A/n: Hello! Something important that I want to note before the story begins is that in this work, Alec and Jane are set to have been changed much later in life. They will not be the physical age of 14 but instead around the age of 18 or 19. I also wanted to note that if you are familiar with this story from before I decided to revise it, it is important to still read the first and second chapters! The first chapter is very similar but with more details added but the second chapter I have changed quite a bit. If you start with the third chapter, you may feel that you have missed something. This story has not been stolen!
Chapter One
When I envisioned a senior trip, I imagined that my school would chaperone a trip to someplace fun. Some place that was far enough from home for us to get the first taste of what it was like to experience true freedom from our parents but still calm enough that we were able to enjoy ourselves without the worry that we were so far from what we were familiar with. I envisioned something along the lines of sandy beaches and so much sunshine that I would eventually grow sick of it and desperately want to return to our gloomy hometown.
What we actually got for our senior trip was entirely different. Our school had nowhere near enough money to send us to the sunny beaches of the Bahamas so, despite the votes that they made the entire senior class put in for where we wanted to travel, it was decided that we would be going to Volterra, Italy.
I can't say for sure, but I am almost certain that the reason that they chose Volterra was because there were plenty of things for us to do for very low prices. For one, we were traveling just in time to catch a major festival that had no entrance fees and for the days leading up to it, free street parades were going on. I had even gotten word that we received an open invitation to view a historical building. Considering all of those things, hotels were having plenty of deals which meant that the school had scored both a cheap trip and an extra learning opportunity to bore us students with.
"Are you ready, Lorelei?" The voice from beside me said, earning my attention from applying mascara in the mirror of our shared, hotel bathroom. My roommate for the trip, Bronwyn stood at the door, watching me as she pulled her small backpack by its straps onto her back.
Ever since I had met Bronwyn—which was only four days ago, I couldn't keep myself from thinking about how unfortunate her name was for her. To simply put it, she was one of the prettiest girls that I had ever seen in my life with one of the ugliest names that I had ever heard in my life. At the same time that I felt her name didn't match her beauty, I felt that it matched her personality. She was clearly a unique girl who didn't seem to care about the opinions of other people around us, and I liked that.
Her hair was dark, and it was so short and so clean cut, that it fell to meet her jawline perfectly in a sharp bob. Her bangs were shorter than any bangs that I could ever even dream of having, so far above her thin eyebrows and yet they suited her face beautifully. She was incredibly slender and tall but neither stopped her from wearing the platformed boots she wore to match the outfit that I can only describe as being incredibly edgy, I think some part of her liked the attention her looks brought her. I guess that by now the name was growing on me, but I still couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of a man moaning it out loud in a sexual setting… or a woman at that, whichever she preferred.
We had been in Volterra for all of three days now, already having enjoyed two parades and the festival that seemed to be our main attraction for this trip and today was the day of our educational trip to the historical building for a tour.
According to Mr. and Mrs. Highwaller, two teachers at our school who were responsible for chaperoning our small senior class on this trip, we were meant to be on our best behavior at the site as we were invited for free by a few 'very important' people. As much as I would like to think that we were closer to being adults than we were to being children, something in me told me that something was bound to go wrong during this trip.
"Just a second." I responded as I walked past her to quickly throw a few of my own personal belongings into my small, forest green, backpack before moving to take one more look at my choice of outfit in the mirror. Once I could give myself the okay that I looked presentable enough, I was following Bronwyn out of the door.
The entire process of getting everyone in the group onto the bus, getting a proper roll call and arriving to the tourist spot took all of thirty quick minutes. Because we were all arranged on alphabetical terms for practically everything on this trip, I was seated beside Bronwyn for the ride who, despite choosing to dress in a manner that would lead anyone to believe that she wasn't interest in social interaction, kept me entertained with conversation about our plans for our first semesters of college.
We were so deep in conversation that it took both of us a moment to realize that everyone on the bus had suddenly grown quiet, everyone's eyes turned outside toward the left side of the bus to catch a better view of where we were arriving. To my shock, this was no old, industrial building like I had imagined and though I couldn't tell exactly when it had been built, it was beautiful. It was castle. Why anyone in a castle would invite a group of rowdy teenagers into such a beautiful place like this was beyond me.
Teenagers were stupid. They didn't think about the consequences of things like messing around and accidentally breaking something expensive and I was sure that at least one person here would not think twice about stealing something if it looked like it had good money value to it. I could see now why we were expected to be on our best behavior.
"You never told us that we were going to a castle." A feminine voice whined out from behind me. "I would have dressed in something way more presentable just in case we run into someone important."
Of course, I knew that by 'important' she actually meant that we had the potential of running into someone attractive. Someone with obvious wealth that would have an interest in a teenage girl from thousands of miles away from here. I rolled my eyes at the thought of it but who was I to ruin another girl's harmless fantasies. A few of the other students had no problem with it though, chuckling in response to her.
"I would have brought my camera. I could have taken really nice pictures here." Another, more masculine voice chimed in.
"Believe me, you will be forgotten about the moment that you step foot back outside of the castle." Mr. Highwaller spoke, in response to the girl that spoke. So much for letting a girl dream. "Besides, we were instructed to make sure that no cameras were brought inside with us. Everyone will have to leave their belongings on the bus, if they aren't important. They have made it clear that they do not want them in the building for safety reasons."
At his words, several groans were heard throughout the bus. Even I let out a huff of frustration having to leave my stuff here with the risk of it being stolen in mind but nonetheless, I obeyed his instructions and stood without my backpack to leave the bus with the other students. Once we were all ready, we followed the lead of our chaperone's as they led the way into the building and as if she were already anticipating that we were on the other side of the door, a blonde woman led us into the lobby of the building.
To put things politely, the tour was not interesting in the slightest. We weren't allowed in any of the rooms and the halls seemed endless. At one point, I had begun to think that our own tour guide had lost her way through the halls that all seemed identical apart from paintings that occasionally littered the walls. I grew more uncertain the moment that she led us toward two massive, wooden double doors and turned toward us with a pleased smile on her face.
"Well that practically concludes our tour today." She said, her tone cheerful and charming to match the beauty she so easily pulled off. "We will now enter the master's chambers. They are very pleased to meet all of you. It's not every day that they see so many young faces."
After those words, she turned and pushed the massive doors open to reveal a large room where three men sat, watching us, one, in the center with an excessive smile made my stomach turn. Near them, four other people, three men and a young woman stood, staring at us look around the room in awe.
Though most of their expressions were flat, it was their eyes that seemed to draw my attention in, making that gut feeling in my stomach more difficult to ignore. Where their eyes should have been a normal color such as green, brown, blue or even hazel, they were an electrifying shade of scarlet. At first, I was certain that I was imagining this and instead tried to focus on anything else. Their dark clothes varying in shades of black, those standing having lighter shades and those sitting in the chairs having the darkest. Just when my eyes moved to fix on their eye colors again, the sound of the double doors that allowed us in closed behind us.
"We are so glad to have you here." The man who was once in the middle said, as he stood. The longer that I watched the longer that I started to notice things about him that made me feel uneasy, like the alabaster skin that he had and the haunting grin that he bared for us. "You all smell divine."
At such a statement, I think that a few of the other students began to catch on to a few of the things that I had caught on to long before they had peeled their eyes off of the room. Some seemed to watch the people before us with visible discomfort and others glanced toward our chaperones who also seemed confused by the strange compliment. A few still seemed to be oblivious, one that I recognized almost immediately as being the girl from before on the bus who spoke of dressing to impress seemed flattered by the complement, eyeing one of the pale men who were standing off to the side.
"Oh, don't tease us, Aro." The blonde man who sat beside the man before us, who I can only assume to be Aro, said flatly. Despite his words, I don't think that it would have been possible for him to look any more bored than he looked right then. "Let's not play with our food."
And then, nearly half a millisecond after those words were said, all hell seemed to break loose. For a moment, I couldn't decipher if time was moving faster or if the people clad in varying shades of black were suddenly moving faster than every single person in the room. Faster than the blink of my eyes. It wasn't without a sudden feeling of weakness in my knees that I realized that they were moving at inhuman speeds.
Although so much was happened around me like the screams tearing through what was once silence amongst us students, my eyes were able to focus in on one scene in front of me. A large man, seemingly an entire foot and then some above my height, moved to a girl and picked her up so that she was left with little defenses other than kicking and screaming. My heart pounded in my chest and my eyes widened with horror as I watched him lean down and sink his teeth into the flesh of her neck.
I felt as though I was going to vomit as I desperately turned in an attempt to run in the opposite direction when I bumped into another student, Bronwyn, which slowed her in her own attempts to run away from another man who she must have caught the attention of. "Lorelei!" She shrieked just before the vampire used anything but gentle force to grab her with one hand and crane her head to the side, so that he could sink his teeth into her all while he stared at me dead in the eyes with a pair that were now so dark that I couldn't see the scarlet in them.
It was in that moment that I realized exactly why our trip was free. Never in my life would I have imagined that vampires existed and yet routines like this, luring tourists into private places that no one would ever be able to hear the screams of the groups of people was exactly the reason that I never knew of their existence.
Tears streamed down my face at this point and I didn't come to the realization that I had been screaming this entire time, watching the life drain out of the girl that I was soon learning to think of as a new friend. Once he had finished, he dropped her body, tossing it to the side as if she was nothing, as if she wasn't a living, breathing person, just seconds before.
"Stop." Another voice said coming from behind me and the man before me who I was certain was going to do the same thing to me that he did to Bronwyn if the voice hadn't spoken up. I was afraid to tear my eyes away from the man before me but reluctantly, he did so first, staring behind me at who was speaking.
Making sure that I could still see him out of my peripheral vision, I glanced across the room in horror to find that a majority of my peers were now lifeless bodies on the floor. I seemed to be one of the finalists in the sick game, along with the handful of students that were left, still in the grips of the monsters holding us hostage.
"May I ask what is wrong, Marcus?" The man who I now recognized to be Aro asked, seemingly growing both curious and impatient to have been stopped from feeding from the neck of a boy that I recognized from a chemistry class that I had our junior year.
"It seems that Alec may have found a deep connection with someone in this room." The second man, Marcus said, his voice deep and slow, and brooding.
"Oh?" Spoke Aro again, a grin on his expression widening to reveal his now bloodstained teeth. "Who is it, Marcus?"
"It is her." He said, looking directly at me now despite every effort in me to stay as still as I could in hopes of not being noticed despite the way that my body trembled. Quickly, I turned my head away from him, searching for any way out of this room but instead, my gaze caught on the boy in front of me again, who was staring right into me with those scarlet eyes.
A/n: Thank you so much for reading! I would like to apologize here for anyone who knew this story as the inverse of everything and and to wait for so long to see any updates for it. I have slowly started coming back to writing and I have a lot on my mind for where I want to take this story! Thank you so much for your understanding.