“Get out of my house!” a familiar voice screamed.
Lalo had but a second to duck before a fire poker smashed into the wooden frame where his head had just been.
“Get out of my house, thief!” his sister shrieked, readying to clobber him.
“It’s me!” Lalo yelled. “Fernanda, it’s me!”
“Lalo?” She lowered her arms but kept a tight hold on the fire poker.
“Yes!” he replied.
Though there wasn’t a single candle lit, Lalo could see his sister clearly. Her almond-shaped eyes, green like their mother’s. Her small nose and angular face, similar to their father’s. She and Lalo shared the same warm brown skin and slender builds but that was where their resemblances ended. She was always laughing and talking to anyone who passed by. He was rather moody and preferred the company of the characters in books over actual friends.
Surprise flickered over Fernanda’s features. Then came relief. And next rage.
“Where have you been?” she asked, seething. “I haven’t heard a single word from you in three days! I searched everywhere. The library. The courthouse. The church. Father’s business. Nada. Where were you?”
Three days?Was that all? It had felt like a lifetime. Likethreelifetimes.
“I have to tell you something, Fernanda, but promise to staycalm.”
“That statement alone has my heart rate rising.”
She wasn’t lying. He could hear her pulse thumping against her neck. Could smell her blood rushing through her veins. His mouth watered.
“Oh gods,” he said, feeling the bile climb up his throat. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he whispered.
“What, Lalo? What is happening? Tell me now, or I will thump you with this poker.” She shook the metal bar in her hand for proof.
He didn’t doubt she would. She once threw a boot at him when he didn’t tell her who asked about her in the market fast enough.
“We must leave,” he said. “Right now.”
Her features twisted with confusion. “What?”
“I need you to pack whatever you can. Take our most valuable items. I’ll send a note to Father’s advisors that we are going on sabbatical, and I’ll figure everything else out later. But right now, we must get out of Los Campos.”
“Lalo, what happened? What did you do?”
His mouth went dry. “I went to the cantina I told you about,” he admitted.
Fernanda’s jaw dropped. “You cannot be serious.”
“I wish I wasn’t.” Saints, what he wouldn’t do to take the last few days back.
“Why are you so insistent on torturing yourself? Whoever or whatever killed Mother and Father is gone.”
“She was there,” he whispered. “I saw her with my own eyes. She was exactly the beast I remember. They are real, Fernanda. Fucking vampiros arereal.And we need to get out of the city. Now.”
Even though they were draped in darkness, Lalo could see his sister’s face go pale. “Can’t we go to the authorities? Perhaps the militia? Surely there is someone who will help us.”
“There is no one who will save us now. Do you remember how I told you they need human life to survive? I was right. But it isn’t solely the blood. It’s the existence within it. The memories. The joy. The pain. The life. All of it. That monster bit me. Shesawme through my blood. Every thought I’ve ever had. Every book and journal I’ve read. She knows everything. She saw my research. Our family. This house. She drank and drank, and I could do nothing to stop her until I was no more.”
“What does that even mean?” Fernanda’s voice was shrill.
“I am dead!” he yelled. “I died, Fernanda. That miserable beast killed me!”
“You aren’t making any sense. You are alive, Lalo. I’m speaking with you right now.”
