1. Rose
Rose
NOW
I t’s funny how we’re taught that the secret to life is knowing who we really are.
That once we look deep, spend years soul-searching and find out who that person really is at the core of us, that the rest of our life will fall into place.
Finding our “authentic, true selves” means we will finally find peace.
It’s a lie, like all the other lies that our identity-obsessed society tells us.
It’s not that we can’t know who we are, rather that we are always changing.
We are fluid. The moment we think we have figured out who we are and what we want, something inside of us changes.
Always in motion, never in stasis. Even those that fear they are stuck are actually on the move, doing what they can to break free, flinging themselves against a wall again and again, hoping their confines will crumble.
My whole life I was told I had one identity: a vampire.
Or rather, that when I turned twenty-one, I would become a vampire.
So my identity has been someone waiting for that clarity of self.
I was Rose Harper, I moved around a lot, I had an older brother, parents who loved me, I spent my childhood as most humans did, and one day I would rely on human blood for survival.
My biology and chemistry would change, I would go through The Becoming, and come out the other side as something more than I was before. I would finally be whole.
I had prayed my whole life, in silent, pitiful cries inside my mind as I lay in bed at night cast toward an unknown creator, that once I turned, once I became what I was supposed to be, that everything else would fall into place.
That I would know peace, instead of this raging, turbulent chaos inside of me, one that jerked me from one emotion to the next my whole life.
That the feeling of being incomplete, of missing something, of not being able to fit in with society, of being seen as an other , would finally go away.
I always felt there were different people locked inside me and I kept pinballing between them all, not knowing where I’d land.
But now I know the truth.
Now the truth has blasted through my veins along with the primal drive to drink blood.
I just turned into a vampire.
I just discovered who I really am.
And there will be no peace.
I’m standing in the garage, staring at the bags of blood in the fridge.
I want to drink them all in one go because the need for blood is insatiable—like a painful combination of thirst and hunger that makes me believe I’ll go mad without it.
And yet the realization of who I am—who I have been—makes me feel just as crazed.
I need the truth and I need it immediately.
I relent to my vampire instincts and grab the bags, tearing them open with teeth that have turned into fangs, a process that’s seamless, just a warm sensation in my gums as they sharpen in real time.
The blood goes down my throat in seconds and it isn’t until both bags are empty that I feel that incessant hunger subside.
Then I yank open the door with newfound strength and step into the house.
I had been locked inside for the last few days, but my mother had untied me earlier when she realized that I was no longer a danger to myself or anyone else, and now I’m free to leave.
I know I need a shower something fierce, my sense of smell is so strong now it’s overwhelming, but all of that pales in comparison to the true need I have inside me.
The need for the truth.
I head right down the hall toward the kitchen where I can hear my mother laughing about something. I can hear my father talking as if he were right next to me. My senses are heightened to the point of being uncomfortable.
They both stop to stare at me as I barge into the kitchen and stop at the granite island in the middle, my hands gripping the counter like I’d crumble to my knees without it.
“Rose?” my mother asks, her violet eyes filled with worry. “Are you okay?”
“Where is Dracula?” I manage to say, my voice sounding foreign, deeper, like I’m hearing someone else speak.
My mother frowns. “What? Dracula? Honey, you should sit down, you’re going through a lot. Have you had your blood yet?”
She comes over to me, but I hold my ground, my body starting to shake with rage.
“No!” I cry out. “No. Dracula. There’s a real-life Dracula, I know there is, you’ve talked about him. Where is he?”
“Rose,” my father says gently. “You’ve just transitioned. I understand you have a lot of questions right now. But your mother and I are going to help you through this. We both went through the same thing as you.”
His words produce a sharp stabbing pain in my heart, because I know he’s lying. I know it now. There were things that have thrown me off in the past, things my mother has said about her transition into a vampire that contradicted each other. But I can’t focus on that right now.
I need answers.
I need to find Valtu.
A name that hadn’t meant anything to me for the last twenty-one years and now, now that name means everything to me.
Because he was my everything.
Time and time again.
“You’ve told me that there is a vampire that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula,” I say, trying to keep my emotions in check, even though they’re coming in from all directions.
I feel like a ship being slammed by waves, water pouring in through the portholes.
“You said you knew him. That he helped you once. Where does he live? Is he…is he still alive?”
Oh god. What if he’s not?
My father bristles, his hazel eyes flickering with a hit of discomfort. I’ve seen him do this before when Dracula was mentioned and there’s something about that, something about all of this that feels like if I just thought a little harder, dug a little deeper, that I’d discover something big.
Bigger than the fact that I’ve just remembered all my past lives.
“I believe so,” my mother says, sounding confused. “But we haven’t seen him…it’s been a long time.”
“I need to find him,” I tell her.
“Why?”
My father clears his throat. “Rose, what has gotten into you? Why are you so interested in Dracula? Do you think he’s the king of the vampires? You know that’s not the case.”
I stare at him for a moment. I’m so used to never seeing my parents age, that sometimes I forget how close in age we appear. My father will never look a day over thirty-five. He will always look like a tall, Nordic guy with big muscles and thick dark-blond hair.
I look at my mother. She should look the same as me. Not literally, of course—she has violet eyes and black hair, I have green eyes and red hair, inherited from my father’s side, I’ve always assumed. But she should look twenty-one, the age she would have transitioned.
But she doesn’t. For the first time I’m realizing my mother looks older than twenty-one. Not as old as my father, but closer to thirty.
“Rose,” my mother says, folding her arms. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, but please tell us what’s going on.”
How do I even explain this? They’re going to think I’m crazy.
I think I’m crazy.
I just know I have to find Valtu.
Suddenly more memories, more realizations flood my brain.
I remember the last people I was with as Dahlia Abernathy.
Lenore.
Solon.
The vampires from San Francisco.
They were with me when I died.
When my lover killed me.
Oh my god.
“Are you crying?” my mom asks, coming toward me again and before I can push her away, I realize tears are streaming down my face.
The anger in Valtu’s eyes. How hurt he was at my betrayal, at finding out I was a witch. And yet he didn’t know who I truly was. Not until I was dead. Not until my glamour had slipped away and he would have realized he just murdered his true love.
My mom’s arms go around me and she holds me tight. “It’s okay. I know it can be a lot.”
“I’ll go get my scotch,” my dad says. “You need a little something.”
“Wolf, she needs more blood,” my mom says to my dad, calling him by his nickname as he leaves the kitchen. “Not alcohol.” She shakes her head as she looks at me. “He thinks that’s the answer to everything.”
I pull back, unable to explain my emotions, but I have to try. “Lenore and Solon. They are vampire friends of yours, right? I’ve met them before, I remember.”
“Yes,” she says uneasily. “When you were young.”
“How young?”
She frowns. “Rose, what is with—”
“How young was I?
“I don’t know. Ten? Nine?”
That would explain why Lenore and Solon didn’t recognize me. At that age I was moon-faced and gangly, not sharp-jawed and full-figured like I am now. They wouldn’t have looked at me and seen Dahlia Abernathy as they knew her.
“Are they still in San Francisco?”
She stares at me for a moment. There’s confusion in her eyes as to why I’m asking this shit, but there’s also something else. Duplicity. Like she wants to lie.
“I think so,” she eventually says. “But why are you asking?”
“You said they were your and dad’s closest friends. Why haven’t you seen them for the last ten years?”
She blinks, her mouth opening for a moment. “Oh, well you know how it is. We’ve moved a lot, Rose.”
“And why?”
“You know why. We’re vampires. People get suspicious if you don’t age.”
I know that’s the truth, but I also know that there’s more to it. That all of this is connected somehow, and I’ve been kept from a great lie my entire life, I just don’t know what it is.
“Do you know who Dahlia Abernathy is?” I ask and the name, her name, my name , sounds like a powerful curse.
I watch my mother carefully for any hint of recognition. She seems to think it over, but her face is blank. “The name sounds familiar but I can’t place it. Why? Who is she?”
I take in a deep breath as my father steps into the kitchen, a bag of blood in one hand, a glass of liquor in the other. “I couldn’t choose,” he says, coming over and placing both on the counter.
I don’t even eye them. I don’t want either drink right now.
“I think you’re the one who will need the scotch,” I warn him.