All Chapters of So You Think Your Sister's a Vampire?: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The house seemed quieter than usual when I opened my eyes just before dawn. There was a moment when it hadn’t quite registered that it was Christmas morning. Once I realized it was the most magical day of the year, my first instinct was to run next door and pounce on my sister so we could race each other down the stairs like we used to do when we were little. But everything came flooding back, hitting me like a ton of bricks, and I remembered, not only was Cadence not there, Cadence wasn’t really Cadence anymore, either, at least not the one I’d known back when both of us believed the only person who might be wandering around on our roof at night wore a big red suit instead of black leather.Nevertheless, I had made a Christmas wish, and I wanted to see if there was any chance of it coming true. So… dressed in my festive Christmas pajamas, the ones my mom had given me the night before, I tossed the covers off, slipped my feet into my Mukluks, and went

My dad came in with three cups of coffee and exclaimed, “Let the Christmas present opening begin!” He handed one to Elliott and one to my mom, and I wondered if he forgot that Cadence is also an adult.She was back now, looking kinda cute in her PJs, even though I could tell she was embarrassed. “Oh, don’t you look darling!” my mom exclaimed, making Elliott choke on his coffee before he agreed. My dad said nothing, only chuckled, and I decided I’d had about enough of their stalling.“Can we open our stockings now, pretty please?” I asked, taking advantage of my non-coffee-drinking childhood.“Yes, you may,” my mom said, emphasizing what she considered to be correct grammar, and I approached the mantle, handing my sister her stocking before I took mine.“I guess Santa knew where I’d be at this morning after all,” Cadence mumbled, her voice sounding a little sad. We cross

The next morning, I took my time getting up, showering, dressing, and hauling myself down the stairs. Christmas magic was long since gone, and I looked at the Christmas tree with disdain, wishing it would fold up its branches and put itself away.My parents were in the kitchen, chatting with Elliott over leftover cinnamon rolls. They all greeted me when I came in, but I proceeded to march to the coffeemaker with little more than a mumble in their general direction. I poured a steaming cup of joe, added almost half as much cream, two cubes of sugar, and stirred it up. I’d never drank coffee before, but I had decided I was an adult now, and adults drank coffee.It was awful. I almost gagged it tasted so bad. Despite my attempt to make it sweet, it was bitter and gritty. I wanted to dump it down the sink, but I couldn’t let them through my façade, so I took my steaming cup of poo into the living room and found a seat by the window, staring out into the

It was almost painful to listen to Cadence speak. She grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it, and I thought it might actually burst. I expected to see tears, but there weren’t any. I decided to change the subject.“What about your other friends?” I asked, shifting around so that I was on my hip now, facing her. “What about Meagan, Hannah, those other people I met at the funeral?” I wasn’t sure if I should say the word funeral, or if I should rattle off the names of her friends like I’d been searching online for information about them for the last several weeks, so I tried to keep it nonchalant.“Meagan’s great,” Cadence said, her face lighting up a little bit. “We went through our training together. And Hannah is pretty cool. She’s older than us, though, and has been working there a long time.” She made a face like she may have told me too much; how old did she think I thought Hannah was? As

“Why do you have to leave?” I asked, jumping up off the bed and following Elliott as he headed toward the stairs.“I told you. We’ve got work to do.” He paused in front of the stairwell.“But… seriously, it’s Christmas break.”“You know, you should turn on a television sometime, lil girl. There are things happening in this world you may want to be aware of.” He started down the stairs, and I followed.Puzzled over what in the world he might be talking about, I continued to follow him until he reached the foyer. “What kinds of things?”He shook his head at me, yet again, and turned to look at me. “Something tells me you’ll know it when you see it.”Elliott was giving me a clue. I could find out more about what they were doing from the news. I wondered what in the world I could’ve been missing this whole time. Were there news stories about va