Chapter 21:

This was impossible, wasn't it? I mean, less than 24 hours ago, I was blissfully unaware of this situation. No thoughts roamed my mind at the possibility of vampires being real. And yet, here I am watching my cousin, excuse me, my father express to me that not only are they real, but he and all his friends are Vampires?

"You're lying," I whispered, walking past him and heading to the entrance of the cave, the same one I stormed out of with Laddie less than a week ago. "No, I'm telling the truth Lilah."

"Prove it." My voice was barely audible, yet everybody in the room heard exactly what I said.

David stood up and took a step towards me. "Your name is Lilah Jane Emerson, but your birth name is Dalilah Jane Powers. We called you Lilah, for short." He took another step towards me. 'You weighed 5 lbs, 3 ounces, and were 19 inches long." He took another step, this time turning his body towards what appeared to be a dresser I hadn't noticed before, opening one of the drawers and sifting through it. "I thought you'd come out looking like an alien, but you were beautiful." Paul grinned. David rolled his eyes, but continued with a smile, walking closer towards me. "When you were three years old, I left you on your grandfather's doorstep with a note. He had never met me, never known who I was, but I knew Jep and Jane would give you the life that at the time, I just couldn't."

He walked towards me, and handed me a picture. This one was of the three of us, on what appeared to be the day that I was born. I held it close, staring at every inch, absorbing every detail. My mother, Lily, was staring at the baby in her arms, the most beautiful grin on her face, the kind you get when you're in love. My father, I mean David, sat next to her, looking at her the same way.

"So what happened?" I asked. David glanced around the room, before his eyes met mine again. "Do you trust me?" He asked. I nodded, and he held out his hand. I took it and followed him up the steps, out of the cave. When the moonlit sky was upon us, he turned to face me. "Are you ready?" I nodded, and he leaned down, like he had countless times before, so I could climb onto his back. The only difference this time, is that once I was up and situated, instead of walked, he took off into the air, and we were flying.

...

We circled around for a little while before landing in a beautiful oak tree. He let me go onto the branch and then sat next to me. We were in the perfect view of this teeny tiny house, that must've been way out on the edge of town. "This," He said. "Is where you spent your first year of life." I stared at it, the white paint chipping off the shutters on the windows, the yellow paint peeling off the siding.

"It's small." I said softly, and he nodded. "It has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a basement, that we converted into a little apartment of sorts for Paul." I glanced at him. "Why?" I asked. He laughed. Well, she was sixteen and I was twenty when she got pregnant, and we decided to run away. We couldn't afford much, and Paul was all too eager to move out of his house. So the three of us bummed around, getting high, working dead end jobs that barely paid the bills, and putting every extra cent we had to figuring out how to supply a life for you." I smiled softly at him, and he returned it. "When you were born, that was absolutely the highlight of my entire life, living and undead. But Lily was in a lot of pain, and the doctor prescribed something to help her get over it." I bit my lip. So the rumors were true, my mother was a heroin addict.

"You were exactly a year old when she overdosed. And I just, I couldn't bear the thought of losing her." He turned away from me and faced the little house of secrets. "Max, Max was my uncle. He had been turned about ten years before this, and I was one of the privileged few who knew about it. I begged him, to help me, to help us. He gave me a bottle of blood. I gave some to her, and then I drank it myself. You see Lilah, I loved her so much, I'd rather give up everything, just to make sure I'd always be with her."

I thought about what he had said for a moment. "So, I get why you did it, but why did Paul?" He laughed. "His personality now is exactly the same it was back then. He would've done just about anything for eternal youth, and to make sure he could forever conquer the ladies." I giggled, knowing that was exactly his personality.

"Anyways, she was pissed when she found out, and told me she would've rather died. A week later, she ran away. I haven't seen her since."

I sighed, shivering from the cold night air, but wanting him to continue the story. "So, what happened next?" He smiled. "Well, Paul stuck around and helped me raise you, up until the day I turned you over to your grandparents." I stared at the little house. "How did you... There's a lot of windows here. What about the sun?" He laughed. "We stayed in the cave." I frowned. "you raised a little human girl in a musty, smelly cave?" He nodded, grinning, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust, before staring back at the house. "Can we go sit over there?" I asked. He held out a hand and quite quickly, we were sitting on the roof.

"Tell me about my mother," I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest as I turned to stare at David- I mean, Dad. "I know you said she ran off, and she was on drugs. But tell me about her, the person behind the story. What was she like?"

David always had a hard expression on his face. Always. He was very, very solemn. I mean, countless times I told Uncle Max that David tries too hard to look tough, but he wasn't trying very hard at the moment. His eyes glistened with what could only be tears as he cleared his throat.

"Inquisitive," He mumbled, making me cock my head to the side. "What do you mean?" He chuckled, as though recalling a fond memory. "She was just like you. She had beautiful brown eyes. You got my blue ones, but they sparkle the same way hers did. Her curly brown hair was so long, and smooth. It always reflected the sunlight in the summertime. She loved to sing. She loved to read, and to write her own stories. She really liked surfing. She used to wear flowers in her hair all the time. And like I said, she was inquisitive. She always asked me questions, just like you had when you were a little girl. 'David, why is the sky blue? How does a bird fly? How does a motorcycle work? How many different kinds of fish live in the ocean? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?" I smiled as I rested my cheek on my arm, wondering just how similar we really were.

"She had this presence, where if you were even within 20 ft of her, you felt peaceful. She had a way of calming me down when I was about to get into fights. She grounded me."

He looked up at the stars, and I took my chances, reaching over and grabbing his hand, squeezing it. "Where would you go?" I asked, using my free hand to push my hair away from my face. "What did you tell her, when she asked you where you would go, if you could go anywhere in the world?"

His calm, peaceful look turned sad. He gave me a small smile and moved closer, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "I told her I'd go anywhere, as long as I was with the two of you."

I leaned my head into him, smelling his familiar smell. Vanilla, cinnamon, and tobacco. Leather, and something metallic. Of course, before finding out, I was never able to place the smell as metallic.

I laughed, a few tears falling down my face, as I pulled away.

"It's funny," I started, trying to wipe the tears. "All my life, I was mad. I was mad at my parents for leaving me. I thought my dad didn't love me. And little did I know, that not only did he love me all along, but he was in my life."

He faced away from me. "The week after she left, things were hard. I understood that she was shocked. I mean, it's hard to go from living to undead. But if I didn't do it, if I hadn't turned her, she would've died. And that's not something I could bear the thought of."

It was silent for a moment, before I grinned. "Tell me about Paul, when I was little. I can't see him doing the Uncle duty." Dad laughed. "Paul was stoked to become a vampire. He wasn't so stoked to learn how to change diapers, or how to burp you after giving you a bottle, or trying so hard to feed you mashed peas, only for them to end up all over his face as you spat them out. Sure, he had done that a few times before, but once it was just the two of us, he had to step up his game. But he learned, and pretty quickly, it was him singing you to sleep. It was mostly Elvis, but it worked."

I grinned. "Is that why I remember Suspicious Minds being my favorite song?" He nodded, returning my smile. "yeah, it is."

"So," I started. "Why did you give me up? I mean, I made it to three years old, it's easy raising a child from there." He sighed. "Lilah, I wanted you to grow up normal, to go to school, to see the sunlight. You couldn't do that with me. And you were a very smart three year old, who started asking questions. I just didn't want you to comprehend what I was, what I am. A monster."

I bit my lip as I noticed the tears in the corners of his eyes, and moved closer, hugging his side.

"You're not a monster." I said softly. "You're my dad. And I love you no matter what."