A/N: This chapter is dedicated to the two wonderful people who reviewed! Thanks Missing White Wings 15 and Kida Satsuki. As for the questions on Vans behavior, I had him lick is lips cause he was anticipating going against Hitomi. I guess it is sorta confusing. I'll try to explain peoples actions better Sorry! As for the feather being related to Van. That will come about in chapter 3! Which i'm half way done with writing! Just read this chapter and your vampire question shall be answered. Thanks again for reading! I love you guys!

Chapter 2 The encounter

Hitomi screams before a gloved hand covers her mouth and she is dragged out of the bush and into the clearing.

Van is holding her from behind and she could feel the heat radiating off his body. Hitomi whimpers and he holds her tighter. Not in a loving way but in a threatening way that said not to make a noise or I'll crush you. Folken stood in front of her with a weird look in his eyes.

"What are you doing snooping around our house?" Van whispers in a dangerous voice in her ear. 'Think Hitomi. Don't say something that will make him angry.'

"I didn't know anyone lived here. I came here yesterday and…" She stops. She didn't want to mention the feather that was secured in her hair.

"And what! We don't have all day girl spit it out!" Van yells and his hand covers her neck threatening to suffocate her. Hitomi stiffens but then something floats into her mind. It was her sketch of Van. How she had made him look so thoughtful and relaxed.

"I found a feather by the shed and tied it in my hair." She wasn't going to say it was her good luck charm. She wasn't even sure why she thought it brought luck. "I came back to see if I could find another one. I didn't know you lived here." Hitomi says calmly. The grip on her neck and around her stomach loosens slightly and she knew he was looking at the feather.

"Let her go Van. We still have business to do." Folken says after a pause. Vans body shakes slightly like he was coming back to reality and he fully lets her go before stepping away from her and walking towards Folken.

Hitomi was ready to sprint back home but before she made it to the trees Vans voice stops her. "Why do you wear a shirt that says that?" He asks looking at her with an unreadable face. She looks down at her shirt "Free blood on me" it said.

"I like vampires. I like all mystical creatures." Hitomi says in a quiet voice. Van stares at her with a blank look before he shakes his head.

"Have you ever met a vampire?" He asks with a voice full of malice. Hitomi shakes her head thinking Van had gone off his rocker. She knew they weren't real. She just liked them.

"Then how do you know if you like them or not." He states still staring at her. He was really started to weird her out with these questions.

"Because they aren't real. I couldn't meet one even if I wanted to." Hitomi states with a small laugh at the weird conversation she was having the guy everyone was afraid of.

"Do you want to?" Hitomi looks up sharply and narrows her eyes. Ok now he was just messing with her. "I guess I would want to see one if I knew they were real." I say slowly trying to understand all this. Van looks back at his brother Folken who seemed amused by their conversation.

"Keep wearing that shirt and you might just want to take back that response." Van says with a growl before adding in a much harsher voice, "Now get the hell off our property and don't even think about wondering back here because I'll know it when you do."

Hitomi gets taken back by what he said but heeded his warning and sprinted back into the forest in the direction of her home. He must have taken a few more crazy pills this morning then normal she thought as she stops to catch her breath and recap on what happened. How had he known she was there hiding. She swore she hadn't made a sound. She didn't even hear him walk over to her, and what about what he said about her shirt? Keep wearing it and I might want to change my response? What the hell did that mean?

She shakes her head and continues to walk back to her house.

The next day, Van wasn't at school and neither was he the rest of the week. Hitomi wondered where he was and also what Folken had said about business they had to do. She had added on to the Van picture and had added a long feather to the side of the page so it looked like he was looking at the feather. Hitomi spent a lot of time shading the picture in art class with her charcoal and won the approval of Ms. Memmot for such an emotional picture. She wanted to hang it in the display case that was at the front of the school but Hitomi refused. She didn't want other people seeing this vulnerable side to Van.

For some reason she wanted the expression all to herself. After that picture was complete, she framed it and hung it on her wall in her bedroom. Her parents commented on how handsome the boy looked making Hitomi frown in thought. Why had she drawn a picture of Van? She didn't like him or anything. If anything she despised him just like he despised her.

By Saturday Hitomi was feeling down cast. Something just wasn't right. She'd started many intro paragraphs to her book but had shredded them all. They just weren't right. Nothing was right. Sitting out front on a swinging chair, Hitomi had brought out her sketch pad again but this time it was bigger. Her pencil whirled over the page as she sketched yet another picture of Van but before she could finish a large crash startled her that came from the woods separated Hitomis house from Vans.

Hitomi puts down her half finished drawing and hurriedly pulls on some boots and grabs her flash light. Yelling to her parents that she was going exploring she bolts out of the house and goes crashing through the woods. Her heart was pounding as she wondered what she was doing.

Something in her mind told her to slow down and she creeps through the underbrush towards Vans house forgetting his warning from a week before. An animals cry is heard and the grunt of a man follows before silence.

Hitomi gulps and pleads with her heart to stop beating so loud as she gets on her hands and knees and painstakingly crawls towards where the noises were. Peeking through a bush she feels her heart freeze at what she sees.

Van is hunched over a large doe (a female deer) and seemed to be biting its neck. But that couldn't be right. Hitomi shakes and accidentally places her hand on a twig and it snaps. The noise was deafening to her ears. Van stiffens and lifts his head right in her direction. Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and his eyes were dark red with hunger. He drops the deer's head and slowly walks to where Hitomi was hunched. She shook with fear and she seemed glued to the forest ground.

"Come out girl. I know your there." Van says in a gruff voice that sounded weird. Hitomi shudders and slowly stands but adverts her gaze away from him. "Look at me girl. Isn't that why you came to find me? You wanted to see me so look at me!" He says but Hitomi shakes like a leaf and still doesn't look at him.

A rustle is heard as he walks up to her and a large hand takes her chin and yanks her head up to meet his face. Her eyes stare into the deep red before slowly taking in his entire face. He opens his mouth to speak and she gasps as she sees his long canine teeth that seemed longer then normal. He closes his mouth quickly but she'd seen them.

"Well? Say something girl. Don't just stand there gawking at me." Van says in a soft voice that surprised Hitomi shaking herself back into reality.

"What are you Van?" Even though she already knew the answer. His eyes grow sad for just an instant before returning to their cold stare. Hitomi saw it and wondered just what had happened to him.

"Can't you tell by now? Or do you like mystical creatures but you don't know what they look like." He sneers back to his rude self. Hitomi noticed that his hand is still on her chin and she moves away from it and him. She was so confused. Yet…she wasn't scared of him. Instead something new and foreign was growing inside her. Something she'd never felt before.

Van growls and turns his back on her going back to the deer that was now cold. "Dammit now you ruined my dinner. Blood is only good hot and fresh." He turns and snarls at her. She suddenly had an idea for an intro paragraph for her story that she'd have to store for later. Wait, how could she think about her story when she was in serious danger. "I'm sorry." I say while fidgeting with something to say. He eyes me and then his eyes travel to my shirt reading it. It was the Free blood on me shirt. Why was I wearing it again? I suddenly remember what he'd said last Monday about wearing the shirt again.

He smirks which shows off one of his fangs. It was kind of attractive. 'Don't think that! He's a VAMPIRE for gods sake and your thinking how his fangs are attractive?!' Hitomi yells at herself in her head until she feels a warmth in front of her.

Van had moved to stand in front of her again. "So do you regret your decision on wanting to meet a Vampire?" His eyes showed at hint of something foreign to Hitomi before coldness surrounded the deep red orbs again.

"No." Hitomi answers firmly which receives a clearly astonished look from Van as he steps back a few feet before regaining his composure. "What if I did this." He says quietly, almost to himself as he moves with the speed of lightning to behind Hitomi with one arm crushing her ribcage and the other on her neck making her head move to expose the tender flesh of her neck.

He could feel the warm blood flow through her veins and he could sense her fear returning. He licks his lips and then licks her neck slowly. Hitomis body heats up with the unexpected contact and something new enters her mind. That kind of feels nice. Hitomi growls and struggles against the hard hold Van had on her. He lets her go so she falls forward hitting the ground hard.

A scrap appears on her cheek and blood flows out making her wince. A chocking noise is heard and something falls to the ground in front of her. It was Van and he looked wild. Paragraphs from all the Vampire books Hitomi read flash through her mind. Vampires were like sharks. They could smell blood from far away and it drove them crazy. Hitomi knew Van didn't mean her real harm. She wasn't sure why she thought this but that didn't matter now because Van was groaning and his deep red eyes seemed to turn even deeper and the smell of her blood made him hungry.

"Van…?" Hitomi calls softly as she sits up and stares at Van who was on his hands and knees seemingly chocking. At the sound of his name he looks up suddenly and she gasps as she sees the pain and anguish at having to restrain himself.

"Leave…now…GO!" He shouts making her stand up and back away. "Go now!" She gulps not wanting to leave him but knowing it was for the best. She turns and runs back to her house not stopping until she was in her room, on briefly pausing to snatch up her note book and pencil.

Breathing heavily she falls onto her bed and falls asleep at the excursion of the afternoon.

In the morning, Hitomi wakes around noon to find the house empty and the weather outside rainy. A note on the fridge said that her parents had gone to one of the neighbors houses and they'd be back tonight. Thought come crashing back into her mind about yesterday and the full weight of the situation hit her like a bulldozer.

"How can I act so calm about all this?" She says aloud to the empty room. Her eyes go to her Van picture. How can he look so thoughtful in the picture but really be a blood thirsty Vampire. It didn't make since. Remembering the sketch she had started yesterday, she pulls out her sketch pad and flips it to the unfinished sketch. It was a rough outline of Vans face and he was smirking with a challenging look in his eyes.

Hitomi frowns at the picture before an image of Van smirking yesterday comes to mind. That's what's missing from this image. She sketches in one long fang and feels her heart beat faster. It suited him to have that fang. It made him look better. She smiled and continued to sketch for the rest of the day till around 6 when a knock sounded at the door.

Thinking it was just her parents she yells down that the door was open and to just come in. Footsteps are heard and stop at the entrance to her room. Hitomi looks up and jumps in surprise. It was Van.

He looked at her was a haunting look on his face and there were bags under is now normal red eyes. No fangs protruded from his closed mouth but what really took Hitomis attention was the fresh scratches on his neck. He seemed to know what she was staring at and he turned his head to the side to hide them from view. When his eyes catch the drawing of him on her wall.

She notices it too and jumps up and stands in front of the picture looking nervous. What would he do? Would he think I was stalking him or something or was obsessed over him? To her surprise he doesn't say anything. Walking over to her bed he picks up the just finished picture of him smirking and he stares at it for what seemed like ages.

"Why?" He says in a low voice. Hitomi raises her eyebrow in questioning.

"Why do you draw me? Why do you keep appearing in the woods? Why weren't you scared of me?" He stops and places the sketch pad back on the bed before turning to face her.

Hitomi thinks for a second before answering. "I don't know why I draw you. I heard a crash in the woods and so I went to see what it was and…" She wasn't even sure why she wasn't scared of him. When she didn't answer he prompted again, "And?" He asks. She looks at him and noticed he really wanted her to answer. He really wanted to know why.

She decides to just be honest. "And I think your really interesting Van. I know deep down you won't hurt me and you being a vampire fascinates me beyond belief."
It all spilled out of her mouth leaving her feeling vulnerable under his stare. Some how they had started some type of friendship. She wasn't sure how but him showing up meant that he did like her in some way. He seemed to think about her answer.

"Now can I ask you something?" Hitomi asks hesitantly. Van cocks an eyebrow at her before sitting on the floor and nods. She walks over and sits in front of him on the floor.

She was actually really excited and had so many questions that she didn't know where to start first. "How come your fangs are gone? Why does your eye color change? How can you move so fast?" The questions come pouring out of her mouth leaving Van looking surprised at her interest.

"You really are interested aren't you?" He says looking away from her at the picture in her sketch pad. Hitomi nods and smiles.

"My fangs only come out when I'm going to feed. My eye color turns darker when the hunger comes to me and I move fast just because all vampires are more fast. It's just a trait that's all." Van shrugs and leans back on his elbows.

"How often do you need to feed?" Hitomi asks excitedly. Van allows a smirk to touch his lips.

"I feed for one full week every month. That's why I wasn't at school. It started on Tuesday and ended yesterday."

"Why did you say that about my shirt." Van looks away for a second and then back at her. "Because I wanted to scare you away. How could you know if you like vampires if you've never met one? You shouldn't wear that shirt anymore or someone might take it seriously." He didn't name who that someone was but she knew he was referring to himself.

"You had your chance last night and you didn't do anything. I think I'm safe." Hitomi jokes and laughs at Vans scowl. The door opens and her mom and dads voice fills the room. "We're home Hitomi." Van stands abruptly and heads to the window pulling it open. "Hey where are you going?" Hitomi panics and grabs his jacket sleeve making him stop and turn towards her.

"Don't tell anyone about what you saw or else." He climbs through her window and disappears into the woods just as her parents walk in. "Hitomi close that window! You're letting all the heat out." They say together before walking back into the kitchen.

Hitomi looks outside and briefly considers going after him but thinks better of it. She shuts her window but doesn't lock it. Getting into her pajamas she says good night to her parents and falls to sleep.