Chapter 2
The next day passed exactly as its predecessor had, without even the smallest of differences.
Zoey had stood up early in the morning, staring blankly at a wall for several minutes before gathering the power to leave bed, had quietly eaten a scarce breakfast with her roommate and without speaking another word, rushed down to Wonderland in her work uniform.
Just like yesterday, she put on a mask of happiness to distract the world from the vast emptiness hidden behind her eyes. Just like yesterday, nobody saw through it.
By the time lunch time rolled around, Zoey was dead tired. She was used to the tiresome work that consisted not only of attending to customers, but making customers want to be attended by her by now — somehow though, her daily visit at the national park yesterday had drained the eighteen-year-old a little more than usually. Zoey sighed, impatiently watching the vintage wall clock. Only one more minute, and she would have gained freedom for half an hour.
Only one more minute, and she would be allowed to hide away somewhere and let her mask drop.
"Ms Allen?"
She turned around. A customer she had never seen before, greasy black hair framing his uneven, juvenile features, stared her down expectantly, a triumphant smirk on his thin lips as she politely made her way towards him.
"Welcome to Wonderland," she said apathetically. "Today's special is chicken casserole. What would you like to drink?"
The customer did not answer, instead taking in his waitress's features in sudden wonder. Several awkward seconds passed before Zoey politely coughed.
"Is anything the matter, sir?"
"Ms Allen," he repeated, obviously reading the name off Zoey's name tag. "Excuse me, but don't I know you...?"
Zoey's heart threatened to explode in her chest.
She froze. No, she told herself, this could not be, not now, not after all this time of hiding...
"I'm sorry, sir," she gulped nervously. "You must have me mixed up with someone."
Another devilishly long moment of silence passed, the customer continuing to intriguedly stare at Zoey and Zoey continuing to seem as confident as possible, before the customer laughed out loud, patting Zoey on the shoulder.
"Just playing with ya, sweetie," he said. "Why so tense?"
"I-I.." she stammered, "You know what, I'm sorry, but I'm on my lunch break. My colleague will be with you shortly."
And she sprinted away in utter desperation and embarrassment before the customer could object.
Zoey reached the back of the restaurant in record time, noticing Lila sitting in a corner, smoking a cigarette and boredly playing on her cellphone.
"Lila," she exclaimed. "There's a customer who needs to be waited on, and I'm on my lunch break."
Lila merely shrugged. The short girl slowly stood up, stepped onto her cigarette, killing the flames, and walked away into the direction of the restaurant. "Sure," she said. "See you later."
Zoey wordlessly nodded, looking after her friend as she walked out of the safety of the private back of the restaurant. When Zoey was sure that Lila was out of hearing and seeing range, she closed her eyes, letting the tears run freely.
For a few minutes, she was herself.
Zoey finally ventured out of her hiding spot a little less than ten minutes later, her eyes slightly puffy, her carefully applied mascara minimally messed up. If anybody had dared to look closely at the supposedly happy, shy waitress, they would have surely noticed it. Within seconds they would have understood that she was anything close to happy.
But for that, they would have had to look.
She hastily left Wonderland, walking into the town center to look for a bite to eat.
A few minutes earlier and several hundred kilometers away, a group of five pale, golden-eyed creatures bid its blackly cloaked visitors farewell.
"Well," a golden-eyed woman with strawberry blond curls spoke up, "I hope that your stay in Alaska was to your liking. Please, greet your Masters from us."
"Of course," a little girl, her angelic face half-hidden by her cloak, apathetically answered. "We are satisfied to see that in our absence, you have not broken any laws. Please continue not to do so. The Volturi do not give second chances."
"We'll keep it in mind," the strawberry blonde smiled.
"Farewell, then."
Within the blink of a human eye, the black cloaks were gone.
They sped through the vast landscapes of rural Alaska as a unit, not once stopping. After their once-a-century compulsory visit to the Denali coven, the elite Volturi guard had one destination and one goal only — Volterra.
They were swift, graceful in their movements, even now, as they were not trying to impress. Millennia of practice had made it impossible for the Volturi to be anything but perfect in their movements; both to install fear in their enemies and attract their prey. Any human witnessing their sprint by accident would surely have mistaken the pale figures in their pure black cloaks for a long, translucent piece of luxurious black silk, quickly yet with somehow disturbing beauty dancing in the wind.
Several minutes later, the eyes of a boy, his face holding a strange similarity to the apathetic girl, blackened in thirst, and he impulsively stopped running.
"Alec," the girl hissed. "What are you doing? We must continue traveling. Aro is expecting our return."
The boy named Alec rolled his eyes. "Do you see that city in the distance?" he asked. "It's big enough that a few missing humans would not cause suspicion. I think we should hunt."
The other two males nodded in agreement. They too longed for nutrition.
There was silence for a moment, then the girl said "Fine," giving in. "But let us be quick and clean. We have no time to waste."
The four vampires gave each other one last look of agreement, then sped away into another direction, towards the town. Within seconds they passed a sign that welcomed them in Whitehorse, and only moments after, they were in the city.
It was noon. Many humans were out, just like them looking for something that would satisfy their hunger. Were the guards careless, they would have grabbed the first group of four they would have found and drained them dry. But they were not careless. This was not their city, and they would have to be careful not to draw attention to them or their actions. And so they patiently waited, hiding in an alley.
"Unaccompanied humans," the girl ordered. "Ones that seem unimportant. Don't let them scream."
Alec found his prey first. The man was old, in his sixties, and smelled of alcohol. The vampire numbed him before draining him, making it impossible for his victim to make a sound. His fellow guard members followed his example soon after. Within the course of few minutes, three corpses, two young girls and one middle-aged woman, kept the old man company in the back of the alley and the guards' eyes were back to bright crimson.
"What now?" a tall vampire asked. "We can't simply leave them here."
"I smell water nearby," the girl observed. "There must be a lake within the city walls, Felix. I suggest we drop the bodies off there and then continue our journey."
"Sounds good, Jane."
Utilizing their full speed to assure that nobody would see them, the small congregation followed Jane as she led the way to a lake. Fortunately there were no humans nearby, and so they made a point of finding the deepest part and throwing their victims into the lake there.
They were just about to turn around and leave the town once and for all when Jane said, "We are not the only immortals here."
The guards froze. Officially, Canada was one of the few vampire-free countries that still existed in the world. This could not be good.
"Aro will be interested to know," she added.
"We should follow this vampire's scent," Alec replied. "Maybe he is just passing through, like us."
Jane laughed and pointed at a newspaper stand nearby. The headline read Three Missing — Number of Unlocated Missing Persons Rises To Twenty.
"Maybe not," Felix noted.
"I still think that we should follow this vampire," Alec said, adding: "The Masters will appreciate this knowledge when making a decision of what is to be done."
"I agree," the fourth guard spoke up. He was almost as tall as Felix, and his hair was messy.
Jane sighed. "We will stay to make sure that the vampire is not causing any turmoil. But we leave for Volterra by the evening."
"Agreed," Alec smiled.
They quickly tracked the vampire down, following his scent until they eventually found him sitting on a bench in the city center. It was a cloudy day, and the newborn could be in the open without fearing to be exposed by the sun. He seemed relaxed, at ease almost. He was tall, slender, had short brown hair and the shockingly bright crimson eyes of a newborn.
To avoid being detected, they sat down in a dark café with a good view of the city center, still being able to see and hear the newborn due to their advanced senses.
"Jane," the messy haired guard said. "He can't be older than a year. We have to get him out of here, make sure he doesn't go on a rampage."
Just then, a shy-seeming human walked by, half-covering her face behind her long, brunette hair. The vampire smiled, looked around himself to see several other humans, and called out "Zoey!"
"Demetri," Jane replied, "I think we should see why he knows the name of this mortal first."
The shy human turned, noticing the vampire stare expectantly at her, and, her eyes widening in both surprise and dread, smiled. "Noah!" she cried out. The human hastily ran over to the newborn, then whispered, "What on Earth are you doing here?"
"She knows him?" Jane asked, perplexed.
"You said I could go out into town more often," the newborn named Noah replied smugly. "And here I am, doing exactly that."
The girl named Zoey sighed, then demanded: "Have you fed this morning?"
"Oh for f*ck's sake," Felix cried out. "She knows?!"
"Silence," Jane hissed. "He'll hear us."
Noah glared at the girl, then shook his head. "Why would I if I just had those three teens yesterday?"
The human was obviously irritated by now. "Maybe because you were planning on sitting in a place full of people?"
The newborn smirked. "And here I was, thinking you held even an ounce of trust in me."
"I... I do trust you." Instantly, Zoey turned from offensive to defensive.
"You better," the newborn said.
"Look, Noah," the girl sighed, "I'm sorry, but I came out here to get a bite to eat. I'm going to have to go now."
But Noah held her back.
"Look, Zoey," he replied, mocking the human. His eyes turned pitch black. "I want to get a bite, too. There were other people sneaking into the park just as I left. I could have had them. You know why I didn't? Because I thought, why don't I surprise the one person that remotely cares about me in her lunch break today? The least you could do to appreciate my sacrifice is be hungry with me. Sit back down."
Fear evident in her eyes, Zoey sat back down.
"She's either completely brave or a completely coward," Alec remarked. "I can't seem to figure out which one."
"I'll need to get back to Wonderland in a few minutes," the girl said. "My lunch break is finite."
Noah shrugged. "Then stay with me just a little longer."
"Promise me you'll go straight back to the park when I'm gone." There was desperation in Zoey's voice.
"Just trust me!"
"Noah..."
"Okay, okay." He gave in. "You win."
"This weirdly reminds of Isabella and Edward Cullen's relationship," Demetri commented.
"There was a man in the restaurant today," Zoey said, trying to make conversation. "He thought he recognized me from somewhere. I almost had a heart attack. He said that he was only joking, though."
"What?!" Noah cried out. "Zoey, you really need to be a little more attentive. What if... what if he'd actually known you?"
"He didn't," she sighed. "Besides, I'm already paranoid enough."
"I don't care if you had to be a hundred times more paranoid, if only that meant you'd be able to assure that such things wouldn't happen."
Zoey merely shook her head in disbelief in response.
"I don't get it," she finally replied.
"What is there not to get?"
"Why do you care so much?"
Noah cast his gaze downwards.
"Because," he answered, "After I became this, you promised me something. You promised me you'd never leave me. That you'd always be there for me. And I need you. I need you to be there for me. You wouldn't understand why, but for me, everything depends on it." He sighed. "Please just trust me. I need you to be careful, so that you can always be there for me. Promise me?"
"I promise."
"I've seen enough," Jane snarled. "Poor girl. Let us leave, the Masters will want to decide what to do with them."
Instantaneously, they were on their way.
Author's Note: I hope you liked it! Please leave me a review. Sadly, eventhough this story has gotten way over a hundred views so far, I've only gotten three reviews up until now, which, again, is a bit sad. So please, if you are reading this and liked it, it won't take long but it'll make my day. Three reviews for the next chapter!
Also, it's deliberate that you don't know much about Noah and Zoey. I want to make it kind of a mystery, but it will be revealed by Chapter Eight. And I'll leave the occasional clue on the way :)