Prudence didn't believe Charlotte, but the idea of hurting anyone else made her sick. When she thought of running, she realized she had no idea what would kill her. Or how long before she flew into a haze like that again.

Prudence skulked over to what Charlotte called a truck. Charlotte opened the door for her. She then reached under Prudence's seat and pulled out a metal container.

"Here, it seems ya have a little way to go with healing still. Don't worry; this is a pig. I got it from the butcher's shop."

Charlotte unscrewed the lid, and the smell reached Prudence’s nostrils. She recoiled. It definitely smelled different from the blood she had before.

Her stomach growled.

“I don’t want it.” Prudence could still taste her two victims in her mouth. She wanted nothing more than her taste buds to stop working.

"Look, this is better than accidentally killing more people right? We know how ya get when you’re hungry."

Prudence picked up the container and drank from it. It tasted delicious, which is exactly what she didn’t want. It didn’t compare to human blood, and that was what made her even more scared. What if I attack others? How can I stop myself? Thoughts like that were swirling in her head. She looked down at the thermos. At least with this, I didn't hurt anyone. The pig was already dead. And the taste wasn't that different if she squinted really hard.

When Prudence was finished, she finally spoke. “What else do you know?” She felt her voice break.

“After we get away from the murder scene.” Charlotte wagged her finger. “Let me finish cleaning up first.”

* * *

Charlotte didn’t stop talking for all the time it took her to methodically clean everything and set the scene up to look like an accident. “We had fancy things in 2015. Ya drained them, but there is still hair, stuff under their nails, and even fingerprints. Ya touch something, we know ya touched it. But if we do this accident well enough, none of that will matter. Boy, ya did a number on this dude.”

Most were incredibly detailed information about what she was doing and why. And some were comments which made Prudence uncomfortable. She didn't pay attention to most of it since it flew over her head. But she did learn they were in a small town in a place called Maine. The ambulance was set to catch on fire and dropped off the cliff, with the two bodies set inside. When that was done, both women sat in the truck and drove off.

“So, we can talk now.” Charlotte was the first who broke the silence.

Prudence wanted to ask a hundred questions at once. “What do you know about me?”

“Well, I went off to study a few years ago, to get my degree — yes, women do that now, then I get back, and my family is dead. Only me and my cousin left. I get a letter in the will, saying that I need to keep an eye on a half vampire, half human put to sleep in the mausoleum by some dude. To hide ya. All I know is that my ancestors needed something very important. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made the deal. Also, it means people might try and kill ya." Charlotte drove at high speed, never looking away from the road.

“I was hidden?”

“Yeah, I don’t understand it. Either a few centuries in a coffin somehow made ya stronger, or we’re damn lucky vampires aren’t out and about.”

“So you know nothing about me? My name?”

“Nope.”

Prudence knitted her eyebrows. Charlotte was like a strange assault to her senses. She dressed crazily and talked loudly. Prudence understood maybe a little over half of what she said. She did things Prudence expected of no woman, seemingly without fear.

“I suppose the world has changed a lot since the 1600s.”

"Ya have no idea. Hazy summary: we colonized this continent and killed a bunch of natives and have been real jerks to them since, then we got pissed at England and fought in a revolutionary  war and became the United States, then we went crazy again, split in two, fought each other, then merged back, stopped the whole slave thing, then the world went crazy twice more, and a bunch of people died, then slowly we started getting a bit saner and gave people other than white men the right to vote. Now we're advanced but still crazy. I think that sums it up." Charlotte lit a cigarette.

Prudence wrinkled her nose at the smoke. “Those are bad for you.”

"Duh," Charlotte smirked.

A few moments of silence later, after Charlotte had finished her cigarette, she spoke again, "By the way, for ease, ya can keep using Prudence as your name; until we find yours that is. I'll tell people ya're my cousin for now."

“Alright.” Prudence nodded.

Charlotte took a hard right and stopped at a large house. “This is it. Let’s go.”

Prudence didn't realize how much her surroundings changed until she got out of the truck. They were on a largely smooth and gray street, larger than Prudence had ever imagined a street could be. All the buildings around her were the same color. Spacious, white-walled stores or houses. Prudence felt small.

"Over here lady!" Charlotte snapped her out of her thoughts. She covered Prudence with a blanket she removed from the truck, along with all her other things. Prudence remembered the crusty blood on her clothes.