Fallen (2 page)

As I followed the crowd through the halls, my attention was suddenly brought to a girl sitting against the wall reading a text book. Could that be her? Her hair was redder than I remembered, but I could easily see that being her. I hung back, standing near some lockers, pretending to play with a zipper on the backpack.

She certainly appeared to be human. I could hear the blood pumping through her veins as I watched her from across the hall. I couldn't get into her thoughts, but that wasn't surprising for someone born of vampires. Those born into the species had far more advantages than the ones born human, and then turned. That's why they were referred to as common vampires.

There were common vampires and natural vampires,
royal vampires
as they liked to call themselves. Then there were the rare ones like me, who were half and half: born from one royal vampire parent and one common vampire parent. My father in fact, had been in line to be the next vampire king until he gave that up to marry my mother.

I was destined for greatness. I was meant to rule and that was why I was with Vince. He was building a strong group of vampires to take over the current administration.

It was hard to believe the girl I was looking at was one of our major roadblocks. She didn't look like any kind of threat to anyone. She had no makeup, and her hair was in a messy ponytail that looked as though she'd pulled it back in the dark. Her clothes were so boring and plain. She was just sitting there with her nose in that history book, oblivious to everything going on around her.

Could that even be her? When she was little, she had always worn fancy dresses and she captivated the attention of nearly everyone around her. I would have pictured her being the center of attention with everyone following her around. Maybe I had the wrong girl. I had to. Aside from the fact that I couldn't hear her thoughts, everything else about her screamed boring human.

I was about to walk away when a cute bleached-blonde girl, who obviously
was
the center of attention, stopped at her feet. "Hey, Alexis," she said, and the girl I was watching looked up. "Mom and Dad told me they want you home right after work today. So don't eat dinner at the deli, just go home."

Alexis, the girl sitting, nodded and then went back to her exciting school book. Alexis…why did that sound familiar? That was her middle name! Marguerite Alexis Westerfield. They seriously used her middle name? Apparently they hadn't been trying all that hard to hide her.

Two girls, a natural blonde with big glasses and a heavy girl wearing clothes too tight for her frame sat next to Alexis.

"You wanna watch the volleyball practice with us tonight?" asked the one in glasses.

Alexis shook her head. "I need to study before work."

"You always study," complained the other one. "Just join us. You'll have fun, I promise."

"Really you will," agreed glasses. "You could even study there if you need to."

"Study in the noisy gym?" Alexis asked. "No. I have a big project due on Friday, and I have to get it done."

The bell rang, hurting my ears. It had to have been right above me; it was too loud for my sensitive hearing. Everyone ran through the halls creating chaos, making it difficult to follow Alexis. I hid in the halls during class time, hoping to be able to strike up a quick conversation with her. But she was going to be a tough one to talk to. If she wasn't with her two nerdy friends, then she was walking down the halls with her nose in a book, somehow managing to not run into anyone or anything. She had to have vampire senses to pull that off.

I thought that lunchtime might be my opportunity, figuring that she would sit somewhere alone to study, but she sat at a table with her two friends and some other kids. Of course she had her nose in a book, oblivious to the conversation all around her. If nothing else, I could pretend to be a customer at the deli.

It was too bad that I couldn't just take her out myself and be done with it. She would have been too easy, always so focused on reading. But Vince wanted to kill her himself. Last time, he'd left it up to others and here she was, alive and well, ready to begin her transformation to turn into a vampire any day now.

Had she been raised with her family, or at least other vampires, she would have started her transformation long ago and already have completed the change. Somehow being raised as a human had slowed down the whole process, not that I was complaining. That was fully to our advantage.

CHAPTER THREE

My phone rang as I was sitting in the corner of the deli, pretending to eat and study. It was Adam.

Rolling my eyes, I asked, "What do you want?"

"What's going on? Why haven't you checked in yet?"

"Oh relax," I said. "I found her but haven't had a chance to talk with her yet. I'm where she works, waiting for her to go on break."

"Have you found out anything at all? Vince wants to know these things."

"She's a boring bookworm with no sense of style. That's all I've got for now."

He laughed. "Are you serious?"

"About what? That I haven't gotten much yet or that she's boring?"

"That she's a bookworm. That's hilarious. Is she dangerous in any way?"

"Only if you want to get a better grade than her in class."

"Well, maybe this will be easier than Vince thought. Call me back after you talk to her."

"I can't wait," I said and ended the call. I grabbed a book from my backpack. I had snuck the book when I was in the library trying to talk to Alexis there. I had sat next to her, planning to start a conversation when she looked up at me, but she never did. What was with her? How could anyone be so obsessed with studying? She probably dreamed about math equations.

As I read through the story, I couldn't help laughing at it. It was ridiculous.

"What's so funny?" asked a voice to my left.

I looked up, surprised to see Alexis sitting at the next table over. How could I have let myself get so distracted by the story that I hadn't even noticed she'd taken her break? At least it had led to her to initiating conversation with me. I hadn't thought that was even a remote possibility.

"This book," I said, showing her the cover.

"I hear it's better than the movies," she said.

"They made a movie about it?"

"Five of them," she said with a laugh. "My friends dragged me to all of them."

"That's hard to believe. Do people take this seriously? Vampires don't sparkle."

She raised an eyebrow. "Vampires don't
exist
."

"You don't think so?"

"You do?"

"Well if they did, they wouldn't sparkle. You really don't believe in vampires?"

She looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. I was trying to provoke any kind of memory. I was looking to see if her heart rate would increase, even in the slightest, or if her eyes would dilate. There wasn't any clue indicating that she was even hiding a memory of being a vampire.

I shrugged my shoulders. "The world would be boring if it only had people, don't you think?"

"People keep things interesting enough. There's no need to worry about imaginary creatures being after us when so many people are degenerates. Just turn on the news." She looked at the clock. "I'd better get back to work. Thanks for the, uh, interesting conversation."

"No problem," I said, and went back to the book. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as she got up from the table, shaking her head and whispering to herself about how insane she thought it was that anyone could even consider the possibility of vampires existing.

I read the book until her shift ended and then I followed her home. Her entire family was in the kitchen so I sneaked around back and went through a wall, and then I listened to their conversations. There was nothing that interested me. Only talk of traveling across the country for some science competition.

As I ran past them to the stairs, they didn't even see me. I loved how easy it was to get around mortals. I could have taken out the whole family and they wouldn't even have known what hit them. It was too bad that I had to wait and let Vince kill Alexis himself, but what Vince wanted, Vince got. I walked into one room and saw athletic posters covering the walls. That couldn't be her room. I went into another and saw academic awards covering the walls. Bingo.

Opening up a laptop, I stared at the password box until it disappeared and opened the desktop. I scanned through her files, finding nothing aside from school-related work. She was looking to be the most boring vampire ever to live. And that was saying something, because some of the royal vampires were exceedingly dull. I closed the computer and rifled through her room, again finding nothing.

Then I came to her jewelry box. Stuffed into a corner, I saw the necklace right away. I picked it up and held it to the light. She obviously had no idea what this was or she would have it in its own box, shiny and clean, locked away. The way she had it stuffed into a corner, one would think that it was a child's toy.

I resisted the urge to put it on and take it with me. But I couldn't leave any sign that I had been there. I was actually holding the necklace that had once belonged to Ida Freysdottir, one of the first vampires, born three thousand years ago. Pictures of this exact necklace were in the ancient scrolls. It was one of a kind. I really wanted to take it for my own, especially since Alexis obviously had no clue what it was. She could easily just stick it in a garage sale.

Stuffing it back where I had found it nearly killed me. It belonged on a display somewhere. My neck, for example. I tried to push it out of my mind as I went through the rest of her room. I wasn't surprised to find the rest of her wardrobe as boring and plain as what she'd had on at school. She didn't even own any makeup. I tried to imagine her as a vampire, but I couldn't.

Alexis belonged at the castle where they drank all of their blood from a cup. At least most of the other royalty around the world had human volunteers that they drank from directly. I couldn't stand visiting the castle. It was as though they weren't even real vampires. They drank barely enough blood to survive and it was never fresh. It always lacked in taste, because they kept their volunteers relaxed, happy, and well-fed.

Hearing footsteps, I ran to the closet and hid. Alexis came in and sat on her bed and I watched her do homework for an hour. She didn't get on the phone or anything. Not that any guys would ever have an interest in calling her. She was nothing to look at and she always had a book to her face.

As soon as she left the room, I got out of the closet, went through her wall and jumped to ground below, landing soundlessly. I couldn't wait to run to Vince's hideout. I'd had enough of following that girl around. I may as well have been sent to watch paint dry for all the excitement I'd had all day.

On my way back, I could tell that the run wasn't going to help me get rid of the excess energy from such a boring, and yet frustrating, day. Why couldn't she have been at least a little interesting?

I saw a guy standing at a bus stop texting. I thought about the tasty blood from earlier and decided to go on a hunt, instead of taking him by surprise as I usually did. I slowed my speed and walked up to him. He appeared to be in his early twenties and in good shape. He might even prove to be a little bit of a fun challenge.

"Who are you texting?" I asked, twirling a strand of my hair.

He looked up and his heart picked up speed as he looked me over. He stuck his phone in his pocket and said, "No one important."

I smiled. "Where does the bus go? I'm new around here," I said, trying to give the impression that I might be easy to take advantage of. If he thought that, then I could take him by surprise more easily.

His eyes twinkled. "This bus goes to the station and then you can go anywhere from there. I could show you around."

"Mmmm. I'd like that. What would you like to show me?"

The smell from his heart picking up speed again danced around me. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to wait for a chase. This was why I was never able to let them build up real terror for the best taste possible. I was too impatient.

"Anything you'd like."

"What about the woods behind us?" I asked.

He stopped. "The woods?"

"They're always so mysterious and dangerous, don't you think?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a park or a restaurant."

"Eating sounds nice," I said, feeling my fangs extending and my mouth watering. "Maybe we can find a bite in there." I looked toward the forest.

"What? Like blackberries?" he asked, the scent of fear escaping. He could tell that something was up.

Taking in a deep breath, I said, "Something like that."

He swallowed. "You know, I think I actually should head home instead. I just thought of something that I have to do."

"I'm sure it can wait," I said and then opened my mouth, showing him my fangs.

His eyes widened and his pupils dilated. "What the…?"

I lunged for him and he ran into the woods. I had decided to have a hunt after all. The smell of fear followed him like a beacon. I waited for him to get ahead a little and then I walked after him, actually able to see the trail of fear glowing as a trail between the trees.

Humans had no idea how easy it was for predators to chase them. Their fear was a tantalizing scent, visible to sensitive eyes. Their heartbeat was loud, like a love song calling out. My mouth watered and my legs ached to go faster.

"I know where you are," I called out. I heard him pick up speed and I raced after him.

"Leave me alone! I'll do anything you want," he begged after looking back to see me right behind him.

"The only thing I want is your fear-drenched blood," I whispered, closing in on him.

Beads of sweat formed around his hair line. "Please…don't!"

"Sorry. I don't let anyone get away." I jumped on him, knocking him to the ground. We rolled around, leaves sticking to our clothes and hair. "I can at least make it less painful for you." I nipped him, allowing the venom to run through his system.