Over the next few weeks, I really got to know this place well. I inhabited the library, kept to myself and observed. I was careful with my visions, but that didn't mean they couldn't sneak up on me.
For example, I have seen a very graphic make-out session in a dark corner near the art room. Really graphic. I've also seen a pair of teachers have a very heated conversation about the pros and con's of Rick Riordan's writing and how appropriate it is for students as a class assignment, a secret sherbet ring and what the geeks here really talk about. I have found out that Bed-Head-Guy is named Ben and he's an idiot and that I never intend on speaking with him again unless it is to use him for some reason. This is unlikely to happen because, as I have said, he's an idiot with the IQ of a blended prawn sandwich.
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I have also gotten to know Ingrid well. She feels like a sister now. I know I don't know everything about her and she doesn't know everything about me, but we like it that way. We might have secrets but we understand that and don't pry. Sure her smiles chill me to the core, but at least she is smiling. She even lets me wear some of her stuff - well, the things that fit me. I'm a bit curvier and shorter than her. Vlad is rather sceptic around the whole friend-sister relationship between his sister and I, but I ignore it. I would have seen something by now, right? I know people. I read people!
Thing is…I can't read them. The Counts. Their creepy father, Ingrid or Vlad. I can read Wolfie easy - I don't know if this is a nickname or something - and I refuse to read Renfield, in fear of throwing up from looking at his face for too long. Ewww.
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On a nice, general late Saturday morning, I decided to trek down to Ingrid's room, see if she wanted to do anything - maybe a movie? All the floorboards creaked and dust clogged my senses - Renfield clearly wasn't very good at his job. I pushed the sleeves on my grey hoodie down and tugged the neckline discreetly up to cover my nose.
Knocking and sliding in, I saw her drinking more of her weird-as wine. Was she an alcoholic or something? I was a bit afraid to bring it up. I knew how snappy and defensive she could be about some things - My face almost got clawed off by her perfect navy nails when I dared talk about past crushes. Looking at her and brushing the wall with my fingers, something felt different. I had a chilling, alarm rush dash down the dip of my spine under my tight black dress.
"Hey Ingrid. Was wondering if you wanted to do something today." I say to her, settling on top of her dressing table. "Maybe tonight we can go out and grab a bite to eat?"
.
She looks up and I do a double take. Have her eyes gotten colder…and darker?
"Yeah. Sounds good. But… now I think about it a bite to eat now would be a lot better." She says slyly.
I swallow at her tone and she seems to lock on, like laser target. She slides down from her…coffin - I still couldn't wrap my mind around it - and slides over to me. I blink and then she has fangs. Wait…what?
"I have some questions to ask. Do you have an interest in my brother?" She asks bluntly but still with the finesse of a lioness.
I draw back. Should I lie? "No! No. What are you going on about?"
She laughs and more cold water goes down my back. I lightly tap my heels against the wooden drawers. Okay, that was so a lie. Vlad was cute! And nice. And polite and the first person who really helped me and who got along with me at Garside - correction, only one since I kept to myself so much. He was…eligible with clauses I didn't know about and didn't really care about.
"Lie." Suddenly something is tossed at me and I frantically catch it.
.
A girl with short blonde hair raises her eyebrows at Vlad. "You really just used that?" She shook her head with a smile of disbelief.
I felt the clear romantic connection. Tugging so strong and so thick that if it was any more I might have happily drowned in it - I was a hopeless romantic sometimes. Vlad looked about the age he was now, with a little less jadedness. I had never seen the girl and I couldn't draw anything else from her except love and adoration.
"What am I going to do with you?" She asks him in the familiar dimness of the Count household.
"I'll make a list." He flashed a grin in reply.
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I was yanked out of the vision. Why was I seeing all of this? So Vlad had a girlfriend. Probably a long-distance one, now that she wasn't here. So what? Sure, it put a damper on my crush now, but I knew that he was way out of my league anyway. A girl can dream! Ingrid smiled darkly and I wondered if I looked like that before I doused my unsuspecting little brother in ice cold water in the middle of winter. Just a little less Hellmouth-Evil. She looked like a gothic princess in her evil-princess room.
"Hmm, so you're a Sight Cipher." She said to me silkily.
I felt like I was a girl in the circus on one of those turning things where people throw knives at you. Every dark syllable was a knife; every little thing that contradicted the girl I knew was like a turn on the wooden board.
"I thought you were something different." She continues.
I press myself against the wall. "A - a what?"
She rolls her ice blue eyes. "You're very observant and that means you can read people well, breather. Judge who people really are. So well in fact that it is a special thing all in itself. You mustn't have read me very well though." She gives me a grim smile. "I'm actually impressed with Vlad for once - taking an interest in a person he can use. But, he also chose you because you're like him - a big softie, no spine at all." She explained. She drifted back to her closed coffin and sat on it cross-legged like a queen on her throne.
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I took a shuddering breath, my mind unable to keep up. This was moving too fast, I couldn't see. I didn't dare try and look at her for fear I'd pass out trying. I needed to see, to be awake. I swallowed again, my breakfast sitting uncomfortably in my stomach. I dropped to the floor, my dark dress riding up over my hoodie.
"Ingrid? Are - Are," I took another shaky breath. I hated stuttering. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just want in on this power thing." I blink again and she is wedged between my back and the dressing table.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, two pointed crystals. Two…fangs. I really wasn't imagining them then. I feel an aching tingle, a bit like scraping on my neck. I freeze up as if I'm catching a vision again. But I'm not. Because this is a nightmare.