Peter Moore - Red Moon Rising

F eeling like you fit in as a freshman in high school is tough enough, but it really sucks when youre only half-vampyre.

Its obvious that Im not full-blooded. I have a shorter, wider build than a typical vamp my age. I have vamp-blue eyes, but I got my fathers coloring: olive skin and hair the color of burnt chestnuts. And even though my vamp immune system rejected most of the ink from the wulftag tattoo, its still there if you look for it, like a hologram under my skin.

Its not that the other vamps openly avoid me. The ones whove known me since we were little know that Im technically half-wulf, and the ones who dont assume Im either half-human, or that I had the genetic treatments.

I look at the vamps sitting at the table with Claire and me: Bertrand, Martina, Oliver, Constance, Hugh. Theyre arguing about song lyrics, which they do all the time. Martinas my lab partner. Ive studied for tests with Constance and Oliver. Hugh has had me over to watch movies in his home theater.

Theyre good friends, but I kind of imagined I would branch out a little once I got to high school.

Are you ever going to shut up? Claire asks me.

What? I say.

She pushes the purple headband farther back on her head. You havent said a word in ten minutes. Whats wrong with you?

Nothing. Just thinking. I twist my neck until it makes a cracking sound, which I know grosses Claire out.

Thanks to successful genetic treatments, Claire looks full-vamp. She has ivory skin and pale yellow hair the exact color of plasma, cut in a bob. Her human mother died in childbirth, and her father married another vamp a year later. Everyone assumed she was full-vamp when she moved here, and she has no intention of telling them otherwise.

You drinking the rest of that, or what? she asks.

I pass over the bottle of SynHeme. Claire drinks, then makes a sour face. Is this diet?

No. Why?

She smacks her lips, way too many times, because she knows it bugs me. Tastes thin.

I watered it down a little.

She holds up the bottle so its backlit by the moonlight coming in through the big glass cafeteria windows. Gross, she says. But she still drinks it.

Though she rags on us all the time, Claire has no interest in making new friends. She took a lot of crap last year after the locker room incident that started all the rumors about her being gay. Her entire safety net, every person who stood by her, is at this table right now.

Claire pushes the SynHeme bottle back across the table. This is horrible, she says. Why would you water down SynHeme?

My stomachs been bothering me. Even though I have the Thirst, SynHemes been making me feel queasy lately. To distract myself, I look around the caf.

There are rich vamp kids at almost every other table. Guys wearing shirts that cost a few hundred bucks, girls whose spike heels or skinny jeans cost as much as some wulf families rent. These kids are smart, confident, and good-looking. I would never sit with them.

Down by the serving lines at the other end of the caf is a single table of wulves. Eleven wulf kids in the whole place.

The vamp parents protested wulves being admitted into Carpathias Night High Gifted Program. But in the end, it all came down to money. The wulves who come here have families who can afford to live in town, so their kids are entitled to attend. Not that the wulf kids can hack the same advanced academics that vamps take. Wulves come to this buildingwhich doubles as Millbrook High during the dayand take Carpathia electives at night. Even if they cant pass the heavy academic subjects, they still get Carpathia Gifted Program on their transcripts just by taking stuff like art and gym and health.

The wulf kids really stand out. Theyre built like wrestlers: short, wide, and muscular. A lot of them have longish hair to cover their post-Change ears and their skull lumps. Some have facial ridges they never got fixed, even though their parents have the money for the surgery. I guess its their way of saying, like, suck it! to the vamp kids. Same thing with the facial hairsome of them have goatees and sideburns. Or pierced ears and eyebrows. They do it because they can, and vampyre regen means we cant. But rebels or not, all of them have wulftagsthe werewulf-head tattoo near the bottom of their right thumbs, each with a red circle around it, meaning theyre registered and go to compounds every month.

Hey! Check it out! says a vamp kid a few yards from the wulf table. Feeding time at the zoo! Here you go, moon-doggies! he yells, throwing a handful of cold cuts at them.

Three wulf kids jump to their feet, but the two massive lunchroom safety officers get there first, hands resting conspicuously on the riot clubs hanging from their belts. Theyre humans, and its hard to tell who they dislike more: the vamps or the wulves. To them, we must seem like spoiled rich kids or rowdy brutes. Most likely, they despise us equally.

Dont even think about it, mutts! a guard bellows at the wulf boys. One of the wulves, looks like John Fusco, is about to protest, then sees theres no point and sits back down. His friends follow.

Wulves are not wanted, and its made clearer every day.

Hello! Danny! Anyone home? Claire raps her knuckles on the table three times. The chunky silver bangles on her wrist rattle.