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“So, how you wanna do this? Fists? Guns?” Stewart reached for something behind him. “I like guns.”
“They will be of no use to you, Stewart, because I remain a vampire. And you, my old friend, have penance to pay. Then I’m going to turn you inside out like an old stocking.”
Maxton smiled and flashed his fangs.
That night, MF was watching her favorite vampire movie,What We Do in the Shadows,curled up next to a box of tissues. It was going to take a long time to get over her idiocy—trusting a stupid vampire!Gah! What was I thinking?
At least she knew if her parents were still alive, they would forgive her. They had never been the type of people to expect perfection or demand that others follow their philosophies of life. They simply did their thing.
“Mountain Flower, there are only two types of people in this world,” her father used to say. “Good or bad. Nothing else matters. Not if they agree with you or like you. It doesn’t even matter if you have absolutely nothing in common or you’re on opposite sides of the political spectrum. If they’re good, you treat them with the respect they deserve. If they’re bad, you keep your distance.”
But above all, her parents always taught her to forgive. “Especially the good, Mountain Flower,” Mom would say. “Good people must be allowed to make mistakes. It’s how we all learn to become better people.”
MF sighed. “If only I could forgive myself.” She’d made the biggest mistake of her life, and then she failed to learn from it.Why did I trust a vampire again?She’d honestly started falling in love with him, too.Idiot!
There was a loud scratch on her door. “Oh, fuck off, Big Foot! Get a life!”
“It is I, Maxton. Open up.”
Maxton?Why the hell was he back? “Sorry, MF isn’t home right now. This is her virtual assistant—a very new invention that stupid, crusty old vampires don’t know about. Because they’re stupid.”
“Nice try, woman. I can smell you in there. Now open up, or I will destroy this door.”
“Ugh!” She hopped up and jerked open the door. “I told you to leave…” MF jumped back, her eyes zeroing in on a face that had haunted her every night since her family died. “What the hell?”
Maxton stepped in, pushing her aside and dragging that piece of trash with him.
She shut the door behind them, her heart beating with the sort of rage a person felt when left to stew and stew and stew some more.
MF’s fists clenched. “What is this, Maxton?” Stewart wasn’t talking or moving much. He wasn’t tied up either. He was just standing there staring at her floor like a zombie.
“I have come to make things right.” Maxton raised his chin.
“By bringing this murdering piece of dog crap into my home?”
“As you see, I come with an apology. And no, I did not mean to rhyme just now. Purely a coincidence.”
“Noted. But how did you even find out about him?” she asked.
“I was at Damien’s shop earlier, in the storeroom.”
He’d overheard her rant. “So you went and found the vampire who killed my family? Why?”
“I am the reason he exists, which means I am the reason you lost your family. And my own. It is why I went on a rampage lasting years, committing vile acts I hardly recall. It is why, in a moment of what I believe was divine intervention, I stopped the bloodshed and exiled myself.”
Okay. This was a lot to take in. “You’re saying that you made Stewart into a vampire. And he killed your family?”
“Yes. My human wife and adopted daughter.”
MF covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Maxton. That’s awful.” How did she not know he had a family once? “But you can’t blame yourself. Not for that or for what happened to my family.”
“Then who? Who gets the blame?” he grumbled.
“For starters,” she pointed to Stewart, “that guy right there.”
“I taught him everything he knows—how to lure, seduce, hunt, and kill.”
“Okay. But you were trying to be a good maker. I bet you even taught him the difference between good and bad people so he’d choose his victims properly. Right? What he did with that information was his call. Not yours.”
