Phoenix stood in the driveway leading up to one of the Redfern's mansions. The house was beautiful. With tall marble columns near the front door and a garden that even Thierry would die for. She walked up to the door. "Here goes nothing." She muttered to herself and knocked on the door.
It swung open almost immediately. "Miss Harman?" The man said to her. Phoenix nodded. "Right this way," He said. "Everyone one else is in the parlour waiting for you."
"Oh they're in the parlour." Phoenix said sarcastically to herself.
The man looked at her as if he had known what she had said. The inside of the house was even more beautiful than the outside. The floors were marble, with white walls with paintings and antiques nearly as old as Thierry's. Whoever decorated this house had some taste, Phoenix thought to herself. She had been expecting a dirty house considering that the people that lived here were still teenagers and mainly men at that, Night Worlders or not, they were still messy.
The butler opened up the doors to the parlour and stepped aside so Phoenix could enter. He closed the doors as soon as she was in. Phoenix looked around the room. There were five people there, three boys and two girls. As expected all the boys were good looking, they were part of the Night World after all. The girls were sitting on two of the boys laps.
"Phoenix?" One of the girls asked.
Phoenix looked at her; she was beautiful with long gold hair and forest green eyes. "Yeah, who're you?"
"I'm Star Blackthorn." She smiled. "This is Thorn Redfern, my soulmate."
Phoenix smiled at the two of them; wary of the way they were acting. She didn't expect them to be so nice. Maybe it was just an act, she thought to herself. Thorn was good looking as well, with dark blond hair and crystal blue eyes.
"I'm Megan," The other girl said to Phoenix, she had raven black hair and midnight blue eyes. "And this is Josh."
"Let me guess, he's your soulmate?" Phoenix said smiling.
Megan smiled back and nodded. "And the one with the scowl on his face is Blake Redfern."
Phoenix laughed and looked at Blake. Her eyes were caught by his. He had the ever-changing Redfern eyes and hair so black it was almost blue. At the moment his eyes were a deep blue, Phoenix felt that she could look into his eyes forever. She felt a push at her mind and immediately put up her mind shields and broke eye contact.
"So now that we've made all the introductions, why don't you sit down? We were just going to watch TV." Star hadn't seemed to notice what had happened between Blake and Phoenix.
"Actually if someone could show me to my room, I'll unpack first." Phoenix said smiling apologetically."
Star smiled, "No problem. Megan and I'll help. It's a really big house and you might get lost." She laughed. "I remember when I first got here. I got lost heaps of times. I had to call people to find out where I was in the house."
Megan laughed as well. "I was the same, but I never had to call anyone, I eventually found my way."
"Even though it took you two hours one time." Josh said dryly.
Megan punched him in the arm as got up. "Come on let's go. Being around these three for too long can be damaging to your health."
I can imagine, Phoenix thought to herself. Before she could open the door however, it swung open and a little girl about 2 years old ran in laughing. Phoenix was in the girl's way of her destination and she ran into her legs. Phoenix caught her before she hit the ground. "Whoa! Watch where you're going kidlet. You could really hurt yourself running around like that, or hurt someone else." Phoenix smiled down at the little girl. She was a little cutie, with blue-black hair and green eyes.
Before the little girl could answer her, another little child ran into the room. This one was a boy. He looked the same age as the girl with the same features. The little girl jumped behind Phoenix's legs laughing delightedly.
"I found you! I found you!" The little boy cried, jumping up and down clapping his hands.
"No fair!" The little girl pouted. "You didn't count to a hundred."
"Did to!" The little boy said.
"Nickolas, Brianna. What are you doing up?" A voice said, sounding amused from the other side of the room.
The two children, Nickolas and Brianna looked at Blake. "Playing hide and seek." Nickolas said as if it were obvious.
"But you're supposed to be in bed." Blake said. Phoenix looked at him, she recognised the resemblance between the three of them. Blake a look of great amusement on his face.
"We know." Brianna said, "But we wanted to meet the new girl. Are you her?" She said looking up at Phoenix.
Phoenix smiled at her. "Yes I am, I'm Phoenix, and I take it you're Brianna and Nickolas."
The twins laughed. Blake came over to them and scooped both of them up into his arms. "Yes you're correct. These are my brother and sister. And although most people think they're cute, believe me they're not."
"She pretty." Nickolas whispered softly into his brother's ear.
"Nick, your too young to be noticing these things." Blake laughed. "Now since you've met the new girl, it's time for you two to go to bed."
"Do we have to?" Brianna said, fluttering her eyelashes at him, trying to sway him into letting them stay up later.
"Yes you do." Blake said firmly. "Now come on."
"Wow." Phoenix said softly.
Megan laughed. "I know, you wouldn't know it by looking at him, but Blake really loves him brother and sister. They're the only people who can bring out so much… emotion in him. Well, come on let's take you stuff up to your room."
"Great," Phoenix said still looking at the direction that Blake had just gone.
Megan and Star led Phoenix up a staircase that would seriously tire someone who wasn't fit. The hallway leading to Phoenix's room was long, with artwork lining both sides of the walls.
"Well here it is," Star said opening one of the doors.
The room was huge. Even bigger than the one she had at Thierry's. Here was a huge four-poster bed in the centre of the room and a huge walk-in-wardrobe, a vanity a large dressing area and furniture everywhere. "Wow." Phoenix said softly.
Star and Megan laughed. "We know. The rooms are really big, but we like to live in style."
"I can tell." Phoenix said.
Star laughed. "Do you want us to help you unpack or do you want to do it yourself?"
Phoenix thought for a moment. If she seemed like she didn't want them to see anything, then they might get suspicious. She shrugged. "Sure. The sooner it gets done the sooner… it gets done." Megan and Star laughed, "What?" Phoenix asked. "I didn't know what else to say."
They started to unpack all of Phoenix's clothes and every now and then Star and Megan would oh and ah over her clothes.
"We're the same size." Star said. "I'm definitely borrowing your clothes when I get the chance."
"Only if I can borrow yours." Phoenix said from the depths of the closet. She emerged a little while later. "My clothes barely fill up half of that. I really need to do some shopping." She saw Star's and Megan's eyes light up at that.
"We'll help you." Star said graciously.
"Yeah," Megan continued. "What kind of people would we be if we just left you in the middle of that big mall not knowing what to buy. We can go tomorrow if you want?"
"Sure," Phoenix said laughing. It was obvious that these girls really liked to shop.
"Now look what you've done," A voice said from the doorway. Phoenix spun around and saw Thorn. "Now we won't get any work done for about a week now." Even though he was trying to sound harsh, there was a big grin on his face.
Josh was standing there as well, but he was outright laughing. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into Phoenix. These two can be deadly when it comes to shopping."
Thorn nodded. "My credit card still hasn't fully recovered from the last time Star decided she was going to buy 'a few things'."
Star pouted. "It was only a few things."
Thorn snorted. "You practically bought out the whole store and what you didn't buy, Megan did."
Megan laughed. "Well, what did you expect? You guys owed us big time."
"What did you do?" Phoenix asked curiously. She had really thought that these people would be… crueler, at least a little bit mean, but they seemed like really nice people.
"We had to do this job." Star explained, "And it involved Megan and I wearing these absolutely gross outfits."
"I didn't think it as so bad." Thorn said smiling.
"You wouldn't." Star said turning to give him a hard stare, when he just laughed she turned back to Phoenix. "We had to wear these little I guess 'things' was the only thing you could say to describe them. There wasn't much to them."
"That's an understatement." Megan said. "You know that old TV show 'I dream of Jeanie." When Phoenix nodded she went on. "Well you know what she wore, we wore less than that."
Phoenix put her hand over her mouth trying to hold in her laughter. "Don't laugh." Star said, "It wasn't funny."
"I'm sure it wasn't for you." Phoenix said, getting herself under control. "Well I think I'm going to go to bed now if tomorrow is going to go on as long as I think it is."
"Good idea." Megan said. "We'll wake you up at eight and we'll leave at nine. Wear good shoes because we'll be doing a lot of walking."
When they had all left Phoenix got really for bed. As she was lying there trying to get to sleep, she could help but notice that fact that these people had just accepted her with barely any questions asked. Our contact must really be trusted, Phoenix thought just before she fell asleep.
