Diary of a Runaway (BOOK #3)

Surprise!

Liv

            The day snuck up on me, no surprise.

            At midnight, my phone beeped notifying me that today was Ava's eighteenth birthday. For years, we had planned the night. We were going to drink and dance until the crack of dawn. We planned on throwing a massive party maybe out in a field somewhere. We would throw up tents and blast music. We would invite the people we could tolerate and the people we hated.

            But now it all seemed useless.

            Ava was done aging thanks to the whole vampire thing. And I was dying thanks to the whole cure thing. Neither one of us really had a reason to celebrate something so measly like a birthday that didn't really count.

            "It's Ava's birthday," I announced, plopping down on the couch in the living room.

            Angelina perked up from beside me. "Her birthday? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

            I shrugged. "I just did."

            "Well, why didn't Ava tell me?" she asked.

            "Maybe because she's a vampire now and birthday's don't really matter when they don't mean anything anymore. Not to mention there's a lot of crap going on at the moment. Ava loves a good party, but I'm sure she has enough on her plate with the whole 'Mom's a crazy Hunter who wants me dead' thing and the whole 'my boyfriend's an emotional wreck because his father showed back up' thing."

            Angelina sighed, popping up from the couch. "That doesn't matter. A party is a party. A party is also a great distraction. We may live forever but that doesn't mean we can't have a fun. Especially on the first birthday after transition."

            My stomach went queasy with her words. The fact that I probably wouldn't make it to my own eighteenth nearly killed me. I was practically hanging on a noose right now ready for my airways to close up.

            "So," I worked it out. "You're saying that a party might just be the best option?"

            Angelina smiled slyly. Funny how only a couple of weeks ago she was trying to make me control my newborn vampire tendencies. Turned out she was a lot more fun when she wasn't telling me what to do.

            "That's exactly what I'm saying."

†††

            Part one of "Surprise Party for Ava": get the word out. Luckily, Angelina had already climbed her way socially at school. And everyone would have killed to be invited to Ava Sumner's eighteenth birthday party at her new house with her new mysterious friends.

            Part two: keep Ava occupied the whole day. We finally managed to pull Val away from her boyfriend, who was still in quite the state. She promised to take Ava to their old house and watch movies and do makeovers for the remainder of the day. No word from the outside world allowed.

            Part three: get the decorations and booze. This was clearly my job as the renown party planner. Hanson hovered over me the whole time. He kept staring at me as I made phone calls and got dressed to go out and buy decorations.

            "What?" I asked him as I pulled on my jacket.

            "Nothing." He shook his head though I detected that whatever was on his mind was clearly more than nothing. "Just that, I didn't think a party was what we needed right now. I thought we were supposed to be figuring out what the hell was going on in this town."