Chapter Three

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Six teenagers found themselves sitting in their spot in the cafeteria: the back corner, where no one could hear what they were talking about. The cafeteria wasn't half as busy today as the overnight clouds had emptied themselves out before school had begun that morning. The only difference on this day was Taylor was in Courtney's place. The group had no choice but to accept her; who knew what sort of trouble she would caue out of their sight. Taylor tended to draw attention to herself at all times, hence why all the Trackers had followed her to Muskoka in the first place, and she was bound to do something stupidly if no one was keeping an eye on her.

The CIT was walking into the cafeteria, prepared to sit with her friends, when, in the blink of an eye, Gwen appeared right in front of her. It was as if she teleported from one spot to another in a millisecond.

"Oh," Courtney gasped, stepping back in fright. "Hi, Gwen. I didn't see you there."

"They never do," Gwen mumbled to herself, smirking on the inside, but she didn't show Courtney how pleased she was about scaring her. "So, Courtney, what happened between you and Duncan?" The Goth girl asked innocently. She had heard it from Duncan and now she wanted to hear it from Courtney. It wasn't that Gwen or the others would have cared if Courtney had been any other girl, but she was important to Duncan on more than one level. They had all made it their job to try and get the two back together, and preferably without spilling any secrets.

"I'm fed up of him keeping secrets from me," she willingly admitted, not caring who she was talking to. Gwen had known Duncan longer than Courtney had, she knew him better than Courtney ever hoped to. Courtney wouldn't put it past Gwen to already know whatever secrets Duncan was keeping. The two girls weren't exactly close friends.

"Maybe it's for the best," Gwen suggested with a shrug of shoulders. It wasn't that she didn't like Courtney because she had grown quite fond of the spoilt girl over the years, but she didn't like Duncan getting hurt. She knew that he could never give her up completely for reasons Gwen wasn't allowed to discuss, but the further away they were from each other, Gwen found it better.

"How do you know what's for the best if you don't even know what it is?" Courtney asked, talking more to herself than Gwen at that point. The question had been bugging her all night. Duncan seemed determined that she didn't need to know his secret. If it wasn't that bothersome then Courtney couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed in on it.

Courtney had never kept a secret from Duncan. The two had got drunk during a party a few months after they started dating and somehow spent the whole night on the roof of the party hosts house, letting each other spill everything they were holding inside. Duncan told Courtney how his parents never really wanted kids and had sent all three of their children to boarding school at the first opportunity. Courtney told Duncan how her mother had died when she was a baby, and how she had always hated herself for not caring more than she did. It wasn't that Courtney didn't love her mother, but she didn't feel like she knew her. Her father never talked about her much about her mother; it wasn't a topic either ever brought up. It was only the occasional 'You're so like your mother because dot dot dot' that Courtney could gather any information about her.

"Duncan has his reasons." With a wave of her hand the Goth walked past the prep, finishing their discussion.

Courtney quickly turned on her heel, "Gwen, I-" But Gwen was gone, no where to be seen. Courtney let out a sigh of frustration and defeat. It wasn't a good day for her. Everyone kept bombarding her about Duncan, and even Heather-Heather the Queen Bee who thought she was too good to talk to Courtney-offered her fake condolences for the lost couple. Courtney had seen Duncan's jaw grind when he saw the two girls talking, and if it had been any other person, Courtney would have continued a conversation to to annoy her ex. But Heather was not someone Courtney wanted to spend any time with.

He had tried his best to avoid Courtney all day-though that was found difficult when Heather tried to intervene-but Duncan found his opportunity to talk to his now ex-girlfriend before last period. They were both stood outside English class with barely anyone else around. He was hoping he had a shot of getting her back. He wanted her back. He needed her back in his life because the last one night alone had done nothing but hurt him, though he would never admit to that.

"Made up your mind yet?" He teased, knowing she had. "You technically never answered me last night."

"Can we just be friends?" Courtney whined. She was already sick of him pestering her for things she refused to give. Until Duncan bucked up and admitted what he was keeping from her, she was not going to take him back. "For me, Duncan?" The innocent look suited Courtney, mostly because she was innocent. With a heavy out-breath, Duncan replied, "For now." He placed a hand on Courtney's bare forearm, causing the young girl to gasp for the second time that day.

"Duncan, you're freezing!" She exclaimed. Realizing what he had done, Duncan removed his hand at a fast pace. He was usually good at hiding the body temperature with layered clothes (thank God for cold summers in Canada), but he wasn't quite thinking straight.

"Am I?" He acted like he had no idea what she was talking about. "I feel fine, perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with me." Duncan said, making Courtney grow suspicious of his behavior. When she didn't drop the strange glare, Duncan caved.

"I promised myself I wouldn't do this but," he muttered so quietly that Courtney could only just about make out the words. "I'm gonna tell you something-No," he stopped himself, "I'm going to show you." Duncan sucked up a deep breath. The others were going to kill him-Nigel Black especially. But Duncan figured she didn't need to know the whole truth, just the part that didn't concern her-even if that was the smallest part.

"You're going to show me?" Courtney asked, curiously. Giving Duncan another funny look, but a funny peculiar look this time. Duncan nodded his head to answer the question. "Show me what? It better not be anything sexual, we've been-"

"It's nothing like that!" Duncan quickly assured her. Courtney was a bit of a prude on that side of things. "Meet me at the park at midnight." He told her, quickly disappearing inside their AP English class where they luckily had assigned seats on opposite sides of the room.

Courtney gave him a nod before she took her own seat, trying to guess what was going on with him. She couldn't help but wonder if this was what he was keeping from her, though she had no idea why they had to meet up so late at the park. But she didn't try to second guess what was going on inside her ex's head.

Before Duncan could even leave the school building, he found himself surrounded by a mob of angry teenagers who would usually call his friends.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!" Bridgette yelled, which was rare for her. She never lost her cool, with anyone. But her face was burning red and her temperature was rising. It wasn't that she was against Courtney knowing, but Bridgette did not want to anger her best friends father.

"HE THINKS ITS A GOOD IDEA!" Gwen answered, just as mad as her little blonde friend. Gwen was less against the idea of Courtney finding out anything. It wasn't up to any of them to tell her the truth, it was up to her father, but he had opted to not tell her.

"That's because it is." Geoff said, being the only one who was staying calm in the situation. Being the elected leader of the group required a level head about these situations, which Geoff had over everything.

"No, it isn't," Trent disagreed. "Courtney has got a big mouth, she's bound to tell someone because she won't be able to keep it in." He protested. He really liked Courtney, but not enough to trust her with such a life changing secret. "And who was she rubbing elbows with today? Heather!"

"Rubbing elbows? Seriously dude, this isn't the nineteenth century." Duncan chipped in, ready to pounce on anyone who tried to stop him from telling Courtney anything. No one else had to turn up at the park and expose themselves, Duncan was happily going to go through with it by himself. Courtney didn't have to be none the wiser to the rest of their group.

"You've really done it this time, Duncan." Bridgette added after a long pause as she turned to leave her friends.

"Courtney deserves the truth, and that's what she's going to get." Duncan told the remaining few with the glowing confidence he usually held when he thought he was in the right. It usually meant he was in the wrong, but at this point Duncan was more concerned about getting his girlfriend back than caring about his friends.

The clock took an awful long time ticking to midnight. Courtney sat and watched it for the last forty-five minutes before finally leaving her house fifteen minutes before the time Duncan had given her. Luckily for Courtney, Nigel was out of town on business once again, so she had the freedom to walk out of the house at any hour. It was a short walk to the park gates where Courtney assumed she was meeting Duncan, her winter coat wrapped tightly to her chest.

"BOO!" Duncan yelled in his ex-girlfriends ear, causing her jump five feet off the ground. She turned around and slapped him playfully in the chest, angry that he would even scare her like that when he knew she scared easily. "Come on then." Duncan said when he'd stopped chuckling like a serial killer. He stood behind Courtney and covered her eyes with his hands.

"What are you doing?" She giggled tiredly before mentally slapping herself for giggling like a child in front of him.

"You'll see."

Duncan led Courtney deep into the park, right to the center. It was the gang's-minus Courtney-usual hand out. No one would usually venture that deep into the overgrown weeds and such, which made it the perfect place for everyone to unwind after school. It wasn't that they didn't want to Courtney to know about the place, it was that they didn't want her to know about them. The park had been their sanctuary away from the Trackers, a place where the could just be them without having to pretend to be human.

"Now," Duncan started. "I want you to promise not to scream, not to freak out and preferably to stay conscious." Courtney didn't understand what Duncan was rambling on about, but agreed all the same. "Are you ready for this? Because I'm not." Duncan whispered in her ear.

"What are you scared of, Duncan?" Courtney asked, worried something was dreadfully wrong with him, or her. She hadn't prepared herself for some sort of deadly disease, but the thought was finally starting to cross her mind. What if he was dying?

"I'm scared that you won't talk to me again, or any of us, for that matter." Duncan's voice took a shaky turn as he tried to keep himself talking so he wouldn't back out of this.

"Us?" Courtney inquired. "Who else is in on this secret of yours?

"You'll see." Duncan continued to lead Courtney, deeper and deeper into the tree's, not bothering to follow the path anymore. He knew what trail to take like he knew each freckle on Courtney's face; it was something burned into his memory for the rest of his life.

Courtney had never ventured far into the park due to her father's over-protectiveness looming over her head, but she felt safe to do it with Duncan. She assumed he had done this before since the park wasn't that far from where they both lived and she knew he had a tendency to wander around late at night. He kept the two of them walking for a good fifteen minutes, occasionally tripping on roots along the way. But when they stopped, Courtney felt the breeze that indicated they weren't entirely surrounded by tree's any more.

"Ready?"

"As I've ever been," Courtney told him. She took a bite of her bottom lip, trying to not let the excitement overwhelm her. She had wanted to know what Duncan was keeping from her for a long time, not just since the break-up the day before. At first she had assumed he was cheating, but her friends had pushed that aside for her; Duncan wasn't that sort of person. When Duncan removed his ice cold hands from Courtney's face she was surprised to see her other friends and Taylor standing before her in a small, grassy clearing.

No one said a word at first, until Bridgette gave her best friend a wide grin and a quick "Hey."

"Uh...hey, guys," Courtney said, glancing over her shoulder at Duncan, then looking back to the group. "What are you all doing here?" She understood that Gwen and maybe Geoff were in on Duncan's secret, probably his cousin too, but seeing Bridgette and Trent there was a bigger surprise than anything else. She had been expecting to be alone with Duncan when he told her-or showed her, like he had said he wanted to, though Courtney didn't know what that meant-whatever his big secret was.

"They're all part of the secret." Duncan answered for his friends, stepping around Courtney and going to stand in line with

"Which is what?" She asked, now taking in each person before her. There was nothing that looked like they had a common ground, which only made Courtney more eager to find out.

"If you're ready for this." Duncan mumbled more to himself than anyone else. Everyone knew it was the signal, though, and they started to change. Before Courtney's eyes the group of people before her started to transform into something she could never had guessed.

Bridgette glittered in the midnight air. Her usual hoodie and shorts were replaced with a baby blue tube dress that was cut jagedly above her knees while a pair of white boots stopped just below them. White wings sprouted from her back and a blue headband wrapped itself around her head, all of it forming out of mid-air.

Trent crouched down onto all four as brown fur started to sprout from every inch of his pale skin, his clothes disappearing beneath the thickness of it all, concealing his identity from anyone who hadn't just witnessed the transformation.

As for Gwen, Duncan and Taylor, their eyes turned from their natural colors into a glowing ruby red. Gwen widened her mouth to reveal a pair of pearly white fangs, while Taylor's poked over her bottom lip from her closed mouth. Courtney couldn't see Duncna's, but she figured his were hiding inside his mouth also.

The CIT gasped for the third time that day, but she was too busy taking a couple steps backwards away from the show to notice. Her hands clasped over her nose and mouth. The sight before her was nothing she could have prepared herself for. What Courtney was seeing was what she been brought up to believe was not humanly possible. The creatures her friends were turning into before her eyes were not real, they were myths and fairy tales. "What in the world?" Was all she managed to get out of her dry mouth as she re-took in each of the five people she thought she knew better than anyone else, plus Taylor.

"We're freaks,"Duncan said. "We know."

"We're not freaks, Duncan," Bridgette contradicted from the other side of the line to him.

"Yes we are, Bridgette," Duncan argued right back, not quite in the mood to tolerate anyone right now. This was the do or die moment where Courtney decided what she was going to do now that she finally knew the 'big secret'.

"Quiet," Geoff yelled. "Both of you." He was the only one who looked like his normal self. Nothing had happened to him, he was still the same old Geoff that Courtney knew, which did let a sigh of relief wash over her because at least not everything had changed.

Bridgette and Duncan apologized for their behavior. Geoff continued by stepping in front of the group, taking a step towards the shocked teenager. "Courtney, are you still with us?" He asked, making sure she hadn't had a stroke over the past few minutes.

"I don't know, am I?" She responded by looking back and fore from each of her friends, not knowing what was happening. Gwen took a step towards Courtney, Courtney took a step backwards. Geoff was one thing, but Gwen wasn't quite herself.

"I won't bite." That sentence only made Courtney's eye's widen in fear. She hadn't been thinking about the biting. Was she some sort of snack for the lot of them? Is that why Duncan had waited so long to tell her? Wait before her next diet so she could be the next full-sized meal?

"You're scaring her, Gwen." Geoff told the goth chic. "I'll do it." Geoff looked back towards Courtney, who, after slightly panicking over the food thing, had come back to a rational state of thinking.

"Someone care to explain?" She asked, looking around the group for the umpteenth time. Her brain was still having a little time processing what was going on around her.

"What's to explain? What you see is what you get." Taylor said nonchalantly, taking a seat on the ground.

"Keep your mouth shut, Taylor!" Duncan snapped at his cousin, giving her a swift kick to the ribs. Taylor didn't even blanch, she stayed perfectly still as if the assault hadn't happened. But Courtney saw it.

"What do you want to know?" Trent questioned Courtney, now looking like his human self again. It was easier for Trent to be involved in the conversation if he was able to speak and help Courtney out. Duncan had explained to everyone before he left to meet Courtney about what he planned to tell her. There were things Nigel wouldn't approve of her knowing, so Duncan decided to stick to the extreme basics.

"How? When? Why? All the basic info." Courtney babbled, not knowing what to ask, or what to expect next. She took a seat on a bench to her right as she waited for the group to come up with all the right answers. Bridgette took a seat beside her, and to her surprise, Courtney didn't flinch. Bridgette wasn't the scariest of people.

"It's a birth right," Bridgette explained. "Well, it is for me anyway. My grandmother was a fairy on my mothers side, so I have fairy blood. My fathers side are sorcerer's, but I don't have any of those kind of powers. I'm not a half-breed." Courtney nodded her head, not taking any of it is, and not brave enough to ask what a half-breed was.

Duncan found his way to kneeling in front of Courtney, resting his hands on her lap. He'd put away the fangs and monster eyes as to not scare her any more. "For me, it's different. When I was seventeen I got bitten and...well, I've been a vampire ever since. It's not as bad as it sounds, though, I promise."

"And exactly how long ago was that?" Courtney asked, swallowing hard and taking in many deep breaths.

"Almost three thousand years..." Duncan replied sheepishly. His age wasn't brought up often.

Courtney's eyes widened and she said the first thing on her mind, "What, did you go to school with Jesus or something?" Her brain was having a harder time processing her boyfriend's age than anything else that had been thrown at her in the last few minutes.

It took a little while, but Courtney came through unscathed. She admitted to herself that she was happier knowing the true identities of her friends as opposed to being left out of it.

"Are you scared?" Bridgette asked, noticing how easily Courtney was already teasing Duncan.

"Surprisingly, no." Courtney stood up and took a step towards the other's. "If you were going to hurt me you would have already, I know I'm safe with you guys."

"And you can't tell anyone about this." Trent told her.

Courtney nodded her head and replied, "Anyone I would tell is already in on this, anyway."

A/N: Aww.

That was sweet ^_^ And weird o_O

How you guys holding out so far? You enjoying?I hope you are!

This week has gone by a lot faster than the first week did, wow. Can't believe it's Friday already!

Oh, and good news! I GOT A JOB! I had my training day on Wednesday and I start on Monday! YAY! So things are gonna be a bit busier for me now =P BUT I DON'T MIND! Busy is better than what I was doing before...

Big thank you to Lepope1234, AHRedDeath, Tiggystretch, ThatSuperHotSexyBookWorm and kutiekat44 for the wonderful reviews!

And Tiggystretch did raise an excellent question; What's the difference between the original series and this one?

Well, if you're looking for some major plot changes or something that revolutionizes the way you see this series, you're not gonna get it. Think of the original series as a first draft. This is just my rewrite. My first rewrite. There are only spelling and grammar differences, and I've mashed chapters together to make them longer. As for the overall series, there's more fluency between them. When I was first writing this story I didn't know all of the things that were going to happen in the future books. *SPOILER* For example, Courtney wasn't originally a Princess, that's just something I made up on the spot and ended up rolling with it for eight stories. While in this rewrite, I do know about it and you'll notice the little hints about it on the way (Duncan working at the Palace, people not wanting to talk to Courtney (I have that down as they were warned before hand to not tell her she's a Princess), the uncertainty when talking about her mother. *SPOILER OVER*

So in conclusion, no, there aren't a lot of differences going on, at least not major ones, only ones that you would probably notice if you had the original and this version side by side. But, at the same time, these stories aren't the exact same as what they originally were when I started this project.

Thanks for reading, please review (:

Love ChloeRhiannonX