go full vamp or really close to it, so I am killing myself which is suicide but only until I go back to the balance which makes it temporary,” Lily explained and James started to laugh.
“The fact that you have that all thought out is freaky,” he stated and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“You’re freaky,” she snapped, giving him a little push and noticed that as soon as her shoulder touched him, the tingling started again but she ignored it.