Guys, before you read this, you need to know that I'll probably be going on hiatus for a while. Some stuff has happened at home and now my dad has said he's going to disconnect our internet. Whether or not he'll do it, I don't know. It's a shame because I have lots of stories that will probably never see the light of day. I hope you guys have enjoyed my stories and hopefully one day in the future I'll be able to return to the archive. If you guys wan to contact me, I'll find some way of checking my Twitter ( teentastictweet) so you guys can still talk to me. You guys are amazing and wouln't have kept writn this long if it wasn't for you. But cancelling the internet isn't definite yet, so you nwver know. Maybe I'll be back with a new chapter in a few days time.I still have hope, so so should you.
Later that night, Dan again lay in bed, listening to the sounds around him. Tom had fallen asleep after Dan told him what had happened with Zoe, leaving Dan to himself. Dan had been right when he'd thought he needed to feed again - being in such close proximity to Zoe so suddenly had left his ever-present bloodlust restless. The pleasure-pain that had started in the forest had given way to the sharp prickling of his upper jaw. Any minute now, he would feel the needles.
Dan wondered if he could sleep it off, whether slumber would make the hunger less intense. He'd never tried that before. Somehow, though, he knew it wouldn't work. The thirst wasn't like when humans got hungry. It was intense, so much so that when it got going, there was no stopping it. Carefully, Dan got out of bed and pulled on his jeans and a jacket, shoving his feet into his shoes. He didn't really need the jacket - vampires didn't feel hot and cold the way that humans did. They could feel it, alright, but it didn't affect them.
Dan crept out into the forest, his ears searching for any sound. He knew that a mere rabbit wouldn't sustain him tonight - a fox would quench his thirst for next couple of days, so he listened for one. He refused to settle for less than his thirst desired because he knew that if he didn't, hurting Zoe could become a very real possiblity. And he'd be damned before he hurt her.
Too late for that, a voice in the back of his head whispered. You're already damned.
Dan forced the voice away, focusing on what he was doing. Then he heard it - the sound of a four-legged hunter. It sounded too small to be a wolf, but its movements were too even for it to be a rabbit. A feral grin graced Dan's mouth, exposing his canines, which now appeared as two tiny razor-sharp daggers. Spidery veins appeared at his temples and across his neck and if he looked down, Dan knew that veins would mark the backs of his hands. The blue in Dan's eyes was gone - the pupil had completely swallowed the iris, so that his eyes appeared to be pitch-black. Moving so fast that he would have appeared as a blur to the naked human eye, Dan raced towards the sound of the fox, of his prey.
The fox didn't stand a chance.
Before the animal could even blink, Dan was upon it, snapping its neck easily with quick fingers and sinking his teeth into the fox's flesh. As hot blood ran down his throat, satisfying his desire for blood, Dan listened to the world around him. He heard the unmistakeable sound of human footsteps running away from him, but that must have been Matthew. Tom was still fast asleep and the girls had fallen asleep before he and Dan had.
Dan didn't bother to think about the fact that the footsteps were moving away as he drank the last drops from the fox. Gasping with the rush that came from having consumed fresh blood, Dan let the fox go and stood up, wiping blood from his mouth.
"Dan." Someone said behind him. Dan's mind was still spinning from the blood and he turned, his mouth twisting to expose his fangs as a snarl ripped from his throat.
"Dan." Matthew said, brown eyes turning silver.
Dan's muscles relaxed as he recognised his best friend, pushing his appearance to turn back to the way it should.
"Zoe just went back into her cabin." Matthew said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"So?" Dan asked, wiping the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. "It doesn't mean she saw me."
Matthew's eyes - which kept switching back and forth between brown and silver - narrowed worriedly. "I hope for your sake that she didn't, Dan. Otherwise you'll be in deep shit."
The next day, the four teens didn't go into the lake again. After breakfast, they packed up what gear they'd brought with them and then they all sat on the dock, their bags up by the cabins. Dan was lying on his back, his legs dangling off the end of the dock, halfway up his calves submerged in the water. His shoes sat next to him and he had his eyes closed, his fingers combing gently through Zoe's hair. Zoe was lying sideways with her legs dangling off the side of the dock, her eyes closed and her head resting on Dan's stomach. Tom and Aneisha were sitting side-by-side on the other side of the dock, their feet dangling into the water. Tom kept fighting the urge to push Aneisha in.
They all looked up when they heard a car horn beep and upon seeing his parent's car, Dan started to ease out from under Zoe. Zoe sighed and sat up as Dan got up, shoving his feet into his shoes.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Dan told Zoe, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head before he started up the hill towards the cabin. He tapped the back of Aneisha's head and high-fived Tom as he walked past, makin sure, as always, to keep his unnatural strength out of each movement.
"Get in." Ezekiel said, throwing Dan's bag into the boot of the car and slamming it shut. Dan sighed and slid into the backseat beside Matthew, who cast him an apologetic look.
"No, 'It's nice to see you, Dan! How was your weekend?' then?" Dan asked as Ezekiel started the car.
Ezekiel sighed. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I just hope that girl didn't see you last night."
Dan turned to Matthew. "You told them?!"
"What was I supposed to do?" Matthew asked. Dan sighed and glared out the window for the rest of the drive home.
