(Please note that I am making up the towns mentioned in this chapter. I am not sure if they actually exist)

Our story starts the day after the accident. I woke up that morning just as usual. Took a shower, made myself look halfway decent and went downstairs to drink my morning blood bag.

But vampires aren't supposed to sleep, right? Yeah that's what I thought too, but life enjoys playing jokes on those not expecting it. I don't have to sleep as much as I do, but if Lorne knew that he'd be waking me up at three a.m. to ask why the sky is blue. He's very scatter brained, so I just tell him the basics. Lorne is a great guy, don't get me wrong, he's just slightly on the crazy and almost bipolar side, partially because his gift seems to change his mood. He can see glimpses into the future of those who sing to him. He sees so much a day that it almost drives him nuts. Key word almost.

He owns a karaoke bar down in Mystic, Massachusetts. That's just twenty minutes from our house in Southdale. Between him and Ed, they were able to fix the basement of an old building up into one of Mystic's most popular hot spots. Ed handles the business portion while Lorne handles the entertainment. Ed doesn't really have a gift per say but he is practically a genius. Running the business is a cake walk for him. They let me work there after school on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I'm a hostess and I occasionally run the cash register, and I say occasionally because that thing is frustrating as hell. You have to slam the side of it three times before the drawer will open.

I'm getting ahead of myself. When I came downstairs, the events of yesterday evening hit me quite literally. It hit me so hard I slipped and ended up sliding down the remaining seven stairs. I laid there crying my lovely tears of blood for a couple minutes before Hunter got put up with it and laid me on the everyone tried to be sympathetic about my dead friend and the others, the only one who really understood was Jonah. He and Charles were pretty close all through school. Last night hurt him worse than me.

It's not the blood leaking from my eyes like tears that creeped me out, it was the fact that it just didn't happen to anyone else...except Jonah on occasion, but he didn't sleep either, so I was basically the alien here. I got up off the couch and went into the bathroom for a moment to clean my face off, before i came back to the couch and plopped down with a sigh. I felt like my heavy heart was pulling me further down into the couch then it actually was.

Jonah came down stairs in his usually black zip up sweatshirt with a gray shirt underneath. He wore black skinny jeans as well with rips in the knees. To complete his emo look, black eyeliner surrounded his eyes. On most people it would look stupid, but on him it looked perfect. The emo look suited him well. I fiddled with the end of my black sweater praying he wouldn't say anything.

"Did someone die?" He asked. His hand flew to his mouth. "Shit, poor choice of words."

"It's fine as long as you do it here, if you do it at school I guarantee you will be slaughtered." Caleb told him as he finished walking down the stairs. "Evie fell down the stairs again." He snorted.

"Klutz..." He muttered before walking over to me. "You good sis?"

"Doing just great J-onah." I snapped quietly.

It may sound like a weird nickname, but that's what I do. I just say whatever name comes to mind. It's really terrible actually. I almost called a teacher a heartless...Well you don't need to know that, that's not what you're here for is it?

"I told you to stop it with that." He groaned, moving into the kitchen. I sat up off the couch and followed him.

"Are you sure you guys want to go today..." Lorne began.

"We're fine." We both said in unison.

"Why don't we do that?" Caleb asked Conner. He shrugged.

"Maybe because we aren't scary." We both shot him a glare, neither of us were in the mood for this today.

Usually, it was the war of the twins between the four of us. No rules applied and mornings were hectic. The best part was Ed and Hunter pretended like it didn't happen while Lorne was shouting exasperatingly at us as we threw various snide comments, insults, and whatever else we could use at each other, even the furniture. Though I appreciated they were treating us normally, I just couldn't get into it right now.

"You guys really don't have to go you know, if you guys don't want to go, it's fine it's not like a lot of people are going anyway."

"It's better if we go, I'd rather sit in a classroom depressed then here. It doesn't feel right to stay." Jonah said grabbing two blood bags out of the fridge, one for him and one for me. He placed them in the microwave and set the time.

"Evie, what about you?" Lorne asked as he rubbed circles on my back.

"I'll go with Jonah." I mumbled.

"I'll drive you guys today, you don't have to take the bus." Ed told us. It wasn't a question and the two of us knew not to fight it.

"Thanks..." Jonah trailed off as the microwave's piercing bell screamed it's horrible noise, causing the entire house to flinch.

"We need a new microwave, that thing is older than dust." Hunter stated as he came in the room. "There's a vigil tonight for them, if you guys want to go."

"I'll go, I don't feel close enough to them to go to their funerals." I said quietly. "Besides, I'm not sure if I want to be in a room full of humans and...and a body for that long." I felt tears prickling my eyes but I pushed them away.

"Same. We better go soon, or we'll be late."

Jonah left the room to grab his backpack. You could tell he just wanted to get this over with, he never cared about being late. Once we drank our blood, it was off to school unfortunately.

As the day went on, I wanted to rip my eyeballs out. That was no understatement. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't tell which people were being fake and which ones weren't. I'm sorry...that's insensitive of me. But you know how when someone dies, you observe the people around you, and you notice things. You notice things, things you never did before.

Maybe people weren't being "fake" per say, but they were more upset about the fact three teenagers died rather than upset because it was someone close to them. It was sad, and everyone here had a right to be upset, for it could have been any one of them last night. I felt cold shivers run down through my body the whole day, it was as if I could sense that they were still here. They were here, that's for sure. They themselves might not be, but their presence is still here. It hangs around the halls like garland on a Christmas tree.

Over half the student body wasn't even here, they should have cancelled. The once lively hallways of preppy bitch speak and haughty laughter was now dead silent...sorry, poor choice of words. But seriously, very quiet. Luckily they opened the library up to students for grief counseling.

I sat at a table with my friends McKayla and Josie. McKayla's usual perfectly made up face was clear of any makeup and her long brown locks were pulled into a pony tail. McKayla and I have been friends for a couple years, we got put in the same homeroom when we were in middle school. She was the only one I would talk to while we were there, minus Jonah. She sat across from me with Josie on her left.

Josie couldn't stop crying to save her life. She and I have been friends since fifth grade. Her family moved to a different street in town and she ended up going on my bus. For whatever reason, she decided to talk to me on the bus and we have been the best of friends ever since. Josie didn't need makeup in my opinion. She put some on today anyway, but it was all running down her face. McKayla sighed and pulled makeup wipes out of her backpack.

"I told you makeup was a bad idea..." Josie sniffles at her words and took a makeup wipe out of the package, using her phone camera as a mirror to get the makeup off.

"Thanks..." she mumbled quietly. "Should we head back to French class soon?"

"No." I said. "Mr. Pearson won't care that we are gone, he gets it."

"Besides, if any teacher tries to do anything today, people are going to be walking out." McKayla added. "Oh, there are the others..."

Jonah and his friends, Grace and Robert, walked into the library and over to us. The six of us sort of have a friend group going on. We sit together at lunch, and we'll occasionally hang out or have a party, but Jonah has classes with Grace and Robert while I have classes with McKayla and Josie. Charles was half in our group I guess. He had classes with both Jonah and I, but he hung out with all his sports friends mostly. He and Jonah would occasionally hang out at his house, but they talked in school most of the time.

Between the two of them, they could divert the class topic onto something completely unrelated for the whole class period, and the teachers couldn't do a thing about it, mainly because they got so absorbed in the debates that they never realized what the two were doing. They played it off like they were asking serious questions. It was rather amusing to say the least. It was one of those things where you would have to see it in order for it to really amuse you.

"Hey squirts..." Grace sat down in the chair next to me. We all mumbled some version of hello. Jonah and Rob pulled up chairs.

"So how are you guys holding up?" Rob asked, trying to start a conversation. I could tell he didn't care if we answered or not. It was kind of obvious but I answered anyway.

"We could be better."

"This whole thing is crazy..." Grace exclaimed. She covered her mouth with her hand. She flipped her blonde hair out of her face, her hair having bright pink highlights that looked even brighter against her black tee shirt.

"It could have been any of us..." McKayla trailed off. Jonah and I looked at each other and almost laughed. If we got in a car accident, the only way we would die is if the car ended up exploding.

"Just be grateful that it wasn't."

"Rob's right, they are gone, but we are still here..." Jonah almost whispered. "We are stuck here living on while they are going on to the next phase of life..." I could tell his words had a double meaning to them, the other meaning being about our immortality in the long run.

"Yeah, oblivion." Grace argued. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Me either." Josie flipped her blonde hair, hitting McKayla in the face. Rob snorted, causing McKayla to scoff in his direction. "Oops, sorry Kay."

"That's the second time you've done that to me today. It feels like I'm being whipped by a horse's tail when you do that."

"How would you know what that feels like?" Grace asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I have some ideas..." Rob mumbled teasingly.

"Shut up Robert!" McKayla whined. We all laughed for a moment before we all stopped.

"Does it make sense that I feel bad for laughing?" I asked, the smile dropping from my face. The corners of my mouth felt like they had weights on them, which pulled them far down my chin.

"No Evie, I feel like it's the same for everyone right now." Jonah responded. We sat in silence for a long while.

I'll save you the boring repetition of things. This is basically what I heard from everyone all day. We all feel horrible if we even smile...This isn't the best introduction of characters in our story, I know. But that's how it is until a certain someone comes along and changes everything.

We sat in the library all day for the most part. We could've gone to classes, but it wasn't worth it. Everything was just too damn depressing and I was sick and tired of hearing all the teachers say that the whole school is feeling this loss and that if we wanted to talk to an adult, they would be willing to listen. I'm sorry I sound bitter, I'm normally much happier. Loss and pain in the same equation don't do much good for my sanity either.

Ed picked Jonah and I up from school and we went home. I laid in bed for what seemed like forever before I fell asleep. I don't think I slept much last night, I was too emotional to even bother. When I woke up from my little nap I found Jonah lying on the bed next to me, watching me sleep. Now before you start romanticizing or making it out to be incest, this was just something he did when he was upset. He's done it ever since we were five, and kids were picking on him in school for being blunt and speaking his mind. I would rather have him being slightly creepy then angry at others, and planning schemes on how to stick gum in their hair. It's happened before...there are worse things he's schemed about.

"Hey..." I said.

"Hey..."

"I was hoping I would wake up and this would be some sort of cruel dream."

"At least you can sleep. I wish I could escape for a while...we have to leave for the vigil in a couple minutes. Hunter is taking us." I nodded and sat up. We both stayed silent for a couple minutes. Neither of us really were in the mood to talk.

"It's going to be freezing."

"And crowded with news trucks. You saw them all in front of the school this morning...I can't stand them. I can't stand any of them. They are just using this to get more ratings. It's sick."

"Yeah..."

"You'd think people would be respectful enough to leave the families alone, and everyone else who is grieving. I don't understand people like that at all. There's no common decency..."

"People suck, get used to it." I snapped as I got off the bed. I didn't really snap per say, but I didn't say it too nicely. I mumbled it to myself but it wasn't like Jonah couldn't hear me.

"No kidding..."

"Yeah no kidding! I'm so damn tired of everyone being so...so...so...I don't know what! Just depressing. Everyone has been so depressing all day and it's only going to be worse tomorrow..."

I don't know why I was so angry at him. I don't think my anger was at him, but at what happened with the accident. They were too damn young...they didn't get to do anything with their lives, all because the driver decided to speed. Just one wrong mistake and you could die...it was too cruel. But that's how the world was, wasn't it. I couldn't help the sobs erupting from my chest and the blood filled tears rolling down my face. Jonah stood up off the bed and pulled me into a hug.

"You're okay...I'm sorry."

"I shouldn't be angry at you..."

"I know, I know. It's fine okay, don't worry about it."

"How can I not? How can I not worry when everything keeps crashing down?! I had a bad feeling when I looked at all three of them yesterday. I felt it...I felt it..."

"Hey are you guys rea..." Hunter stood in the doorway and cut himself short when he saw us.

"Yeah, just give us a minute." Jonah told him.

I was grateful for that, I couldn't go downstairs looking like this unless I wanted Lorne to swaddle me in blankets and suffocate me with hugs. I didn't want to listen to him telling me that everything was going to be okay when it wasn't.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"No, I want to go."

I moved to my closet and grabbed a black hoodie and threw it on before grabbing a black beanie and bright purple gloves. I threw on an old pair of black Uggs before I walked downstairs. Jonah followed behind me as we moved into the kitchen where Hunter was talking with Ed.

"Alright well we're off, we won't be out too long. Probably, we'll be home at eight-ish." Hunter told Ed after glancing at the two of us.

"There's no rush, just don't freeze out there."

We said a quick goodbye before following Hunter outside to his car. The vigil was in the next town over, West Broker, and even though the car ride was short, it felt like an eternity. If only I knew the West Broker town common wasn't the only place we would be going that night...