Diary of a Newborn Vampire (BOOK #1)

Another Broken Doll

William

The GPS led me straight to the small town street lit up with the Friday night crowd. Diners and restaurants and people gallivanting about their lives unbeknownst to the force willing to wreck it all.

I wasn't sure where to start or what my plan really was. I drove through the town square and made my way down a different road. In the distance, I could hear music playing. Probably some stupid high school party filled with reckless teenagers wasting their youth on nights they wouldn't remember.

Numbing themselves just to ease the pain.

Something drew me towards it. If I was a crazy-killer vampire, where would I go?

Decades ago, before I met Bernard and Jacqueline and the others, I was just like the vigilante raging this town. But I always considered myself more careful about my doings, going after only those who had wronged others. Or so I thought.

I squeeze the steering wheel, yearning for another glass, something to take away all those memories. Just like the partiers a few houses down.

I pulled onto the side of the street a few blocks from the house the vibrated with the heavy bass rocking the town. People loitered on the lawn smoking heavily scented substances and talking animatedly with each other. I walked passed them as they glanced in my direction.

As soon as I walked in, the smell of alcohol and body odor hit me. Teenagers attempted procreating on the dance floor--at least it looked like it. Future frat boys attempted keg stands in the corner. Girls humiliated themselves by trying to catch guys' attention. If only they knew that in a few years the high school quarterback and beer pong winner couldn't pay the bills.

I stood by the window looking over the crowd wondering what possibly draw me here. Yes, this would be the perfect place for a vampire vigilante to attack if it weren't for the fact that tomorrow his victim would be missed.

"Ugh, teenagers," a girl said from beside me.

I glanced down to where she stood, short in stature with dark skin and short black hair and matching eyes. She held a red plastic cup filled with beer but didn't seem to be drinking from it like her fellow companions.

"I assume you're enjoying this party as much as I am," she went on. "I'm Kira by the way, and I don't recognize you."

"William," I told her. "I'm not from around here."

She tilted her head to the side in an attempt, I assumed, at flirting. "Then how'd you end up at some stupid party in little old Newberry, North Carolina. Surely you have better places to be."

I shrugged. "What can I say? I guess I was somehow drawn here of all places." It wasn't a lie.

"Well, it's nice to see a new face. The old ones were getting boring." Her eyes left mine for a few seconds as they drifted to the entry way, which seemed to be grabbing everyone's attention. "Speaking of..."

The crowd parted for two girls, one in a tight black dress and the other a short red one. The second girl caught my attention more than the first. There was something about how perfectly her blonde hair fell across her shoulders. The way her lips curved upward in a sly, knowing smile.

She was a dream.

Our eyes met, but they didn't see me. She continued on her path through the crowd who all but bowed at her feet as if she was some kind of royalty.

"Who's that?" I asked Kira, admittedly feeling a little breathless.

Her eyebrows drew in and her lips quirked to the side. "That is Ava."

I could sense some displeasure in the girl's tone. "Not your favorite person in the world, I assume."

Kira shrugged. "She's just your typical Queen Bee thinking that the world revolves around her. But, don't let that image fool you. She's not the average small town beauty queen. Evidently she's lived a pretty tough life."

Haven't we all?

I so badly wanted to grab the nearest bottle or cup, just to let the memories numb themselves before they came out to play. We all had the tough life. Sometimes it got better if we were lucky. Sometimes it got worse.

And sometimes we ignored it, finding the bottom of another bottle instead.

"Maybe we're all just broken dolls," I muttered, remembering Bernard speaking the phrase all those years ago.

Kira's dark eyes widened. "Clever, and probably true enough to hurt. But in Ava's case, she won't let herself heal. I believe the stories and all those vague rumors—those that say her parents left her and her sister. That she can't keep a guy because she's afraid of ending up like her mom. Maybe they really are just stories. But maybe she's broken, too."

I glanced down at the tiny girl beside me, so small yet so wise. "Kira, how old are you?"

"Seventeen," she said, and then rolled her eyes. "Okay, sixteen currently, but my birthday's in a month. I can round up if I want to."

I nodded.

"Why do you ask?" she said, standing up on her toes. "No, wait. That's not the question I want to ask. I know the answer to that. You thought I was older because I'm so good with words. Literary nerd, dude. But my question really is, how old are you?"

The infamous question. I'd lived over a hundred years, but physically I looked like the rest of the high school kids in the room.

"Eighteen," I told her.

"Well, you seem pretty well-round for an eighteen-year-old. You must travel a lot. Or your parents are great people. Or maybe every place outside of Newberry is better. I wouldn't know."

I noticed the girl Kira called Ava moving through the room to some guy in a leather at the bar. An odd panic set in my chest, but I ignored it. The girl was interesting with her supposedly broken history--something I could relate to.

"Do me a favor Kira." I waited for her to raise an eyebrow before going on. "Travel the world. Get out of Newberry. Put that knowledge to good use. Do what makes you happy."

She smiled back up at me, something strange, almost worried--like she knew about me and my past and who I was and all the mistakes I'd made. "You too, William. You too."

†††

Kira left minutes later claiming she had to be home in time for curfew and that hopefully she'd see me around. I gave her a "maybe" before she got lost in the crowd. Ava was still talking to the Greaser-looking guy, who leaned closer and closer to her with every second.

I lifted my nose to the air again trying to catch any suspicious scent--that familiar one of a vampire or even blood. But I got nothing except the smell of sweaty teenagers and yeasty scent of beer.

In my time of infinite boredom, I yearned to listen into Ava's conversation, but the crowd was too loud and going closer might've drawn suspicion.

How I'd become so infatuated with a pretty girl, I don't know. I wanted to hop back into my car and head back home. To call this mission a bust and stop playing hero. But something kept me here whether it be the mystery of the girl or the feeling of being away from home or even Kira's words of broken people.

Several girls throughout the night tried making a move towards me, but I must have turned them away with my "brooding glare" as Angelina called it. My attention was finally caught again as a boy walked in who drew Ava's eye this time.

At that moment, I wished Kira was still here. She would probably go off about the new guy and who he was and his obvious history with Ava. But I could see something there without Kira yapping in my ear.

She felt something for him--something had happened maybe long ago. As long as human years counted, anyway. She wasn't just "your average small town beauty queen". Kira was right.

Maybe we're all just broken dolls searching for our pieces.

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