somethin’, but he just didn’t know what. He’d always looked out for Lily, but the truth was that she was stronger than he was, especially in spirit. He may have taken more of the physical abuse from their mother than she had, but she was the one that Mama had broken down day after day with her cruel words. He didn’t know how Lily still stood, breathing and whole, after some of the things their mother said to her.
He watched Lily’s chest rise and fall with each breath that she took, and examined her new form. She looked taller, more
developed, and less like a child than she had the night before. He’d wondered if she was ever gonna change and look more like a girl her age, or if she was gonna look like a little kid her whole life. Most girls at fifteen looked a lot older than she did. Her new hair fanned out around her, and sparkled. He thought that he saw it moving in the morning light and glanced away. He wasn’t ready to face that kind of weirdness. He didn’t know what happened upstairs, but he was going to find out as soon as Lily woke up.
His body ached, and he knew that he should get out of the chair and wake his sister up. She wouldn’t like him sitting there watching her while she slept. She was already self conscious enough about herself without him adding to it. He just couldn’t wake her up yet. After she’d looked at him in the mirror and smiled she’d fallen back into his arms in a dead faint. He’d pulled her to the bed, and laid her on it and tucked her in. Soon her breathing evened out and he could tell she was deep asleep. She fidgeted, and mumbled a little while she slept, but for the most part rested peacefully. He’d dozed off a little bit in the chair set off in the corner of the room, but his mind was racing too much for him to fully relax into sleep.
He stood up and walked into the bathroom, and resting his hands on the sink, and looked at himself in the mirror. He opened his mouth, tilted his head back, and stared at his teeth. They didn’t seem to be growing. He didn’t think that Lily’d been infected with anything, but he couldn’t be sure. All he knew about fangs was that legend said vampires had them. He knew his sister wasn’t a vampire, but he was scared to find out exactly what they were. He turned the water on, and got his hands wet and brought water up to his hair, and ran his hands through the unruly tufts that seemed to have a life of their own. He thought about the way his sister’s hair had been moving on the bed, and he shivered. It gave him the creeps, but he loved his sister more than anything in the world, and wasn’t gonna tell her that he thought her hair was weird.
He’d known that something was happening to Lily because he’d felt it laying in bed. He’d woken up feeling like his heart was about to jump out of his chest. He’d been dreaming about someone, something, but he just didn’t know what. His arms had felt bigger, stronger, and thicker. He’d always been strong, but now he felt like he could break anything that he wanted. He just knew that if he squeezed hard enough he’d break the porcelain sink he was hanging onto. He took his hands away and sighed. They needed to figure out what was going on, but right then Tyler didn’t think he had the energy for it.
He walked out of the bathroom and glanced at Lily sleeping peacefully on the bed. He really didn’t want to wake her. He hesitated at the door, but needed to get out of the room for a little while. He felt like he was suffocating just thinking about what was going on with her.
Tyler opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hallway. The yellow of the morning light illuminated the hall and the walls. He closed the door behind him as soft as he could, and turned towards the staircase. He wanted to go down and see about getting some breakfast, but felt sort of disloyal to Lily for not waking her up to go with him. His stomach answered for him and nixed his idea of waking Lily
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