Free Damned if I Do by Erin Hayes

two kids again. She even smells like she used to. This is what I was missing in my life. I needed her when I was younger, I need her now. “I left you in such a bad state.”
    She nods at my scar. I try to cover it, although there’s no way that I can hide it with my tank top. For never showing anyone how far the scar has spread, I feel exposed now that three people have seen it.
    “It’s better than what happened to you,” I say guiltily.
    Meghan’s face darkens. “Don’t blame yourself for that. Don’t ever blame yourself. We had no control over what happened.”
    I suck in a deep breath and tears prick at the corners of my eyes. This is what I wanted, the chance to apologize for my inability to save her life. I didn’t think I’d ever get it.
    “I’m sorry.”
    After a long pause Meghan replies, “It’s not your fault, Edie.”
    I rub my face with my hands, emotions bubbling over, threatening to take control. “I’m trying to take care of everything before I…join you… For Amelia.”
    If I kill Anthony, there wouldn’t be immediate danger for my niece. She could grow older at least. It kills me to think that I won’t be there to protect her in the future. Amelia is young, innocent. And unlike my childhood, I want her to live free of this darkness that’s been swirling like a miasma around my life. I’ve already been failing her.
    “You never did take the possibility of a cure seriously, did you?” Meghan asks, breaking into my thoughts.
    “What?”
    She gives me an enigmatic smile. “Seek out the Progenitor,” she says cryptically.
    I let her words sink in. I know I’m in some sort of alternate plane, but at the moment, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief.
    “The Progenitor?” I ask skeptically. “A legend?”
    “You really think he’s a legend?”
    We’ve both heard about the Progenitor since we were little girls. He's like the Boogeyman, a figment of the dark that was used to scare us into listening to our mother. Be good or else the Progenitor will come and get you, or Go to sleep so you can fight the Progenitor. Meghan used to terrify me with pranks of him.
    “The father of all vampires,” I say evenly, making sure that we’re both on the same page. “The guy that has been alive for a million years. The original vampire. We’re talking about the same guy?”
    The Progenitor has even popped up a few times during Aunt Tessa's research. Across the many tomes and volumes of the Harker literature, there is a lot of speculation about him, but no evidence to support that he actually exists.
    Maybe Meghan’s been dead too long and it’s going to her head.
    “Find him,” my sister says. She leans in to me, her hazel eyes darkening and it feels like she’s looking deep into my soul. “Find him at all costs.”
    “Meghan, I—”
    She sits bolt upright, her eyes wild. “Someone’s here.”
    A beat passes and she turns back to me. “Edie, listen to me,” she says desperately. “Don’t trust them. Promise me.”
    “Meghan, I…I—”
    “ Promise me ,” she insists. “Before—”
    I blink. In one instant I’m in the Void, and in the next, I’m back in Austin at the altar, where Aunt Tessa’s hands are still on either side of my temples.
    I wheeze out a shallow breath, a burst of white cloud coming from my mouth. It’s freezing in this room. It had been air conditioned only a few minutes ago, and now the heater is on, and I can feel the cold shedding off me like flakes of ice.
    I fall backwards and catch myself on my hands. Even the hardwood floors are frosty. Aunt Tessa sucks in air as she shakes off the cold. Her skin is almost blue from the cold, and she’s watching me with wide eyes.
    “Holy shit,” Carl gasps. “That really happened.” He’s rubbing his own goose-fleshed arms, trying to rub life back into them. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
    “That,” my aunt says at length, “is how you can go into a trance and visit the Void. Which you did