The Beast

And when she picked the thirteen-year-old in the back of the GTO, that was a heck of a commentary on the two-hundred-year-old behind the wheel.

“All I’m saying is that I think we could wait a little bit. You know . . .” Like, a couple of years? “. . . it’s going to be hard for you to reach the pedals.”

Bitty looked up into the rearview for help. “But he said we could move the seat up, right?”

“Please, Mary,” Rhage whined. “Come on, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Don’t get me started on that—”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease,” Bitty cut in. “I’ll drive carefully.”

“Oh, look.” Rhage put on his directional signal and turned into a strip mall that had a real estate office on the corner and a bunch of high-class-looking shops in it. “If we go behind here, I’ll bet there’ll be plenty of room.”

“Plenty of room!” Bitty echoed. “Plenty!”

Mary put her head in her hands and shook everything she had back and forth. She knew when she had lost, however, and this was one of those times: The pair of them were not going to let up, and she might as well give in now. It would cut down on greenhouse emissions and global warming from all the hot air.

“You’ll go slow,” she said into her palms.

“Very!”

“She’ll go so slowly, you could walk faster, right, Bits?”

“Absolutely.”

All in all, the evening had been a great time, the three of them going to an O’Charley’s for dinner before Rhage had to head out and work. Apparently, he had decided it was absolutely crucial to Bitty’s development as a living, breathing vampire being to experience every single one of the restaurants in town—and he had set up a schedule for the next fifteen or twenty nights. On it? Places like WW Cousins, the burger joint. Zaxby’s. The Cheesecake Factory. Pizza Hut. Texas Roadhouse.

Yes, even McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King.

Bitty, not to be outdone, had taken his phone and created a rating system on the darn thing, the pair of them spending a good half hour with their blond and dark heads together, debating the relative merits of various criteria for some kind of point system.

It was going to be a Dickensian march through trans fat and huge portions.

The good news? Bitty did have to gain weight, and this was as good a redress for that as any.

“Here we go,” Rhage announced as if he’d found the cure for IBS. “See? Plenty of space.”

Okay, at least he had a point. As he hit the brakes, and let the headlights do the talking, the back stretch of asphalt was long and broad, and completely empty but for a couple of Dumpsters: All things considered, there was nothing behind the strip mall but scruffy grass and trees.

“Fine, but I’m getting out of the car.” Mary cracked her door. “I’ve been in two near-misses in the last how long? I’m not risking a third.”

As she held the seat up for Bitty, the girl looked grave. “I won’t hurt it. I promise.”

Mary put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I don’t care about the car—”

“What!” Rhage yelped while he got out of his side. “How can you say that?”

Shooing him, she refocused on Bitty. “Just be careful. Go slowly. You’ll do great.”

Bitty gave her a quick hug—and what do you know, it was something that stopped Mary’s heart every time it happened. And then the girl and Rhage were by the driver’s seat, talking in that fast way they did, the rapid-fire chatter making Mary’s head spin.

Stepping out of the way, waaaaaaay out of the way, she ended up leaning back against the single-story, long-as-a-football-field building, right next to a sign that read, DELIVERIES ONLY. The night was unseasonably warm, so much so that she let her jacket fall open, and overhead, the sky was cloudy, as if God had pulled a woolen blanket over the Earth against the chill of late October.

“Here we go!” Rhage said as he hightailed it around to the passenger side. “Get ready!”

As he waved like he was on the deck of a cruise ship that was about to depart, she waved back and thought, Please, no Titanic here, people.

Fits, starts. Grinding gears. Hopping and skipping—and then Bitty got it. Somehow . . . the girl gathered the reins of that twelve-billion-horsepower whatever-engine under that hood, and she and Rhage were cruising by. At five miles an hour.

Mary found herself jumping up and down and clapping like the kid had graduated medical school with a cure for cancer. “You did it! Go, Bitty!”

God, it felt so good to cheer. To watch a mastery happen. To be a witness as the girl turned the powerful muscle car around at the far end and started back again, waving madly as she passed by once more, her face aglow with happiness as Rhage sat beside her clapping and whistling sure as if Bitty were running a touchdown at the Super Bowl, dunking the final basket at the NCAA championship, and crossing the Boston Marathon finish line all at the same time.

Here they came once more, gathering speed, until Bitty was shifting into third on the straightaway.

It was . . . magic.

It was . . . family.

It was . . . absolutely, positively everything that mattered and was important.

And then it all went into bad territory.

Bitty and Rhage had just made the turn again and were heading away for the long run to the very far end, when the sound of a bottle being thrown against the pavement brought Mary’s head up.