When I was a little girl, my daddy stumbled across a human woman on one of his trips into town. Her name was Callista, and I later learned she'd been looking for a way out, trying to escape from her abusive husband. My daddy, he always had a soft spot for strays—it didn't matter if it was a dog or a kitten; heck, he even took in an injured raccoon or two, nursing them back to health before setting them loose to make their way in the world. It was just like that with Callie. He gave her his protection, just the way he did with all those other critters, bringing her among us and promising her safety in exchange for providing a little bit of blood when someone needed it. Looking back, I think that was one of the ways he tried to bring new life into our little group, making sure that the branches of our family trees didn't get too intertwined since most of the members of our commune were related in one wayor another. Now that I'm out among people, I'm starting to understand why he did it—I've learned that society doesn't approve too much of close kin marrying each other.
Callie… she took to us kids pretty fast. She'd always wanted a few young ones of her own, but apparently her man didn't want a family so she'd spent years longing to have children tugging at her apron, so to speak. She used to gather us all together and tell us stories about life outside the borders of our little world—talking about things we'd never even heard of, let alone seen. We'd listen in amazement as she spun tales about shopping malls so big you could get lost in em, filled with anything and everything you could ever wish for, and she told us about places you could go to watch stories from books acted out on a big screen. It was hard to believe such things really, truly existed, but Callie, she never lied, so we knew it all had to be true no matter how outlandish it seemed. I guess those stories were really what started it—my being unhappy with my life, I mean. Up until then… well, I didn't know anything about life outside the Keepers, so I didn't know what I was missing out on. Those stories… they opened my eyes and made me see how much I was missing.
From that point on, whenever I got the chance, I quizzed every outsider I happened to meet. There weren't many of them, mainly just the Alchemists who stopped off to deliver supplies and see what we were needing, but even they had experienced so much more than I ever would. One of them, I think her name was Donna, she took pity on me and snuck me a few little things that I could hide away and look at in secret. Things like magazines and books, and even a movie poster or two… but it wasn't enough. It just made me want to see it all for myself—with my own two eyes instead of second hand through other people's memories.
You'd have thought daddy would have realized it was high time for me to spread my wings and fly from the nest the same way he let all his strays do when they were grown and healed up enough, but for the longest time, he refused to let me go. Right up until they needed someone to help out in Palm Springs. That's part of the reason I'm trying so hard right now. I want to keep Jill safe—to prove I'm worthy to be her guardian. Because being a guardian… it's my ticket to life out here… in the real world. The world I've been dreaming of my whole damn life. Now that I've experienced it, I can't go back. I won't. Now that it's within my reach, giving it all up would kill me as sure as any Strigoi.
I'm finally flying free, soaring through the sky all on my own without anyone holding me back—and I'm never, ever going to allow myself to be caged by anyone again.