Usually I will try to upload at least once a week on Friday, but I thought I might as well add in an extra chapter, even if it is small.
Chapter 2: Puppet Show
When people look at me, they come up with so many assumptions, probably none of them even true. They probably think that I'm some thug waiting to mug someone or smoke pot out back. But no one would ever imagine me stumbling through a dark, walk-in closet until I find the discrete doorknob on the back wall. They wouldn't see me open the door and pull a chain from the ceiling to bask the room with light. And no, they definitely wouldn't see me close the door and marvel at what was inside.
I had created a lab in this hidden room, complete with even a freezer for tissue samples. I don't think Dad knew about the room, or he would have definitely moved me out long ago.
I diligently removed a strip of glass out of the freezer and placed it under a microscope. Inside the strip of glass was brain tissue from a vampire, one of many. I had spent months looking at them, for what I don't know. I guess I just had a feeling that there was something important about them. I smelled the scent of disinfectant as I lowered my head and squinted through the eyepiece.
The first time I had really become in love with biology, I must have been 11 or 12. I had watched a youtube video on DNA sequencing on accident , and what was youtube videos then turned into science journal articles, which then led to online classes. I was completely and blissfully in love. No one knew, of course. Who was I going to tell? When I actually did go to school, no one would talk to me. I was the weird kid who came to school in leather on the first day of first grade.
I couldn't exactly talk to Dad, or Sam, about it either. Both of them were always gone, not even staying long enough to try to be a family. When I was too young to take care of myself, they sent me to a boarding school. Back then, they hunted together, but some time about five years ago Sam started to spend more time in a secluded cabin in South Dakota. I finally got out of the boarding school when I was 10, apparently old enough to cook and therefore live on my own.
I sighed loudly and looked up from the microscope. Thinking about my past was not helping me to stay focused on the task at hand. I just couldn't bring myself to study the vamp brain, at least not tonight. What I really needed was a warm shower to help wash away what had happened.
I walked out of the bathroom in a towel and my strawberry blonde hair tied up in a messy bun. Dad was just sitting there on my bed flipping through a book I had left on my bedside table. I marched up to him and ripped it out of his hands. I saw the shock on his face. It was the same every time, like he never knew why I acted the way I did and was never prepared for it.
"What do you want?" I demanded.
He looked up to meet my eyes before turning away to look at the wall.
"I just," he paused, "Wanted to make sure you weren't stuck up in here crying."
I laughed incredulously and leaned forward so our faces were inches apart.
"If you knew the first thing about me, it would be that I don't cry." I spat.
I saw his eyes harden as he got up to leave, "Well, alright then." he said dryly.
As soon as he walked through the door frame, I slammed the door behind him, making my point. But as soon as the door closed, I crumbled, knowing there was nothing I could do. I flopped onto my bed, curling up around a pillow in my arms. The act I kept up, it was so tiring. I hated it too. I'm not a mean person; I don't find joy in hurting people. I kept it up because I thought I had to; I mean I did, didn't I? Dad didn't deserve to see the real me. He didn't deserve to know me. But worst of all, he didn't even want to.