Chapter 1

-Aisha-

The door creaked shut behind me, leaving Winslow in the only light it looked good under (that is, no light at all). I waited a little bit to let my eyes adjust, then headed deeper inside the building until I reached the lockers. Then I pulled the flashlight out of my pocket and turned it on, careful not to point it anywhere near a window. Not that anybody cared - Winslow had long since given up on maintaining a security system, and nobody wanted a job guarding several hundred future gang members - but it's good to stay in practice.

"115... should be a few over in that direction..." I muttered under my breath. Trash-talk my brother again, will you, Mike? Oooh no, only I get to do that!

I stopped cold when I realized my footsteps weren't the only sound I could hear. There was a faint sobbing coming from down the hall.

Who the hell could be here at this hour?

Fully aware I was doing the exact thing I'd yelled at every horror movie girl ever for, I crept towards the sound. It did not take me long to figure out it was coming from a locker.

I nearly dropped my flashlight when I realized who this locker must belong to.

"You've got to be shitting me... she's still in there?"

I'd heard about the Hebert girl getting shoved into her own locker, along with "trash" nobody bothered to name more specifically, but now that I thought about it, I hadn't heard of anyone letting her out...

I ran up to the locker and knocked on the door.

"Hey, you okay in there?" I said automatically, then mentally slapped myself. Of course she's not okay, you dolt...

The sobbing inside paused for a moment.

"What? Is someone out there? No... no, no." The way hope turned to despair in the girl's voice made me shudder. How many times there really was someone out here who just walked right on by? "It's just me and the box. No box. Please, no..."

Well, someone's gone completely cuckoo in there, I thought and felt a tiny pang of guilt for even going there. Too soon, at least get her out of there first...

Easier said than done, considering the girl hadn't told me the locker combination and was now whimpering about boxes, graves, and worms. Trying the school's default combination for new lockers didn't accomplish anything, so I was stuck trying to pry it open with a screwdriver - while I knew how to do that, most lockers didn't have parts of the door bent outwards - mostly just inwards. Still, after a couple of minutes, the lock gave way, and I barely managed to jump aside as the filth inside spilled out. So that's why nobody said what she was locked in with, I realized, desperately trying not to gag - I'd been breathing through my nose when the door opened since I had to hold the flashlight in my teeth to be able to work the lock. I was dearly regretting the decision while the girl picked herself off the ground.

"Thank you," she croaked.

"You're welcome, I guess?" I said, then stopped myself from patting her shoulder. "Uh, no offense, but you really need a shower. I'll see if I can find some spare clothes for you."

"Rain can't wash away betrayal, but a cloak of filth catches evil eyes. I'd thank you for the look of another," she spoke again, stretching. I noticed how tall and lanky she was, and decided she'd probably need adult-size clothing. Now where to find it... wait, why am I not getting away from the crazy girl? Haven't I helped her enough?

I looked at her walk towards the showers, wobbling and placing her hand against the wall for support, and decided.

I stopped dead in my tracks when a man jumped out in front of me, a gun's barrel glinting in the moonlight.

"Stop right where you are, little girl. Whatcha doin' in a place like this at an hour like this, eh?" the man said, creeping closer. I could smell the unpleasantly familiar stench of alcohol even at this distance, and his tattoos made his allegiance clear. Just my luck. I shouldn't have gotten out of bed tonight...

"Running around while decent folks sleep, you're a thief, aren't you? Think I'll have to search ya..." he leered, shifting his gun to a one-handed grip. I heard footsteps behind me, and as I backed away, I saw a girl slip past me out of the corner of my eye.

"Don't try to run, girl; you can't outrun this," the man spoke again, waving the gun in the general direction of my face. The girl stopped next to him, and leaned in, her mouth hovering next to his ear. Shit, what am I gonna do? Even if I scream, in these parts...

"Now turn around, nice and slow, and..."

The man's speech was cut off as the girl bit down, and I stood there, paralyzed, as his eyes rolled up and he went slack, supported only by the hands of who I now recognized as Locker Girl around his shoulder and her teeth in his neck. After what seemed like forever, she pulled her teeth out, licked the wound clean, and let go. The man wobbled a bit, then collapsed. I half-expected blood to start spurting across the sidewalk, but the wound was clean besides a pair of red dots, spaced a few inches apart. The girl turned to me, licking her lips, and I saw a faint orange glow in her eyes. She was wearing the nurse outfit I'd found in the school and left next to the shower she was in before leaving.

"It is a foolish fly that hunts in a spider's web. Are all my friends unharmed?" she asked, giving me a concerned look.

"How should I know about them? I-I mean..." I opened my mouth a few times, not sure of what to tell... Well, if it looks like a vampire, stalks like a vampire, and bites like a vampire, it's probably a fucking vampire.

"When one is all, all is one. Are all my friends unharmed?"

I blinked when the realization hit me. Does she... consider me her only friend? That thought seemed ridiculous, but... nobody else had come to get her out of there, in the end.

"I'm fine, thanks." The girl's face softened, and bloodied fangs I only now noticed (creepy glowing eyes, sue me) seemed to at least partially retract into a more human smile. "Look, I really have to get home..."

"The wolf will guard the sheep."

I'm not sure what's worse, her crazy-talk, or that I can understand her.

"No, no, you shouldn't— it would really be best if people didn't notice us together. And we really shouldn't stand around here, or we'll get in trouble."

"Always trouble, always questions," the vampire spoke. "Trouble for us, and no one asks questions, trouble for others, only then questions. No questions of us tonight." With that, she turned around and walked away. I watched her leave (in a different direction than she was going when she showed up, but not the way I was headed), and hurried to Dad's apartment. He was out of town for the week, and it was a safe haven from Mom. The rest of the night was quiet, and I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The sun woke me in the morning. I'd slept way past the alarm clock, not that I or anyone at school cared. When my feet hit the ground, I heard a groan under the bed, followed by a brief silence, then gentle snoring. I slowly turned around and checked under the bed. It was the girl from last night, curled up far away from the window, still dressed in the nurse outfit. There were flecks of dried blood around her mouth, collar, and one of the sleeves. The sun was creeping up on her now that I'd lifted the edge of the sheet, and a few stray strands of hair started sizzling. I quickly lowered the sheet, and confirmed that the sizzling stopped. I could remember her being pale back at school, but now she looked as if she hadn't seen the sun in years. Her slightly-wide mouth was partly open, and her teeth, especially the canines, seemed a bit sharper than normal - though not so much that someone who wasn't looking for it would notice. Her lips looked like they'd be a healthy shade of red even after she'd cleaned them off.

Okay, vampire, sun, bad. Got it. Now how the fuck did she get under there? I couldn't remember her following me after we left the skinhead, and whatever trick she used to get to him, I could remember her doing— wait, what? Her appearance up until the moment she bit the guy was just a blank spot in my memory. I could remember her walking up to him— and how unimportant it seemed at the time— but nothing about what she looked like until after she attacked, even though it was obviously her the whole time. My brain simply refused to put a face to the girl before then.

...Huh. That could be one scary power if someone really wanted to abuse it. I rolled my eyes. "Strangers are scary, more news at eleven!" but whatever she did when sneaking up on him, it didn't fit here. A different trick, then.

I stacked a few random objects in front of the bed, then put a blanket over them to hopefully keep the sun out (the girl slept like a log through all of that) and grabbed my bag. Winslow may be pointless most days, but this time? I had a lot of questions, and I needed answers. I locked the door behind me, betting on the girl that burns in sunlight to stay asleep, or at least indoors, until sundown.