DEAR DIARY,
My emotions today are all over the place, and this is the only way I can get my head straight. Or maybe I never will.
I’m like on a roller coaster. My feelings ride way up up up, and then come crashing down in a screaming heap. I feel ecstatic one minute, triumphant, a winner, on top of the world. The next minute I am filled with regret. Not just regret but hate, hatred of myself and what I did in the gym earlier tonight.
But, Diary, did I have a choice?
No. No choice. No choice at all.
I knew I had to destroy Morgan the moment she sank her teeth into me, prepared to drink her fill, and realized I have no blood.
The shock on her face was worth the whole trip.
She gagged. She was sick when she realized what I was. What I am.
She was sick because she knew I now had no choice. I had to kill her if I was to keep my secret.
If only I’d known sooner that Morgan was the other vampire in Linden. I could have saved Winks—saved him for myself.
I picked Winks out as soon as I arrived here in the fall. I made him feel that I was in love with him. I made everyone feel that I was in love with him. That I needed him. That poor, shy, quiet Delia had attached herself to the Big Guy and wouldn’t let go.
Well . . . I didn’t want to let go. I was saving Winks for a special treat.
But she spoiled my treat, Diary. Morgan got to him first. She drank half his sweet nectar before he ran out of his cousin’s house.
He ran out of that house, into my waiting arms. And I only got half. I drank it so hungrily. The half of Winks’s blood that Morgan hadn’t consumed.
It left me so hungry, Diary. So achingly hungry. A gnawing that wouldn’t stop. A gnawing that tortured my whole body.
Feeding on the funeral director helped me for a few days. He was pretty old but his blood was still sweet and filling. So, yes, Diary, I killed Winks and the funeral man. It is my fate. Why should I go hungry?
And look at me now. I’m a hero!
I killed the vampire and saved everyone’s life. Ha.
Everyone loves me now. Poor, quiet, little Delia saved everyone. Delia is a hero.
So . . . I gave myself a little reward.
That strange-looking guy—Cal Imhoff. Big-time vampire hunter with his dark suits and that white-blond hair and silvery eyes that don’t look real.
The crazy dude offered to drive me home.
I made him pull over a few blocks from my house. I told him I felt sick. Then I grabbed his head, pulled him down to me, and drank my fill.
Sweet. Very sweet. The blood had a little spice to it, a little kick. I can still taste it on my lips.
A hero deserves a reward, don’t you agree, Diary?
Of course, I wouldn’t tell this to anyone else.
You’re my best friend, Diary. My only best friend. My only real friend. Always remember that.
Love,
Delia
