Chapter 22: This one was filled with Vampires
Lithia sat on the tram, she couldn’t get what had just happened out of her head. Vijay had kissed her, how could he have kissed her? They were good friends, but Lithia had never given him any hint that there might have been more. At least she didn’t think she had. But still something had made Vijay think something could happen. Lithia didn’t think about Vijay that way though, not really. He was good looking enough, and fun even if most of his fun came out of one of those bottles that always turned up with him, but well he was just Vijay.
“The kiss wasn’t bad though.” she caught herself thinking before snapping out of it. No, she couldn’t think that way. If she thought that way then things would get complicated and she didn’t want that. Not that things weren’t complicated enough as they were. But when she saw him again would he want to talk about what happened? Would she? Would he try it again? Did she want him to try it again?
“No damn it” she couldn’t think that way. Vijay was a friend and thinking of him any other way would only hurt him. The most agonising part is that she did actually love Vijay. He was the only person who saw who she was, saw it and didn’t honestly care. He knew she was rich, but never asked for anything, he knew she was musically talented but never expected her to play for them, but she didn’t feel a romantic love for him. She couldn’t feel that for Vijay. She had thought about it a few times, mostly when she was younger and feeling lonely, but it couldn’t have worked. Vijay was from the Undercity, and whether they liked it or not, he was going to stay there. It wasn’t his fault, no one got out of that place once they went down, but it was still true. Lithia had plans, it was only a matter of time before she left Earth forever and never looked back, and she couldn’t take Vijay with her. Even if Lithia did take Vijay with her when she left the planet, he’d be lost. He would have no chance to understand anything about living and working on a ship. She honestly wasn’t even sure if Vijay knew how to read, though that at least the Magdalenes would help him with if he stayed.
“He might not stay though.” she thought. That was another thing about Vijay, he couldn’t accept help from anyone else. That wasn’t his fault either though, it was the world he lived in. Lithia knew that the Undercity was full of more good people than bad, but enough bad was down there. There were too many people more than happy to take what little you had. Too often a smiling face was just a cover for something predatory. That was life though, Lithia had seen Vijay tempted, good and bad had little meaning when the real question was if you’d have enough food to make it through the next cold snap and if her friend was better than that, it was only because Lithia helpped.
As the tram came to a stop Lithia stood up, and moved out through the doors into the sunlight. This really was a different world, and it felt like she was leaving the troubles with Vijay below, though she knew she was only exchanging them for a new set.
There was a park in front of Lithia. Green grass stretched out across a wide field in front of single-family homes. These homes were huge for the Terraces, a place where living space was at a premium. Number 705—this was Lithia’s home.
Lithia entered the house and set her things down on the bottom step of the staircase. Her uncle wasn’t home yet. The house was quiet other than a rustling coming from the refrigerator.
“Hey.” Lithia said, entering the kitchen.
“Eww… What are you doing here?” her brother Bobby said, pulling his head out of the refrigerator, lunch meat in hand.
“Nice to see you too. Enjoying your afternoon graze?”
“That supposed to be a joke?” he asked.
“You’re shoving meat in your mouth.”
“Jealous?” he asked, poking his head of the refrigerator again.
Lithia smirked. Her little brother had a strange and often morbid sense of humor.
“Can’t you eat at the kitchen table like a civilized person? I swear you’re like a farm animal with their head in a trough,” Lithia mocked.
“But then I’d have to walk all the way back to the fridge to get more…”
Lithia poked Bobby in the gut. “The exercise could do you some good.”
Bobby frowned. He was pudgy around the gut, and Lithia’s sisterly jabbed only served as a reminder.
“I’m serious, Bobby,” Lithia said, shuffling her brother away from the fridge so she could dig through it.
“Pass me a soda,” Bobby said, clanging his bracelet against the table to get her attention.
“What kind do you want?”
“Surprise me.” he said.
“You’re adopted.”
Bobby froze mid-chew. “Oho, you’re so funny.”
“Thank you. I’m here all week, folks.”
Lithia rummaged through the nearly fully stocked refrigerator. It never failed to surprise her how even with a full fridge, there was nothing she ever wanted to eat. “You ate all the lunch meat?”
“Uhhhhmmm… Ummfh humffmer fhoo.” Lithia couldn’t understand him with the last of the sandwich fixings buried in his mouth. She shook her head, returning to her scan of the refrigerator.
“Oh, hey. I just remembered the tyrannical queen of bitchcraft wants to speak to you,” Bobby said indignantly.
“Any idea what she wants?”
“It could be anything. The ship, your school, but if I had to guess I would say it was the dirt on your clothes… Oh, and the six unanswered calls. That probably didn’t help.”
A subtle rush of panic washed over her. Aunt Petra wasn’t someone you wanted to cross, but someone to live around.
“So how’d your last therapy session go?” Lithia interjected, trying to hastily change the subject.
“Nice try, but if you don’t go see her immediately, my ass will be the one in the fire.”
Lithia tried to keep her cool, digging around in her pocket for her earring. Finding it, she snapped it on. A holographic image appeared in her field of view, the earring projecting an image directly into her optic nerve. A little pop-up showing six missed calls from her aunt bounced up and down. Aunt Petra was going to be pissed, really pissed.
“She’s probably got her ugly face in a book somewhere out back,” Bobby said.
Lithia noted the open bottle of wine on the kitchen counter and knew exactly what that meant.
The entire backyard was domed by glass. Aunt Petra laid on a chaise lounge, her wineglass was like a fishbowl filled with crimson medicine that got her through the day. Her eyes were buried in a book.
Books were rare and a staple of the rich. They were considered the perfect expression of technology—no batteries or updates required, and they were usually the closest to the author’s original vision. A book was a thing of beauty and the voice of freedom and the very essence of civilization. Unfortunately, this book was probably filled with teenage vampires.
“Sit down,” Aunt Petra said, never taking her eyes off her book.
Dread began to wash over Lithia. Her aunt was a controlling and unreasonable person when sober. When drinking, she was something else entirely. Lithia sat for several minutes while her aunt finished the chapter she was on. Putting the book down, Aunt Petra looked up at Lithia, “You have some explaining to do.”
The statement chilled Lithia to the bone. She had no idea what her aunt was talking about and definitely wasn’t going to volunteer any information.
“What about?” Lithia asked.
“You know exactly what about.”
An uncomfortable moment of silence passed. “You were gallivanting in the Under City again.”
Her aunt was right. It shocked Lithia. Earlier in the week she, Vijay, and their friends had gone out to Baker Beach for a bonfire. Lithia thought she had gotten the smell of campfire off her clothes. How did she know?
“You were drinking. I found a bottle cap in your jacket.”
Oh, Mary Magdalene, Lithia thought to herself. She had been caught red-handed.
“You were with that boy again, weren’t you? If I can’t trust you to keep your earpiece on and not to hang around unsuitable men, then I can’t trust you to go out without a chaperone!”
Lithia hated the prospect, but her aunt had been threatening it for years and never followed through. Aunt Petra pointed to Lithia’s hair, “I let you dye your hair like a common whore, then you go out acting like one.”
Lithia had dyed her hair a shade of red; it was another way she rebelled. “The sun did it! It always turns this color this time of year,” Lithia fought back, not being able to think of a better lie. She felt incredibly indignant to her aunt; she had no right to be treating Lithia this way. She was an adult by Earth law, which meant her aunt could no longer make decisions for her. “I’m twenty-two years old, Aunt Petra! I’m an adult. I don’t understand why you have a problem with what I do.”
Her aunt got really quiet. This was always a bad sign. After a pensive moment, she spoke, “I am your aunt. I’ve been your guardian since your parents died. I paid for your education, a far better one than you would have ever received on Venus, and you live in my home. Everything you do is a reflection on me. When you act like a whore, you tarnish our family’s good name.”
Lithia looked away. Her aunt always called her a whore when she was drinking. “You tarnish the family’s name all by yourself when you go out and act like a drunk. You think your friends don’t talk?”
“I drink to hide my shame. The shame of having a niece who hangs around that Under City brothel! Do you realize I have to lie to people when they ask where you are?”
“You lie because it has become second nature. It has nothing to do with me.”
Aunt Petra continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ve tolerated it for years, but I have limits.”
“You tolerate it because you have to... It was in my parents’ will... You don’t let me go down there out of some sort of charity. The Magdalenes are holding my parents’ ship in trust, a ship they wanted me to have.”
“Your parents had no business giving you a ship and no business making me responsible for it. No respectable Terran woman needs a ship.”
“But I’m not Terran! I’m Venusian, and that has bothered you ever since I came here because it was something you couldn’t control.”
“You are a Terran. No one knows you’re Venusian. No one who matters anyway, and you will act like a respectable Terran woman!”
“You wouldn’t have what it takes to be Venusian. Venusians have to think, they have to act. They don’t sit around all day drinking and reading bad romance novels! I am a Venusian like my parents, and for Venusians, our freedom is important. We have ships, we go places, and despite what you and the rest of Terra Luna thinks, we are better for it! I am a Venusian. I will act like one.”
“You are an ungrateful little bitch, and I have taken you in out of the kindness of my Terran heart.” Lithia’s aunt stood up. “I will not be disobeyed in this house by a red-haired Venusian whore!”
Aunt Petra slapped Lithia. She sat there for a second feeling completely stunned. The shock paralysed her not because of the pain but at the utter overwhelming sensation of feeling degraded by the woman that should have been taking care of her. The sting brought back memories of the hell she had endured here. This was by no means the first time her aunt had lost control and hit her. It had been a while though. Her silence was her loudest cry.
“Now get out of my sight. I don’t want to see you again until your hair is a respectable color.”
Lithia ran up to her room, up the staircase lined with red wallpaper. The gold zigzag patterns mocked her as she ascended to the safety of her bedroom. Her eyes were filled with tears. Lithia wasn’t the only one her aunt had gotten physical with over the years. At one point or another she had gotten raw with everyone in family.
Lithia leaped onto her bed and buried her tears in her pillow. She hated her aunt. The woman had tried to control every aspect of her and Bobby’s life. She had to make them look like the perfect little makeshift family to all of her friends. They all had their own children and already saw their family as an eyesore. If they weren’t perfect, they wouldn’t be accepted or invited to social events. To their aunt, this was death.
A pressure change in the air meant someone came in. Lithia sat up. Bobby was standing in the doorway. Lithia quickly swallowed any sign of her tears. “So how much of that did you hear?”
“Everything,” he answered.
Bobby looked at Lithia’s face. A red mark rising quickly to her cheek summed up the conversation.
“I hate that woman,” he said. “I hate everything about her. I wish we could just leave, you know. Just jump in Mom and Dad’s ship and just leave.”
“Where would we go? Where would we get your meds if we did that?”
“I wouldn’t need meds if it weren’t for her.”
Lithia was actually fairly convinced of her brother’s statement.After all he hadn’t had issues before their parents died.
“You’re underage. You can’t run away. They would come after you.”
“Then you could just go. I could follow later when I’m old enough. I could find you.”
This was probably the most noble and caring thing Bobby had ever said to his older sister.
“I couldn’t do that. I can’t just leave you here. You’d bear the brunt of her warpath.”
Lithia hated to put down one of her brother’s rare moments of teenage selflessness, but it was true. She put a smile in her voice that she in no way felt. “Either we both get out of here or neither of us does.”
Lithia wished she could take off with her brother. She had put in a custody application the day she came of age, but it was suggested, given her situation, she withdraw it. That was eight months ago, and she had heard nothing, so she resolved to stay with her aunt until Bobby was old enough to leave. She couldn’t wait for the day they could just take off in her ship and go back to Venus or wherever.
Bobby patted Lithia on the knee. “Now clean up that makeup... You look like a whore.” He grinned playfully.