(Redaura's Chapter ;) Please review! :) Tam's chapter next... )

Pandie: thank you! Our first fav! :) And I reviewed! I'll read the next chapter when I get time...

Dolphin: What did you expect? ;)

Smoke

In the room beside Talitha's Faith stared at her mirror. She had the same features as her sister. Blonde hair, similar eyes that where greener and medium height. But she lacked something that Talitha had, that glow. And her beauty Faith thought wryly. She was jealous of her sister for a brief moment, then suppressed it in guilt. You wouldn't want her to have to go around looking like you now would you?

She bent her head to her task. Why oh why had she taken history? Oh yes, it was that or maths... Maths was certainly looking good. No long essays on Elizabethan Society for one thing! The fact that Faith could barely count straight was a minor detail.

Her fingers started to cramp as she laboriously stamped them away at the unresponsive keys. She muttered under her breath, about the world in general.

At the rate this essay was going it was Talitha who would have the joy of waking her up with a smug expression and the 'I-told-you-not-to-stay-up-so-late'. She twisted her lips. If that had to happen no one would be moving in the morning.

Hurrah for big brothers.

She laughed, secure in her family.

But the damn essay was still here. She looked around her mix and matched room. No respite there.

Faith growled, and pulled the orange and cream duvet over her head. She grunted what was meant to be "Switch the damn light off," but sounded more like feeding time at the zoo.

A laugh was sounded as the cover was cruelly ripped away from her. She sat bolt upright and screamed "Aidan! You bastard!" She grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. To her satisfaction it hit him squarely in the face. Her smug smile was hidden by the same pillow rebounding off him and into her.

"Well, it woke you up!" Aidan said cheerfully. "Stay up!"

Faith rolled back into bed. Just five minutes...

Fifteen minutes later she and Talitha where running around trying to use the bathroom, grab all their stuff and out of the door in time for school.

Flame watched from the convenient undergrowth, being careful of the hired help. It was strange to see the Nightworld witches, ingrained with vermin as family. It was disgusting. The way they acted like- like sisters. The witch and the vermin. It rolled his stomach and made him feel... unclean. And to top it off at least the female 'witch' was a Daybreaker. It meant that the male witch was probably as well. Not to mention the vermin.

No wonder they where under an assassination hit.

Flame grinned savagely. Their stupidity was his gain. Money, fun and an outing. Nothing better.

Faith smiled as she entered the sixth form building. Being late it was almost empty. Only the normal suspects where hanging around on the comfy seats, sprawling everywhere. They glanced once at her as she entered and then went back to their conversations.

She made it up the back stairs, having decided to skive art to find her group of friends. It a buggar that they weren't there. With a sigh she set off to find them, leaving her stuff on top of lockers. It wasn't like this to school to actually have enough lockers for the mere two hundred sixth form students to use. Oh no.

Hopefully they'd still be there when she got back.

Then she set off down the field, heading for 'Lovers Lane', ironically passing by the old, stone church. Rotting benches stood vigil along the tarmac, and cigarette butt ends littered the place liberally. Being sixteen and 'allowed' to smoke, just not site meant each sixth form student that felt the need stood just off the school grounds.

They had been arrested on charge of a 'bad influence'.

She shivered, it was bloody freezing to put it mildly. She wrapped her jacket around her frame and kept on walking. The gang always had to go to the most outlandish places just to have a fag. Most of the time it wasn't a fag, it was a joint. Not that the teachers ever noticed the stoned students, or the 'hangover'.

Faith went through the kissing gates and swore.

They weren't here either! She might as well have gone to art.

Why don't I try down at the river? Faith frowned, puzzled. Where had that thought come from? They didn't normally go down at the river in winter, having (tragically, from the smokers point of view) lost fags in a spate flood.

But it was worth a try. She didn't have a clue of where else they would be.

Walking through the town centre at ten in the morning was erriy too. It wasn't normally this deserted. People where normally going about their mundane businesses, always in a rush, always needing to be somewhere else.

Bare pavements and dark shops met Faiths eyes. She shrugged. Maybe everyone had gone to the river.

At the river, the grey stones glinted or lay there in their mattness, untouched and alone. No one was here... except she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck raise. Like someone was watching her. Was this a wild goose chase? Hide from Faith day?

She turned and screamed as she was grabbed. One short burst of terror. Then nothing as the rolling waves of blackness came in. They hit her, crushing her mind, and forcing her to fall unconscious into arms...

Flame smirked down at the vermin in his arms. It had been so damn easy.

The 'witches' would come for the vermin. The 'witches' would see the vermin die. Then they'd die.

Simple plans really made Flames day. There was nothing simple about the torture he was planning though…