Forbidden Days (The Firsts) by C.L. Quinn

thing, did you know about it before?”
    “No.  It’s still bouncing off my brain, too.  Bernie, I hope you’ll be happy.  I made this choice for you, so I feel responsible.”
    Bernie leaned in.  “I…I don’t know.  But I will tell you, if I’d been awake, and he offered me the choice, I would have chosen to live.  So I relieve you of your responsibility.  You did right by me, Park.  I’m grateful.”
    Park leaned in, hesitated, and then hugged Bernie, who hugged her back.
    Bas rolled his eyes.
    “I guess you’re doing okay.  So let’s get the hell out of here before Shanks and his sire come for us all.”
    “We’re three now,” Park said.  “We outnumber them.”
    “You really are new to vampires, Park, or you would never have said something so naïve.  Let’s just go.”
    Park helped untie Bernie, who was way less steady standing than she expected her to be.  Bas eventually swept her  up and carried her up the stairs, her arms tight around his neck.  Park felt odd about that.  Seeing Bernie that close to him…it bothered her.  She didn’t know why, he wasn’t hers, she had no claim on him.  But she knew.  She was jealous anyway.  And when Bernie buried her head against Bas’s chest, I took everything she had not to yank her out of his arms.  She groaned as she waited for him to get into the passenger seat after settling Bernie in the backseat.  This was going to go well.
     
     
     
     
    The rest of the journey was uneventful.  Bernie began to have intense pain in her entire body, and spent most of the journey balled up in the backseat, whimpering or trying to muffle her screams.  Now Park felt some responsibility for what she was putting her through.  Bas gave her the “I told you so” look, but then felt sorry for her and reminded her what Bernie said, that it would have been her choice too.
     
     
     
    Two days later, just an hour after dusk left the sky black, the Mercedes started a climb up a heavily wooded road back so far from town and so isolated, surely nothing was there.  She remarked about that to him.
    “It’s there.  It’s a fortress, my stronghold, my most protected property.  I’ve owned this land for two hundred years.”
    “Oh, you actually paid for something?”
    “Funny. I’ve paid for a lot of something’s, smartass.  If you’ve been alive for three hundred years and don’t have enough wealth to do anything you want, you don’t deserve the gift of immortality.”
    “So, you’re wealthy?”
    “Obscenely.   Not bragging, just happens to be a fact. Lady, we’re going to need it if we’re going to defend ourselves.  I just received another text from Dez.   A third vampire has been murdered.  It’s war.  Shanks, his Sire, and according to two other sources, three other unknown vampires.  We have to assume he’s making himself an army.  We have to  assume he’ll be after us soon, if  not next.  He’s already sent us his calling card.”  He glanced back at Bernie, still rolled into a tight ball.
    “Yeah, received and opened.  Little did he know he just sent us an awesome vampire for our army.”
    “Four of my oldest friends, and their entourages, will be joining us here sometime tonight.  Then we’ll begin our strategy and response to this threat.”
    “Do you have enough room for that many people in your home?”
    At that moment, the car cornered around a stand of evergreens as tall as the sky, and his home came into view.
    “Oh, Bas…” Park gasped.  It was a magnificent compound, surrounding an impressive estate.  The main house was what could conservatively be called a mansion.  It looked like it could have been here for centuries, or built last month.  Park had been raised in a two room walk-up with little heat in the winter and no air conditioning through scorching summers.  And although her little beach property was high dollar, and she loved it, it didn’t approach this level of luxury.  It felt too