Coming inside, I found my mom sitting at the dining table waiting for me.
“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you!” she demanded.
“I told you. I went to get some fresh air.”

“I told you couldn’t go. Now, you’re in even bigger trouble. You aren’t supposed to be walking around in the middle of the night! Who knows what some man could do to you?!” my mom yelled.
“Mom, don’t worry—,” I began to say.
“Did anyone do anything to you? Did anyone bite you?” my mom interrupted, rushing over and checking my neck and arms.
“Well, there weren’t any strangers! No, no one hurt me! What? Bite? Mom, what are you talking about?” I exclaimed. I noticed my mom’s facial expression changed to show that she was relieved.
“I’m talking about the same thing as you!” she said. I knew she was lying.
“What? No, you’re not. Why did you ask if someone bit me then? You thought I suspected something,” I asked concerned.
“I didn’t ask that. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. She has spies everywhere especially at night,” she confessed.
“Anyway—why can’t you tell me? Who and why, especially at night? Don’t you trust me?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I’m not allowed to tell you the reasons either. I do trust you, honey. It’s just complicated. Besides, you wouldn’t understand. Anyway--,” she said.
I interrupted, “Is she blackmailing you? I’ll go give her a good fight if she is. If you trust me, then why can’t you tell me? Yes, mom, I would understand.”
“No, she’s not blackmailing me. You don’t have to do that, honey. Besides, she’s stronger than you so I won’t let you fight her. I told you, I can’t tell you because she has spies everywhere. I just can’t risk putting us all in danger by telling you,” my mom whispered.
“Are you sure? She might be stronger, but I can put up a good fight. Why does she have spies? Put us in danger? Mom, seriously, what are you talking about? And, why are we whispering?” I whispered back.
“Yes, I’m sure! I know you can put up a good fight, but I wouldn’t advise it. She has spies so she always knows what’s happening with us. And, we’re whispering so they can’t hear us.”
“Why does she need to know what is happening with us? Who’s this woman, anyway? And, why will it put us in danger?”
“That way she can watch me, and us. I can’t tell you why it will put us in danger.”
“Why would she want to watch us?”
“Again, I’m not allowed to say.”
“Why? What will she do to you?” I asked, worried.
“I don’t even want to talk about what she’ll do to me if I tell.”
“Oh, it’s that bad?” I asked, a little scared now.
“Yes,” my mom said, with fright in her eyes.
“So, there’s a woman who’s after us. She’s sending her spies after us to watch us. You can’t tell us the reasons because if you do, then she’ll hurt us? AND HER NAME IS?”
“That’s correct. Her name must never be said in this household.”
“Why must her name never be said?”
“Because, then, she will find us.”
“I thought you said she knows where we live?”
“I lied to her. I told her we live in New York. She thinks we live in that area, but she can’t approximate where. She’ll kill me if she finds out I lied. That is why we have to be careful.”
“But, we’re safe if she can’t locate where.”
“For now, we’re safe. Her spies could be anyone: your neighbor, your schoolmate, your boyfriend. Humans don’t know her,” my mom said.
I wanted to ask my mother about the human part, but she continued before I could ask.
“If you say her name, her spies will know and she’ll find us. Now, go upstairs and get some sleep.”
Victor went upstairs in front of me. My stepdad was with my mom.
“Before I go upstairs, can talk to you about something?” I asked, wanting to ask her about what I discovered at the graveyard.
“Go ahead.”
“Without Dad,” I implied.
“Anything you can say in front of me, you can say in front of Dad.”
“He won’t like what I’m going to say.”
“I’m sure he can handle what you’re going to say.”
“Well, fine then, but I warned you.”
“What is it, honey?” my mom asked.
“Dad, isn’t dead, is he?”
“What do you mean? He’s right here.”
“No, I mean our biological father. He’s alive, isn’t he?”
“No, honey, you must be mixed up with something. He’s dead.”
“He’s alive. I know it.”
“Are you feeling okay, honey?”
“Yes, mom, I’m fine.”
“Why do you think he’s alive?” my stepfather asked.
“His gravestone says Frank; not Danny.”
“Maybe you went to the wrong grave,” my mother suggested.
“Yes, maybe you got it mixed up,” my stepfather urged.
“No, I checked. There wasn’t anyone named Daniel, or Danny, on the tombstones.”
“Maybe you went to the wrong graveyard?” my stepfather suggested.
“No, I didn’t. I know I didn’t.”
“What were you doing out at night at the graveyard, anyway?” my mom asked, trying to change the subject.
“I just needed to get some fresh air,” I lied.
“You must’ve just walked there and laid down,” my mother explained.
“Yes, but that still doesn’t explain why his name isn’t there—,” I started. “My dreams always mean something, mom.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling alright? You’re acting strange,” she said as she went over to feel my forehead. She was acting strange also. She was trying to re-convince me for some reason. Why didn’t she want me to know about my father?
“Yes, I’m fine, mom.”
I realized she had never told us his cause of death. She just always said he died. I was going to test her.
“Come to think of it, you never did tell us his cause of death. Now, how did he die, mom?”
“Daniella, you’re going too far,” my stepfather barked.
“Sorry,” I replied. I could see my mother getting upset.
“Now, go to bed please before you wake up your siblings,” my mom pleaded.
As if on cue, Victor came out.
“What are you guys fighting about? I could hear you from my room,” Victor asked.
“It’s nothing important. Go back to your room,” my mother ordered.
“We’re fighting about our biological father,” I explained, trying to involve Victor in it so she would give me some answers. She couldn’t say no to the both of us.
“You can’t even tell me what he died from. He’s alive, isn’t he? Why have you been keeping this from us?”
“I told you, he’s dead. Can’t you get that through your head?” my mother snapped.
“He’s not dead though,” I argued.
“I’m going back to my room,” Victor said, tired of the arguing.
“You should go back to your room also, Daniella,” my mother suggested.
“Fine,” I said irritably. I went upstairs with Victor behind me and changed into my white pajamas in my room. I saw there was no use in anymore arguing since my mother wouldn’t confess to me that my father’s alive. Once I was in my pajamas, I turned off the lights and went to lie in my bed until I fell asleep.
When I fell asleep, I had a dream with the same young Mr. Kiasea. We were in his bedroom again. There were a few windows in the room. I was solid this time.
He was looking out one of the windows in his room.
“Is that you again?” the young Kiasea asked.
“Yes,” I answered him.
“Where am I? What am I doing here?” I asked, looking around.
“You are at my place. I needed to contact you,” he said.
“Why do you need to contact me?” I asked straightforward.
“What are you doing here? You didn’t answer my question from last time.”
“I—I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” he said irritably.
He zoomed across the room so that he was inches from my face.
“Stop fooling with me, Veronica,” he threatened.
“I’m not fooling with you,” I replied, pretending to be this, “Veronica.”
“We’ve made an arrangement, remember? Only, I come to visit you unless there’s an emergency. Now, what’s the emergency? Is it one of the humans?” he asked, concerned.
“No, there’s no emergency. I just wanted to come and see you,” I said flirtatiously. I slid my finger down his chest.
“Come over to me,” he said with a sensual smile.
I walked over to him. He came from behind me and started kissing me on the neck. Then suddenly, I was plastered against the wall.
“You’re not Veronica,” he said furiously. “Veronica only comes to see me if there’s an emergency.”
“I’m not Veronica,” I confessed.
“Who are you? Are you one of Meriada’s spies? You almost made me blow my cover,” he said angrily.
“I can’t tell you—,” I started to say.
“You must be one of Meriada’s spies then!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to kill you now.”
Suddenly, I wanted to wake up, but I realized this was just one of those nightmares where you can’t wake up.
“What?” I asked, frightened.
Then, he turned into a…a vampire. I saw his fangs for a second, petrified. A second later, I felt a painful stab in my neck and I screamed out. I slumped into his arms. Then, my eye sight became fuzzy. I couldn’t see him anymore, I could just feel now all the pain as he sucked my life away.
“What are you doing to me?” I whispered weakly.
I heard someone yell, “Stop!”
“What are you doing?” I heard the person say. I guessed it to be senior Mr. Kiasea.
“She’s not Veronica. She’s one of the spies! She knows too much now!” the young Mr. Kiasea yelled.

He continued to suck my blood away. I heard a thump on the ground and I guessed he dropped me. That’s when I woke up with a start from that terrible nightmare. I found myself sweating and panting.

I found my mother next to me. It was still dark out.
“Are you alright, honey? I heard you screaming. Why are you screaming?” my mother asked, worried.
“Oh, just a nightmare,” I replied, too frightened to share the details with my mother.
“I think they’ve found us,” my mother reported after.
“Who?” I asked, calming down.
“The spies,” she answered.
“Look.” She pointed out the window. There were two men coming towards our house.
“I don’t understand—I thought you said if you said her name—,” I said, looking at my mom, confused.
“I didn’t say her name. I don’t know how they found us—,” my mother explained.
“Quickly, we must speak about the spies to your brother.”
Quickly, we rushed to Victor’s room. I knocked on the door to his room.
“What?” Victor said, annoyed that I disturbed him.
“Mom needs to speak with us.”
“Why?”
“They’ve found us,” my mom said bluntly.
“Why are they here?” I whispered.
“Shhh—they can hear you from here. They have excellent hearing,” my mom explained.
“Why do they want us? What happens if they find us?” I asked concerned.
“I don’t know. I’ll try to protect you,” Victor replied measly. I knew Victor was not telling me something.
“I’ll try to create a diversion,” Mom added.
“What was your nightmare about?” my mother asked worried.
“This man… he had black hair, pale skin, and those blue eyes. Those blue eyes,” I shivered, “He reeled me in and, then, he killed me.”
I looked at my mother and Victor. My mom and Victor looked at me. Victor had a shocked facial expression.
“What??” I asked, seeing that there was something they talked about that they didn’t think to include me in.
“How did he kill you?” my mother asked nervously.
“He turned into a vampire…he killed me with a vampire bite,” I said as I shivered. I looked at my mother. She seemed frightened.
“This is what I was afraid of,” my mother replied.
“What?” I asked, not knowing what was going on.
“Don’t worry about it,” Victor replied.
“You have to get out of here and QUICK,” my mom ordered.
“Victor, lead your brothers and sisters to the old place.”
“Old place?” I asked.
“He can enter the old place. It’s not safe there,” he commented.
“I know, but he’s less of a threat than she is,” my mother explained.
“Who’s he?” I asked. I knew my mother was talking about the woman who was after us.
“I’ll distract them. You, Selena, Vlad, and Victor go,” my mom said, pushing us out of the room, not answering my question.
“You have a few minutes. That’s how long I can distract them.”
“Are you sure that you’re going to be alright?” Victor asked.
“Yes, I’ll manage.”
She rushed downstairs. Luckily, our stepdad was at work right now.
“Come on, let’s go,” Victor said. He grabbed Vlad and Selena, who were now standing in the hallway. I followed them.

“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“To the backyard,” Victor replied. We raced down the stairs and into the backyard. I saw Mom talking to the men out front.
“What are we doing in the backyard?” I asked as Victor was watching our mom talk to the men from behind the almost shut door.

“I can’t her leave her behind. They’ll swallow her up,” he said, not hearing my question.

“What? It’s probably not us.”

“Look, they’re here to kill us. Mainly, you,” Victor said seriously.

“What?! Why, me? How do you know that?”

“Because, we’re the ones the king is protecting.”

I had a feeling Victor was talking about the young Mr. Kiasea. Mr. Kiasea had mentioned something to me about humans before he realized I wasn’t Veronica. He confessed to me that he is hiding humans, but my family? Why is he hiding my family?
“I thought you didn’t know anything about this? Us? Why is he hiding us?”
“I was faking it. No more questions and be silent! They’re coming over in our direction. I don’t know if they’re his spies, or her spies,” Victor said, leaving the rest of my questions unanswered.
After a few minutes, we heard the voices coming closer.
“Shhh—Don’t make a sound. They can hear you,” Victor reminded me.
“They’re in this house somewhere. I know it,” the first man said.
“No one lives here except for me and my husband,” my mom explained.
“It does seem like only she and her husband live here,” the second man said, pointing to my mom.
“That’s because she’s hiding them somewhere in here,” the first man said.
“How do you know they’re exactly in here though?” the second man asked.
“I smell blood: Human blood. The smell is strong here. They’re somewhere in here,” he said, looking around.
“Have you forgotten? There are humans everywhere here! You must be confused, or something!” my mom exclaimed.
“She’s lying to us. How do you know we’re vampires? She’s trying to protect the other humans. She knows who we are, that’s why she’s trying to protect them.”
“I didn’t know you’re vampires,” my mom protested calmly.
“Yes, you did. Why did you just explain to us that there are humans everywhere then?”
My mom didn’t know what to say.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs. They’re somewhere in here,” the first man said. With that, both the men went upstairs to our bedrooms.
Once the men entered one of our rooms upstairs, my mom rushed down to us before they noticed. My mom locked the door behind her. We ran down to the car.
We hopped in and started driving.
“Where are we going?” I asked my mother.
“To the store, to buy food and, then to the old place, we’ll be able to stay there for a few days,” she replied. “But first, we’re going to Aunt Maddie to tell her we’re leaving.”
“The old place?”
“Yes, the place your father bought, but we moved away from there. I couldn’t handle his spies watching me. I moved away when I had the chance. I suspect they’re gone now since we moved away. Come on, let’s go into the store,” my mother said as we came to the parking lot of Ole Melly’s.
My mother and I had gone into Ole Melly’s Grocery Store to buy food. My mother had told me to go grab some bananas and apples to bring home.
I went over to the produce section of the store. The aisles were filled with a number of different fruits: cherries, apples, bananas, oranges, pears, plums, etc. on either side of me. I went over to a crate of apples. Fruits were marked at different prices ranging from 75 cents to $2.50.
“I wanted to protect you so they wouldn’t be able to get you,” she started to say once we were in the store. Victor and the others stayed in the car. It’s faster that way.
“Protect me from the spies?”
“The time is coming where I can’t for much longer. You’re going to have to protect yourselves from—,” she continued.
“What do you mean you can’t protect us anymore? We have to protect ourselves?”
“No, you just wouldn’t understand—,” she answered as she shook her head. I didn’t know what she was talking about still.
“Mom, you know you can tell me anything. What is it?”
She looked as though she wanted to tell me, but something was stopping her.
“I know, but not this time, not now, at least. Later, perhaps when you’re safer.”
“Safer?” I asked curiously, raising my eyebrows.
“Look, all I can say is I’ve managed to keep you safe so far, but I don’t know how much longer—,” she started to explain when she stopped.
“What?” I asked as I looked to where she was staring.
“I don’t see anyone there,” I commented.
“They’ve found you again,” she whispered, petrified.
Suddenly, she dropped our groceries and she started pulling me out of the store.
“The spies found me?” I asked, but my mother didn’t answer my question. I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that my mother was protecting me from some woman, but whom? And that the spies found me. Whoever, they were.
“We need to get out of here,” she said as we left the store.
We ran past other cars to our silver Toyota Camry. My mom unlocked the car and we hopped in quickly. My mom drove into reverse and pulled out of Ole Melly’s. We zoomed down the street.
I looked behind us to see what my mom had been looking at. Three slick black Hammers were chasing us down the street.
“How did they find us now?” my mother asked herself. They were coming closer to us.
“They’re gaining,” I reported. I was starting to panic. I didn’t know what was going on now.
Once we were zooming down the high way, out of nowhere my mom closed her eyes and gripped her hands around the steering wheel. We were entering the highway to the mountains now.
“Mom! What are you doing?! You’re going to get us killed!”
When we were about to crash into a truck, I leaned over and swerved the car.
“Mom! What do you think you’re doing?!”
She pressed hard on the gas pedal.
“That,” she said as she pointed behind us. My siblings and I looked behind me to see one of the black slick cars crash into the truck.
“You killed one of those bad guys!” Selena exclaimed.
“That’s the only way to get rid of them,” my mom explained.
“You’ve dealt with them before?” I asked.
“One down, one to go,” my mother breathed.
Just our luck, there happened to be one more truck. My mother sped around different cars. They were following us, every second getting closer.
My mom had done the thing she had done previously, but, this time, they knew her trick. We swerved, but they sped past us.
They curved and it seemed like we had nowhere to go since they were blocking our way, but my mom kept driving.
They jumped out of their cars and pulled out guns. They looked like secret service agents with their black suites and sunglasses.
My mom swerved and drove into the forest.
“Mom, what are you doing?” I yelled.
“When I say, jump out of the car,” my mom yelled, ignoring my question.
“But—what about you?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine!” she yelled as she swerved the car, trying not to crash into any trees.
We zoomed past millions of redwood trees.
“Now!” my mom yelled.
“Why, do they want me?!” I yelled.
“JUMP NOW!” my mom yelled, ignoring my question again. I opened the door quickly and jumped out as did the others. At that moment, my mom made a sharp U-turn. The black Hammers drove past us, following her.