Fashionably Dead by Robyn Peterman

even knew what happened. Gemma shrieked and tried to save me from further butchering, but The Kev held her back. I screamed in pain and tried to grab the knife from Pam, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
    “Look at your hand,” Pam demanded, snapping me out of my pain-induced haze. While it definitely bled, it was closing up immediately.
    “Oh my God,” I gasped. “I heal like an old, old Vampyre.”
    “Yep,” Pam said, staring daggers at The Kev. “How much Fairy blood has she had?”
    “A lot,” he admitted, “but she needed it. I beat her up good.” He smiled gently at me, like a proud father. “She’s an excellent fighter now and she is controlling her Magic beautifully. As soon as she has weapons training she will be able to go against the best. Eventually she will be unbeatable. She will become a master.”
    “She’d better,” Pam grunted, “because with all her fuckin’ bells and whistles, quite a few Vamps are going to want a piece of her.”
    “We don’t know that for sure,” The Kev said hopefully.
    “Yes . . . yes, we do,” Pam said so quietly I almost missed it.
    Gemma sat on the couch looking pale and confused. I suppose I’d be thrown for a loop if I watched my best friend get sliced and found out the guy/Fairy I was crushing on was two thousand years old. I mean, what the fu . . . ?
    Not only that, I knew she was having a tough time with my friendship with Venus. I needed to get them together, but both of them were being butts about it.
    “Okay, both of you need to relax your cracks,” I said to The Kev and Pam. “I’m strong and magical and loaded with the potential to have every Vampyre I meet for the rest of my very unnaturally long life want to kick my ass or kill me. Whatever. What I’m concerned and freaked about is my mother.”
    “Oh good God, that woman is pure evil.” Pam threw her hands in the air and fell back on the couch.
    “She scares The Kev,” he muttered, pacing around the room.
    “Do you think she knows?” Gemma asked me.
    “I do. I really think she knows I’m a Vampyre, but that’s impossible.”
    “No,” Pam said. “It’s not impossible, and she definitely knows.”
    “Is she really going to die on Friday?” I could feel the tears welling up. Why did I even care? She wouldn’t give a shit if I died.
    “You’re right, she wouldn’t,” Pam said.
    “What? You can read my mind now?” I practically screamed at her.
    “No,” she said, reaching out for me, “your face.”
    I went to her. Pam had been more of a mother to me in the month I’d known her than Petra had been my entire life. Pam’s love may have been filled with wicked-looking knives and swear words delivered at decibels guaranteed to make your ears bleed, but it was real and from her heart. No matter how disrespectful and bratty I was with her, I adored her and loved her fiercely.
    I curled myself up in Pam’s lap. I thought about sinking my fangs into her for comfort, but I felt like a tick after feeding from Gemma.
    “Is she going to want me to change her into a Vampyre? Is that what she meant by not fucking up?” I sniffed.
    “No,” Pam said quietly. A quiet Pam was not something I was comfortable with. I listened carefully. “No,” she repeated, “she can’t become a Vampyre. It would destroy her.”
    “How do you know that?” I asked, confused.
    “Trust me.” She turned me so our eyes met. “I know.”
    There was more to this story, but Pam only revealed what she wanted, when she wanted.
    “Is this one of those Angel things?” I asked, not daring to press it further.
    She considered me carefully. I could tell she was weighing how much to say. She settled for, “Yes.”
    “Well then, what am I not supposed to fuck up?”
    The Kev put his head into his hands. Gemma put her arms around his shoulders and held him tight. Pam stared into space.
    “I wish I knew,” she said. “I really fuckin’ wish I knew.”

Chapter 11
     
    My monsters were