It was a quiet night in the Spring of Bon Tempts. Quiet in the sense that it wasn't a full moon and so no packs or shifters were running through the woods, Ange Duciel's home. Her home was large, grand and glorious, but it was hidden behind trees and by vines and moss and foliage. Of all her five hundred years of life it was her favorite place to be settled and she had been settled so deep into it for two hundred years she had adopted the always changing culture and the always steady accent. But however beautiful this quiet night wasn't something to be admired.

In the middle of the woods, far away from her home, she stood with her latest friend. She called her friend Little Darling because she had been so sweet under her care. You see, Ange was a vampire with an interesting habit-her habit included caring for those that needed assistance. It was mainly humans, sometimes young and abandoned vampires or little shifters or sick weres, that needed money, a place to stay, or even just something to eat. Regardless of what it was she could never deny anyone help. But she knew she could never keep them for long.

This night marked the three month anniversary of Little Darling's stay which was always the day the projects had to leave. Ange looked over Little Darling's red face as Little Darling refused to acknowledge her belongings were on Ange's shoulders in fancy bags. Ange remembered how she had found Little Darling-covered in filth, her brown hair knotted to know end, her eyes dead to the world-and now she was someone completely new. Her hair was short to her cheeks now but it still fell carelessly in different directions and her skin was clean and her clothes were new and her eyes had a hope that was just as promising as it was magnificent. But she could not stay.

"But where am I supposed to go?" Little Darling whispered, her little lips trembling as she stared out into the darkness.

"Anywhere you want," Ange replied, reaching her hand forward to push away LD's hair for the last time. "I set up a bank account in your name. There's two million dollars in it. Take a year and find yourself. Be who youwant to be."

"But I want to be with you," now is when the tears began to fall.

"You knew this day would come," Ange counted, turning her face away from the sad display. This was always the worst part, but she always warned them. She turned her face up to the sky, to the half moon, and let her long dark hair fall behind her shoulders to the middle of her back. She never knew how to put this delicately.

"I guess I just thought...it wouldn't come," Little Darling sighed, implying what was always the concern with little humans. She thought she would be made into a vampire too.

Ange turned her green eyes onto Little Darling's big brown ones. It was always so upsetting to see how truly they believed this fantasy. Human's always thought they were..."special." They always thought they weren't the same as the other one. They always thought they were loved or loved more. They had some sense of entitlement to them that they really didn't deserve. But she couldn't say all that now. Instead she simply smiled her all-lipped smile and said, "Time flies by when you're having fun."

"Do I really have to go?" her voice changed into that sad unnatural sob-like voice that was odd and annoying.

Ange lifted her hand up to gently grip Little Darling's shoulder, "You'll be fine. That direction will lead you to 167. Be well, Little Darling, do the things you have never and be the person you will."

"Bu-"

Ange didn't stay for the rest. She ran in the opposite direction, away from the still crying Darling. The sweet ones were always so difficult to let go of but it had to be done. She couldn't keep them forever. In a year they would get bored. In a year they would regret their lust for immortality. Humans never knew what they wanted.

In the pale moonlight Ange wondered if a midnight bath in the Spring would be best to start the new life, it was a quiet night after all, however a gun shot changed everything. In her forever curious state Ange ran toward it, deciding to hide in the trees to watch the huntings that were always so intriguing.

"So now you're gonna shoot me!?"

Oh...this wasn't what she was expecting. In the darkness she watched a fight unraveling between two young...no not humans. Shifters they must have been, they didn't smell like weres.

"Give me my money back."

This was an older one speaking and from the distance of the tree tops it was still evident he was handsome and furious. She assumed his go-to shift must be a dog since his features were so canine like already but she could be wrong.

"Fuck you. You came along, you changed my whole life, took away everything I knew. And now you're just throwing me away like garbage."

This one...this one was different. He was younger in both mentality and age but his heart. The beating of it...the passion of his tone...the terror in his eyes...the desperation in his voice...she could almost drown in it.

"I think I might have saved your life you stupid little shit."

It was troubling to continue observing this situation. It was escalating fast and it was hurting her to watch. This older one appeared to be civilized..he appeared to be an intellectual that had learned much from his past...to see this regression. She wanted to turn it in.

"Yeah, stupid! Rub it in!"

No! She turned her face away. His tears and his banging against his head proved too painful for even her to withstand. How could the older one be so cruel?

"Give me my money."

Was that what the large sack contained? Was this all about money? She suddenly found herself disgusted with the situaltion unfolding. If this was the end of a relationship she couldn't understand why it would be from something so stupid...something so simple as money.

"How am I supposed to live?"

The genuine question concerned her as well. How was he supposed to live in this truely fragile state of being?

"Get a job!"

Wasted. That is what he looked like. Wasted and tired and drawn in on himself. Sick...sick of giving. Maybe there was more to this that Ange had first interpreted.

"I can't fucking read!"

No...couldn't read? That was a real problem. How could he get a job without having the most basic skill down? And at his age? Where did he come from? Who had deprived him so?

"Not my problem."

Not his problem? It had to be. From the other statement about his changing the young one's life it appeared that he had become the new and unofficial gaurdian. Surely this must have be...just a fight. He can't let him go out on his own with no means to fend for himself.

"Fuck you...you ain't gonna shoot shit."

The young one turned around and at this Ange let out a sigh. Maybe this would be the end of the spat and everything would return to its order. But they weren't so lucky. The older one, the one that seemed so civilized, lifted his gun and shot.

Ange flinched as she heard the sound pierce the air and she shoved her hands over her ears as she watched the younger one fall to the ground so fast as if he were dead. The smell of blood filled the air around her but it wasn't the tantalizing kind she enjoyed from humans, it was the gross kind that smelled like sick and waste. This young man was hurt and she needed to save him. But the older one...he was still there.

Suddenly guilt filled in his humanity and he ran to the victim with such concern and regret. He shouted, "Tommy! Tommy shit! Stay here! I'm gonna go get some help! Wait!" before running back down the path he had come.

This was her only shot.

Ange rushed to the young man, Tommy's, side and dropped down beside him. The blood spilled out of him from his leg and it was too messy to determine how bad the injury was. She lifted him slightly, holding him against her chest like a child, as she caressed his face to wake him from his shock, "Tommy, Tommy, are you alright? Are you okay?"

"Angel...are y-...Heaven?" His words made no sense to her ears but the fact that he was still speaking was the only thing she choose to acknowledge at this moment. She knew she had to take care of him. She had to save him from the world and the dangers.

"I'm going to take care of you, Tommy, you're going to be okay. Just stay with me," she smiled as she lifted Tommy into the air, cradling him like a newborn baby as she ran through the woods to her home that held the medical supplies she hardly used. Her blood was an option to give but she never resorted to that first, that was a new vampire's flaw; there had to be another solution for him.

In her home she dropped him onto the diningroom table that stretched to fill the entire dinning hall. She had ordered this for those rare occasions when she had to take care of more than one handfull of projects at a time. He began suddenly to twist and turn in agony, breaking out of his painless transe as he took in his surroundings. He screamed, "Where the fuck am I! Shit! Fuuck! Fuck!"

"Stop moving!" Ange shouted, trying to calm him as she assessed the damage to his leg.

"No! Get the fuck away from me! Who are you?! Fuck it hurts so bad!" Tommy shouted, continued to try to get away, kicking his good leg at her hands that tried to help.

She grabbed both legs and kept them down with her vampire strength, sending waves of pain through out Tommy's entire body that stilled him for the moment, "If you keep moving I can't help you. Relax."

"Shit...you're a vampire! You're a fucking vampire!" he coward in shock induced fear that Ange was able to use to her advantage. She ripped open his jean leg and cringed to see the truth. His Tibia was broken...her blood was definitely necessary.

She brought her wrist to her mouth and cut the skin with her fang, alowing blood to flow free. She cringed inwardly, she hadn't exchanged blood with someone in over a century. She brought the blood to his mouth, "Drink. It's the only way we can take care of your leg."

"No! I've seen what that shit does to people! I'm not gonna get hooked on no V!" he protested but Ange wasn't having it.

She pressed her hand to his chest and pushed him onto his back, pressing her hand near his mouth, "Just drink."

There was no way he was getting out of this. His blue eyes stared deep, deep down into Ange's at a depth she had never felt before as his mouth tentatively began to suck the liquid that dripped from her so willingly. She closed her eyes slightly as she felt the force of her drain from her body and fill into his, as if by magic she could suddenly feel his alarm filling into her like the venom of a rattlesnake into the human blood stream.

"Shh, I'm going to take care of you," she tried to passify, finding his alarm disturbing and unnatural in her otherwise calm chest, but as the surface fear disipated a new kind filled her. She reached her free hand up and ran her fingers through his-dirty blonde like sand, shaggy like a dog-hair in the way she always had. But there was something different. Instead of moving into it he reclined onto his back as if to stop her. There was something different about this boy she could feel.

She pulled her arm away and instead of seaking more he turned his face away as if disgusted with himself. There was something different about him indeed. She checked his wound again and was pleased to see he was completely healed of his injury. She looked back to Tommy who shut his eyes as if to block out the events. He whispered, "I'm a fucking idiot."

"Shh, Tommy," she whispered, leaning over him as she caressed his head again, "Go to sleep now...all will be different when you awake."

He looked at her again with questioning eyes but the effects of the V had already began to take over. With Shifters it was different, always different, but she could feel in her chest that first it would be the sleep and then the dreams and then the actions. She kept her eyes open as she watched his lids slowly shut. There was something different about him. He needed safety, he needed security, he needed her but he didn't want her. That was something she had never experienced before.