Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend by Katie Maxwell Read Free Book Online

themselves, or the police can.”
    â€œThey can’t, baby. If they could, they already would have. You have to help them.”
    â€œI don’t have to do anything,” I muttered to my half-eaten French toast.
    â€œPlease, Franny. Our whole future is at stake—”
    â€œThis isn’t our future!” I shouted, slamming my hand down on the table so the mugs rattled. I was suddenly so mad I couldn’t see straight. “Home is our future, not this freak show! I won’t let you turn me into a monster like them! I just want to be normal like everyone else. You do understand normal, don’t you? It’s what you’re not!”
    Her eyes widened and I realized she was about to go into the “you’re not a freak; you’ve been blessed, gifted with a skill that others would cherish” lecture. I knew it well; I heard it on the average of once a month, and at least once every couple of days after we arrived at the Faire, but I couldn’t take it again. Not now. Not when I was so confused about Ben and everything.
    â€œWhere are you going?” she yelled as I jumped up from the table and grabbed my bag.
    â€œOut.”
    â€œFrancesca Marie—”
    I slammed the door to the trailer on her words, jumping off the metal steps, holding my bag tight across my chest as I ran through the maze of trailers situated at the far end of the big meadow that held the Faire. Several of the Faire people said good morning to me, but I ignored all of them and settled down into a steady lope that I knew could last me a couple of miles. I ran through the trees ringing the meadow, down a small grassy slope, then onto the road that led to the town of Kapuvár.
    Cars passed by on their way in and out of town, kicking up dust that swept over me, leaving my mouth and hair gritty. I slowed my lope to a trot, then a walk, trudging past field after field of cows, horses, goats, and some sheep. I rehashed the argument with my mother, changing it so I had all the good lines, my arguments so convincing she had to bow before my superior reasoning and admit that we belonged back home, not in the middle of Hungary. I muttered to myself as I passed a big white truck with wooden slatted sides, the kind they use to haul livestock. An old man who held a lead on a dirty gray horse was arguing with a tall, thin guy in expensive shoes. The tall guy kept looking around him as if he smelled something bad. A girl a few years younger than me was standing next to the fence, obviously trying not to cry.
    I stopped because I like horses, and the old gray horse had lovely lines, a thickly curved neck, rounded haunch, deep chest, and big, big, soulful brown eyes.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I asked the girl, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t back home where everyone spoke English. She turned and sniffed.
    â€œIt’s Tesla, my ópapi’s —grandfather’s—horse. Milos is taking him away. You are American?”
    â€œYeah. Who’s Milos?”
    She pointed to the old man, who was now holding out his hand. The tall, thin guy was arguing with him as he doled out Hungarian forints (their dollars). “I study English in school. We are very good, yes? Milos, he is a . . .” She said something in Hungarian then.
    â€œA what?” I asked.
    She sniffled again. “He takes old horses, you know? And they make them into dog meat.”
    I stared in horror at the old man. “My God, that’s horrible. Isn’t that illegal or something? Why is that other guy letting him do it?”
    â€œHe is my uncle Tarvic. He says he can’t afford to feed Tesla anymore, now that ópapi is dead, but it makes me so sad. Tesla is old, but he is special. My ópapi loved him more than all the other horses.”
    â€œHey!” I yelled, scrabbling through my bag with one hand as I hurried through the gate toward the two men and the horse. The old horse nickered at