Danny always slept during the day, so she was always her freshest when she absorbed the sight of the night sky. She was pleasantly surprised to find that her spot she'd climbed up to the treetops provided an adequate stargazing position. Usually when she was close to a city, light pollution drowned out all the sights; it was the main reason she chose mountain peaks as her home – there were no people to steal her stars, only the occasional cloud to block her view.
Stargazing had been one of the few joys provided to her in the forest; it was what she looked forward to when she awoke to her darkened tree.
But when she stepped out of her tree trunk, the sky was cloudy, and the moon was full, the intense silver light blocked all the stars. The disappointing sight was enough to sour her mood, and a wooden cup of fatty pine needle tea was spilled out onto the snow – she was so sick of needle tea, but there was nothing else green to brew in the winter woods.
What she'd do for some coffee.
Perhaps she'd go shopping. With another glance at the moon, she made her decision. It was not like she had anything else to do.
Danny started in the direction of the city, leaving no tracks in the snow as she barely hovered above the surface, and skated forward, twirling around trees like a supersonic ballerina. She wasn't as quiet as she'd like to have been, every time she moved, a cascade of icicles from branches would quiver loose, stabbing like daggers the trail she'd carved seconds earlier – each cluster cracked like a whip or a giant's step, as if a logging crew had moved in with heavy equipment.
Eventually trees gave way to concrete and the wet, musty smell of asphalt. Danny stopped hovering, stepping onto a dirty sidewalk. Apparently, she had made her way to a distinctly reclusive gas-station, as it was right besides a roaring highway with no other building in sight. Turning invisible she approached the sketchy business, concluding that many illegal dealings must've taken place around the area – it was in the middle of nowhere, it was the perfect spot.
She phased through the door, a half-asleep, acne-ridden cashier was fiddling with his phone.
Too easy.
Danny was tempted to drop her invisibility, if only to scare the cashier back into attention – maybe steal his phone to break his likely unsavory internet-addiction.
But like the majority of Danny's dark ideas, they where buried deep, tossed aside like crumpled paper from an empty diary – no need to start trouble for a place she already planned to return to. It was basic logic.
Of course, if Vlad where around with her, the cashier would already be screaming, bleeding in a corner.
Vlad was impulsive like that…and made normal shopping impossible.
Perhaps it was good he wasn't here. Danny felt her tense neck loosen, mildly at ease with the idea of browsing shelves with no background screaming for once.
Yes, it was like a vacation, specifically from Vlad.
Now if only the gas station had anything on offer other than garbage to eat. Danny once was partial to a can of soda and a crunchy bag of chips daily, as was the typical teenage diet; however, though Danny looked to be a childish fourteen she was much older and had stopped counting her real age decades ago – when or why, she had no idea. Her primitive yet cozy Neolithic clothing helped offset her eternal babyface, her teeth yellow-sharp and a dusty palor of dirt glazed her youthful skin like wrinkles on a witch.
If anyone were to see her, she'd be unable to blend in as a teenager, but instead as a miserable, eccentric college student. Spotting her reflection from an empty metal shelf, she made the decision to change that. No need to attract attention without Vlad around.
And a squirming mass against her back prompted her to hurry. Right, there was a sleeping baby against her back. One wrong move and it would wake up mewling, giving away her position.
Danny rolled her eyes at her own foolishness. She'd been held hostage by her very own mundane thoughts, staring at the product shelves for several unproductive minutes – as if her brain was slowly dissolving into glue. The buzzing, industrial overhead lights gave her a roaring headache – Danny hated such modern places. She'd been in the woods too long…or perhaps not enough.
If Vlad were here, the shelves would've been cleared into his massive hands and jacket pockets right in front of her – the job would've already been done.
He was useful like that.
She missed him. His crazed hands would land on her shoulders, hugging her neck while simultaneously clenching a spraying soda can between his teeth. He'd gently guide her to the backdoor while police sirens blazed in the distance, the store alarms and fire sprinklers each hissing a fetid wind as Vlad casually stomped a fire into the tile.
"To hide evidence," he'd say, but it was clearly a lie – he did it for fun, a "just-because."
She missed him. Without comprehension she grabbed a bag of chips, flavor and brand irrelevant, placing it into her sling. It crinkled uncomfortably when she placed healthier options on top, dried fruit and not-so-terrible-but-still-so energy bars, and took the entire offering of beef jerky with no hesitation, phasing the endless mass of product into her ghostly body, oddly right into her ethereal belly as if it were an eldritch kangaroo pouch – it just worked, and didn't hurt. Danny's curiosity about her unreal anatomy had died years ago – she accepted Vlad's lead in not thinking too hard about certain things – to do so invited uncomfortable, useless questions.
It's not like she could "undeath," her undead affliction.
She combed the store again, gathering small luxuries like napkins and toothpicks. Her smile was geniune when she cleared the expensive row of iced coffee drinks from the cold aisle. Tired, bloodshot eyes widened a misdge when she spotted a case of beer. She lifted it before remembering alcohol made her completely homicidal and that she'd have to share a tree with a baby.
Danny wasn't evil enough to be careless, was she? She didn't want to wake up the next day to a half-eaten baby and a hangover.
The beer was placed back into the fridge.
The mere mental-image of having baby blood on her teeth made her heave and if she wasn't practiced in robbery, her stolen rack of jerky packets would've spilled onto the floor like metaphorical vomit.
Damnit, if Vlad were here with her they'd already be home unpacking the goods. With a touch of shame and self-induced embarrassment, she stepped into the parking lot, paying no mind to the oblivious cashier she'd been so excited to scare before, palms sweaty as if she had performance anxiety.
She felt so incompetent…she stared at asphalt, mindlessly walking behind the store. Casting off her invisibility, goosebumps peppered her simulacrum of skin, the chill in the air was a refreshing slap to the face.
She leaned outside the locked restroom doors – a place no doubt, with a disgusting history for disgusting people, a place she reluctantly admitted she could belong, right after committing arson.
But not tonight. Arson was more of Vlad's signature and she missed him too much to be reminded of him further.
But her mind was a cruel, chained dog. It wanted fire, it wanted smoke; it wanted Vlad to hug her while they watched the building collapse together.
But she needed the gas station later, it was convenient, too conveniently close to her little woods to needlessly throw away.
She couldn't be stupid.
Not now.
When she was on her own.
She couldn't be impulse…or evil…but she was…just a little.
When she was all alone.
It was hard to reason with a heart so heavy.
Danny leaned too hard against a wall, the baby against her back mewled with fiery-spittle as she awoke it.
"Sorry," she grumbled, reaching an hand to pat the unfortunate brat on the head. The noise knocked sense into her mundane madness, and Danny swiftly walked back into the trees, imagining nostalgic hot coals licking at her feet.
"I can't believe he just ran off!" Dani shouted as she twisted and dissipated throughout the trees as a panicked wisp of blue fire, desperately trying to find any sign of Vlad's path through the snow – now that the sun had risen and lit up the once hidden spaces.
But Vlad was a ghost, and had left no footprints to follow. Dani hovered sullenly, in the middle of nowhere, hugging her legs in midair as she held back tears.
She felt weak, useless…someone patted her on the head.
She felt exposed.
"Danny stop." The hand pulled away, and Dani hunched further against her knees. "Just let me deal with him. It's my fault he's here in the first place so it's my responsibility."
"You're my responsibility, Dani."
She looked up, eyebrows comically irate, her eyes hard with hints of a stormy fire.
"No I'm not," she all but spat, "I've never been no one's responsibility – you included."
'Don't know where he got such a dumb idea,' she mentally added.
She heard the crunch of snow, the sound of pacing steps caused her to look again.
"That's what you think, huh?" Mud had caked over Danny's white tennis shoes, the soft snow fast melting underneath his heated pacing. He walked closer to Dani, invading her space even when she hovered away – he was tall enough for his chin to reach the top of her head, causing her to look up as he peered down at her.
But he was not mad, like she'd thought. He looked tired, his lip clipped uncomfortably against his teeth.
"Can we talk, please?" He seemed to shrink, becoming very small as he looked to the ground.
"I'll…" He took something out of his pocket, "I'll get you some coffee, and pancakes, on me." Danny held out a twenty-dollar bill, a peace-offering, a gift – anything to stop the foreign hammering of his chest.
Dani said not a word, but she slipped the money into her hoodie pocket, and saw it as a tolerable bribe.
It looked like Vlad didn't want to be found. And there was nothing Dani could do about it.
Danny smiled weakly. He didn't want to lose Dani.