To make matters worse, Fulton Heights, roughly thirty minutes from downtown Chicago, isn’t even one of the cool suburbs. All we’ve got is a dying mall, a nexus of weird, mystical energy that attracts monsters, and a handful of abandoned buildings the municipal government can’t afford to tear down. Hence the real source of our vampire problem. Empty warehouses make great hideouts for creatures of the night, who need proximity to their food source (us) and a safe place to sleep during the day.

I seriously don’t understand why we can’t just move somewhere else, but my parents refuse to discuss it. Right now, going on minute twelve of my agonizing attempt to solve for x on question number eight, I’m not sure if dying doesn’t have a certain amount of appeal. Reviving a lost argument might be pointless, but it is distracting, so I shout from the kitchen, “Why do I have to learn this stuff when I could get vampired at, like, any moment?”

“About three people in Fulton Heights die from vampire attacks each year, August,” my dad calls back from the living room in his stop-being-so-dramatic tone. “That’s less than the number of people we lose to heart disease, cancer, and traffic accidents. It’s not even in the top ten causes of death for the area! Stop being so dramatic.”

Like that’s supposed to make me feel better. Pretty much every Fulton Heights resident has those statistics memorized, but for most of us, it’s cold comfort. Vampires aren’t wild animals that kill indiscriminately, and most of them are smart enough to know that it’s in their best interests not to rack up a huge body count and give the frightened townsfolk a reason to get all torches-and-pitchforks about them hanging out in our long-shuttered glassworks factory. But we don’t exactly have an armistice, either.

They still need to eat, and we’re their favorite entrée. Okay, unlike what you see in the movies, they don’t tend to chase us down dark alleys and tear our throats out. A little Undead 101: Along with their superstrength and eternal youth and all that business, vampires also have this special mind-control thing that makes humans all docile and aroused, which renders us easy pickings. You meet a cute boy, he smiles at you—and the next thing you know you wake up all light-headed with a great big hickey and a pint of blood missing from your veins.

Or so goes the rumor. No cute boys have tried to seduce me yet. That’s another thing Fulton Heights doesn’t seem to have: other gay guys for me to date.

“We should move!” I shout next, because I want to keep this pointless conversation going as long as possible.

“Move where?” my mom responds this time. It’s a challenge.

“I think Californ—”