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Did they have a collection of the residents before they came?
“I’m not from Eagleton,” I tell him. “I grew up in another village. It was burned down twenty years ago.”
I don’t even remember much about it. How horrible is that? I remember the fires, but I don’t remember anything except running into the darkness of the woods. I remember fleeing for my life, but not really understanding exactly what was happening. Even as a young preteen, I should have known. I should have understood, but I didn’t. I don’t even really remember my parents. It’s like that part of my life never even existed.
“Franklin,” Benjamin sighs. “Fuck. Of course, it’s her.”
“I told you it was,” Eli says.
“What are you talking about?” I whisper. What do they mean? I feel like I’m going crazy here with all of these bits and pieces of information, but no one is telling me anything straight up. Finally, Matthew speaks.
Thank fuck.
“Look, Eagleton isn’t a nice place. Your town hunts vampires. No matter what they told you, they’re filled with hunters. Generation after generation is trained to hunt us and to hurt us.”
What?
What the hell is he talking about?
There’s no such thing as vampire hunters.
The shock and horror must show on my face, because he sighs.
“Why do you live in a little tent, Tyana?”
“Because Edna’s children didn’t want me in the house?” I ask quietly. It’s embarrassing to know I was kicked out.
“Because you aren’t one of them. You aren’t a hunter. Hunters keep their secrets close to their chest. You lived with her, did you?”
“Yes.”
“Were raised by her?”
“Yes.” Once my parents died, anyway. I fully consider Edna to have raised me even though the reality was that I was only in her home for several years before she passed away.
“And tell me,” he asks, leaning forward. Shadows dance on the walls of the carriage, but I can’t look away from him. “Did she ever disappear for days at a time with no explanation as to where she went?”
I swallow hard. I don’t think I need to say anything. She always told me she was going hunting with her children, but I thought they were hunting for food. I didn’t know...
I didn’t realize.
Vampire hunters?
How could they be?
And more importantly, how could I not actually know?
How could I live in a place for my entire life and not know what kind of creatures the people really were?
No, nobody really liked me much.
Yes, I spent most of my time playing in the village or just outside of the gates in the closest parts of the woods. I never wandered. I never explored. I never went very far. I was weird, and the Eagleton residents didn’t like me, but that didn’t mean they were monsters.
Vampire hunters?
It doesn’t seem possible.
“Ten years ago, we destroyed another town that was slaying vampires. The town you’re from.”
