A/N: HELLO! Here's chapter eight! Woot! Sorry about the big cliffy…couldn't resist… So anyway, My school year is about to start and I'll probably be extremely swamped with homework and research and things like that, so updates may take a bit longer than they already do. Please know that I will NOT, I repeat, NOT abandon this story with out letting you know first, so if a chapter doesn't come for a while, bear with me, it WILL come.

I would also like to shout out to the few who sent reviews, you know who you are! 

OK! On with the story!

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"What's your secret, Mr. Shan?" She asked, smiling.

Darren froze.

Should he tell her?

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Darren didn't say anything for a minute, just sitting there staring at Whisper with his mouth hanging slightly open. Whisper's brow furrowed in confusion, and she must have sensed that she had touched a nerve.

"Darren? I'm sorry! You don't have to…" She started, but trailed off. He continued to look at her, and then leaned in to peer into her eyes, almost like he was trying to read something written there in very small print.

"You want a secret?" He began quietly, almost inaudibly, so Whisper had to lean even closer to be able to hear him. "I can tell you the mother of all secrets." He said, still looking at her very intensely.

"What are you on about?" She asked, confused.

"It would mean your life if you told," He continued, "Mr. Crepsley would have no choice… he won't even want me telling you in the first place."

She just got more confused by the second, but of course, didn't let it show. "What is it that you would like to tell me?" She whispered.

He leaned in, and brought his mouth closer to her ear, near her cheek. He whispered to her, so quietly that she had to stop breathing to be able to hear him.

"I'm a vampire." He said simply. He heard her audibly exhale the breath that she had been holding, and turned her head, so that her lips were about an inch from his ear, and smiled.

"I know," She said. Still smirking, she leaned forward, stood up, and walked towards the stream to take a drink, leaving Darren sitting there, flabbergasted.

She knew? How in the hell could she know? Nobody's supposed to know!

Managing to find his voice, he called out to her.

"Don't fall in now, I won't save you again!" he warned. She could obviously sense what was on his mind, so she cleared it up for him.

"Evra didn't tell me, you know." She said, finishing up by the water and turning to him. "I found out myself."

"H-How?" Darren asked, thoroughly alarmed that he might have done a dead giveaway.

"Nobody else can find out the way I did, don't worry," She laughed. "I found out the night that ember burned your foot. When I… help things, I also kind of help their auras… and yours is not human… and I had seen you about to attack that rabbit… so I just figured."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "So you won't tell anyone? Why didn't you tell me? What…" He trailed off, at a loss for words. This girl really knew how to keep quiet.

"In order: No, of course I won't tell anyone. And I didn't tell you because I couldn't tell you about myself, and I didn't want you to think I was spying on you or anything." She said.

"Um…ok." Standing up and stretching his arms, he smiled her sheepishly. "So what do you think we should do now?"

"Try and follow the river back to the trail, of course. Were you thinking something different?" She asked, following him with her eyes as he walked towards her, until they were about six inches apart. She had to crane her neck upwards slightly as he got closer to keep eye contact, as he was a good seven or eight inches taller than she was.

They stood there in silence for a moment, Darren contemplating his next move. Apparently coming to his decision, he nervously reached up to her face, gently cupping her chin with his hand. She stiffened, obviously nervous, and not sure about what was about to happen, which was rare.

"Something like that," He whispered quietly. Gently pulling her chin to bring her face up, he bent his neck, bringing his own down, and softly kissed her lips. His free hand slid oh-so-lightly around her waist to the small of her back, resting in the gentle curve, pulling her a little closer. Her hands were resting on his hips, and the kiss was tender and chaste. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally pulled his lips and hand away from her face, and brought the hand that was not already there to rest on the curve of her back, pulling her even closer to hug her. He rested his chin on the top of her head, and they stood for a while.

"Okay, now we'll do whatever you wanted to do in the first place." He said softly. He noticed that she stiffened, and shifted her head, forcing him to pull his head back and look her in the face.

"You've got nerve, Darren Shan," She said, fighting to keep away the smile that was fighting o take over her features. She lost this internal battle, and she smiled prettily. He returned the smile, and finally let her go. Planting a quick kiss on her forehead, he turned and walked over to where his shirt, shoes, and socks were. Whisper stood there and watched him put in his shirt. When he was clothed, she regained her senses, shook her head, and bent down to pick up her book, which she had set down when she had come to get a drink.

Walking over near Darren, she waited for him to finish putting his shoes on. When he was done, he stood up, stretched once more, and began walking, gesturing for her to follow. She did, and they began their trek back to the camp, if they could find it.

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They had been walking together in almost complete silence, one of them occasionally asking the other if they wanted to stop for a break, for about two hours. They were following the river upstream, and they hadn't yet seen any familiar landscape, but it was hard to tell because almost everything looked the same.

Darren was the first to break the silence.

"I'm hungry, are you?" He asked her.

"Yeah, but I doubt we're hungry in the same way," she joked.

He just rolled his eyes and they resumed their silence, both of them keeping an eye out for anything they could kill and eat, for about another hour and a half. Abruptly, Darren froze, and grabbed Whisper's arm, causing her to stop as well. She looked at him and opened her mouth as if to ask him what he was on about, but when she got her eyes turned to him, she found him looking at her with a meaningful stare with a finger pressed to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. She nodded and looked around looking for what he had smelled or heard. He let go of her arm, only to grab her by the waist, and drag her behind a bush and under a tree, keeping his finger to his lips to keep her quiet. He sat her down, straightened up, and motioned for her to stay put. She nodded, and he turned away to go after whatever it was that he had sensed. He walked away, and because of the bush, she could no longer see him. She heard a rustling a few meters away, and then an angry hiss, and then a quick crack. She then heard silence, but had enough sense to know that Darren would come and get her when he felt it was okay for her to come out, so she stayed there, listening. She heard nothing for a minute, and then a strange sound, like a suction cup. Then it struck her exactly what was going on, like a slap in the face. He was feeding.

Not much later, he returned, a dead fox hanging limply from his hand, which was grasping it by its broken neck. He reached out to her with his free hand, and helped her to her feet.

"I've got dinner," he said, wiggling to fox.

Brushing herself off, Whisper glanced at the dead fox he was holding up, and then at Darren's face. Smirking, she took the animal from him.

"I know you like your meat rare and …bloody, but I prefer mine cooked. Is that okay?" She smiled. He laughed and told her to find somewhere to stop to eat, while he went to look for some dead logs to start a fire with. Nodding, they walked off in different directions.

When Darren came into the small clearing in which Whisper had decided to dine, he found her sitting peacefully leaned up against a rock, reading her book, while the dead fox sat on another rock, already skinned and beheaded. A bloodied pocket-knife rested next to it, and Darren just assumed she carried it with her, incase she ever needed it. She DID live on the edge of a large forest, after all. He also noticed that she had gathered some smaller rocks and put them in a circle, making a makeshift fire pit.

"I see you managed to find me. Did you bring wood?" She asked, not looking up from the large, and heavy-looking book that was resting open on her knees.

"Uh, Yeah. What IS that book anyway?" He asked, setting some of the wood in the small fire pit, and some off to the side, for later.

"A book on vampires." She replied, not batting an eye.

Disguising mild surprise, he coughed.

"You going to help me?" he asked cautiously, wondering what kind of things she was reading about in that book. She looked up at him, put her book away (marking her page with a fallen leaf) and walked over to the edge of the small pile of rocks, picking up the skinned fox on her way.

"Sure."

So they cooked their meal, each eating as much as they could, as they both knew that this might be their foods for a while. They ate their food and had good conversation, until they were both full. They decided that since it was starting to get on in the day, and it would be getting dark soon, they should just stay in the small glade they were in, in case there wasn't another one for a while ahead. They settled in for the night, leaving their small fire going. They each found a rock and curled up against it, using their own arms for pillows, and lay down for a while, talking until it got dark, when they started to nod off.

It had been a pleasant day.

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A/N WOOT! Chapter eight! Sorry, it's kind of short, I'm planning on making the next chapter longer, but it might take a bit longer to finish and post and everything. Also, send in those reviews:D

In case there's any confusion, yes, Whisper was pretending that she didn't know his secret, and was getting confuse because she didn't know the sheer magnitude of something like that. She was hoping he would tell her… and I guess she would have been angry if he hadn't… maybe I should have done that instead…….