Maybe There's Another Way

*Ainslee*

“Ainslee, what the hell were you thinking?”

It’s not the first time Lenny has asked me this question since we left the bakery—since we left the street outside of the bakery where I’d accosted those three large male vampires. He’s right to be angry because I could’ve easily drawn him into a fight we couldn’t possibly win. Just because he wouldn’t help poor Ms. Mildred, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have stood up for me if those vampires had attacked. Lenny would do anything for me.

Except for give me his loaf of bread. The smell of it has my mouth watering as we make our way along the muddy streets toward home. He lives a few blocks over from me and always walks me to my house after we got bread together.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I admit. “I was just… mad.”

“Why do you have to be so mad all the time, Ainslee? You’re going to end up getting yourself killed.” He shakes his head, kicking at a rock in the road.

Again, he is right. He is always fucking right, which I often hate. With nothing more to say on the topic, I close my mouth for once. Images of my little sister and brother crying come to mind. I will have to do something extreme to get them food.

“I wish I could give mine to you, Ains. I really do.” Lenny sighs and shifts his four massive loafs of warm, soft bread in his arms. “But Ma already warned me if ever I don’t come up with our full allotment, she doesn’t care what the reason is, she’ll strike me dead. And I believe her.”

If I was still in an arguing mood, I would remind him that his mother weighs less than eighty pounds soaking wet, and the top of her head only hits him mid-chest, but I’ve learned my lesson—for now.

Besides, Mom will find out it isn’t our bread, and she’ll be upset that I took it. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I think we may have some flour left from last spring.”

“Really?” He sounds much more chipper all of a sudden.

It is a lie. We have no flour, and he should know that. Even if we did, it takes more than flour and water to make a loaf of bread. “Sure. I’ll check around.” I see my tiny, rundown house in the distance. “You go on home, and I’ll see you tomorrow, Lenny.”

Clearly having had enough of me for one day, he nods. “See you later, Ainslee.” He smiles, and I nod, going on ahead of him. The moment I turn away, the smile fades. I want to crush something, but at the moment, Mr. Black and that jerk of a vampire are far away, so the only person I have to be angry at is myself.

When I think of the vampire who’d knocked my bread from my hands, part of me wants to go track him down again so I can give him another piece of my mind. He was so smug, acting like I could just go buy another fucking loaf of bread, like it was no big deal. “Sure. I’ll just buy a cake and a couple of pounds of meat while I’m at it,” I muttered aloud.

I want to scream in his face some more, but the more I think about him, the more I realize those aren’t the only feelings I have toward him.

There is something about him I can’t quite put into words. Of course, he was attractive. Nearly all vampires are. Except for the really old ones. It takes them forever to age, but when they do, they get gross. Wrinkly with nasty teeth and opaque eyes. I saw an old female vampire at a culling ceremony once, where the victims are chosen, and she was terrifying.

But this vampire, with his dark black hair and icy blue eyes, he’s different. Like all vampires, his eyes have an intense glow to them, but he doesn’t look menacing. I wasn’t afraid of him.

I probably should’ve been. It was really fucking stupid what I’d done, especially considering I’d been outnumbered three to one. In a matter of seconds, they could’ve snapped my neck or ripped my throat out.

Wolf shifters are fast and strong compared to some other species. When we are fully fed, we are much faster and stronger than fae. We are nimbler than lycans, though they are stronger than us. Sometimes we are faster than vampires, but they are always stronger. We can out maneuver them because of our dexterity on four feet, but most of the time, a vampire is going to defeat a wolf shifter. We used to beat them with numbers until they depleted our ranks, and then, well… that’s how we got where we are.

“Bend the knee,” I mumble.

My house is in front of me. I can hear my sister and brother chatting, but I don’t want to go in. I see my mother through the window, sitting at the table, looking exhausted. We have two rooms in our house, besides the small commode. My mom and stepdad have a bedroom. Sinead, Brock, and I sleep on a bed in the main room. There’s also a couch in one corner. The kitchen exists and is connected to the living room, but I don’t even know if the stove still works; we haven’t used it in years.

Knowing they will be devastated to have to go without bread, I trudge up the stairs to the porch. This has happened a few times before, when they simply couldn’t get enough blood from me, and those times have broken my heart.

The door squeaks as I walk inside. “Sissy!” Brock shouts. “You’re home!” He’s five, but he’s so malnourished, he could pass for four.

Sinead, who is four, looks to be two or three. She’s smart as a whip. “Where is it?” she asks, not greeting me like she normally does. “In your cloak?”

A solitary tear slides down my cheek, but I angrily brush it away, refusing to cry over spilt bread. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to do something else.”

“Oh, Ainslee.” Mom manages to get out of her chair. She’s coming over to me.

“Sit down, Mom, before you fall,” I tell her, but she doesn’t. Instead, she slowly crosses the room and wraps her arms around me. I want to bury my head in her shoulder and bawl like I would’ve done when I was upset as a small child. But I can’t do that because I still have hungry mouths to feed.

“Did you not have enough?” she asks, her raspy voice a whisper against the side of my head.

“No.” I pull away from her, careful not to knock her off balance. Her forehead puckers. “It’s a long story. I got the bread, but I dropped it.”

That’s easier for me to say than the truth. If I tell my mother that I shouted at three large male vampires, she will keel over dead before they have a chance to come and end our entire family.

Oh, goddess! What if those three bastards come knocking on the door? Would they hurt my family?

I don’t think so. One of them looked mean, but the other two seemed strangely kind for vampires. I shake my head, hoping to clear those thoughts.

“Well, we can try again tomorrow.” Mom makes it back to her chair and sits down. “Maybe your father will have something for us.”

The littles groan, and I know they are so hungry, they can’t stand to wait until Father—their father, not mine—gets home from the mines.

But he won’t have anything, and we all know that. He makes enough there to eat three times a day, which is what it takes for him to be able to do his job. And if he doesn’t work, then no one in our family works, and we will all be thrown in debtor’s prison for not paying our dues to society. My picking up trash every morning counts for very little. Most people don’t have a lot of waste anyway.

“I’ll go find you something.” I move toward the closet in my parents’ bedroom before my mother can protest.

Despite her illness and how weak she is, I hear her call after me. “Ainslee, no. Absolutely not. I cannot let you do that.”

“Don’t be silly, Mom. No one will know.” I move to her closet, the only one in the house, and open it up, searching for the panel in the back that will pop out. That’s where I’ll find what I am looking for.

I reach through the few pairs of extra clothes our family members have to try to reach it, but my eyes fall on a picture in the corner of the closet. An old photograph in a small frame with a crack in the glass, I haven’t looked at it in ages.

It used to sit on the mantel of our fireplace next to the couch. But Mom moved it when she married Clint. She’d explained to thirteen-year-old me that it didn’t mean she had stopped loving my father, but she didn’t want it as a reminder to her new husband that he hadn’t been her first love.

I’d nodded and told her I understood, but I’d always wondered what that made me. Did I not remind them of my father?

Clint was great. He has always treated me like I am his own child, even when Brock and Sinead had come along soon after their marriage. But he isn’t my father.

Pausing my search, I bend down and pick up the picture, studying my father’s handsome face. Goddess, I miss him. He was such a great man. The entire village respected him, even the Blacks and Sheriff Brown.

But Daddy had been unfortunate and was chosen to serve the crown in a scouting party that went over the border to our neighbors in Warfang. He hadn’t come back. His squad leader had been the one to give us the news of Daddy’s death.

My world had crumbled that day, but Mom and I made it through for eight years until she finally decided to marry Clint. They’d grown up together in this one-horse town and had always been friends. Now, they love one another and make it work, probably the way I will make it work with Lenny one day, even though I’m not sure he is my mate.

My mind is all over the place. I can’t keep gazing at Daddy’s picture and pining for some sort of happily ever after. Instead, I need to get my hands on the one thing that can feed my family before Mom finds the strength to come in here and stop me.

Continuing to stretch, I find the wood panel that moves and pop it out of the way. I really have to strain to get my fingers around it, but eventually I do. Pulling it free from its hiding spot, I thread it between the clothes and put the board back in place before stepping out of the closet.

Daddy’s bow.

He’d made it himself. Once the situation in the town became so dire that many of the adult shifters lost their wolves, he’d made it out of precaution. He’d always been a hunter, and back then it had been legal to hunt game. He wanted to make sure he could provide for us, no matter what. Now, I’ll be able to sneak out into the woods and get a squirrel or something.

I’ll have to make some arrows, but he taught me how to do that.

Walking back into the living room, I plaster a smile to my face. “See, it’ll all be all right.”

Mom shakes her head. “I knew I should’ve gotten rid of that thing. Ainslee, it’s dangerous. Put it back. If the vampires catch you with that, or even the sheriff, they’ll punish you.”

“They won’t catch me.” I wave my hand as if she’s being ridiculous, and stride toward the door.

When I pull it open, there’s a large vampire standing there glaring at me.

“Oh, fuck.”