My Life As a Teenage Zombie

In the Dark of the Night

"Of course they are," I groan. Yet another pair added to the list of suspects. "So, what'll you do about your inheritance problem?"

Mason shrugs.

"Do you take a vote, or..?"

He gives me a patronizing look. Yeah, that was dumb. "Fight."

"To the death," he finishes, and I flinch. I know this whole mess involves lots of murder - both mine and of the person behind it, once I get my hands on them - but killing someone over something like that still feels wrong.

"No other way?"

He shakes his head. "It's always been like this."

"Traditions can be changed."

"I won't have the power to do that until after he's dead."

Well that's a dead end. "You okay with it?"

He looks past me, as though incapable of making eye contact. "I don't know."

"You could forfeit."

"I promised my father I'd be the best alpha this back has ever seen. I can't go back on that." I never understood familial loyalty. I loved Derek, sure, but I would have no problem selling my parents out. There really is no love between us.

Now to deal with the thing I came here to deal with. "You promise Si is safe from you people?" Phrasing it like that might be insulting, but I don't care at the moment. "No werewolf's gonna come after him?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"He's just a human. There's no way he can compare to us now, right? I don't want people going after him to get to me. Are things between me and you smooth now?"

He sighs. "Between us, personally, they are, but Mike won't let his bruised ego go, and now neither will Doug. I can't make it official until I win."

I gulp. "And they might come at him until then?"

"No."

"Why the fuck not?" There's a lot I've yet to learn.

"Because of two things. The first is the rule that no monster in this town is allowed to go after humans. The second is your misconception about your friend."

Oh, boy, here we go. "Don't tell me."

"Simon Stash is not human. He comes from a family of exorcists. They're called that, but they really deal with all types of monsters. If one of us was to step out of line, the Stash family would deal with it."

"By deal with, you mean..?"

He finally looks directly at me. "Kill."

Ah, lovely.

"Then why'd he pretend he didn't know I was a zombie?"

"Sounds like something you should handle with him." Damn it. He's right.

I then yawn, completely incapable of reeling it in. Wow, I'm tired. "I should head home."

"Yeah," he says, getting up. "Me too. Watch yourself."

"I always do," I reply, waving at him as I walk away. I hope that looked cool. I wanted it to.

On my way home, I get the same feeling as from when I was returning from the party. That same dreadful feeling of being watched creeps up on me. Even though my blood's not running at all, it still manages to run cold. I turn around, but no one's behind me. I repeat this a bunch of times, starting to panic. There's absolutely no way for anyone to hide anywhere around me, so why am I being like this?