I went to my room early that night under the pretense that I was tired and wanted to get a good night’s sleep before returning to school the next day, but I lay awake staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. My sister and I had carried on a meaningless conversation earlier in the day, and I went back over every detail, trying to figure out if there was anything at all that could be a clue as to what might be going on with her. There was nothing. I even attempted to take her pulse at one point, pretending just to want to hold on to her arm, but her heartbeat seemed normal. If she was on some sort of illicit drugs, wouldn’t her heart be racing?Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was almost 11:00 and groaned. The alarm would be going off way too soon. I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing, but that was difficult when visions of vampires filled my brain, and I had so many conversations replaying.A few minutes later, I heard my sister&rsquo

My dad always dropped me off at school on his way to work, and my mom picked me up. It was nice that she worked at home, or whatever the proper phrasing was these days, so that I didn’t have to walk or ride the bus. I felt like it was the next best thing to having my own driver’s license, which I wouldn’t get until after all of my friends were driving, thanks to my late birthday. Still, that would be next year. For now, I was content to be sitting in my mother’s minivan so long as she didn’t play any embarrassing music too loudly.I didn’t say much of anything on the way home, only answered my mom’s usual questions like, “Did you have a nice day?” and, “What did you eat for lunch?” I did not mention Dr. Joplin, nor did I ask about Dr. Sanderson.Turns out I didn’t need to. As we approached the house, I saw a rider-less motorcycle parked out front. It seems my mother had no problem letting this stra

I stepped out, too, and closed the door behind me. Luckily, I was still wearing my coat. I just realized I’d never taken it off. “Why is that funny?”“It just is. How old do you think Aaron is?” Elliott took the three steps down to the sidewalk that ran to the porch quickly, but not nearly the speed I’d seen my sister move.“I don’t know. Twenty-five?”He stopped and spun to face me. “You think he’s younger than me?” He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath, but all I understood was “pretty boy.”Elliott continued to walk toward his motorcycle. I followed, undeterred. I had felt the shift in the tides; somehow, I had won him over, and he was going to help me. I could just feel it. He flung one long leg over the bike and rested on the seat, turning back to face me. “Cass, you’ve got to let this go. When you’re older, all of it can be explai

When I was younger, I used to get so upset that Cadence always got to sit in the front seat of Mom’s van. Once she headed off to college, the front seat had finally become mine. Now, I gleefully climbed into the back and scooted all the way over to make room for Liam, and my heart was beating through my chest.He’d come over a few times before to study, but the other times, his mom had brought him or he’d ridden his bike. He only lived about a mile away. Everyone in Shenandoah lives relatively close by; it’s a really small town.Liam climbed in and shut the door behind him. “Cool van, Mrs. F,” he said, buckling his seat belt. I had mine on already and smiled over at him, not sure what to say.“Why thank you, William,” my mom said, pulling out of the parent pick-up lane. There were not a lot of vehicles in line since most of the kids at my high school could either drive or caught rides with their friends who could d

The rest of the week flew by pretty quickly, and I didn’t really have too much of a chance to talk to my friends about what was going on except for at lunch. Since that was a public space, we had to be careful what we talked about, too. It wasn’t until Saturday that Emma and I met over at Lucy’s house so she could show us all the stuff she’d found on why people thought vampires might be real.We were sprawled out on her sofa in her bedroom, Emma in the recliner nearby, and while the TV was on, no one was watching it. Each of us had our laptops. I had my notebook, too, and Lucy had hers.“Okay, go to this website,” Lucy said, rattling off a web address. Emma and I both typed it in.“Dark Shadows?” Emma said as the page loaded in front of each of us. “How did you find this?”“I did a bunch of digging, and I found some forums where people talk about their experiences with vampires,” Lucy