“I thought you liked Drew. Aren’t you supposed to be friends, or something?”
“I do like him. And of course, we’re friends. Did you really think I’d have trusted just anyone to look after you? I don’t like being the bad guy. I don’t like making the people I care about unhappy. But he’s just too damn old for you. There’s no getting around that.”
“And how much older than you is Elise?”
“That’s different.”
“No, it really isn’t. It’s a double standard—and that’s not different at all.” She shook her head. “You know it’s funny. People keep talking about how we’re a new type of vampire clan. They say we’re re-writing the rules and making history, and blah, blah, blah. And I’m not seeing it. But I do like the way it sounds. And I think it’s something we could maybe lean into a little harder. And you know where a good place to start would be? If you let me make my own decisions about who I get involved with. It’s like the song says: you don’t own me.”
Marc frowned. “Wait. Did you just quote Lesley Gore at me?”
“No?” Heather replied. “I don’t even know who that is.”
“She was a singer. She’s dead now, but she was very popular during the sixties. That song was one of her biggest hits.”
“Oh. Well, then maybe I did. But all I know is the song. And only that one part. I remember it from a movie I saw when I was a kid. I think the song was old then.” She studied him for a moment then asked, “So, you must be really old, huh?”
“Oh, thank you very much. Not that old, no.”
“If you say so.”
Marc shot her an amused look. “You know, someday, when you’re my age—which, by the way, is going to come along a whole lot sooner than you apparently think—I’m going to remind you of this conversation and ask you how old you feel then.” He shook his head and added, mockingly, “And you say you’re not a kid.”
“Yeah, because I’m not,” Heather replied. “Just because I’m going to look like a kid forever doesn’t mean you get to treat me like one. We’re not living in the nineteen-hundreds anymore.”
“Don’t you mean the eighteen-hundreds? Although I wouldn’t know anything about that, since I wasn’t alive back then. You know who you could ask, though—right? That’d be Drew. Because he lived through that entire century, not to mention the previous two. Or maybe even the previous three. I don’t know for sure.”
“Nice try. But no. I said the nineteen-hundreds and that’s what I meant. Didn’t you ever see West Side Story? Or Titanic? Endless Love? The Notebook?”
“Wait—are you talking about movies? I thought we were discussing real life?”
“We are. But all those movies I mentioned were set in the nineteen-hundreds. In fact, I think they were filmed then, too. So, they’re probably reasonably accurate depictions of the idiotic notions you all had back then.”
A Children of Night/Ugly Christmas Sweater Story
Her love will light up his night. If they both can survive that long.
Heather is having the worst Christmas ever! Or, at least, the worst Christmas since she was forced to become a vampire. Her sire's distracted, her nest-mates have forgotten her existence, and a bunch of weirdos have taken over her lair. The only bright spot in her life right now is Drew--who didn't even used to like her! She knows he's coming around, but that's not good enough. She wants more. She wants everything. She wants him. And she's not giving up.
Drew Geiger gave up on love a long time ago. Such tender emotions have no place in a vampire's heart. But, somehow, the girl he once described as a "feral kitten" has got her claws in him, and she's not letting go. That would be fine, if only someone didn't want her dead--and if her sire didn't still inconveniently remember that it was Drew who'd once suggested that maybe she'd be better off that way.
***This story features characters from the Children of Night series. It takes place between books six and seven in the series and follows Going Back to Find You.***
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