It was not long before he joined me. I heard his shoes gently click along the pavement in front of me. I looked up and smiled. "Demetri."

He returned the greeting before holding out his hand for me to take. I did so. "It's very pretty on you. It complements the dress well."

I shook my head. Of course he had known about the gift Aro planned to give me. He thought he was so sly, but I did not miss it. "Is it time to go inside already?"

"Not unless you wish to." His eyes lingered on mine which I used to tell him that that was the last thing I wanted. I was enjoying my time in this new area. "Do you want to take a walk? There's a small garden around the corner you might like."

I nodded. I could use the fresh air, and as long as I had the chance, I wanted to take advantage of it.

He led me to gated wall of the courtyard and pushed it open. I stepped through and on the other side laid a hidden garden. Ivy clung to the high brick, and beautiful, vibrant plants were scattered in assortments along a stoned paved walkway. A small tree stood at the end and hanging from a thick branch was a swing swaying slightly in the breeze. The most noticeable color throughout was yellow. The shade was so content and happy that the same feeling rushed over me. It reminded me of the sun.

Demetri came in behind me and watched me intently. The sun was still behind the clouds, but I was hoping it would come back out to play for a while before we had to take our leave. He came up behind me quietly. "What do you think?"

"It's nice, serene even." I did not know how else to describe it. Although the flowers were well kept, there was an air of mystery that hung over it. Parts of the grass had still overgrown and a few weeds dared to peek out between stems. The ivy was growing however it pleased with no certain direction, and the stone seemed slightly eroded beneath my feet.

"It belonged to Didyme," Demetri finally commented. "Aro wished to share it with you."

"Didyme? His sister?"

"Yes."

Didyme, Aro's sister and Marcus's deceased wife. She had been murdered a very long time ago and since then, Marcus had presumably never been the same. No wonder the garden appeared the way it did. The one part that had remained completely untouched from the growing brush was the area around the swing, and a part of me already knew why.

"She used to love to come here. It was her joy and passion. He thought it may help calm you from the earlier discussion."

I turned to Demetri almost accusingly but not at all angry. "You knew?"

"I guessed." He shrugged it off as simple as that, or so I had thought. After a moment he appeared in front of me, and I glanced up at him. "Does the idea frighten you?"

I sighed. Even if I should have been, that was not the case.

"What," Demetri asked sounding amused.

"I'm not scared of it."

His eyes felt as though they were piercing through me trying to figure me out. "Then what is it?"

"It's not worth it." I stated it matter of factly because I believed it so well to be true. Perhaps it was even understated. I was not worth it.

"Becoming like us isn't worth it?" I could tell Demetri was confused by my choice of wording. How would I know if it was worth it or not until I tried it out for myself? My mom used to say such things to me. 'How do you know unless you try?' Of course, you could not just try this out. There was no going back once it happened.

"I mean, what if he's wrong? What if he's wrong in whatever he sees in me? He seems to think I have some sort of special gift, but what if I don't? Then what? It was all for nothing?"

His eyes softened, and he knelt down to my level, being a good foot taller than I was. "Sara, you should feel honored that he chose you. You shouldn't question it."

"But I have to. What if I wasn't like this? What if I was normal? He would want nothing to do with me. He would have killed me years ago. No, you would have killed me years ago, or Felix. You know it's true."

Silence fell over us for a long moment as his eyes turned down to the ground. I knew he was deep in thought struggling with what to say next. He could not deny the fact with certainty. We both knew that deep down. "You shouldn't be concerned with that."

I turned and began to walk away from him frustrated with his incapability to understand where I was coming from. I did not get far however before I felt his hand around my wrist and gently pulling me to a halt. "Let go."

His grip never loosened from my wrist although I could have easily pulled my arm from him at any time. He never tightened his hold either when I made to break free from him, so I paused. What was he playing at? I faced him once more, but what I saw was not what I had been expecting to see. His eyes were haunted by something and right then, my heart skipped a beat.

He spoke so softly I had to take a step toward him to hear. "Maybe you're right if that had been the case, but it wasn't. Suppose that after, you don't show what he believes you to have. That doesn't mean you're nothing. Whether you see it or you don't, you are special, even if what is was not." He let go of my wrist after that and took two steps to cross me and headed to the gate. "You are not and never have been worthless."

I heard the swing of the gate, and I knew I was alone.

I was still trying to decipher what Aro had meant by the fact that 'I was.' I was what? Certainly he could not so easily see right through me. Then again, perhaps he could. These were strange men I knew nothing about, and I was at the point of believing that they were not even human at all. All things considered, they had deep red eyes which were not normal, skin so ghostly white that the three men before me seemed almost translucent; on top of that, the reflection of the light off of their skin was next to impossible but was not. Their skin was ice to the touch and Demetri's speed had been unnerving.

"You must excuse me, my dear. It is only that I have yet to ever come across a human like you before. It does so fascinate me as it did Demetri."

Fearful as I was of this stranger before me, my confusion was over the top causing my head to spin erratically, physically and mentally. "What are you talking about?" It came out in a whisper, but he seemed to hear me perfectly.

"Your scent or lack of."

"What?"

"Certainly you've realized by now?"

Realized what, I wondered. That they were odd, crazy, insane, and different? Certainly I had realized that. The question I was waiting for him to answer was why. Had I gotten myself involved in some sort of satanic cult where they sell their souls to the devil for power and fortune? I was leaning highly towards that theory. At least that had some sense of plausibility to it.

Aro then touched his finger to my throat, right along the pulse. He pressed just slightly enough that I could feel it pumping through my skin. His eyes watched me as he traced the line of the artery and to the center of my throat. My breathing was uncontrollable at this point, and I felt for certain that he was at any point going to grab me by my neck and choke the life away from me.

"You're so young, are you not?"

The question was rhetorical, a simple fact.

"Aro." The man who I once thought lost to the world around him spoke.

His hands went to his sides once more as Aro turned to face the other. "Marcus, what do you think?" Aro was in front of me one second and next to Marcus the next, their hands joined together. This time, I had been watching. I had not turned to see no one there. I had seen him disappear in front of my eyes and reappear on the other side of the room.

My gasp caught their attention as if they had thought it would be such a normal occurrence for me that I saw every day. The third's eyes never left me, a sick grin along his face. I took a step back, but as I did, hands encircled the top of my arms holding me in place. Demetri and the other had materialized beside me, and I panicked. The room began to spin even worse than it had been before, and I felt a strong urge to vomit. A chill rushed over me, and I clinched my eyes shut. A ringing began in my ears and I heard myself whimpering for it to stop. Eventually, it did.

When I woke up, I found myself lying on the four poster bed of the same room Demetri had taken me to so I could wash up. The mattress was so soft that my body gladly sunk into it. The comforter was too warm, likely filled with down. I pushed it off of me and began to sit up when a wave of dizziness once again hit. Suddenly, I felt an arm wrap around the top of my back and help me into a sitting position. When I opened my eyes, I saw Aro beside me.

I tensed as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Shh. I will not harm you, my little one."

The room was still as I tried to relax but to no avail. He reached over slowly and moved the hair away that had fallen in front of my face. "You're not human, are you?" My voice sounded so small, so weak.

He smiled. "No."

"Then what?"

"I do want to try something, if you don't mind?"

"You're evading my question."

Aro took my left arm into his hand and turned it palm side up. I immediately tried to pull away knowing he was about to see the one secret I kept hidden so well, but his grip was too tight. His eyes stared at the marred skin before him. "What is this?"

I said nothing but looked away.

"Now you're evading mine."

The memories flooded back into my mind, memories I did not want to remember. "I asked first."

"What is this, Sara?"

What stunned me is that he knew my name. In all the time I had been there, not once did Demetri or he ever ask for my name. Why would they if their only intent was to kill me after getting what they wanted from me. The fact that he knew my name was not important to me at the moment, but what was is that he was asking me a question I had no desire to answer.

I felt something sharp slice through my skin in that moment, and I winced, quickly turning to see a small blade in his hand, and a thin cut of blood droplets forming. I watched as he brought my arm up to him. He sniffed the blood, but the part that made me sick to my stomach was when his tongue lapped at it as it slowly trickled out. After a minute, the bleeding had slowed and nearly came to a stop. I was appalled at the scene that had occurred before me. "Your answer, now mine. Do you too have a thirst for blood?"

We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity as my mind worked to process what had just happened. Some may say I had too active of an imagination, but it was that very imagination that gave me the strength to accept everything I had seen and to come up with my conclusion. He admitted that he was not human, and I would be a fool not to believe him. Blood was the last piece of the puzzle. This was not a cult, it was a coven, and they were vampires.

"Correct you would be, my dear." He released me and stood while I sat glued to the spot. It was as if my body had forgotten how to move.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to. My gift. You never understood what I was doing when I took your hand? It is a form of communication for me." He chuckled under his breath. "I see and hear every thought you have ever had by a simple touch." His eyes held remorse with what he said next. "You have suffered great loss for one barely lived."

I immediately felt completely exposed to him. Vulnerable did not even begin to describe it. I shuddered at the thought of all he must have known about me by that point, all my fears and my weaknesses. He saw all the memories, my final memories that I had kept inside for so long of my parents, memories that were private. I could not help the anger that rose in me that second. "What?" It came out shaky, but I knew he noticed it was laced with enmity. "You don't know anything."

"True. I do not know why you would choose such a masochistic ritual to cope. Why cover pain with even more pain? No, I do not know why humans think the way they do. I do not know why they choose to torture themselves when doing so fixes nothing. So why? Why the waste of such a young life?"

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin, my toes squeezed tightly in recoil. I never thought about why I did it. I only knew that it allowed me to feel something. The only thing I was covering up was a sense of emptiness, of being numb. I did have a plethora of emotions bottled up inside of me, and when I ignored them for too long, I needed a sense of release. Seeing the blood flow freely was my high.

"Do you enjoy pain?"

The question shocked me. Who in their right mind would or could enjoy pain? Humans did everything they could to keep from experiencing it. No, I feared it.

Looking at him once again, I sighed. "It's not that I like it, but I deserve it."

"I cannot possibly see how."

"Like I said, you don't know anything."

Aro took a step toward the door then stopped. "You amuse me. You are so curious."

"Why?"

"I brought you here because of what Demetri had shown me. Your blood was different, having no scent to us. I thought perhaps by breaking through the skin's surface, its aroma would appear, but it did not. When it does appear, however, is when you sleep. Do you know why I now think that is?"

I shook my head trying to follow along the best I could.

"I think it is because when you are awake, you pride yourself on being as invisible to others as possible, but when you sleep, that defense is dropped, for how can one hide when in such a state of rest?"

I stared at him incredulously. Perhaps it made sense to him, but to me, it was all rambles.

"Demetri will be in soon." The door opened and he began to step out into the corridor.

"Wait."

Aro stopped expectantly and waited for me to continue. "Yes?"

"What you saw," I began, but he interrupted me.

"Can remain between us." As the door closed behind him, I stood and immediately regretted it.