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Brooke’s killer reflexes and enhanced senses do not give her an edge when it comes to video games. Her side of the split screen bears big red text proclaiming her avatar’s status: INCAPACITATED.
She grunts and tosses her controller. She senses Vanessa's annoyance before she hears it in her words. “For real?? Babe, I just healed you.”
Brooke throws up her hands. “It’s a stupid premise anyway, what are we doing seeking out creatures that want to kill us?! Why are we wandering around this town looking for perishable supplies instead of retreating to the woods where it’s safe.”
Vanessa cracks a smile. “The woods ain’t a safe place for most of us, Mary.”
Brooke blows at a stray hair. She glances down at Vanessa’s barely-touched glass of lemon water. Grabs it off the table.
“What you--” Vanessa starts.
Brooke cuts her off. “I’m getting you a refill.”
She senses Vanessa’s confusion, hears her place her controller on the coffee table. Brooke’s shoulders drop. Oh great, she thinks. We’re gonna have to have a conversation.
Brooke pours more lemon water into Vanessa’s still mostly-full glass. Vanessa’s bare feet plod over the carpet to the tile in the kitchen. Brooke plasters the faux-amenable smile across her lips that has been so necessary in dealing with humans. Vanessa is insulted by what she calls ‘fakeness’. It causes tension between them, as for so long Brooke has had to carefully cultivate her Human Face. It’s the only way she can live amongst humans, to assimilate, make them think she is one of them. To mimic even the microexpressions that convince the pack that she belongs. To get them to trust her. She does so mostly out of habit, but Vanessa, not entirely human herself, sees right through it.
“You don’t like that there’s somethin’ I’m better at than you.”
Brooke halts, her mouth falling open. She’s at the same time insulted and impressed. Vanessa like no one since Madame, has the ability to strike Brooke right through her ego. She’s speechless.
“You can’t say anything because I’m right, aren’t I?”
Brooke recovers, pursing her lips and clenching her fist around the glass pitcher hard enough to hear hairline cracks forming in the handle. She places it back on the counter with a deep breath. Brooke suppresses The Smile. Vanessa is already agitated, and though sometimes it may be fun to get her riled up, get that heart racing, smell the epinephrine through her skin… that will not do for this conversation. Instead, she falls back upon something else she knows unnerves Vanessa, flowery language. “You present, I admit, a novel lesson in humility.”
Vanessa crosses her arms and glares at Brooke. “Cut the shit, Hytes.”
“Fine,” Brooke hisses. “I don’t like being beaten. I’ve mastered hundreds of specialized skills over my lifetime which, by the way, is longer than your country has been around!”
“Not by that much.” Vanessa shrugs. “You’re what, thirty years older than the U.S.?”
“That’s beside the point.” Brooke sneers. Vanessa’s estimate gives her more credit than she actually earned, and even if you only count by the end of the American Revolution… Brooke was still a child at that point. She was hardly going to admit as much to her adversary in this moment!
“And what is your point?” challenges Vanessa. Her brown eyes aflame and her jaw set.
Brooke comes to the conclusion that she is not going to win this battle. She swallows, a small amount of pride swirling down her throat. “I don’t think I like that game very much,” she tells the kitchen tile.
Vanessa lets out that squawk of a laugh and Brooke’s attention snaps to her. Her face glows. “You really don’t like admitting defeat, do you?”
Brooke straightens her jaw. “It’s not something I’m accustomed to, no.”
She senses Vanessa approaching her and turns back just in time to be embraced by the half-blood. The girl’s warmth exudes even through her clothes, and Brooke recalls the almost searing heat of Vanessa’s bare skin against her own. Brooke’s arms curl around her sides, her hands coming to rest on Vanessa’s shoulder blades. When she begins to pull away, Brooke reluctantly allows her arms to fall.
After a moment, Vanessa looks up at Brooke with curiosity.
“What is it?” Brooke murmurs.
Vanessa takes in a quick breath. “If you got bit by a zombie--”
Brooke snorts, slapping her hands against her cheeks, shaking her head.
“Naw, for real, think about it,” Vanessa insists. “Could you turn into a zombie? Or could-- if you bit a zombie--”
“No vampire in their right mind--” Brooke and Vanessa talk over each other.
“I’m just sayin’ is it like the flu where y’all bloodsuckers are immune or can a blood sucker become a brain eater or vice versa?”
“This is the singular most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever had and the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.”
“Hey, there ain’t no stupid questions, just stupid answers,” asserts Vanessa. “Oh! And what would you do if I got bit by a zombie? Would you kill me before I could turn or could you suck the venom out or--”
Brooke shakes her head violently. “Absolutely not, no.”
“No to what?”
Brooke’s voice rises in pitch and volume. “I could never! Even think about…”
“Mm. Right. The whole ‘vampire can’t hurt a half-blood thing’...” Vanessa nods. “Well I’ll have you know, that if a zombie ever bit you, I’d be real heartbroken, but I’d also shoot you twice in the head.”
Brooke snorts. “Even if I can’t contract the zombie virus?”
“Just for fun,” Vanessa says. “Double tap, just like in the movies.”
“Not like a shotgun shell is gonna do anything to me except bounce right off,” says Brooke with a slight shake of her head.
“Exactly!”
“So why do it?” Brooke asks, tossing her hair back. “Just for the drama?”
“FOR the drAMA!” Vanessa screams in her characteristic way.
Brooke knows Vanessa is going a little stir crazy because of the pandemic, but of all the humans and even all the vampires Brooke could be bunkered down with, Vanessa is by far the best option. Yes, for the reasons she can’t control-- her psychic attraction to the half blood -- but also for reasons like this. Her foghorn laugh, her directness, the unique way she speaks that makes Brooke want to listen to her all day even though her extra sensitive ears start to ring after a while.
And sure, for the drama too.