Page 21 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

“You have to decide, then,” Nellie said, “if you’re willing to show him or not.”

“Yeah, and when he runs away screaming, we’ll have our answer.”

Nellie paused the game and faced Brennan, and his skin prickled under the attention.

“I’ve noticed you talk about being a vampire the same way you talk about being depressed. You assume they’re the worst things about you.”

Brennan blinked. “They are.”

Nellie sighed. Not the answer she wanted. Was he missing some other fatal flaw she thought was more significant? Or did she really expect him to have some sort of pride in the things that actively ruined his life?

Before she could respond, an alarm jingled on Nellie’s phone. The ringtone was retro 8-bit style, and the phone she produced was an early 2000s flip phone. Nellie frowned at it.

“That’s time, unfortunately.”

As she spoke, a shadow darkened the Street Fighter machine and footsteps slowed to a stop a few feet away. Sensing someone’s eyes on him, Brennan turned around.

Dom leaned against a pinball machine across the aisle, most of her hair chopped off into an uneven chin-length cut.

Her nails were chipped black and she wore a black hoodie, black jeans, and a beat-up pair of combat boots.

She was either in mourning or embracing a Goth aesthetic that didn’t totally fit her.

She offered a nod in greeting, but eyed Brennan warily.

“Dominique! Right on time,” Nellie said as Street Fighter turned to GAME OVER , and crossed to stand next to Dom, putting a hand on her back. Dom stiffened.

“I said I’d be,” Dom mumbled, studying her fingernails with interest.

“Dom has a one-on-one with me next, so I figured you could hang out for a bit and we could do some group bonding after!”

“Are you serious?” Brennan said. “After everything we just talked about?”

“Yeah, no,” Dom said dryly. “I prefer not to hang out with judgmental assholes.”

“You guys!” Nellie scolded. “We are a clan and we have to stick together. If we don’t have each other’s backs, we have nothing. It’s important to set aside our differences and come together. Do you think you can do that?”

Brennan’s eyes bounced between Dom and Nellie. Dom was getting ambushed with this too, judging by her clear discomfort.

“Right,” Brennan said. “Sounds… great.”

He lingered for a second more before nodding an uncertain goodbye and beelining over to Sunny, her fingers still flying over the keyboard with a rhythmic clacking.

Brennan pulled out the chair opposite her, and it scraped loudly against the linoleum floor of the cafeteria.

He collapsed into the seat and watched Sunny work for a minute.

“What exactly do you do?” Brennan asked.

Sunny didn’t look up, and her typing didn’t waver.

“Instagram, mostly,” she said. “But I dabble in TikTok. Selfies, makeup, fashion, sometimes food—”

“I mean, for the”—he glanced around and dropped his voice, despite him and Sunny being the only people in the cafeteria section—“vampires.”

Sunny rolled her eyes. “Security.”

“What does that mean, though?”

Sunny stopped typing and turned her attention to Brennan with an exasperated sigh.

“Someone finds out about vampires and tries to plan an attack,” Sunny said, raising her left hand, her pink shimmery polish catching the light.

She brought up her right hand as if balancing options on each side, and said, “Security.” She lifted her left hand again.

“Someone sees something suspicious and posts on a Reddit forum.” Her right hand went up.

“Security. A wannabe investigator thinks they’re on the verge of breaking a big story.

Security. A vampire acts against clan law and needs to be put in their place. Security. Make sense?”

She returned her attention to her laptop.

“So you, what, kill them?” He remembered what Nellie had said about powers and added, “Or wipe their memories?”

“I take care of it.”

“ Okaaaay. ” Then, “You have powers?”

“Yes.”

“Which means you’ve killed people. Or turned them, I guess.”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re leading the clan.”

“Alongside Nellie.”

“How did that happen?”

“Brennan,” Sunny said, once again shifting her attention from work to him. “You know how Nellie’s always saying ‘You can ask me about anything’ and ‘I want you to be able to talk to me’ and mom stuff like that?”

Brennan nodded.

“Notice how I don’t say things like that.”

“Yeah?” Then, “Oh.”

“I’m very busy. I have two unaccounted kills to deal with and a minor ongoing surveillance campaign. If you need a history lesson, talk to Nellie.”

“Fine. I’ll ask Travis.”

Sunny paused, eyes narrowed, going stiff enough to send alarm bells ringing in Brennan’s head. “I’m sure he’d be more than happy to relive his golden days with you, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“They say never meet your heroes? Well, you shouldn’t meet your maker. Not when it’s Travis.”

Interesting. Even with whatever surveillance she had going on, she didn’t know he had already met Travis.

“What does that mean?” Brennan pressed.

“He’s unstable, alright? He’s weird, and gross, and you only get that powerful from killing a lot of people over thousands of years.

He’s not a good influence. So don’t, okay?

” She huffed, shaking her head at her laptop screen.

“But unless you need me to kill someone, shut someone up, or boost something on Instagram, I need to work.”

“One more question,” Brennan tried, “and I promise I’ll shut up.”

Sunny raised an impatient eyebrow and nodded for him to spit it out.

“Why do you care?” Brennan asked. Sunny’s frown deepened, so he fumbled on, “I mean, you’ve killed people, so I’m guessing it’s not for the moral high ground. You don’t seem to like people in general. Why are you running an urban clan?”

Sunny cocked her head, less inquisitive and more calculating, like Brennan had surprised her.

“I do it for Nellie,” she said. “Before her, I didn’t have a purpose. Now I do.”

With that, Sunny returned to her work.

Brennan looked over his shoulder, where Nellie and Dom were playing a racing game and chatting, then turned back to the table.

He reached for his journal and bided his time. He still wasn’t sure about the clan, but there was no chance he was going to miss out on vampire group bonding. Whatever that meant.

“You’re serious?” Brennan asked.

He’d seen Nellie slip money to one of the employees for this. Sunny had even put down her laptop, tied her hair into a high ponytail, and walked with extremely serious purpose.

Nellie turned away from the racks of plastic guns and vests, whirling toward Brennan with her hands on her hips. One of the vests was already draped over her shoulders.

“Oh, I’m dead serious, Brennan Brooks,” she said. “You better armor up.”

“You guys can team up, since you’re new. Nellie and I each go solo,” Sunny said. Brennan wrinkled his nose and sized up Dom, who seemed as unenthused about teaming up as Brennan was.

Nellie added, “We give Sunny a limit on shots as a disadvantage.”

“I’m very good at laser tag,” Sunny said solemnly.

“Battle royale, three hits to down, sound good?”

Dom, who had been off to the side with her arms crossed, caught Brennan’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Are we doing this?

Brennan shrugged and grabbed a gun and a vest.

Nellie slipped another bill to the employee who opened the door to the arena for them.

“You’re the best, Lee,” she said.

“You’ll post like you promised?” grunted Lee. “We got a huge surge after the last time.”

“Already got my caption picked out,” Sunny said, fingernails clicking against the screen of her phone.

“Good. Just don’t break anything, okay?”

“That only happened once,” Nellie said.

“You ripped a door off its hinges.”

“What else was I supposed to do? Sunny was gonna kill me.”

“That was the only time Nellie’s beaten me,” Sunny said.

Lee grumbled something about “No property damage,” before closing the door behind them.

“Lee’s sister is the vampire who runs the blood bank,” Nellie explained. “She hooks us up sometimes. Makes sure the cameras go off while we’re playing, so there’s no need to hold back.”

“Except for property damage,” Brennan added.

“Eh,” Sunny said, “we’re good for it.”

Brennan took in the arena. It was massive and elaborate, themed like a space action movie somewhere adjacent to Star Wars or Star Trek.

The base level was full of red sand, decorated like a Martian wasteland.

Big scraps of junk metal and random materials were scattered throughout as cover, and at the opposite ends of the battlefield were two bases.

They were designed like space stations or massive spaceships, with multiple floors, entrances, and windows.

Playing in the background was ambient music that tried too hard to sound like Star Wars without infringing on copyright.

A bell rang, and Nellie took the gun slung around her shoulders into her hand, shouted, “Ninety seconds to start!” and then sprinted toward one of the bases. She was wicked fast, red sand kicking up behind her.

Beside him, Dom was as unimpressed as ever, her face carefully bored.

Sunny studied them both, calculating. “I don’t go easy on people.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Brennan agreed. Sunny sprinted off toward the same base as Nellie with deadly speed.

Dom’s single arched brow was the only sign of amusement. “I guess this one’s ours,” Dom said, nodding to the other base.

Brennan couldn’t help starting to strategize, brain kicking into full gear. They’d need to be on the defensive, surely, which meant finding a decently defensible area of the base to occupy.

“We shouldn’t split up,” Brennan said. “We’ll need to cooperate if we want to survive.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re gonna destroy us either way,” Dom said.

“Yeah, probably,” Brennan agreed. Then, “We should seek higher ground.”

“Yes, sir.” Dom mock saluted.