Young Forever by Lola Pridemore Page A

good looking, as they say. Gerta was equally beautiful, with long, black hair and super white skin. They looked to be in their early twenties but were, obviously, much, much older than that. Like me, they would be young forever.
    Gerta stepped in and stated, “It was the biggest mistake of my life, turning Aloiki .”
    “Hey!” he shouted.
    She shrugged. “Well, it was.”
    “How could you?” he asked, aghast. “We have been the best companions. We are blood, cousins.”
    “True,” she said. “I knew you before I was a vampire. However, I should have known better. But I did not.”
    “ Gerta ,” he groaned. “We are a good team. Look at how long we have survived together.”
    “Well, in your mind, at least,” she retorted.
    “Enough!” I said, my voice rising. “I don’t want to get this started.” They backed down, then turned to stare at me. I stared back. “What?”
    “This boy, this Otis,” Aloiki said smoothly. “He is going to be big trouble.”
    “No more than you,” I said.
    “Perhaps,” he replied and glanced sideways at Gerta . “But we do not think that you should pursue this one. Leave him alone, to his life, to his mother.”
    To his mother? What did that mean? He was a grown man.
    “Let me find you a nice young man, a younger one, one more… ummm …impressionable,” Gerta said. “I will turn him for you. He will fit into the family better. I just don’t think this Otis is suited for this.”
    I shook my head. No. Otis was mine. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was mine. And I was not about to let him go. They would just have to accept that. Besides, we’d tried it their way once or twice or several times before with disastrous results. I told her that.
    “That is inconsequential,” she said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means it doesn’t matter. He is not the one.”
    I guess it didn’t matter. Not anymore, anyway. But I knew I was right about Otis. He was the one for me.
    I bit him once. Accidentally. Yes, right after we met and started “working” together at the hospital. It was an accident. I accidentally bit him because his arm was bleeding because a patient had grabbed him and dug her nails into his skin. For some reason, I thought I should bandage it. But the smell got to me. It’s always the smell! It just overpowers you and takes over and forces you to do something crazy, like bite the guy you like.
    Oops. That’s what I said to him. Oops. Like some idiot! Ugh! Sometimes I can’t believe what a dork I am. You’d think being so old would have its advantages but I got turned when I was still quite young. I hadn’t had time to fully mature yet. It’s hard to explain. It’s like part of me is really, really old. That’s the vampire part, the hunter part, the blood-thirsty part. But then I have this other side, this young woman side where I giggle and bat my eyes and act like… Well, almost like a teenage girl. Sometimes I get my words mixed up. Sometimes I roll my eyes a lot. Sometimes I just want to be left alone. Sometimes I scream when I get upset. And sometimes I buy way too many clothes and shoes. (I get in trouble a lot because of this but what is money if not to spend?) And, as a vampire, I need to look good. And, sometimes, I do stupid stuff that really threatens my survival like dating a young, handsome doctor.
    But still. I wished I could have been cooler around him, around Otis. But I wasn’t. I was a little starry-eyed, as they say, probably due to the fact that I was still a bit immature. But I’m stuck at this age though a big part of me yearns to mature and act like a grown woman. But in a lot of ways, it’s good to be this young. It means I am young forever and that doesn’t suck.
    And now it was all coming out in the wash. Months later, months after I bit him for the first time on accident, now I’d have to bite him again for other reasons, for real this time. We were overcome by other vampires too quickly for me to