The next day, Leo caught me as I exited sixth-period peer-tutoring, quick to herd me toward the parking lot without any specifics. Mason, who'd been leaning against my car waiting, pushed off and surveyed us. Particularly my raised shoulders and taught, short steps.
"Easy there, little brother," Leo chuckled.
Mason's eyes narrowed.
"He's not bothering you, is he?" Mason asked, glaring-down his sibling.
The effort was wasted, of course. Leo towered over the pair of us with a cheeky grin.
"I'm fine," I bit out.
"Leo," a velvety voice called, pulling Leo's gaze around.
Shoulders still raised, I flicked my eyes toward the newcomer. Anne treated the sidewalk as her own personal catwalk; feet pacing in line, hips swaying left to right, shoulders back, and hair swishing with each step. Her eyes, a rare periwinkle-violet scrutinized without furrowing a single wrinkle between her brows. I noticed their silvery starburst as she came upon us.
"Hey, babe."
She glided into Leo's proffered arm, hip sliding smoothly into the space beside his as he wound it around her slim waist. The smile she forced didn't reach her eyes and, in fact, emulated a detached condescension, particularly given the upward tilt of her chin. Even among vampires, she was a rare beauty and she knew it.
That fact made my upper lip twitch with the need to sneer. But the sudden excitement on Leo's face flooded me with wariness instead.
"We're going to go on a double-date," he said, matter-of-fact.
"I need to eat," I stated simply, assuming this would be enough to shut that idea down quickly, however -
"There's a pizza place out on the Spit," he offered and finally Anne's smugness seemed to dim, "Annie will drive us."
"I've got a good handle on my homework," Mason shrugged, glancing over at me.
"E-er, yes," I said slowly, blinking to prevent myself from staring at Leo like he'd grown a second head.
Alcohol was a common comfort to vampires, even coffee, but solid foods? I supposed there wasn't anything particularly harmful about consuming human food, but most vampires didn't bother due to lack of taste.
"I'll just put my backpack in my car," I murmured, feeling a spike of intrigue at the prospect of watching them consume fast-food.
He sprung this on me; was he not privy to the plans Mason and I were sketching out this weekend? What was he doing? Quickly, I fished my wallet out before tossing my bookbag into the cabin of the car.
"Do you want your phone?" Mason asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Won't you be entertaining me?"
He chuckled, mellowed, and hesitantly extended a crooked forefinger. After flipping the Jeep's manual lock, I accepted, linking my finger into his. A low scoff sounded from behind my date, but when I glanced to inspect Anne, she looked away.
"What?" I demanded, unwavering.
"Are you a toddler?"
"Romance isn't really my thing," I shrugged.
She and Leo led the way back to Anne's Prius. They walked ahead of Mason and I, hands wound together such that their fingers looked like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
"Clearly."
"You have reasonable expectations," Mason soothed, eyes blazing as he stared at the back of Anne's head.
He opened one of the back doors for me. The car's interior, while immaculate, was pungent with nose-tickling mint. Before we even peeled from the parking lot, I'd rolled the window down half-way.
Plenty of other cars were around and if we truly were headed onto the tourist-heavy peninsula that split the bay - the Spit as Leo had called it - then there'd still be plenty of humans about. If Anne swerved into somewhere more secluded, I had no qualms flinging myself from a moving vehicle. I'd survive. However, true to their word, she pulled immediately onto the main road headed South.
I broke my uneasy silence, "Well, clearly, it's been insinuated that I could use some relationship pointers, so, perhaps some constructive criticism is in order?"
Anne refused to miss a beat, "The key to a long and healthy relationship is good sex."
"That would be a little awkward given that this is a double-date, don't you think?"
"Ew," Leo snickered, "You nasty, Annie."
"Don't be childish," she countered, but the little smirk I caught a glimpse of appeared genuine.
"Do you go on dates often?" I asked.
"Just this past weekend I took her to Soldotna for a farmer's market."
"For food?"
"Fabric," she corrected, as if that much should be obvious.
"Right, you sew," I perked up, watching as she gave me a wary sideways glance. "Leo said you're really good."
"I do and I am."
"Do you?" Mason asked to which I nodded, "What do you make?"
"I usually just do repairs and basic tailoring - "
"I would've never known," Anne railroaded.
"The machine didn't make it to the new house."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Mason soothed, and when I looked to gauge the emotion, I caught him returning to form after another pointed glare in Anne's direction. "So... sewing, violin, and hiking; you're an accomplished woman."
An unwelcome blush rose into my cheeks, "And you... you're a piano-man and local edgelord; the whole package."
Leo guffawed once loudly, but Mason supplied only a polite smile with raised brows.
"Learn to take a compliment."
"Right," I winced, "What else do you do?"
"Engage in debates with my brothers, play pranks on Anne..."
"What about your future plans?"
He chuckled, finger crooking around mine over the middle-seat in a little squeeze, "Well, I suppose I'd like to be married one day."
Leo made a barely-audible groan and turned to stare out the passenger window, shaking his head good-naturedly. I could see his wrinkle-nosed grimace in the side-view mirror though.
Knows his coven-mate doesn't have any game, huh?
"Married," I echoed politely, "That's fair, but I think we're supposed to be thinking about careers at this point, right?"
"Well, at this age it's also fair if we don't have a plan."
I huffed, rolling my eyes, "Kids these days do too much soul searching. I don't have the time or money to waste on that."
"You have every nook and cranny of your life mapped out, do you?" Anne posited, tilting her head to give me a haughty stare from over her shoulder.
"As a matter of fact, I do. I'm going to intern at the hospital next year or enroll at the community college if they have no positions open. From there I'll go for an Associate's Degree and eventually become a Registered Nurse."
"Mm, cleaning bedpans and performing sponge-baths," Anne's nose wrinkled and she tapped her nails on the steering wheel.
"Supporting families by caring for their loved ones," I corrected, trying to keep my voice even. If I were being fair, there were many non-vampires that would turn up their noses at a job like that. "Though, I have to admit I'm not interested in general practice. If the job market is kind, and if I can scrounge up the money for some specialization, I think I'd like to work in pediatrics or maybe even as a midwife. A labor and delivery nurse, perhaps."
"Do you want kids of your own?" Mason probed, though I noted how he stared carefully at the road ahead as he spoke.
"It's a little daunting to think about at the moment," I admitted, feeling my voice go thin in my throat, "Given my family's situation at the very least."
"If you pick a man with a good family, your in-laws would help you."
I blinked, eyes flicking up to examine Anne; she'd diminished the regal tilt of her chin so much that I could no longer see her face in the rearview mirror. Pursing my lips, I looked at Mason. Oddly enough, his face had also softened, but the moment I turned my head he'd neutralized his expression.
The Homer Spit - a long, thin needle of land of wet mud-flats and low scrub, was somehow also populated by dottings of low-stilted houses, beached boats, and an assortment of colorful shops. So low was it, that I wondered why a great storm hadn't washed the whole thing into the bay by now.
We snaked all the way toward the end, a popular spot for blocky campervans, then, with one turn into a halfway-populated parking lot, we reached our destination.
It was a collection of what looked like houses all connected by a wooden boardwalk sweeping from one to the next. Sure enough, however, from behind a large square window from the house directly in front of us blinked a neon pizza sign. A dark chalk board flanked the door, listing out the menu in a neat, hand-written print. The bay waffled in the wind beyond the shop, gray and dim beneath the clouds.
Leo was first to the door, opening with a sweep of his arm and dramatically inviting us to enter. Mason rolled his eyes and threw an elbow to Leo's chest as he passed. A little pop resounded at the contact and, without thinking, I reached out to smack Mason on the shoulder.
All vampires' heads snapped around at once. Even I froze, eyes widening at my own knee-jerk reaction. Quickly, I retracted my hand and looked away from Mason's probing, emerald gaze.
"Be nice," I chastised in a tone higher than usual.
The hair along my arms stood at attention but was thankfully covered by the bottle-green long-sleeve. The lot of them relaxed in synchronization, Leo grinning once more as if unphased that his brother had just cracked a rib on him. Of course, he'd have to shake it off for now with all the humans watching. It would heal in a short time despite the pain.
Chatter wafted on the warm, dry air within the shop, making my ears tickle a bit. Or perhaps they were still-stinging from the chilled sea-breeze. A few highschoolers were gathered here - some doing homework as they ate away at their pies while others were simply chatting. The idle chatter took on a whispery resonance as the door shut behind us with a tinkle of the bell.
"Ladies first," Mason gestured towards the counter.
I swallowed, "Er-"
The man behind the counter was middle-aged and flanked by a younger teenager who sloughed a gooey cheese pizza from the pizza peel. With a little spin and a jab, the boy loaded an uncooked one onto the instrument and popped it into the masonry oven.
"Can I take that whole cheese pizza, please?"
"A healthy appetite," the cashier chuckled, nodding his head at the young man to reload the peel with my order. The teen raised his eyebrows at me briefly, giving a quick appraisal, before sliding the round pie right into a box. "You going to leave any for anyone else?"
"I'm pretty hungry," I admitted tugging on a strand of hair that had shifted in front of my ear.
"Anything else on the order?" he asked to which Mason shook his head with an amused smile.
His wallet was in his hands and a twenty-dollar bill proffered to the cashier before I could even unzip my own, "Keep the change."
"And for the two of you?"
Mason led me away, stealing the box from where it'd been left at the counter. I narrowed my eyes territorially, but stifled a growl. My stomach, on the other hand, would not be so easily quieted.
He chose a table at the back, setting down the box fluidly and moving to my side to pinch the shoulders of my coat. As if conscious of my wary gaze, he moved slowly as I slipped my arms from the jacket sleeves and allowed him to drape it over the back of the chair. He pulled it out for me wordlessly and smoothly vacated my space so I could settle myself. Thankfully, choosing the table allowed us to take the seats which put our backs to the wall. That fact dissolved an ounce of the tension in my shoulders.
"Sorry about this," he murmured, watching Leo animatedly deliberate over the options in the display, "I know you were nervous about going out with my family."
"He seems impulsive."
"Guilty, actually," Mason frowned, "He tries to immediately smooth things over with people he's wronged."
"O-oh," I breathed, watching as Leo accepted a plate that bowed under the weight of his slice, "Wronged? How can you tell?"
Mason deliberated a moment, examining his brother, "He's not as ridiculous as usual and he's keeping Anne in check. He's trying to be considerate."
He intertwined his fingers on the table in front of him, shifting his gaze to me. It was questioning, but he stayed politely silent. Likely, he already knew exactly what Leo was guilty about but wanted to give me the opportunity to explain myself. There was no sense rehashing it.
I shifted topics, feeling myself growing warm under his inquisitive stare, "Have you thought anymore about your future plans?"
Mason took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair, but his eyes never left my face.
"I think I'd like to become a lawyer."
"Really?" I cocked my head, intrigued, "You did get fired up when we were talking yesterday about judgment. What specialty would you prefer?"
"Criminal law."
"That's a stressful profession."
And if he had a mind-reading talent, that could prove intriguing. Leo and Anne had each taken a plate from the counter and were headed our way.
"Let me know if Mason's asking out-of-pocket questions again," Leo promoted, setting down his pizza slice to pull back the chair for his girlfriend. "I'll give him a talking-to later."
I could finally see why the plate seemed loaded; the pizza itself was loaded with a random assortment of chopped meats. Anne's slice was white-sauce based with basil and what looked like chunks of melted mozzarella. I regretted not taking more time to examine the menu. Nevertheless, I took initiative to open my own box and heft up a slice. The still-hot cheese strung along from the wedge and managed to keep going.
"Stand up, see how far it stretches," Leo goaded.
Mason reached in to pinch the little strands for me.
Ew, now it'll taste funny...
With raised eyebrows, I offered Mason the slice, but he shook his head with an infuriatingly polite smile. I dug in. To my surprise, the vampire residue didn't taste wholly terrible. In fact, something about it was rather intriguing. I scarfed another few bites to fill my embarrassingly loud stomach.
From the corner of my eye I watched Mason fiddle with a napkin, folding and unfolding, though he seemed to slow his movements as I began to watch him.
"Did you know Mason wanted to become a lawyer?" I asked the others.
Leo choked mid-bite.
"Since when?" Anne was covering her mouth with a hand, as if politely chewing, but she hadn't taken a bite out of her pizza.
"It's just a thought," Mason sighed, as Leo forcefully swallowed.
"That's a good choice for you," he finally said through watering eyes.
Mason glared, a defiant question of his brother's sincerity.
"No, really, I think you'd find purpose in it. You get much deeper into those hypothetical debates than I do- "
"You never seem to take them as seriously as the others do," Anne pointed out, a wry smile arcing the gentle slope of her cupids' bow.
"What's been your favorite debate?" I probed, curious.
Mason snickered, "Now there's something edgy. Sorry, but I'm not trying to scare you away."
"Why don't you pick one?" Anne suggested, absorbed in taking a calculated bite of her pizza.
They eagerly took the human-food. Did it have a taste? All known research my family had undertaken said otherwise, but...
"Well," I started, feeling a small smile pull across my face, "Does pineapple belong on pizza?"
"Mm," Mason shook his head, "Maybe I should pick one of my usual topics instead."
"As an authentic half-Italian, I am horrified by what Americans have done to pizza," I stated, wrinkling my nose and pinching all five of my fingers together in the shape of a pine-cone, "Have you people no sense? The texture of pineapple is all wrong for pizza."
"I think it makes for something sweet and savory," Anne said calmly, raising her eyebrows at my incredulity.
"Too sweet," Mason worked his tongue in his mouth with a wrinkle of his freckled nose, as if tasting the flavor himself, "The savory is drowned out by the potency of the fruit."
"Pizza without anything spicy on it isn't worth eating in the first place," Leo tapped his forefinger firmly on the table.
"I can get on board with that," Mason chuckled.
"No, no, no," Anne smacked Leo's hand and he shook out his fingers in mock-horror, "You're missing out on the authentic pizza flavor when you smother it."
"Neither one is authentic if it's become an amorphous blob of weird flavors."
"Is the cheese pizza we're eating now authentic?" Mason wondered, finally taking me up on a slice.
I glanced at the counter, then lowered my voice, "No way! The crust is too thick and the sauce overcooked."
"I apologize for my brother's thoughtlessness," Mason said, sucking in air through his teeth, "For us not to have realized that this isn't even a reputable establishment - "
"Hey now, reputable and authentic are two different things," I cautioned.
"So pizza can be reputable or popular without being authentic?"
Anne poked a larger hole in my concession.
"This diverged from the main issue at hand."
"I disagree," Mason disagreed; a wry, crooked grin on his lips, "We're establishing definitions; just because a pizza isn't authentic doesn't mean it's not pizza. So by that logic, pineapple on pizza may not be authentic pizza but it is still, apparently, pizza."
"I got another one for you," Leo posited after a large, final swallow, "What about broccoli on pizza?"
The three of us groaned in unison before Anne broke off in a little peal of giggles. Sitting in the warm parlor, with a full belly and cheeks aching from a grin, it was hard to imagine that any of the three occult at my table could very well be murderers.
Just how many had each of them killed? Hundreds? Moreover, how many was too many? Catalina's empathetic reasoning had been relatively sound, but I needed to create some metric by which these unusual vampires could be judged for their sins.
Or a method by which they could atone, I considered.
Sitting amongst them now, talking about things that didn't matter, they seemed halfway human. How far did that extend? If they were trying to be human after starting out as killers, would they have yet developed the human rationale to feel sorry for what they had done? Would they have the conscience to agree to recompense?
"Now that we've tested the waters..." I started slowly, with a very carefully-crafted mischievous smile, "Maybe we move onto something a little more difficult?"
"Shoot," Mason encouraged as I set down my half-eaten slice and weaved my fingers together in mock-seriousness.
"Say you're..." I hesitated, "A friend to someone. You're both middle aged, maybe moving toward senior citizen status. And one night your friend confesses something to you: in his youth he was an addict who went so far as to kill others to secure his fix.
"Despite knowing the guy for years, you'd never known he was once an addict, much less a murderer. He'd become a youth pastor. In fact, he'd even stepped up to help you and your kids when your spouse was terminally ill. Even though you would never have pegged him as the type, you can tell he's serious as he's confessing to you. What do you do?"
My smile widened as silence descended on the table. Anne stared as if I'd grown horns, but Leo and Mason were contemplative.
"Tell him it's all good," Leo shrugged, "Mistakes happen."
"Mistakes?" Mason asked incredulously, "The man has a body-count."
"Yeah, but he killed his dealers."
"I didn't say that," I corrected, "I just said he killed people to secure his fix."
"So they could've been innocents," Leo narrowed his eyes, "That complicates things."
"Take the matter into your own hands," Anne huffed, coming to terms with the debate at hand, "More people than you'd expect are excellent at putting on a facade of normalcy or even a perfected life while hiding their true actions and intentions. How do we know he hasn't relapsed? Why is he telling us, anyway? Is he drinking?"
"In answer to your questions: You don't know. Let's say he's confessing while the pair of you are having a beer on your back porch, but it's only the first drink of the night."
"In this scenario, is he amenable to answering questions?" Mason wondered.
"Depends on how you're asking."
"Oh, I'm asking aggressively," Anne growled.
"Eh, I'm not asking any questions," Leo decided.
"To be fair, I think both extremes would make this friend anxious."
"If he's turned his life around and has impacted the community," Leo reasoned, narrowing his eyes, "I still think he's fine. What happened before isn't really my business."
"I'm not so certain that he's fine," Anne persisted.
A perfectly manicured nail came down on the table to punctuate her last few words.
"What about the families of the people he's killed?" Mason suggested, propping his elbows on the table and interlacing his fingers under his chin. "Don't they deserve justice?"
All good-humored light had evaporated from his eyes.
"Wouldn't the justice system simply give him a sentence anyway?" Leo argued, "I'd say he's served his sentence by giving back to the community what he owed."
"His victims may have had children," Anne's eyes widened for a moment, then immediately narrowed.
"Anne's right," Mason whispered, "He's got to pay reparations first to the people he's directly damaged; not to random people to assuage his own guilt. That's why the law needs to be involved."
Mason's eyes turned to me, "Where do you weigh in on this?"
"I'm with Anne," I said after a slow and deliberate swallow. Mason leaned in, his eagerness bringing him closer than I might have liked. Yet it wasn't too difficult to suppress the instinct to move away. "I'm familiar with the nature of addicts. About eighty percent of them relapse within the first year of attempting sobriety. The longer the addict is addicted, the more strategies they can learn to hide their addiction and appear functional. I'd personally be suspicious. We need to address the potential of a bigger danger; if this man is still using, and he's explained that he's been a danger to others in the past, we have significant reason to worry."
"Okay, can we add a stipulation, then?" Leo sighed, leaning back in his chair.
"Go on."
"Let's work with the hypothetical assumption that he's sober. I like the moral dilemma of whether or not he's paid his dues better than the idea that the guy's still a menace."
"Needs to be considered," Anne huffed before examining her nails, apparently checking out of the conversation.
"Why this question?" Mason asked instead, relaxing his interlaced fingers in favor of crossing his arms on the table.
His shoulders were stiff in this position, wiry and broad.
"I'm pretty sure they have you consider hypothetical-moral dilemmas in law-school," I hedged.
"Why this question?"
I met his gaze, tilting my head with a faint smile, "I wanted to know whether your values aligned with mine."
"And?" Leo asked through another mouthful of pizza.
"You fail," I chuckled, leaning back in my chair, entirely full, "Anne and Mason pass."
Mason's quizzical brows resolved as a small, crooked smile bloomed over his lips. His eyes melted as he assessed me, the heat of them making me warm under his gaze. I looked away in time to notice the little grin that wrinkled Anne's nose as she poked Leo. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and when he looked into her face, I had to redirect my gaze again, feeling as if I'd intruded on a private moment. Unfortunately, I found myself trapped in Mason's gaze once more.
"What?" I demanded under my breath.
"You're unusual for your age."
"What does that mean?"
He ignored that question.
Instead, his crooked smile grew wider and the silver burst at the center of his irises sparkled with a hint of mischief, "Does this mean I get another date?"
"I suppose it does," I allowed, fruitlessly trying to suppress the blush that was creeping up my neck.
Damn, leech!
And I couldn't even blame it on vampiric compulsion. Not that such things worked on my species. Mason was simply... charming.