The Domino Effect

"So you're saying that you don't know?" Annie asked, trying to understand a little better, because right now she was a bit was in all of the new information.

Leah glanced over at the confused ghost. "No. I'm saying that I don't remember. You do know the meaning of the word 'amnesia', right?" She asked lamely.

"Righ, yeah, I know." Annie said. "It's just that Hal thought you were a werewolf."

Leah smiled softly. "Yeah, I get a lot of that. It's probably 'cos I hang out with one, not to mention the fact that I was raised by an entire family of them."

"I thought you said you didn't remember anything." Hal pointed out, raising a brow.

"I don't. I woke up in a hospital just over a year ago. Bo was at my side. He told me what happened; the vampires, the fire, the fact that we were the only two in the family left alive." Leah sighed sadly. "It's like I said; the vampires came for them, killed them all. Bo and I were out at the time. He said he thinks it was planned, that our parents made a lot of trouble for them. I don't know, I guess it could be. I don't care either way. I just want what little family I left back."

"How do you know they haven't already killed him?" Hal asked seriously, though still getting glares from Annie, Tom and Toby.

Leah glanced at him. "I don't for sure, but I have a feeling they're trying to get to me."

"So you're just going to fall right into their trap?" Hal asked, clearly not agreeing with that approach.

Leah glared at him. "I'm not gonna just leave him."

"I'm not suggesting that." Hal said, glaring back at her. "All I'm saying is that you need to think it through before you go barging into a vampire's nest and try to break you and your brother back out. It needs careful planning."

Leah scoffed, smirking rather snootily. "I've broken out of worse places before."

"She really has. Girl's got a knack for getting herself out of trouble." Toby added with a chipper smile, trying lighten the mood a little between them.

Hal stared at her blankly for a moment before throwing his hands up in defeat and walking out of the room.

Annie and Tom exchanged glances, then staring after the vampire as he went off to his room in a mood.

Annie smiled brightly over at Leah and Toby, who shared a similar look of odd confusion as they stared after the stroppy vampire. "He just gets a LITTLE grumpy sometimes."

-x-x-x-x-

Leah closed the front door quietly behind her, leaving the others chatting between themselves. She ventured slowly down the front garden pathway and over to the bench. She sat down and pulled out her pack of cigarettes, pulling one out along with a cheap lighter, lit it and inhaled deeply. "So what's your story?" She asked, her voice calm, but full of intrigue.

Hal stared at the back of her head in silence for a few moments before leaning off of the side of the house and slowly shuffling over to the bench. "I have a lot of stories." He told her in a low tone, his thoughts flashing back to some of the worst things he had ever done. He sat down beside her, but making sure to leave a reasonable space between them both. He didn't want to seem like a creep (like she had previously named him) and he still didn't fully trust her or Toby.

"Well, I'd like to hear the one of how you came to be one of the good guys." She said, though the request was clear in her tone.

"To make a VERY long story short; I destroyed anything in my path for over five hundred years until I was sated." He said, his voice distant and his gaze sad.

Leah's eyes widened a little, though more in shock than horror. "Wow..." She breathed, the smoke curling all around her as she blew it slowly out. "You're old. Even for a vampire." She chirped with a small smile, trying to lighten the mood.

Hal glanced over at her, a small smile of his own threatening to cross his lips. He gave her an odd look, but said nothing. Her reaction cought him off guard a little, he had to admit. What could she have possibly seen or heard that was even worse than the creature he had become!

"I didn't always hate your kind, y'know." Leah began casually, finishing her cigarette and stubbing it out before throwing it out of the road. "Bo told me my best friend was a vampire."

"Was?" Hal asked, genuinely intrigued.

"She betray me. She was the reason my family burned that night." She explained, her tone a little too casual, though Hal suspected she was just trying to hide the pain.

"Oh... I'm -"

"I'm not." She interjected sharply, only smiling when he gave her a small sympathetic look. "Everything happens for a reason, it's like the domino effect, a chain reaction."

"What're you saying?" He asked, dreading the answer, because he had a rough idea of what she was planning in that pretty little head of hers.

Leah just smiled brightly, matching even Annie's mask. "They took Bo from me. I think it's about time I took something back from them."