Chapter One
"What have you done to me?" she asked, her throat closing in on itself. Bree gasped for what she thought was air, her lungs feeling deflated, and a burning sensation coursing through her veins. A man knelt in front of her, his hands together, as if nothing were wrong. "I'm so…" Bree's voice trailed off.
"I know," the man said. A smirk spread across his pale, angelic face. "We'll find you someone to drink."
Bree's face contorted in confusion. Someone to drink? Was he serious? Bree looked around, terrified of what was going on. There were others, but Bree didn't know anyone else. Some were laughing, some were screaming, and some were huddled together, a limp, lifeless body between them all. Two men were fighting over one body, their faces frowning at one another, until one man stood, towering over the second. The second man stood, as if challenging the first. The situation reminded Bree of the African grasslands, all of the animals fighting for food and survival. The second man charged at the first man, but the first man was faster. He stepped out of the way of the second man, and, grabbing the second man's arm as he ran passed, spun the second man around. "He's MINE!" the first man yelled. The first man, looking angrier than only a minute ago, kicked the back of the second man's knees, forcing him to the ground. The first man aimed a punch at the top of the second man's head; instead of knocking the second man out, however, the first man's punch shattered the second man's head to pieces. Bree wanted to scream, but her voice caught in her throat.
Another voice brought Bree's attention back to the man kneeling in front of her. "I'm going to need numbers," he said. Looking back at Bree, he said, "Try not to get yourself killed." And then he stood, turning to the others. She didn't know what happened after that; all Bree could focus on was this unnatural, insatiable thirst overpowering all of her other senses. Slowly, nervously, Bree stood and joined a group of two other girls, waiting until they gave her permission to join their small clique.
Together, the two girls made their way through Seattle over the next few months, wreaking havoc everywhere they went. Bree followed, almost surreptitiously, not wanting anyone to know she was a part of what the other two were doing. Bree let her new friends, Lydia and Tru, do the hunting; she could never bring herself to kill someone. While Bree had many opportunities – not to mention the urge – to kill every human in sight, she could never bring herself to actually give the killing bite.
Lydia or Tru would lure some poor, unsuspecting man or woman into the shadows where the other was waiting. Together, the pair would drain most of the life from their victim, leaving enough for Bree when they were finished.
Bree, Lydia, and Tru made an interesting group of girls. They were all so vastly different, but, at the same time, so very similar. When she was alive, Lydia had been the epitome of a Greek woman: full, wavy, dark brown hair so long that it fell nearly to her butt. Lydia was one of those women every girl envied. She was cute and petite, and she was curvy in exactly the right places. When she'd been alive, her skin had been perfectly and naturally tanned, almost glowing. Bree knew this because Lydia carried a single photo with her of herself with her mother, father, and younger brother at her high school graduation. While the photo was now a few years old, it was a Lydia's reminder of her past and her family.
"My younger brother was always playing tricks and pranks on me," Lydia said, her face sullen and her voice a bit shaky. "I always made him feel so bad for what he'd done. I hope that's not all he remembers of me. I want him to remember the sister that loved him with all her heart."
Tru (Gertrude in her former mortality) was a different kind of beautiful. Tru's mother and father immigrated to America from Germany five years before her birth. Tru had blonde hair that was pulled into two neatly twisted braids that fell to her shoulders. Where Lydia was short and curvy, Tru was tall and thin, almost modelesque. According to Tru, her "blue eyes were as bright as the sky overlooking the mountains in her homeland." Now, Tru's eyes were like Bree's and like Lydia's and like every other vampire's. Their eyes were bright red from the constant thirst for human blood.
Tru had been on a cross-country road trip with her new husband; it was their idea of a perfect honeymoon: starting on the west coast and driving back east to the home they'd bought only weeks before their wedding. Tru's husband, Thomas, hadn't survived the initial human-to-vampire transformation. Too much of his blood had been drained by whoever had been trying to turn him.
And then there was Bree. Bree looked young, but she wasn't as young as she looked. While people had often mistaken her for being as young as thirteen, Bree had died two months to the day after her seventeenth birthday. Bree missed the days before she'd died, when her life's biggest decision was as simple as what was she going to wear to school that day? Now she had to worry about who was going to have to die in order for her to sustain this state of living she was in.
Bree missed her family most of all. Her mother was fiery, vibrant, and full of life, and her father loved every minute he spent with his wife. Bree had been their whole life, and she shuddered at the thought of how her disappearance had shattered their world. Bree tried to remember her parents as best she could. She could still remember their faces, and how tall they were, and how their laughs sounded…she could still remember her mother's straight, strawberry blonde hair, and the mop of curly black mess her father called his hair. Bree had definitely gotten the best of both worlds when it came to follicles. She'd gotten her mother's straight hair, but her father's black-colored locks. Paired with Bree's big brown eyes – which she'd inherited from both parents – there was never any doubt who Bree's parents were.
Lydia and Tru took turns luring men and women somewhere no one would be able to see the attack or hear their victims' screams for help. Tru had just brought them a rather tall and beefy man, with big arm muscles he referred to as 'guns', and a barbed-wire tattoo showing under the sleeve of his black, one-size-too-small t-shirt.
"My car's just around this corner. I really appreciate you offering to help me figure out what's wrong with it, Mark," Tru said, her tantalizing voice drifting around the corner where Lydia and Bree waited, Lydia ready to make her move.
Lydia was standing next to an abandoned car, leaning on the hood. She wore a very short black mini-skirt, tall black boots with very long, pointy heels, and a white button-down shirt with the top four buttons undone, exposing only the slightest amount of lacey bra. If Bree were a passerby, she'd assume Lydia was nothing more than a two-bit hooker. And for all intent and purposes, she was, or, at least, that was the part she played when it was her turn to ensnare victims. Bree hid behind a lamp post, her form hidden in the shadowed area behind the light. She was hungry, barely able to stand not racing forward and finding her own food tonight. But Bree had made herself a promise: she would never be the one to take a human life. She could only imagine how awful it would feel to hold someone down as he or she struggled for freedom, screaming for help that would never come.
She turned her attention to Tru and the man named Mark as they rounded the corner, Tru's arm hooked through Mark's, an almost-seductive smile on her face. Both Lydia and Tru wore sunglasses, even though it was well after sundown, to hide the color of their eyes. Tru wore her normal outfit: a long, flowing white peasant skirt, jewel-covered flip-flops, and a tight-fitting red tank top. Bree watched Mark's face as he registered Lydia's presence by the car.
"Um- Well, if you-" He cleared his throat- "If you'll pop the hood?" Bree watched as Mark moved to the front of the car. Lydia was sitting on the hood. Her booted-legs crossed, she leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees.
"You want to see what's under my hood?" Lydia asked, her mouth twisting into a smile. When Mark couldn't voice an answer, Lydia slid forward, her feet landing on either side of Mark's. Lydia's stomach and chest rubbed against her preys', and she rested a hand on each of his arms. Bree could hear Mark's heartbeat racing faster with each passing second, smell his blood coursing through the veins of his body.
Tru came up behind Mark, resting a hand on his shoulder, and whispered into his ear, "Do you know what the problem is here?" Turning his head from Lydia to look at Tru, Mark could only shake his head from side to side. Tru smirked. "You're still alive."
Confusion spread across the man's face only a split second before Tru pulled his head to the side, exposing the delicate skin of his neck. Mark tried to wriggle his way from between the two women, but Lydia was far too quick for him. She grabbed hold of his wrists and was now standing on his feet, her heels digging holes through his shoes and into his feet. Bree shrank into the darkness a bit more when Mark screamed, his deep voice ringing out into the night, as Tru bit into the side of his neck, blood rushing from the wound at the artery his neck.
Lydia twisted one of Mark's arms so that muscles of his upper arm burned red with blood. The look on her face read 'kid in a candy store' as she bit into his arm, crimson flowing from the side of her mouth. Slowly, Mark's face fell, and Bree could hear his heartbeat slowing. Tru pulled her mouth from Mark's neck and turned to where Bree stood.
"You can come and have your share now. He's at the point of no return. Your hands will remain blood-free." Bree joined the trio in half a second. She took hold of his free arm, hanging limp at his side, and sank her teeth into the still-warm flesh of his wrist. Even though she was appalled at what she had become, Bree still savored in the metallic taste of Mark's blood. And even though she hadn't killed the man in front of her, Bree still felt guilt fill her from head to toe, and she quickly wiped away the single tear that managed to escape the barrier of her eye lids before either Lydia or Tru could see it.