Born or Made

Prologue: First Blood

It was snowing. The car ride home had been utterly silent and felt uncomfortably long. Capry Ramos stared listlessly out of the window watching the city go by as they drove down the freeway, away from the Albuquerque Police Department. She could see her mother's hands clutching the steering wheel so tight her knuckles were turning white. Capry swallowed hard, her stomach turning over shakily as she tasted the metallic flavor that seemed to be lingering in her mouth. She felt afraid and confused as she replayed the incident again in her mind.

She had been at her best friend Persephone Wilson's house, (Seph for short) where she went almost everyday after school. They were sitting on her bed laughing and chatting as they usually did. They'd been friends since middle school. Somewhere over the years their friendship had transformed into something else. And recently the term "friends" had become quite fluid.

It excited Capry to have someone. She had never really fit in and maybe it wasn't wise to take her only friendship and turn it into something else, but it was too late to go back now. She had always just been the strange adopted kid, or according to boys her age, the ugly girl that didn't seem to have regular social skills. Or perhaps it was as simple as other teenagers were cruel and had written her off, and she hadn't tried too hard to fit in or win anybody's approval. She went to a school that contained a slightly higher class of students. A lot of them had sports cars and scoffed at her baggy jeans and after the gym class locker room situation, had begun to refer to her as "that f*****g lesbian." Thanks to a girl named Moxi Zhou, who had undoubtedly told everyone she had seen Capry and Seph kissing after class. And sure, it was risky to be kissing in the locker room if you didn’t want anyone to know... Capry could see that. She just never understood why the other kids cared so much about it. So much so that adolescent boys Capry didn’t even know were shooting nasty words her way.

And it wasn't even so much that she believed she was ugly. The braces had considerably improved things for her. Really, it was that a boy in her middle school class had gotten embarrassed by the other boys because they had told Capry he thought she was cute. And he responded by calling her ugly, which ended up sticking. The other boys followed suit and from then on Capry decided she might have better luck with girls. Which also ended up getting her into trouble and caused her to lose more friends. It wasn't that she had never liked a boy... She had just decided they were mean and more trouble than they were worth.

She wrung her hands nervously as she watched the city disappear under a white blanket.

"What in God's name happened today?!" her mother asked quietly after what seemed like an eternity. Capry fidgeted nervously, picking at her black nail polish. She spotted a speck of blood on her finger and stared at it, horrified, before quickly trying to rub it off. The lump in her throat wasn't allowing her to speak. She had no idea what to think or what she should say. Or if there was anything she could say that would make this better. She could hear Seph's father on the phone, screaming at her mother.

"Kathy, we've called the cops and we will be pressing charges! You can go pick up your crazy daughter from the police station!" he had yelled, before he hung up the phone and flung it hard across his patio.

Capry was quivering. Every part of her felt magnified. Seph was sitting inside her house with a towel pressed to her neck. Her mother, Tammy Wilson was applying pressure and kept shooting Capry icy glares through the living room window.

"I didn't mean to," she began hesitantly, but her voice shook as she tried to push the words out. She couldn't seem to get her panic under control.

"Stop talking," Seph's father growled through his clenched teeth. Brent Wilson was a tall man from Texas and up until today, he had been a pretty easy-going guy. His face was alarmingly red and he was madder than a hornet’s nest. "You know, I never really liked you all that much, Capry. Seph changed a lot when she started hanging around with you. Started acting...weird." He spat the word.

Capry shut her lips tight. She could feel tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She had always thought Brent and Tammy had liked her ok. Enough to let her keep coming around. She had even thought of them as another set of parents and considered herself fortunate, seeing as her real parents hadn’t wanted her. They had known her since she was eleven years old. She blinked her eyes rapidly trying to spread the tears around in hopes they wouldn’t spill down her cheeks.

She wanted her cell phone and her backpack but was too afraid to ask for them. Brent had snatched her up so quick she didn't even have time to grab her shoes. She had even pleaded with Brent and Tammy not to call the police.

“Please!” Capry had said. “I’ll leave right now! I’m sorry! I’ll walk home!” Brent was holding onto her arm tighter than he had to, as he pulled her towards the front door. She took one last glance towards the kitchen where Tammy and Seph were standing before he pulled her out of the house and made her sit on the sidewalk.

She could see the APD vehicles pulling up the street slowly with their lights off. She was instantly even more anxious than she had been before. She heard a screen door slam open behind her and turned around to see Seph and her mother coming out of the house to meet the police. Their feet crunched loudly as they walked through the gravel in the front yard. Capry couldn’t figure out why everything seemed so loud. Tammy had her hand protectively placed over her daughter's shoulders.

"Don't look at her," she muttered to Seph. Capry watched Seph approach the sidewalk next to her with the towel still pressed to her neck. She tried to catch her eye, but Seph kept them firmly glued to the sidewalk below her as the police officers exited their vehicles and approached them.

Capry didn't know if she was losing her mind but she swore she could smell the metallic scent of blood on the air. It was making her limbs tingle. She clapped both hands around the back of her neck and tried to make herself as small as possible. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her but she felt sick and amplified all at the same time. Everything around her looked sharper and more defined.

There were three police officers present. Two women and one man.

“Good afternoon ma'am,” one of them said.

"Go ahead and tell them what happened, honey," Tammy coaxed. Seph remained quiet. Capry looked up at her again and was alarmed to see how pale and sweaty Seph looked. Capry stood shakily and took one step towards her best friend. Up until then she was hoping she could start calling her, her significant other.

"I'm sorry Seph," she said pleadingly. "I don't know what happened-"

"Don't you talk to her you b***h!" Brent yelled, quickly moving between Capry and his daughter. His aggressively quick movements had the police also creating a barricade between him and Capry.

"Sir-" the male police officer began sternly, taking a purposeful step forward. “We’re here to help.” He seemed aware that he needed to de-escalate the situation, but Brent didn't look like he wanted to calm down any time soon.

"No! This little psycho BIT my daughter!" Brent yelled, pointing at Capry. Capry jumped slightly as if his words had burned her. "She was making some kind of unwanted lesbian advance and when it wasn't reciprocated, she tried to take a chunk clean out of her!" That wasn't exactly how it had happened but Capry wasn't willing to offer any help. Not as long as both of Seph's parents were within ear shot. Or maybe not at all. From all the shows she had seen she was pretty sure she didn’t have to talk if she didn’t want to.

Brent stomped over to Seph and pulled the towel away from her wound to reveal a clean bite mark that was puffy and irritated. There definitely wasn't a chunk missing, but it didn't look like a love bite either. It looked like an angry animal had latched on and shook its' head around a couple times. Capry could see her teeth marks clearly defined in Seph’s skin, and the wound was still stubbornly weeping blood. The tears were threatening to make an appearance again.

Capry couldn't explain it. She wanted to look away. She wanted to run. She wanted to call her mother. She hoped Seph didn't hate her. But her silence was scaring Capry.

"Sir, will you let your daughter come inside so we can talk to her?" the first female police officer asked.

"I'm coming with her!" Brent insisted. “I want you to tell them what happened Seph! Now!”

“Sir, whatever happened, maybe your daughter would feel more comfortable talking with us on her own,” the police officer offered, addressing Seph more than Brent. She was taking in Seph’s demeanor.

"It's ok," Seph agreed quickly. "I can go by myself, Dad."

“Like hell you are!” Brent began.

"Seph, I'm sorry!" Capry managed to choke out. Brent spun around looking livid.

“You have some nerve Capry! After all we’ve done for you! After today I don’t want to see you back here, EVER!” he yelled pointing his finger and advancing slightly.

“Sir, you’re really going to need to calm down,” the second female officer said sternly. “We’re here to help but perhaps you should go inside while we sort this out.”

Capry had shut her eyes tight. “God I’m sorry Seph,” she thought. She wished she could just push her words into Seph’s head. “I really am. I would never hurt you on purpose. I would never-"

Capry realized Seph was finally looking at her, her blue eyes wide and alarmed. She seemed to shiver and averted her eyes away from Capry as she hurried back towards her house, hugging her elbows. The second female police officer approached Capry.

"Can I just have you step over here, next to my vehicle please?" she asked, guiding Capry away with a light but firm touch.

"Seph-" Capry attempted one last time, reaching out slightly.

"I need you to stop trying to talk to her," Officer...(Capry glanced at the officer’s name on her breast pocket.) Sanchez said.

Brent and Tammy looked infuriated. They took one last disgusted look at her before going back inside their home. It had appeared that Seph had retreated somewhere else in the house. Her parents remained seated with the third officer and by the looks of it, were filling out a report or some kind of paperwork. Capry felt like she was floating in a bad dream. Would Seph really not speak to her? She wondered if she was going to press charges and didn't know how to feel about that. She was more worried if Seph was afraid of her. The female police officer pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Can you tell me what happened today?" she asked soothingly.

“My mom is still at work,” Capry said quietly, looking down at her bare sock feet. She figured her mom was probably trying to call her phone and possibly wasn’t at work anymore after receiving Brent’s phone call. He only had her cell phone number so it was likely he would have left her mother that lovely gem of a voice-mail. “And all of my stuff is still inside.”

“Ok,” Officer Sanchez nodded slightly. “I can get one of my officers to gather your things before we leave. Do you want to talk about this?” she asked.

Capry glanced back at the house.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said.

“What did happen?” Officer Sanchez pressed. Capry shivered a bit. She didn’t think it was from the brisk winter air, because oddly enough the cold wasn’t bothering her anymore. The icy breeze seemed to be caressing her skin, almost like silk. Capry looked at Officer Sanchez and the cop seemed to lean in a bit and stare really hard into her eyes. She then reached for her flashlight and shined it directly into Capry’s face.

“Hey!” Capry said in surprise, shying away from Officer Sanchez. She thought that was kind of a rude thing to do. Weren’t they supposed to ask before they did stuff like that?

“Your pupils are really dilated,” the Officer stated “Have you taken any drugs today?”

What the f**k? Capry’s heart was suddenly pounding in her ears. Drugs? She knew what had happened was strange. She knew what she had done, even though it was like someone else had possessed her body and done it for her. She didn’t know if human blood could get you high but she was also feeling quite ill and was aware it could definitely make you sick. How was it that she had been able to drink so much of it without vomiting right then and there? Why hadn’t Seph been able to push her off? Capry wasn’t a big girl. She was maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Mostly hair and boobs.

“I don’t do drugs,” she said matter-of-factly. Officer Sanchez made a face like she doubted that. Yep, it was all coming together for Detective Sanchez. She was going to get to the bottom of this. Capry wished the sarcastic commentary running through her head would stop for a minute. But she felt like the police officer was silently judging her. She couldn’t imagine what this looked like to everyone else involved. She supposed it didn't look very good.

“I need you to get inside the vehicle for a bit,” Officer Sanchez ordered. She opened the back door to her squad car and motioned inside. Capry had never been in any kind of trouble before. At least not this kind of trouble.

“Can I please call my mom?” she asked.

“When we get to the station,” Officer Sanchez replied. She then shut the door to the car and turned to walk towards the Wilson’s residence.

Capry brought her knees to her chest and took a deep breathe, taking in the house she had spent a large chunk of her childhood at. She couldn’t help but feel like this was the last time she was going to be here. And she was leaving in a cop car. It reminded her of the summer between seventh and eighth grade when she had accidentally left a hickey on her friend’s neck and her parents had said they were no longer allowed to be friends anymore. Her mother had asked her if she liked girls. Except this time, she knew deep down this was a lot worse. This was serious. She stopped for a moment to wonder why she always managed to mess up the best parts of her life. She’d lost two of her best friends because she couldn't stop biting people. The first time, she hadn’t bit hard. But this had been different.

Seph had initiated it. She had leaned in and pressed her lips to Capry’s mid-sentence. Things had been progressively going further and further between the two of them. She felt Seph’s hands creep up under the hem of her shirt.

“Touch me,” she had whispered into Capry’s ear. Capry wasn't sure what she meant and hesitated, so Seph grabbed her hand and put it over her breast.

Capry had reached under Seph’s shirt and kissed her from her jaw to her neck. Seph reached up and pushed her head down encouragingly and that was when it had happened. Capry’s braces nicked Seph’s soft skin. It was the tiniest most insignificant thing. Something the two of them would have giggled about later. If Seph was asked about it she would have made up a lie. Or just hidden the scratch with her hair.

But suddenly, Capry’s body was on fire. And not the parts of her that should have been. She became aware that she could hear Seph’s heart pumping blood through her body, even though she didn’t know how she knew that’s what she was hearing. She paused for a moment, mesmerized by the sound of the gentle whooshing paired with the beating of Seph's heart. Her mind was so muddled by all her senses suddenly becoming so heightened that her mind fogged.

“What’s wrong?” Seph asked slightly breathlessly. Capry didn’t say anything. She climbed on top of Seph, who eagerly accepted her advance and slammed her mouth against hers. She felt Seph’s hips buck under hers and she pressed hers down rhythmically in sync with Seph’s movements. Seph’s breath was hitching as she pressed her hands down to push Capry’s hips into hers. Capry brought her mouth down to Seph’s neck again and ran her tongue over the small cut that had formed. She pressed her lips against Seph’s pulse, feeling it thumping gently against her mouth… Seph’s movements were becoming quicker and she started to make little eager moans. And that was when Capry bit down, hard. Seph cried out in pleasure at first and her body tensed under Capry’s as she road out her c****x. Capry bit down again, harder. Her mouth was watering and her saliva tasted bitterly salty and sour. She sucked and her mouth flooded with the metallic taste of Seph’s blood. Her tongue was tingling and the sensation seemed to be spreading warmly down her throat and into her stomach, distributing itself throughout her limbs. It was like waking up. As though every cell in her body had eyes that could see. It felt like magic.

Capry hadn’t realized it, but Seph had started telling her to stop. Jokingly at first. Somewhere far away, Capry could hear her pleading, the fear palpable in her voice. She swallowed two, three, four times, her head swimming in pure ecstasy. And that was when she felt strong fingers tangle themselves in her long hair and yank. She snapped out of her fervent frenzy and let go, before Brent ripped her teeth out of Seph's throat.

“What the f**k are you doing to my daughter?!” he had roared. Seph sat bolt upright clutching her neck tightly…

Capry was snapped out of the horror reel that seemed to be running on repeat through her head by some strange movements outside of the car. It was like a shadow, moving very fast. She leaned closer to the window of the squad car and scanned the front of the house. Things were still for a moment and then she saw it again. The creature seemed to be adorned in a black cloak of some kind and it moved from one window to another, faster than Capry thought she should be able to comprehend.

“Hey!” she yelled. She started banging on her window trying to alert someone inside that there was a creepy voyeur lurking in Seph's yard. “You mean creepier than you?” she thought to herself. It was then that the figure paused and turned to face her. It appeared to be a person but deep down Capry knew different. She could feel that it was different. She couldn’t tell if it was male or female but she found herself even more alarmed when this stranger reached up and put a finger to their lips.

“Shhhhhhh,” it came as a soft whisper inside her head. She stared back at the creature with wide scared eyes as she watched it disappear around the side of the house. The hiss lingered in her head for a full minute after the thing was out of sight.

She sat frozen, gripping the edge of the door tightly, as she watched the three police officers and Seph’s parents step out of the house. Capry could tell Brent was even more pissed off than before, as he gestured angrily in her direction. She could catch a bit of what he was saying and it sounded like he was angry Seph didn’t want to press charges.

Capry knew what he was really angry about though. If Seph didn’t want to press charges, that somehow confirmed that his daughter may have been a willing participant in what he’d seen. Seph needed to be as outraged as he was or else that could mean that she was experimenting with her sexuality. And when Seph wanted to speak to the cops alone, that was just more indication that she wanted to say something she didn’t want him to know. He was thinking of all the sleepovers he had let them have. All the times he and Tammy had left the two of them alone while they went out. Capry figured Seph could have just as easily lied and threw her under the bus. She had done that a couple times to avoid awkward altercations that had recently risen up at school. It had seemed that a lot of things were about to blow up for the two of them. Capry figured this was that. It had happened to her a couple times before, with other girls.

As she sat in the back of the police car she silently vowed she wouldn’t do this again. If she ever got an opportunity to start over.

An ambulance pulled up and Capry was momentarily panic stricken. What if she had actually killed her and that creature she had seen had been the grim reaper? Officer Sanchez climbed into the car, placing Capry’s backpack and shoes on her driver’s seat.

“Is Seph going to be ok?” Capry asked anxiously thinking she might have seriously injured her. Officer Sanchez looked at her through her rear-view mirror with her eyebrows raised.

“That’s a hell of a number you did to your friend,” she said, meeting Capry’s eyes. “She might need stitches and a couple shots but I’m sure she’ll be fine. The human mouth is dirty. We just have to make sure she gets the medical attention she needs. ”

Capry turned to look out of the back window just in time to see the same dark figure disappear around the corner of the street. She pressed her back flat against the car's hard seat and kept her eyes fixed on the road in front of her until she arrived at the police station. She debated the whole time if she should bring up the shadow creature but decided against it. Officer Sanchez had already asked her if she used drugs. Claiming to see a strange cloaked figure that suspiciously resembled the grim reaper probably wouldn’t help her case.

*****************************

He watched as the three police officers and the girl's parents exited the home and slipped soundlessly into the house through an unlocked glass door. The family’s chihuahua, usually a yappy little thing, took one look at him and ran to hide behind the couch.

He turned left and walked down the hall until he found who he was looking for in the last room on the right. The girl, Seph, as he had heard, sat on her bed in her room, still holding a towel to her neck that was now covered in an adequate amount of blood. He sighed, pausing to wonder how he had ended up as the damage control. Little more than a glorified blood hound. Especially when he was now somehow in charge of chasing down potentially newly spawned fledglings. It was like babysitting. He was getting to be about two or three hundred years too old for this.

Seph jumped, clearly startled and opened her mouth as though she would scream. He figured she’d probably had enough shocks for the day. She thought she was in for a nice romp with her girlfriend and ended up being partially consumed. (The girl was looking a bit pale.) Which depending on what kind of newborn spawn he was dealing with, could either mean life or death for this girl.

“I wouldn’t,” he warned. His tone was a bored drawl. “May I?” he asked. He walked over to her at a speed that was inhumanly quick. She was too shocked to speak and was perhaps on the verge of fainting from blood loss. Humans were so dramatic in their own fragile way. The smallest things could cause them to lose consciousness. Like if they got too hungry or donated too much blood. Or stood up too fast. They definitely had design flaws.

He plucked the towel away and wrapped his pale fingers around her jaw and lifted her face to peer at the bite. “Let’s see, dear,” he murmured, hoping to see a messy newborn bite instead of 2 clean holes. He studied the puncture marks and then licked some of the girl’s blood from the tip of his finger. He made a smacking sound, raised his eyebrows thoughtfully, and to Seph’s horror, darted forward and licked her wound. He examined her a second longer. The bite finally began to clot. He nodded briskly and looked her straight in the eyes, “You forget I was here, understand?” His work here was done, uncomplicated, just how he liked it. He was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Seph felt his voice push into her mind, much like Capry’s had, before everything went blank. It wasn’t like she had lost consciousness. It was more like she had zoned out or got lost in a daydream and couldn’t account for a few minutes of her day. She would never notice and neither would anyone else. And when she had finally snapped out of it, paramedics were in her room, and her mother was saying her name and shaking her lightly. The last thing she remembered was watching Officer Sanchez's car pull away with Capry in the back seat.

**************************

“The least you could do is explain to me what you did,” her mother Kathy snapped. She was always mildly irritated with Capry, but her daughter’s stunt today had pushed her to moderately angry.

Capry was in awe watching the snowflakes fall across the windshield. She could see every little detail on the flakes if she focused hard enough. Like her eyes could be converted in to magnifying glasses at will.

“Capry!” Kathy snapped.

“It was an accident,” Capry said lamely. Something she had said quite a few times. Like when she had bit her adoptive younger brother, who was Kathy and Mike’s biological son. Mike and Kathy were now divorced and Mike made zero effort to maintain a relationship with Capry because she wasn’t his. He picked her little brother up on weekends and refused to acknowledge her, even if Capry was the person he was picking Eric up from. They'd adopted her when she was an infant because they had struggled conceiving on their own for the first ten years of their marriage. On Capry’s ninth birthday, her parents told her she was going to be a big sister. Kathy was finally pregnant with the baby they had always wanted. They thought that the new baby was the reason she started having behavioral problems.

“I think it’s time we get you back into therapy,” Kathy said. “This has gone on long enough.”

Capry had overheard Kathy and Mike discussing her several times. Mike regularly called her a biter. They had come to the conclusion that her behavior was due to unfortunate genetics and seeing as her adoption was closed they had no way of knowing if she had a family history of mental illness. They weren’t that far off about the genetics being a factor but whether Capry’s genetics were good or bad was subjective; it really depended on who you asked. If you were asking a nice middle class human couple who just wanted a normal human baby, they would probably tell you a vampire baby was more than they bargained for. Had Capry stayed with her own kind they would be able to tell you that young home-grown vampires bit each other all the time. It was just instinctual. Nothing to worry about. Either way Capry was about to enter into a world she knew nothing about, and she was arriving rather late to the party.

********************************

He watched as Capry exited her mother’s vehicle outside of their residence. He amplified his hearing so he could listen to the words being exchanged between the two

“I have to go pick up Eric from your father,” Kathy told Capry.

“He’s not my father,” Capry snapped.

“Oh Capry, stop it!” her mother yelled impatiently. Capry slung her back pack over her shoulder and began to walk to her front door, as her mother pulled back out onto the road.

“He doesn’t want to be my father,” Capry mumbled to herself, letting out a short derisive laugh. “Can’t say that I blame him.”

Capry unlocked her front door and quickly turned, peering into the darkness he had cloaked himself with. He doubted her eyesight was developed enough to see him, especially since he was still quite a way down the street, but was surprised all the same.

He watched as Capry entered her home and sat for a moment. He knew he would have to step in soon. It would have to be tonight. Whether the girl had meant to or not, she had triggered her genetics and was now turning. If he messed up the timing she would probably eat her nice little human family.