Page 87 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

Then he pulled open the door … and moved out into the daylight.

“Hey,” Pandora whispered, rushing back toward Victor, picking up his backpack. “Come on. We have a little mission today.”

With that, she rushed to the door, grabbing her own coat and gloves, then reaching for an umbrella.

“Oh, it’s not supposed to rain,” Victor said.

“It’s for the sun,” Pandora said, pulling open the door, then opening the umbrella. “I get burned very easily. Even on a cloudy day, I can get a little burn.” She made her way down the front path, trying not to run, while keeping an eye on her quickly moving brother.

“What are we doing?” Victor asked.

“Following Dante,” Pandora said in a whisper, not wanting Dante, who had super-hearing just as she did, to overhear.

“For what reason?”

“He’s been acting strange lately,” she told Victor. “Sneaking off, not telling anyone where he is going.”In the daytime, she added silently. “He’s looking more and more run-down, so I just want to make sure he’s OK.”

Victor’s gaze softened at that.

He might not have siblings of his own, but he clearly understood her concern as they followed Dante down the streets of London, then to the Underground, where they stood at the train car at the furthest end, their backs to Dante.

Not that he seemed to notice them. Or even seem worried about being followed.

Why would he?

None of his family went out during the day.

They could, of course. There were many times Pandora had needed to go out in the daylight over the years. Precautions had to be taken. Long sleeves, gloves, oversized hats, and umbrellas or parasols. Sometimes, especially in the summer, you could still feel the threatening burn of the sun through your protective measures, but Pandora had never been singed, let alone caught fire, before.

That said, Dante had no reason to think their family would even want to be out in the daylight. They took pride in being creatures of the night. Of being the shadows lurking in dark corners. Of being the whispered sounds that haunted humans as they walked down alleys or alone on the pavement at night.

“Going quite far out there, aren’t we?” Victor asked as Pandora admired a particularly gorgeous garden, still alive with late-blooming dahlias and asters.

“Oh, sorry. Do you have to be at uni?” she asked,suddenly worried that she’d pulled him away from something important.

Really, she should have just made an excuse and gone her separate way from him back at the house. There was no telling what Dante might be up to – what she might need to protect Victor from.

She hadn’t been thinking straight, clearly.

Though, the larger part of her thought she simply wanted him there. With her. Especially when potentially uncovering something upsetting.

“No. No, I’m done for the day. I was just going to do the washing. This will be more fun than that.”

Eventually, Dante got off the train.

“Hampstead,” Victor said as they made their way through the station, following Dante at a safe distance as he made his way out onto the busy streets.

Pandora ignored the sideways looks from passersby as she walked under her umbrella.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been out this way,” Victor said as they moved from the busy city streets toward a more residential lane, the leaves crunching under their feet as they walked. “But … there’s not much out here now, is there? Now that we’re past the shops?”

“Not really,” Pandora said, watching Dante pause to pet a passing golden retriever before continuing on.

“Maybe he has a mate out this way. Or a girlfriend.”

Pandora hadn’t even considered that possibility.

It would make things make sense, wouldn’t it? If he’d perhaps got himself a human girlfriend. Why he was out all day and stayed holed up in his room all night. Why he was so supportive of her fake relationship with Victor.