I laid my head against the aluminium table, letting my black tresses fan around me. I closed my eyes, bored, wishing I could sleep. A gaggle of human girls blabbered around me, their voices, mental and physical, filling my mind. I tried to ignore the thoughts, and tried to concentrate on the actual words.

Try as hard as I may, I still heard.

Rebecca Marshall- with the loudest mental voice at the table, was, like most of the others, thinking of the new arrival, another human boy, about to join our school after lunch with his sister. Wondering how cute he would be, what music he would like-the usual, most of which I had already heard. It took so little to work up these humans. The girls, already imagining going out with the stranger, the guy who they hadn't even seen, and the boys... The boys.

They had been a constant problem ever since I had moved to this dreary town, overly optimistic, and impossible to discourage. The little fantasies they came up with in their simple minds were not just hopeless and unrealistic, they were disgustingly sick. They made me want to get up and leave-which I did on many occasions before I killed someone in irritation. Not joking.

I smiled grimly to myself whenever I thought of telling them what would happen, if my ice cold lips, got anywhere near theirs. Total massacre.

Only one thought I tried to ignore out of privacy, rather than boredom. My twin, Derek, sitting with his girlfriend, and sometimes-wife, Jasmine. The only other two vampires at my table-in this room. Jasmine, of course I couldn't hear, due to her special vampire 'talent'. But I could hear Derek, because right now she wasn't shielding his mind as usual.

Both of them laughed at the constant plague of boys that asked me out, finding my irritation hilarious. What I found more annoying was that no-body asked them, just as beautiful as I was. I had contemplated this issue many times, and decided it was because, when you saw them looking at each other you couldn't imagine them with anyone else. Even though it had been nearly three hundred years now since my brother had found Jasmine, they still looked at each other with the love-at-first-sight look in their eyes. It made me jealous sometimes, thinking that I might never find the one I wanted to be with other than my adopted mother Mezmi, her husband Peter, or Derek and Jasmine.

A thought interrupted mine.

I'd better do it.

I groaned softly as I saw the root of this new thought. Again?

Then the voice accompanied the thoughts, from across the noisy cafeteria. "I'm going to ask." Grinned Paul Davidson to his friends, overconfident. They all broke into loud cheers, which even the human girls at the table could hear, looking up, curious, and distracted from their babble.

I didn't bother lifting my head, instead watching irritably inside others minds as Paul crossed the linoleum, a group of his friends swarming around him, all eager. I realized they thought he was brave. Half of his friends themselves had been turned down frequently by me.

A few thoughts from my own table were directed at me viciously. Paul was one of the 'cute' guys that almost everyone had a crush on.

I bet he wants to ask out Makenna... why the hell do the guys all like her... Rebecca again, shooting daggers at me, was so jealous that her face, in theory, should be bright emerald. She and her friends only stuck around me for convenience, as I was a popular target for attention. I sighed, reluctantly looking up at Paul's confident smile, as he crossed the halfway mark.

Instead of crossing all the way around the table, he leaned over it, looking at me, before he asked. His friends surrounded him in a loose semi circle.

"Hey, Makenna." He flashed a grin at me. I smiled back coldly, and felt his thoughts go into a flutter.

Whoa. Man, she's hot... ... what was I asking?... Oh... right...I waited for him to gather them.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go out." He told me brightly. I raised one eyebrow. What a huge ego these humans had. He took in my expression wrongly- he thought I was confused, not disgusted.

...that wasn't really a question, I guess...

"We could go to Port Angeles Friday." He suggested hopefully. Then he cursed himself internally.

Stupid... that wasn't a question either.

"So how about it?" he grinned, everyone silent, waiting for my answer, several groups from other tables also waiting, having drifted over curiously.

I drew out the word slowly, pretending I was speaking to a moron-which I was, so it didn't have t pretend very hard. A few months ago, when I'd first moved to this hell hole of a school, I had apologized to everyone, thinking of excuses quickly. Not now.

"No."

I watched his face falter, no longer confident. But he didn't give up. A few people were grinning, others glaring jealously at him, so he ignored them.

"You sure?" He asked morosely.

I nodded, folding my arms across my chest and glaring. This time he did recognize my expression, and it sent him back tracking. He did a quick two steps back, his friends unconsciously moving with him. Crap. She hates me... well she still might. Other girls ask all the time...

"Come talk to me if you change your mind." He hurried out of the lunch room- not bothering to go sit down at his table, people already tittering at the embarrassed look on his face. The chatty girls at my table started giggling, even Rebecca, swelling out the conversation to include me.

"Why'd you say no?" Demanded Hannah Fitchett. "I would of totally said yes, I mean he's like the hottest guy in our school, well except for Sam..." she trailed off, thinking of Sam, her new infatuation that she had taken to like after Paul had turned her down. Then she looked back me, curiosity lighting up and sparking inside her misty blue eyes.

I shrugged, a human gesture suggesting nonchalance.

"I don't like him." I said plainly, as if it were obvious. "I don't see why everyone likes him so much-he's just a guy."

"Just a guy?" Hannah almost screeched in disbelief. Her friends were all looking at me like I was crazy, beneath the admiration and shyness most humans felt in my presence. Hannah continued to gossip, and I pretended to listen, while wishing I could of skipped high school this year, gone to Alaska or something, where Mezmi could of 'homeschooled' me. But no, she'd insisted that I'd attend high school, for the tenth time this century.

Boring.

The teachers at this school were worse than the usual, not even remarkably intelligent for their kind, half had hardly scraped an 'Achieved' in their high school tests. And Mr Peake? He never managed to teach our biology class anything that would surprise someone holding three graduates in medical school.

The bell rang, sharp and unpleasant, signalling time for lessons. I sighed as girls around me started getting up. I stood up fluidly, pulling my satchel with me easily. It was stuffed with books- props again, like my food tray, which I proceeded to dump in the bins next to my table.

I pretended to stretch, adding a small yawn. I headed to class, not bothering to wait for any of the humans as they dawdled around, chatting.

I hurried down the corridors, with the usual traffic of humans, hoping that they wouldn't pay any attention to me.

That was always a ridiculous hope.

Boys stared after me, their mouth dropping in wonder, while girls shot me jealous looks. Soon I was surrounded by a plague of idiotic humans-mostly boys. I sighed and picked up my pace, so half of them were running to catch up. I growled under my breath. I stuck to my slow pace, wishing I could run away, so fast that their slow human eyes couldn't follow me.

I heard Derek and Jasmine's tittering laughs, beautiful to a human, annoying to me, as they caught a glimpse of me. Jasmine was shielding Derek's mind protectively again, so I couldn't get a read on either of their thoughts. I hoped that jasmine wasn't listening to mine.

That had been an annoying habit of hers when she had discovered her talent. When she shielded someone, whoever she was shielding them against talent backfired. So, if she wanted to, she could now read my mind.

That sucked.

I turned sharply into my biology class, where my little crowd of humans stared after me as I took my seat, wanting to follow. I opened my book and hid my face in it. One by one the humans realised the time and hurried away. Grr.

I waited for my class to arrive. I had arrived early in my haste to get away from the humans. I sat trying to think of nothing, ignoring the now-faint mental voices of teenagers in the corridor.

I wished I could sleep, though I hadn't in over five hundred years since I had been changed.

This was the closest thing I got to sleep really. Not thinking, not moving.

I sighed.

The second bell rang, as shrill as the first. The class started to gradually fill up, humans walking in, chatting to their friends, lingering at others desks while they waited for the teacher to come.

The space beside mine stayed empty, and I glared at anyone who began to sit down at my table. I was lucky that we had odd numbers in this class-in nearly every one of my classes, so usually I got an empty table space beside me.

By the time everyone was seated, Mr Peake had distributed a book on cellular anatomy to each table, and was writing instructions on the board.

I concentrated on blocking out everyone's thoughts.

Mr Peake turned from the board, about to give instructions. At that moment, the classroom door opened, sending a gush of air from the corridor.

An unfamiliar mind entered the room, and every girl in the room turned to look at the new boy, and their thoughts went un-comprehendible. I stiffened in my chair as I listened to the new arrival, and saw his face in every human's head.

…stupid humans. I turned slowly, hoping for him to look different in reality than in people's minds.

I whipped my head back to the front, to fast for anyone to see. Impossible.

I continued to look at his mind. He hadn't noticed that he wasn't the only vampire in the room yet, luckily. He hadn't noticed that I'd noticed him, that I knew what he was.

But the only empty seat in the room was the one beside mine. He wouldn't take long to realize that I was not human.

My skin, as icy and as pale as his, my eyes, black with thirst, my voice, the inhumane beauty… they would all give me away, as they had given him away.

Barely a had second had passed, the human girls' eyes following him as he took another step to the front.

Darn it! What could I do?

Suddenly his head turned to look at me. His expression was wary. A dozen emotions flickered across his face. Shock. Fear. Disbelief. He smoothed his expression and looked back to the front.

His thoughts were careful, planning, like me.

What could I do to make him leave our territory? If he hunted in my range… I continued to think hard while he introduced himself to the teacher, and Mr Peake sent him to sit beside me. There was no-where else for him to go.

He walked down the aisle to sit down, and I tried unsuccessfully to block the human thoughts so I could concentrate on his alone. Unsuccessful because, they wouldn't shut up.

I glanced up as he sat guardedly down beside me. He was still planning.

At least he didn't know that I could see what he saw…

His eyes darted quickly to mine and back to the table in a millisecond, and I gasped quietly in shock.

No way! Uh-uh. This did not happen! You did not get two vampires with the same talent. But then how come I could hear his thoughts, scrambled in disbelief like mine? How come I could hear an echo of my thoughts inside his head.

She can't! Impossible! But I can hear myself in her head… He searched my head, listening to himself. This is weird.

Really weird. Not natural. I heard him as he search my head and stiffened.

Get the hell out! No-one ever went in my head- even Jasmine was strictly off limits. I shoved at him inside my head, resenting the intrusion. My head. If he didn't keep out I would seriously kill him right now.

Who was he anyway? What was he doing on my territory?

I'm Riley. I gritted my teeth in frustration. He was still picking thoughts out of my head. I tried not to think, and failed. Instead I drove into his mind. He stiffened like I had. And I smiled grimly as I discovered a new piece of information. I had an advantage,

Though we shared the same talent, mine was stronger than his. He couldn't do what I was doing now. He could only read what was going through my head at the moment. He couldn't dig through my head and pull out memories like I was inside his.

I listened, not concentrating on the lesson that was going on around me, to his memories, trying to find out more about him.

His name was Riley, he was part of a three person coven. Another advantage. If we had to fight to get his coven off our hunting range, at least our coven was bigger. I heard him listen to my new information with interest. I realized that he was trying to find out more about me as I was him and cursed myself for slipping up.

I tried to find out why they had come here.

In my mind, I saw a vampire fly at a human across a classroom, watching through his eyes as he tried to stop her.

"Lily!" I yelled as she sprang out of her desk at the human. I tried grab her arm, and the human cowered at the furious look on Lily's face. Wild, bloodthirsty, out of control. The thirst was overwhelming her. She let out a high snarl, and several humans started to run for the doors. She grabbed the human girl.

What was I supposed to do? I was barely in control of myself, and Lily was making it worse. The venom on my mouth flowed freely, and my muscles bunched in apprehension. Twin thirsts, as I heard her out of control thoughts.

No! A silent voice in my head screamed. Control yourself, Riley!

I ignored the smell of human blood, cutting off my air supply. I cleared my head, and ran over to Lily and the human. The human was dead, obviously. Lily had snapped her neck.

Lily was trying to get past me at the humans in the doorway who were, frozen in shock while staring at their dead classmate.

I wrapped my arms around her, restraining.

I felt the shock go through my body and my eyes rolled back into my head slightly as she shocked me again, the taser-like electricity searing through me. My knees buckled, and I let go of her, gasping. She sprinted at the doorway…

Hm. Interesting. I ran over the vampire 'Lily''s talent again. She had electrified him. How? I dug for more information. Another memory. Earlier than the first.

….I looked at the blond haired vampire sceptically.

"Electrify people?"

She smiled smugly. I listened to the explanation in her head. It was confusing. It seemed like she ran a current through her body. She projected it from her palms so whenever someone touched her… Zap. I shuddered at some of the memories of people-humans and vampires alike, fell to the ground, twitching while screaming in agony.

"Uh-huh."I said, still listening. "I get it."

She grinned, cheekily this time and raised her hand towards me. "Interested?"

I dodged out of the way. "No thanks."….

An electric current? I wondered if it would effect Jasmine- I quickly redirected my thoughts as I realized I had slipped up again. Crap.

I swiftly searched for another memory to distract myself, wondering who the other member of the his coven was. I got the impression that he and Lily weren't the leaders…

He turned around to face me, his black, thirsty eyes questioning.

"What happened?" he asked calmly.

"Lily." I didn't want to say it, I didn't want to admit that I had let Lily get out of control. I didn't want to tell him about the massacre Lily had made in our History class.

His thoughts were suddenly alarmed. "What happened? Is she okay? Where is she?"

I sighed. "She got out of control."

He groaned, but his face relaxed slightly, understanding. He would go comfort our youngest member of the coven later. Little Lily. She struggled the most with what we were, struggled the most when it was time to resist the feed. I cursed myself again. This was my entire fault. I should have kept control of lily, should have watched her closer. I heard Hamish cursing himself too, realizing, too late, that he should have played the role of junior high school like me and Lily, not gone of to college, pretending to take care of his orphaned younger brother and sister.

I sighed again.

I wondered whether this 'Hamish' did anything special. I tried to search for more information. They had two gifted vampires in their coven. It was my job to find out this sort of thing, the advantages we had against our enemies, the weaknesses, whether a human suspected what we were…I found nothing to suggest that their leader had a talent other than, never ending calm.

Good. We had the advantage then. I was very careful not to think how we had the disadvantage, so that this blond haired Riley couldn't be clued in…

The bell rang, and I jumped, so mixed in his memories that I had forgotten where I was.

I hastily shoved my books in my bag, not being as careful as I should. I heard the seam tear.

Damn.

I pulled them back out again and kicked my now useless prop under the seat. Clutching my books to my chest, I fled the room, trying not to think of the vampire boy staring after me.

Yeah… This is only my second fic… and the first totally FAILED, so be nice, or whateva…. Just Review

-mAkEnNa