Nice Girls Don't Bite Their Neighbors by Molly Harper

unnaturally white teeth. The boyish charm was still there but layered over something more dangerous, more compelling.
    Suddenly, I felt Gabriel’s eyes on me, and if I couldhave blushed, my cheeks would have been beet-red. I cleared my throat and kept my voice low, smooth. “Jamie, how do you feel?”
    “Like I got hit by a car,” he muttered. He jerked again, realizing that the feminine voice from his bedside was not, in fact, his mother.
    Jamie grabbed the sheet and pulled it to his chest. “Miss Jane?”
    “Jamie.”
    He scanned the room quickly, saw Gabriel, and scrambled across the bed. He almost toppled off onto the floor, but his reflexes helped him stop just before his weight shifted over the edge. He did a sort of tuck-and-roll thing that landed him on his feet. His eyes took on a sort of panicked glaze, and he started gasping for breath. I could see the comprehension cross his features.
    He didn’t need to breathe.
    “Jamie, I’m going to need you to stay calm.”
    “Calm? What’s happening to me?”
    “What’s the last thing you remember?”
    He chewed on his plump bottom lip. “Uh, I was working. I drove the truck up to your shop. You waved hello and smiled at me. I remember thinking how much I liked that sweater on you, cause it made your, uh”—Gabriel cleared his throat, Dick threw Jamie a warning look, and Jamie immediately recognized his subbasement position on the room’s totem pole—“eyes stand out. You screamed my name, and I turned around, saw the car headed for me . . . And that’s it.”
    “That car ran you down. It was a hit-and-run. Youwere bleeding, and there was a lot of internal damage. You were dying, and you asked me to change you.”
    Jamie rubbed at his Adam’s apple and swallowed, a sign of the thirst building in his throat. “I don’t remember. I remember a feeling of not wanting to die, but that’s pretty much it. So, I’m a vampire now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Cool.”
    My brow furrowed. “Really, that’s it? That’s the sum total of your response?”
    “Yeah.” He shrugged.
    “We’re talking a total change in lifestyle here, new hours, new diet, new rules, new lifestyle. And your response is ‘cool’?”
    “Do I get a long black coat like that Angel guy? Ooh, or Spike. My sister loves that show.”
    “All that MTV and Twitterfacing has seriously dulled you kids to emotional response, you know?”
    A note of genuine fear, of concern, crept into his voice. “Wait, do my parents know I’m a vampire?”
    I nodded. “Someone from the Council, the governing body for vampires, went to your house the night you died.”
    “What do you mean, ‘the night I died’? How long have I been out?”
    “It takes three days for a vampire to rise.”
    “I’ve missed three days of school?” he yelped. “Unexcused? I’m going to be kicked off the baseball team. Aw, man, my dad’s going to kill me!”
    “I’m pretty sure calling in dead counts as an excused absence.”
    “Were they pissed?” he asked. “Am I grounded?”
    “Noo. They were upset that you were hurt. But they weren’t angry . . . at you.”
    “Can I see them?”
    “Not for a few days. We need to make sure that you’re, uh, safe, to be around humans. It’s sort of dangerous for you to be around people right now. And I know you would hate to hurt someone. You’re going to need to get used to feeding and the whole bloodlust thing, before we can let you around innocent bystanders.”
    “Aw, man, why’d you have to bring up food? I’m starving.” He groaned, rubbing his washboard abs. “Well, not starving, really, but, thirsty, really thirsty. Like I’ve been stuck out in the desert for days. Is that normal?” he asked, voice garbled as his fangs stretched out and bumped his lip. “What’s that?” He slapped his hand over his mouth. “What the hell is that?”
    “Those are your fangs,” I told him. “It’s a perfectly normal response to your hunger.”
    “Oh, my God, this is so