Daddy always smelled like leather and dirt
That's because we were always moving
He always told me that as long as we kept moving, we would be okay
I believed daddy, he was always right
And besides, he said, we had to keep the flame going
I asked what he meant
And he looked at me, and then touched where my heart was, and said
This. We have to keep this going, so that the bad guys following us don't put it out.
I told daddy that it would never happen
Daddy just smiled and told me to hurry up
My legs always hurt from walking, but I never let daddy know
Cause I know if I did he would stop and help me and then I knew that we would get caught
So we kept walking, and walking, and a few days after daddy had taken me from mommy, we met a man, who told daddy something, and daddy looked really scared
I asked him what was wrong, but he said nothing, and told me to put on the clothes that the man had given us. I didn't like them because they were all scratchy, but daddy said that we would get new ones soon.
My new clothes were better than my old ones cause they didn't have tears, so it wasn't as cold walking at night. Daddy said that we couldn't walk during the day cause the bad guys might find us, and then they would take me away from him. I didn't want to leave daddy, so I let him wake me up as the sun set.
But even then, daddy was scared, so after a few days we got up later, when there was no sun.
Sometimes I pretended to be running from vampires, but I got scared when I thought that the bad guys could be vampires, so I stopped and just walked with daddy.
When I got tired, daddy would pick me up and carry me piggyback till we had to stop for the night, but I knew that it was hard for him to pick me up, so I tried not to sleep, but sometimes we walked farther than usual and I had to.
I never knew where we were going, because daddy didn't say, but I knew that when we got there the bad guys couldn't get us, even if they were vampires.
But then they caught daddy, and we didn't get away from the vampires. I didn't see them suck his blood, and I guess they didn't cause I still get letters from him sometimes, but they took him away.
We were just starting walking when the bad guy started following us. I thought that maybe he was just going for a walk, but then he told daddy to stop, and daddy didn't stop, daddy RAN, and the man pulled something out of his coat and then there was a loud noise and I was flying, but daddy wasn't with me. I scraped my hands when I landed, but my scratchy clothes kept my knees okay.
Daddy wasn't moving, and that wasn't okay, so I ran to him, but a bad guy grabbed me before I got there. He must have been a vampire, cause I don't remember anything else until they took me back to mommy, and mommy was MAD. Boy, was she ever. She yelled into the phone for a long time, and then sat down with me and asked me what daddy had done to me, and when I asked her what she meant she just cried, and I said I was sorry mommy, daddy didn't do anything, we were just running from the bad guys.
She kept crying and hugged me really tight, and when I told her that she was hurting me she let me go and told me to go play with my blocks. I wasn't a baby, I didn't play with blocks anymore, but I knew that mommy needed some alone time, like she did when daddy still lived with us, so I went to wait for daddy to come back.
He is coming back, he told me so. He said so in his letter.