Liar, Liar, Vampire [HIATUS]

01

Kieran shoved everything into his suitcase with unimaginable speed. The ability to do things at least four times faster than the regular person was truly the highlight of his life. The speed helped him cross –illegally –into the neighbouring country and border patrol never caught on. He would've done it again too had his mum not chewed him out about border laws and why they existed and why he shouldn't break them. How his mother, Kamala Elisabeth Westwood, had found out was beyond him. On this side, up in the hills, in the countryside, at his grandparents –on his father's side of the family –no one cared about his insane speed. Back home, only his brother, mother and father knew about it.

He couldn't wait to get back home and show off his insane speed to his brother, for the first time, in the confines of their house, because no one else from outside could know. Especially since his brother, twin brother, Kendall, couldn't run two miles in five seconds. Unless maybe his life depended on it. Kieran made a mental note to put that to the test as he shoved the last of his things into his suitcase. He didn't have much, since the boarding school he went to made them wear uniforms. Absolutely tacky uniforms, at that.

Kieran was glad he would never have to wear one in his life ever again. It was the beginning of summer, his parents and brother would make the drive up to the house in the hills and spend it with him, and then somehow, Kendall and he will convince their parents to let him attend regular school, back home, with his brother.

They had planned this to the letter. If they convinced them, his parents would ask them to prove they could keep up the charade for at least the last weeks of summer. This meant he would have to successfully pass as a normal, not get caught in a lie, all while having fun. It shouldn't be that hard. He placed his hands on his hips and looked at the mess around the room. Quickly, he made his way around picking up everything he could and putting the items back where they belonged. Now that it was squeaky clean, Kieran picked up his suitcase in one fluid motion, because the weight of it wasn't an issue to him and walked out of the room.

"Kieran, you heading home?" his friend, Oscar, asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah, just need to hand the keys back."

Oscar smiled, flashing him a pair of freshly brushed and flossed fangs. It was easy to tell which vampire had brushed their teeth and which ones hadn't. Oscar would simply die without feeling the bristly end of the toothbrush in his mouth. Thrice a day, to keep the metallic smell of blood out and the garlic bread, that tasted like battery acid.

"Tell Kendall I said hi. I'll pop by during the summer, scare the human out of him." Oscar laughed, which was a sound that Kieran found to be oddly feral, a mix between a wolf howling and a rat doing whatever the hell rats did.

"I'll bet you twenty you won't be able to."

He had tried. To scare the living daylights out of Kendall that. But living with two half-vampires had hardened Kendall. Especially to the sight of blood. Not human blood of course. That would be overkill. The rule in the house, at least when Kendall was around, was no human blood. An understandable one considering Kendall was completely human, without a doubt. The doubts about his humanity were confirmed when Kendall, busted his head open and it didn't heal up within hours. In fact, he went to the hospital, got stitches and a fucking concussion. The moron had been lucky his brain didn't swell.

"Really?" Oscar asked.

Kieran shook his head. He didn't have that kind of money laying around. But his grandfather did. A lot of money in fact. It would be crazy if Grandpa Oswald didn't have money, considering he'd been alive for the past three hundred years. Kieran couldn't imagine living that long and still being dirt poor. That was why the house in the hills, wasn't a house, it was a fucking mansion.

"I'll see you after summer?" Oscar ran a hand through his blond hair, his grey-blue eyes shining with glee.

"If I have my way this time around, hopefully not."

A few things sucked more than vampires feeding on a bag of animal blood, Kendall realized this early on in life. His parents had stopped the car somewhere on the outskirts of town, where the majority of people were vampires and the few humans who lived here knew about the vampires and decided they could cohabitate with him. Kamala and Bastien Westwood were gingerly drinking blood. Kendall supposed it was deer blood, but it all smelled horrible to him anyway. Metallic and putrid. But his parents, being half-vampires, still needed to drink blood every once in a while, in order not to wither out and die. He didn't understand the concept, just the same way he didn't understand why his brother was a vampire while he was human. All Kendall knew was that it sucked ass.

His parents moved to a dominantly human town, where the people thought vampires were folk tales when they got married, almost twenty years ago. Then they left for Crescent Hill when his mother had to give birth, to one human and one vampire, and then they went back. His brother, Kieran, had been going to boarding school in Crescent Hill ever since he could string a correct sentence together.

"Are you guys done yet?" Kendall called from the car.

He spent most of the school year counting down the minutes until he could see his brother again. It wasn't a particularly fun thing to do, and he was sure he could wait for three extra minutes while his parents fed, but the slurping sounds were loud. His mother popped her head through the open window and reached for a tissue, and brought it to her lips and fangs.

"Your dad went in for a second one. As if we won't be in vampire county for the next two and a half months," Kamala said.

His parents' humanity granted them the ability to not burn in broad daylight. Of course, that was what he knew from the vampire media he consumed when he was younger. Kendall couldn't be so sure how much of that was actually true. They could turn to ash or glitter, one of those two. He made a mental note to ask Kieran which one it was, or just put it to the test somehow.

Crescent Hill provided the perfect cover-up from vampires. It was cloudy all year round, even during the summer. Either the weather was just plain sucky or the vampires that lived here learned how to control the weather somehow. The former seemed more plausible than the latter.

His father popped his head in from the other front window. "It would've gone bad, Kammie."

"Then why do you always pack more than what you need to make the trip?" Kendall asked. He genuinely wanted to know.

His father shrugged. "Hunting's fun." He pulled his head out of the car and got into the driver's seat.

"No, Bastien, you're just an idiot sometimes." His mother did the same, and before he knew it, they were off and driving into town.