"Neither one of us will give them reason to kill us."
"Are you sure? If that happens, there is no turning back."
"Yes, I'm sure," I replied, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
"You can't lie to a vampire, but so be it."
I moved to stand up. He advanced on me, walking slowly towards my shaking body. My conscience seemed to drift out of my body and I viewed the scene from above. Here, a young girl, being advanced on by a teen-age vampire in a small dim room. Not a very heart-warming sight.
He stopped an arm's length in front of me and pushed me up against the wall.
"You don't know the first thing about being a vampire. You don't know what you're giving up here."
"Then tell me. Fill me in."
"The first thing that vampires have to fight, especially when entering the human world is the thirst. Thirst, bloodlust, call it what you may, it happens to all of us. It's easier for those of us that know how to control it, harder for those of us who are new. But even the best can cave in."
He paused and stared at me, probably waiting to see if I would change my mind. I just stared back blankly and waited to see if he would start again.
"You're never going to change your mind, are you?" he asked.
"Not
unless you can give me a good reason to," I answered with a little
smile.
"The worst thing about becoming a vampire is the tr-"
He was cut off at faster than the speed of sound. There was a huge crash as a fairly large animal came crashing through the wall.
"Step away from the girl," it demanded.
"By all means, it would be my pleasure," he answered, apparently enjoying this.
He backed away from me towards the opposite end of the room while the creature walked in front of me, and then turned around to stare at me.
It had bright blue eyes, light brown fur, and a body built to pounce.
"What's going on? Who are you? What are you doing here?" I spilled out about one tenth of the questions I had for this creature and the more I thought, the more questions I had.
"We'll have time for questions later. Trust me; I have my fair share of questions for you, too."
With that, she turned around again to face Eric.
"You stay away from my friends, get it?"
"I didn't see any girl."
"Good. And you'll do well to remember that, too." She turned back to me. "Jump on my back and hold TIGHT." She stressed the word. "It's going to be a rough ride."
It took me a second to comprehend what she had just said. At the moment, I had about twice as many questions for her as I had three minutes ago.
With reluctance and a bit of fear, I walked forward, swung myself on the creature, and held on for my dear life.
"You all good back there?"
"I think -" that was all I got out before she took off sprinting through the forest, weaving in and out of the trees so fast that they all looked like one big blur. I had trees rushing past me and tree branches brushing up against my face, just about tearing it to shreds.
Then, all of a sudden, we stopped. The stop was short and fast, and managed to send me flying, landing hard on my back. Dirt and rocks plus scraped back can equal major pain. This,
trust my luck, was exactly the situation I found myself in. It felt like getting a thousand needles stabbed into my back. I tried to pull myself up into a kneeling position, but it took a couple of tries.
When I finally got up, I felt a hundred pairs of eyes peering down at me but when I looked up, I looked right back down because it just so happens, as if my night couldn't get any worse, I was surrounded by a pack of wolves.
"Oh, look. The poor girl is scared."
"Leave her alone Nessa."
"If that is what you wish, Linwe. I'm am truly sorry, Linwe."
"Now who do we have here?" This voice must have come from Linwe.
I stayed silent and curled up into an even tighter ball sending a splitting pain down my back causing me to whimper.
"It's ok. There's nothing for you to be afraid of. We're here to help you.
I stayed curled up in my ball.
"How do I know I can trust you?" I asked slowly, for fear of getting myself into even more trouble.
"We are the only ones who can help you, at the moment."
"Help me what? I was doing just fine on my own before she showed up." I gestured at the wolf that had dragged me here.
The wolf stepped forward. "She has a name, you know." She seemed a bit angered.
I uncurled from my ball only to come face to face with her. I backed away for fear of getting my nose bitten off.
"Well excuse me. I didn't know your name so how am I supposed to call you something I don't know?"
"Smart aleck, aren't we?" She started walking forward, slowly advancing on me until I was practically backed up against the others.
"Darcy!" Linwe snapped.
The wolf flinched.
"Control yourself. The order forbids you to attack your own friends and family. You should know that by now."
"Yes, of course, Linwe. Sorry Linwe."
"It's not me you should be apologizing to, Darcy."
She flinched. "Yes, Linwe, as you wish." She turned to face me. "I am so sorry, Aurora. I shouldn't have lost my temper like that. You must be scared enough as is."
"Apology accepted, Darcy. And it's Shadow, not Aurora."
"Elvira will do much better than Darcy. I hate that name."
Elvira steeped back to her place in line as Linwe stepped forward to speak to me.
"Aurora is such a beautiful name. Why Shadow?"
"Just a nickname my friends and family call me. My first name is kind of plain, although I was named after my great-grandmother."
"So I've heard."
Aurora stared back, slightly puzzled by how much they knew about her. How could they possibly know this much about her when they had only just met?
"Excuse me for being rude-"
"Oh, don't worry about rudeness at all. It's highly overrated."
"But how do you know so much about me when we have only just met? I mean, I've
never met you
before, have I?"
"Oh, we've met. You've also met Elvira,
Nessa, and Damien," each stepping forward as their name was said.
"She's right, Rah-rah. We have met," Damien said.
No one had ever called her Rah-rah but Keegan.
"It's true," said Nessa.
Elvira nodded.
But I have never met any wolves before let alone ones that could speak English. When I voiced this to the others, they just laughed and Damien even rolled on the ground.
"We've met in a different form," replied Elvira. "May I show her?"
"Yes, if you must. Damien, Nessa, you may, too."
Elvira was the first to move. She stepped a little ways away from the rest of them, rose up on her hind legs, and slowly started to transform into a human. She looked very familiar.
The next one to go was Nessa, then Damien. When they were both finished, they turned to face Linwe and suddenly every eye was on her. She seemed to turn it into a little dance. It was beautiful and graceful, like a ballet.
Amazing, I thought.
I had never seen anything like it before; on the T.V. or the internet.
When Linwe was done dancing, she settled down in line next to Elvira. I looked down the line realizing that all the faces looked familiar. One by one, it all came back to me. They were my best friends.
Linwe was Emily, Elvira (Darcy) was Mackenzie, Damien was Keegan, and Nessa was Victoria.
My mouth hung open as I staggered backward.
"Lee-lee, is that
you? And Kenzie and Tori and… oh gosh I can't believe…" my
voice changed to a whisper for the single name and then raised again,
"Keegan? What's going on?" I was completely and utterly
confused at the moment.
"Like I told you," Mackenzie said,
"we've met in a different form."
It took me a while to comprehend what had just happened. First, I was surrounded by werewolves. Second, I knew four of them. Third, the four were my BFF's. And now they were expecting me to believe this? No way was this happening, never going to happen, I must be dreaming. This is just way too much for me to handle in one night.
"I knew it would be too much," Emily said. "I'm pack leader, I should have said something."
"No, no, no, I'm fine. I'm more than a little dizzy and it's been a big day, night, something; whatever."
"Are you tired? We have somewhere you can sleep if you want," Keegan suggested. "You look like you could use some rest." There seemed to be a little too much anxiety in his voice. It kind of scared me.
"Yeah, some sleep might be nice, but what about my parents? Won't they be worried when they find out I'm gone?"
"Don't worry about it. When you enter this dimension, time in the other stops completely. You could stay here for years and grow old. Then return to the other dimension and be young again," said Emily.
"Shadow, you've had a rough day. A lot of stuff has happened that you could never have expected, never have seen coming," Keegan said. He looked over at Emily, asking permission.
She nodded. He took me by the hand and led me out of the crowd, down a few passages to a sparsely furnished room where I would stay for the night. He must have sensed that I would not (and could not, although I would never admit it) want to talk right then.
The room was small, but just big enough to fit a bed, desk, and some chairs. The bed was made, the desk free of clutter, and the floor neatly swept.
All of a sudden, Keegan wrapped me in a big bear hug; half sweeping me off the ground.
"Whoa! I would like to keep in contact with the ground until tomorrow if you don't mind."
He set me back on the ground but continued to hug me for a few seconds more.
"Dude, it's not the end of the world."
"It seemed like it for a while, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Emily was the first to arrive here. How she got here she won't say to any of us. Kenzie, Tori, and I were brought here by Eric, just as you were although it took a while for everyone to join up. It was a shock to all of us. Took us a while to believe what was happening even then. It even took days for it to sink in for Tori and Kenzie."
I stayed silent and focused on what Keegan was telling me.
"None of us were originally werewolves. Well, some of us were, but I'm not allowed to say who. Not until you become one of us. If it's what you want to do. Kenzie, Tori, and I didn't really have a choice in the matter of werewolf or human. The ones who rescued us kind of turned us before they brought us back. Emily punished them for it and apologized to us. None of it was supposed to happen that way. We were supposed to have a choice in the matter, but unless we became werewolves, we would have to stay here for the rest of our lives."
"That would suck."
"Yeah, it would. But it seems like things worked out for the better, though, doesn't it?"
"It does, sort of, in a weird and twisted kind of way."
"Depends on how you look at it."
"Yeah, well, I'm getting really tired so I'm going to go to bed if you don't mind."
"Oh, good. I was starting to worry. I was tired, too when I first got here. Of course it took a lot to get me tired since I was turned before I actually got here."
"Right," I said thoughtfully. "Well, good night, then."
"Yeah, get a good night's sleep." He turned and walked away. He sounded kind of disappointed in a way. But I was too tired to think very much about it.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Don't leave this bedroom tonight. It can get dangerous at night here with the werewolves and stuff."
"Sure. You've been here longer so I guess you would know. Good night, Keegan."
"Good night, Shadow."
I lie down on the bed and immediately, silently, fell into a dreamless sleep.
