So you can skip this AN, or you can read it, because it's really funny. it may not be that funny, but i thought it was.. it was early in the morning so maybe i was just really tired... ANYWAY HERE IT IS:

my first hour is forensic science, and we just got a new schedule in my school (so i haven't always had forensics first hour) and coincidentally the forensic's teacher is the same person that i have for chemistry (if you recall, Natalie has chem first hour...) and so we are talking about murders and crime scenes and stuff (because it's forensic science a.k.a crime scene investigation)... and my teacher pulls down the screen for the projector and guess what she (no, Anthony is not based off of my chem teacher..) pulls up on the screen... A STORY ABOUT A LOCAL MURDERER! we were getting background info about him for the class, but still, crazy right? just like what i wrote! (Chapter 3) OMG i was like i. am. physic. so that's my story...

Enjoy this chapter :) the end was inspired by the song Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park. i was listening to it one day and decided it would go great with what i was thinking about writing. So if you want to listen to it, when i mention it, you can... to set the mood or whatever...

Chapter 21:

The vampires took the bait. They were drinking from the girls that we injected with wolf's bane. They were going to die. It couldn't be this easy. It's never this easy. But it was; no one suspected a thing.

I felt Eric slowly lift his mouth from my neck so he could get a better view of the vampires. His eyes flicked back and forth, intently surveying every single move they made.

One quick look over my shoulder showed me that Kenneth stopped drinking from the blonde, and she was standing limply against him. I'm sure if he weren't there to help support her, she would have collapsed onto the ground. He must've taken more from her, than Eric took from me because I felt fine. I was ready to fight; just a little light headed. No big deal.

The sound of coughing drew my attention away from Kenneth and back to the vampires. A tall, skinny, vampire with brown hair fell to the earth, clutching his throat. The girl he had been feeding from was lying lifelessly next to him. He began dry heaving and coughing more, and soon, more vampires joined in the chorus of coughs.

Granted my smelling was not as good as Eric's or Kenneth's, but I could still pick out the familiar stench of iron—from the blood. My nose crinkled in disgust and I tried not to look directly at any of the dying vampires, whenever I did, they looked like they were looking at me for help. They were probably only looking at me because I was a source of blood; a source of something they needed dearly in order to survive.

I looked back at the skinny, brown-haired vampire that fell first. The bloodstained grass covered half of his face. His eyes open, and red, and a halo-like pool of blood surrounded his body.

There were several other bodies already on the ground now, and the others were coughing, and throwing up so much that they couldn't do anything to save themselves, or attack us.

The last vampire to start coughing was Ronan. I guess it makes sense though; he was one of the more powerful vampires, so he would be the last to get the effects from the wolf's bane. He noticed his following fall all around him. He stopped drinking. The girl he was feeding from was still alive when he pushed her to the ground in an angry snarl.

He knew about the assassination attempt—well not attempt; success—and he did not like it.

"You." Ronan growled at Eric and Kenneth. His eyes were the same color red as the blood on his face. His fangs were bared and he looked even more intimidating now than ever before. But something was off. He wobbled in his strides to Eric, and he looked weakened. The wolf's bane worked, but he didn't drink enough of it. He wasn't going to die.

Before Ronan ever reached Eric, he crumpled in to a heap on the ground. He clutched his stomach, coughed twice, and spat out the blood that ventured up into his mouth. He looked up at us with red-hot vengeance burning in his eyes.

"Wolf's bane." Eric explained even though Ronan never asked. There was a cocky smile on his face. Eric's tone was condescending and there was a definite 'ha-ha, got you!' implied, as well.

"You are going," More coughing. "to die." Ronan threatened between spits of blood.

"Not if you die first." Kenneth mocked. Ronan became furious and it took everything in his power to stand up. In a blur, he rushed past Eric and me and clutched Kenneth's neck as he pushed him against a tree, knocking the blonde to the ground. Kenneth laughed as he was pinned against the tree; obviously thinking Ronan wasn't going to kill him, not in this state anyway.

"I'm not going to be the one dying today." Ronan hissed. More blood was coughed out of his mouth, and his powerful stance diminished. Even in his weakened state, he threw Kenneth across the field like a rag doll.

Ronan turned to Eric next. I've never seen a vampire look so cruel before, and I've seen plenty of malicious vampires in my Hunting experience. Ronan bent his legs to lunge forward at Eric and me, but Kenneth's blur of a body knocked him to the side, pinning him the ground. I watched them wrestle. Kenneth tried to keep Ronan down, and Ronan tried to kill Kenneth so he could ultimately come and kill Eric.

My hand reached down to grab the knife, and I felt cold hands on my bare shoulders. Eric turned me to face him. "Let me go. I need to help Kenneth." I explained as I struggled to break free from Eric's iron grip.

"No. You'll only get yourself killed." Eric's voice was soft, yet panicky. I looked back at the blur of the two vampires fighting. It was mesmerizing how they moved, fast and deadly, yet graceful. "Natalie, look at me."

I peeled my eyes away from the captivating dance and looked at Eric's brown eyes. They looked sad and worried. In that one second, I thought about us. We may not make it out alive. Ronan, in his weakened state, was almost stronger than Kenneth, who had just fed. Now I was scared, for both of us.

My body moved before my mind registered what was happening. My lips found Eric's and I kissed him, long and hard. "I love you." I said, my eyes tearing up. Once again I tried for my knife. I was not going to die, at least not with out a fight, but Eric stopped me. He pulled my chin so I was looking into his eyes again.

"Don't fight him." Eric told me. What? Don't fight whom? Who is Eric-?

My mind went blank. My body relaxed. Eric's pupils had expanded quickly and then returned to normal. Everything I had been worried about had vanished. All I knew was I couldn't fight him. That's what Eric ordered me to do. He wrapped his hands around both of my cheeks and kissed me on the forehead, and then looked over my shoulder to give a nod.

Cold hands found my waist, but they weren't Eric's cold, familiar hands, they were someone else's. They were pulling me away from Eric. No! My mind screamed, but my body didn't react. I can't fight him. The words echoed in my mind.

I looked at Eric one last time before the man took me away, and he looked defeated, old, worried, and apologetic. He looked directly into my eyes for what seemed like an eternity and soon enough he was no longer my teenage boy crush, he was now the dangerous vampire, who was out for blood.

I turned away to see who was carrying me away, but I was too late. The man flung me over his shoulder and sped away of the clearing, far, far away. The further away from Eric I went, the more I wanted to scream and fight my way away from the person that was carrying me. The man opened a car door and plopped me into the passenger seat. He struggled to get my seatbelt on because I kept pushing is arms away. Eventually his strength overpowered me and he clicked it into place. By the time I unbuckled, the door was shut and locked. I tried several times to open it. No luck. Frustrated, I looked up at him and screamed, "Let me go! I have to go back and save him!" I pounded my hands against the glass. By the time I stopped to let myself breath, and cry, I recognized who was in front of me: Anthony Evans.

He used his vampire speed to run around to the driver's side of the car, unlock the car, open the door, get in, and locked it before I could even react. He grabbed a large sweatshirt from the backseat and gave it to me. He started the car. His face hard and his eyebrows were crunched in worry.

"What are you doing? We have to go back there! They need help! Eric—" I rambled on.

Anthony sped away—faster than any human should drive—from the gravel parking lot and took the ramp that led to the expressway.

"Turn this car around now! I don't think Eric is going to make it. We can't leave him there!"

"I know!" Anthony finally spoke up. "I know." He repeated, more quietly this time. "But we can't. That's not what he wanted." The car's engine hummed in the silence that hung around us.

"What do you mean 'that isn't what he wanted'?" I asked, finally taking off the red wig.

Anthony's eyes concentrated on the road but his expression told me that he was debating whether or not he should tell me what he knows. "When Eric came to get the wolf's bane from me, he came up with a plan. He told me to follow you two to meet with the others, and in the event where you were in trouble I would take you out of harm's way."

"But I wasn't in danger. Ronan wasn't attacking me. They need my help, I learned how to fight—"

"Natalie, you don't understand. Eric taught you everything about fighting vampires, but you would never be able to pull the same trick on those vampires. They've seen everything; nothing fools them anymore. You would have gotten yourself killed."

"But Eric said it would work…" my voice trailed off.

"He lied. He said he wouldn't want to go on living if he didn't have you. You need to live; you have a life ahead of you. He doesn't. He's a frozen teenager. If only one of you made it out alive, he wanted it to be you."

"And you just listened to him? No questions asked? We just left him alone on a suicide mission!" I flung my arms out in frustration.

"I tried to convince him of another way, but we settled on this." Anthony sighed heavily. "This is his fight. He needs to finish it on his own. If he lives, he said he would meet up with us."

"How does he know where we are going?"

"We already talked about that too."

"So… where are we going?" I asked.

"I can't tell you." Anthony focused his eyes back on the black road. "Try and get some sleep. I'll wake you when we get there." He said as he turned the radio station to one I was used to. As soon as the radio host was done talking, the stereo eased into "Shadow of the Day" by Linkin Park. I leaned my head against the cold window, pulled the jacket over my shoulders, and closed my eyes. Once again, I felt myself crying. Why do slow songs always have to make me cry? Of course it didn't help that my boyfriend is sacrificing himself to save me…

I sighed one more time and eventually drifted off to a restless sleep.

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