blanket disclaimer: I don't own it.

Thank you, Sally (Alice's White Rabbit) for the sprucing. Ausha, May, and Ashley. I wouldn't, couldn't have done this without you three! And my readers, for giving me the time of day

1

I need a beer.

If I'm being honest, I might need three.

The day has been long, and I'm ready to finally get home and unwind. Hopefully, the girls will agree that tonight calls for takeout. They aren't old enough for the beer, so I'm more than willing to take one for the team. I'm sure they'll understand.

Stanley's Pizza runs a special on Tuesday nights, so we're probably going to get that delivered, but all I can think about is the six-pack of IPA sitting at the bottom of the fridge with my name written all over it.

Thoughts of hops come to a halt when I realize there's a shiny red car starting to ride my bumper as I pull onto the freeway. With a curse, I veer off to the right, wincing at the sound of gravel hitting the undercarriage of my car, and let them pass, throwing up my middle finger for good measure. I know they see it because their kind sees and hears everything.

Some people, and I'm using that word loosely, aren't indestructible.

Humans rarely come out of a car crash unscathed.

It's been a learning experience for all of us since 9/11. The World Trade Centers went down, and vampires crawled out of their coffins to bring aid. The day was filled with a lot of shock, the hijacked planes, and the existence of immortals. We didn't lose half as many lives as we could have, and we were too grateful to realize how quickly our lives would change.

Some people were grateful, others not so much. There weren't any wars because who would want to go up against an army of indestructible monsters? No mortal would willingly lay down their lives in such sacrifice. Because that's what it would be—walking into a slaughterhouse blindfolded if we tried to fight.

I was too young to understand what was happening, but my parents were part of the grateful ones.

Sure, many lives were saved that fateful day in 2001. The price the world paid was almost the end of our existence.

It didn't take long for the blood suckers to take over things and make everything different. What rational businessperson wouldn't want to hire an immortal employee, someone who never got tired and was virtually indestructible, over a puny human?

By the first anniversary of the attack, the world as we knew it had gone to hell. Humans were given the impossible choice between becoming a bleeder (frequent blood donor) or lose everything.

We're still here, so obviously the right choice was made, but that doesn't mean we didn't suffer in the beginning.