When most parents referred to Waverly High School, they were actually referring to Tribeca Prep in the lower west side of Manhattan near Greenwich Village. The building had been used as a school for over two hundred years with minor interims where it stood empty or abandoned. The last period of vacancy was during the Late Sixties to the Early Eighties when the place had been modernized. It had thirty-two teachers and a staff of twenty for six hundred and seventy-three students with varying personality, social status, cultural background and even public acceptance. A few of the students actually cared about their education while a small minority just didn't think it was important; those were the ones with their future identities wrapped up in America's Most Wanted. A lot of them considered school just a minor routine fraught with various roadblocks and disappointments. That's not how Justin Russo saw it. He saw school as a test to be the best person he could possibly be.
"Yes…" He exited Professor Danvers class with a high mark on a world history test. "Solid A! Professor Danvers is the best teacher we've had in a long time!"
"I did okay…" Kevin Joseph Mitchell exited just behind him. "I got lucky because I'd already covered the material back at St. Finnian's." Kevin was a new student to Tribeca Prep. He almost equal to Justin in size, but he had lighter more brown hair and hazel eyes. Garbed in jeans and a long-sleeved white sweater, he jostled his books and folders a bit and appreciated knowing Justin to get him used to the new school. He maneuvered through the hall past crowds of class comedians, stuck up cheerleaders and brain-dead jocks, all the usual high school stereotypes. As he looked back, he noticed one in particular seemingly staring at him. Dark-haired with soft round brown eyes, she studied him as if he were a new conquest. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
"So, how's Tribeca different than your old school?" Justin asked.
"Finnian's was a Catholic school with a lot of rules." Kevin remarked. "Tribeca is much more relaxed and easier."
"If you don't mind me asking, dude…" Justin headed to his locker three over from Kevin's. "What's with that journal you're always writing in?"
"It's a short story I started." Kevin confessed replacing his history book with his science book. "I started it the day after I started here. Would you like to read it? I'm starving from some serious critique."
"Seriously?" Justin was intrigued! He never ran into anyone who had such a creative hobby. He took the black and white journal and perused through it a bit. "Hey, you named a character after me!!!"
"I do that all the time." Kevin chuckled a bit. "It makes it easier for me to picture it."
"I'll check it out and get it back to you." Justin was already interested in reading it. "I hope your grammar is above par. I'm rigid in my proofreading…"
"Way ahead of you…." Kevin was about to turn to his science class. "Why is your sister staring at me like that?"
"Because she's weird!" Justin apologized, gave Kevin a friendly punch to the shoulder and rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and forced his way over in preparation for dealing with Alex. Dressed in vivid colors with a short white skirt and light walking shoes, she leaned back against her locker with her best friend Harper next to her. Her long tresses tied up into long pigtails, Harper was a bit more than a best friend to Alex, she was a bit of a follower and sometimes a partner-in-crime.
"Alex…" Justin confronted her. "Could you please stop haunting Kevin? You're creeping him out, and I don't want him thinking you're weird! I'd like for him to meet you and then discover you're weird!"
"So funny... I want to meet him too, I'm just waiting for the right moment." Alex turned to open her school locker. "He doesn't know it yet, but we've got a date for this weekend."
"Alex, you haven't met him yet!" Harper looked at her in disbelief. "How could you have…?" Alex looked back at her in disbelief. "Never mind, I forgot just how your mind works…"
Alex lit up with a smile.
"Justin, you've got to know him." She started pumping her brother for details. "What have you learned about him?"
"Well," Justin thought a second. "His mother's a veterinarian, his dad is a contractor, and unlike me, he has no brothers or sisters." He beamed over that aspect. "He used to go to St. Finnian's out on Staten Island, he's into horror movies and he's a writer. In fact, he wrote me into his newest short story." Justin revealed the journal.
"I mean something important!" Alex grunted annoyingly. "Does he have a girlfriend?"
"He wrote a story!" Harper was intrigued! Finally someone else with a creative mind! She took the journal and scanned over line over line of handwritten descriptions, dialogues and plot points. "Justin, I see your name here! And Alex's!! And mine!!!"
"What?!" Alex did a double take, but Justin snatched the story back.
"Yeah…" Justin tucked the journal under his arm. "He tends to use the names of people he knows, and I'm not letting you read it until I have."
"Justin!" Alex grabbed her brother's shirt. "I've got to read that! I need to know what he thinks about me!!!"
"Fat chance!" Justin looked back at her. "You need to be able to read to read it." He turned away for his next class as the class bell rang. Harper and Alex were going to be late again, but as Justin departed, Alex pulled out her wand and circled it toward her brother. Kevin's journal shot out from under her brother's arm toward Alex for her to snatch it out of the air. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed it. Harper had seen it, but no one else paid much attention.
"That's so cool!" Harper loved knowing about Alex's ability for magic. "We better get to class!"
"I'll be right behind you." Alex lied. She wanted to read this journal first. She scurried through the pages trying to find her name as Harper departed her for gym class. Left alone in the hallway growing even emptier, the sounds of teachers orating from classrooms around her, Alex skimmed the excessive pages. Almost more than three-quarters of the journal had been filled in partially ineligible handwriting. Just deciphering his style of penmanship was going to give her a headache!
"He wrote me into a story, huh." Alex looked around the halls once more, laid the open short story inside her locker and recalled an incantation. "Let's see just what he thinks of me." She waved her wand. "Literary terrarium!" There was a flash of light and she turned into energy as she projected herself into a disposable reality created by the boundaries of the hand-written short story before her. Her locker slammed shut behind her and for a second she thought she was inside the locker instead of the short story. It was dark, crampt and she was bound with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes looked round upset and confused. Where was she? What kind of story was this? Lying on her back, she became frightened, her breath gasped and she struggled to free herself. She pushed upward on the lid above her and it moved a bit. Her hands continued pushing against the satin lining over her and she realized she was inside a casket. Sitting up with a deep breath, she leaned to her side, swung her leg out and stepped out on to the floor.
"Oh, he thinks in black and white…" Alex stood freed of the casket in a long black dress and looked around her surroundings. It looked like a very grand castle setting. The furniture was Gothic Victorian and the large windows showed a vast forest beyond the parapets of the castle. The walls were dull gray, the furnishings pristine but seemingly abandoned. Besides the coffin, she saw a vanity without mirrors, a bureau covered in brushes and tiaras and a curtain to a curtain filled with a lot of dark dresses. Alex looked through them and down upon the one she was wearing. She was in a full-length black skirt, a tight black bodice that pushed up her chest, a high collar and a long cape trailing behind her. Her hair was much longer here; it was hanging down beneath her waist. She quickly kicked off her high-heeled shoes.
"He thinks I'm a princess!!!" She convinced herself, but the location was much too creepy for a fantasy tale. The room was dismal, the setting forbidding and the room set more for a Stephen King novel.
"Justin did say he was into horror movies." Alex looked around confused. She looked around for a mirror to check out her reflection. "Is there a mirror here?" She wanted to see how she looked then had a revelation. "Wait… coffin, castle, no mirrors… Oh no, he didn't!!!! Please tell me he didn't make me a…." The storyline started hitting her and she doubled over in pain. A powerful urge hit her and she nearly dropped to her feet. Her eyes flashed blood red, her body started succumbing to her dependency and she had a powerful craving to preserve her existence off the lives of others. Her ruby red lips parted to reveal her sharp teeth. Alex's fingers nervously reached to her fangs to confirm what she suspected….
She was a vampire… And liking it…