Carefully I put the book down beside me. The next thing I got a hand on was a necklace. One I knew she only had kept 'cause she got it from her grandma. She wasn't thrilled 'bout expensive things, she used to say, though she almost always used expensive pants. The necklace was made of pure silver, and the charm was a silver circle with a strand of small diamonds along the far end. It was beautiful, but I had never seen her wearing it.

I put the necklace down beside the book and reached down in the drawer again. I got a hand of a CD. Secondhand Serenade. Her favorite. I knew that. She had quoted one of the songs right before she died. Tears welled up my eyes and I wanted nothing less than to put the things back again and walk away from it. I forced myself to put down the CD beside the necklace and the book.

I found a lot of things in that drawer. I found a frame with a photograph in it. A little girl covered in mud, but still smiling like a little angel. I found the perfume she always wore. It smelled like vanilla and roses – just like her.

I found her diary. Confused I opened it. It fell open on a page somewhere in the middle and I saw a curl of her hair marking it. The curl was bound together at the top by a thread. When I lifted the curl from its place inside the covers, I saw that a ribbon was tied together with it. The ribbon had the same green as her eyes. Such a fair color it shouldn't be allowed to exist.

As I studied the curl and the ribbon I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. They landed with a small tipp. I let my gaze travel down to the page of the diary. The text was red, as if she had written it with her blood, and the letters was curled and shaped with so much sorrow it was hard to read them.

"This is hard to write, and I don't even know if you'll read it. But you're smart, so I figure you will. I'm sorry for what's happened. I didn't want any of this, but it's here and there's nothing any of us can do 'bout it. Hell, I didn't even want the Mark from the beginning. Not until I met you and caught up with reality. You saved me, Zane. You saved me the first time you smiled to me. I was so deep in debt until I met you, 'cause you showed me reality and made me think it was beautiful. I don't even know why, but you became more than a friend. I don't know why I let it happen, but I decided it was destined. I love you, Zane, I realize now that I loved you from the second I saw you, but I let you have your fun and if you wanted, you'd catch up with me. Writing this, I can tell you haven't done it yet, but I pray for it to come. I wanted to leave you something, and I decided giving you my favorite stuff would make you remember me. Keep what you want. But I also gave you something else, a part of me no one has ever gotten. Love you."

As I read the last part I wondered what it was that she meant. There was nearly anything left in the drawer. Only a button from one of her jackets and a black T-shirt with the text "Innocent" on. But as I lifted the T-shirt something sounded from under it.

A chain in dark silver and a locket. I looked at the locket for some time, thinking and wondering what it really was, until I saw it. Slowly I drew the covering bag of it and stared at the little bottle of blood. At the top of the bottle there was a Rose. The Roses vines wandered down the vial of blood and hugged it as if it never wanted to let go. It was a masterpiece.

I could smell the blood even through the glass. It smelled just like her, so it most probably was hers. I guess I didn't really notice the knocking on the door until it slid up. At that time, I was leaning my head in my hands and the bottle was between them, just under my nose and above my mouth.

"Zane? It's time to go now. It will soon be light out and bedtime's 'bout now." It was my father, the Red Vampire Warrior of Zoey Redbirds, my mother. It was amazing that I was still alive after having to hear everyone talking 'bout my parents all the time.

With a grave sigh, I rose up from the floor and collected all the things from the drawer. I kept the necklace with the blood out of sight from everyone as I walked back to my room.


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