Chapter 8:

In the middle of the night—which was really the daytime since the days and nights are flipped—I found myself having to go to the bathroom so I walked to the locker room to relieve my duties. When I was finished, I walked back into the hallway, but just as I stepped out of the door, something crackled under my foot. I looked down to find a yellow piece of notebook paper. Was that there before? When I picked it up I recognized the handwriting instantly and smiled.

Meet me outside.

I silently made my way through the empty hallway and up the swirling staircase, periodically checking over my shoulder for and onlookers. No one was up right now, but the lights were still on; they glowed from red to orange to yellow.

I walked over to the doors and opened them. It wasn't overwhelmingly sunny. In fact, it was dusk. The sun was just beginning to set and that sky was getting dark in the east.

Over in the corner, sitting on a rocky edge, was Danny. The fading sun created shadows on his defined jaw line making him look older and more masculine. I ran up to him and squeezed him in my arms. He returned the hug. His arms were strong, warm, and familiar.

"I missed you so much!" I whispered into his ear and then punched him playfully in the shoulder. "You're so stupid, you're going to get yourself killed."

"I missed you too." He said back as he laughed.

We let go of our embrace and sat down, facing the sunset. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I wanted to see you." He smiled. "It's your visiting day, isn't it? Bedsides, I wanted to come see you before…"

"Before what?" I asked. I don't know why I asked because I already knew the answer. Before he was turned into a werewolf.

He looked out into the fading sun and fidgeted a little. "They're doing it tonight. They have to do it on a full moon."

I touched his arm. "Does it hurt?"

"I've heard the first transition is the worst, but it's not that bad." He shrugged. "I needed to see you before because those vamps would have sniffed me out the second I walked in here. It's still risky no matter what I do."

"Speaking of…how did you get in the compound?" I asked.

He smiled, pushed his hand through his blonde hair, and put his hand behind him for support. "Just a little trick I learned in our training. What, they haven't taught you how to jump the fence yet?"

I pushed my shoulder against his and smiled at him. "It's good to see you." I said. "At least someone came and saw me." I mumbled. His eyebrows went up. "It's our Visiting Day today." I explained.

"Yeah."

"Did your parents come and see you?" I asked, assuming that the werewolf and vampire schedules were different.

"Yeah, we had ours yesterday, you know, so they can see us while we're still human."

I hadn't even begun to think about my Turning Day, but now that it was in my mind, it was all I could think about. What does it feel like to be a vampire? How does it really happen? How long did it take? Who would do it?

"Yeah that makes sense." I finally spoke up and moved some dirt around with my finger. "So what really made you come? Why did you come into 'enemy territory'?" I joked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. It's just… when I saw you the other day I mis—" He caught himself mid-word.

"Wait," I interrupted. "You saw me? What are you talking about?"

No answer.

"Danny, when did you see me?" I asked, with anger rising in my voice. Was Danny in the woods when we went running? I did hear a wolf howl, a werewolf howl.

"It was just a stupid initiation thing. I didn't know what we were doing." He talked like he wasn't involved, but something hung in his voice that made me think otherwise.

"You were there when they shot Cashile?" I interrogated.

"He's a vampire, Ally. A vampire. Do you know what he's done?" he started getting defensive now too. All innocence was lost in his voice; he knew what he had done, and it sounded like he didn't regret it.

"Do you know what he's done? He saved my life from this awful, scumbag vampire."

"That doesn't change him from a lifetime of—"

"You don't know anything." I said, but what could I be sure of? I had no idea what Cashile's past was like, but I was one of them now. A vampire. I had to stand up for my sector and my new home.

"Ally." He tried to reason.

"Leave." I said harshly.

"You can't be—"

"You need to go now. I don't want to see you." I tried to hold back tears. I've known Danny my whole life; I didn't want him out of my life. I didn't want him to be my enemy, but that's what we were. We were both human (for now), but he was a werewolf and I was a vampire: enemies.

"Fine. I've already lost you to them; they've got you under their spell." He said quickly like there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Then, with that he jumped off of the rock, tuck and rolled, and ran off into the distance.

I stayed on the rock for a long time after the sun had set. It was nice being by myself; I found a small piece of happiness up here.

. . .

Being distracted with Danny, I was late for training. Everyone was in a line, Cashile stood in front of them in his usual stance. Straight back, with his hands folded behind him.

"It's so nice for you to finally join us, Allison." He said with a sarcastic smile. "Now that we are all here, we can begin. Go to your stations." He ordered and everyone scrambled. Today was set up differently than before. Today we had, ropes, swinging weights, and ladders shaped objects on the floor. "The best thing you can learn in any fight is defense. As soon as you learn to defend yourself, you can fight back. As some of you learned the other day, going for the obvious kill isn't always the best tactic." He looked around at the kids that had bruised arms and faces from sloppy fighting. "Strength never guarantees a win, whereas knowledge does." Cashile paused. I figured he was talking about the werewolves. Their strategy was based off of strength; if you were stronger than your opponent, you would win. Vampires think differently; they outsmart (and dodge) their opponent. "Be quick on your feet, both physically and mentally. Tomorrow we will practice what you have learned."

I thought about what he said as I stretched. Be quick on your feet. I'm quick on my feet; that's a good sign for me. I'm small; I can dodge the other muscular guys like Ethan. The only reason I lost before was because I got distracted. With a little practice, I might actually win a fight tomorrow. That first day of fighting wasn't punishment; it was practice. Wasn't it?

I walked over to the swinging weights ( which everyone else was avoiding) and tried to walk trough the maze without getting clobbered. No luck, I was spit right back out. Taking a deep breath and jumping up and down, I tried again. No luck. I landed on my back just outside of the entrance. I saw Cashile standing over me.

"That was pitiful." He laughed.

"Yeah? Well, you try it." I told him brushing dirt off of me.

"Fine." He walked to the line that signified the start and crouched his body into a starting position. "Tell me when."

"Go." I said, unenthused and angry.

With an inhuman swiftness and speed he entered the obstacles, arching his back and flipping onto his hands and diving and jumping and dodging; he made it out of the maze.

"Show off." I mumbled.

"Just keep practicing." He said as he walked away. "And maybe you'll get it."

I stayed at the obstacle course for all of training and as soon as Cashile called time, I kept trying. The more I failed, the more I got mad. I groaned and wiped the sweat off of my forehead. It felt as if there was always one more obstacle I needed to over come; no matter what, it seemed like I had to learn, yet another way to conquer the maze. If it wasn't the swinging one, then it was the rolling one; if it wasn't the rolling one then it was the fast one, and so on.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" I heard Cashile call out behind me.

"No." I kept my eyes focused on the maze, studying its patterns.

"But it's Visiting Day."

I finally turned to him and put my hand on my hip. "Do you really think my family is going to come see me? Because I don't." I felt a big lump start to form in my throat. Don't cry. Don't let him see you cry. I ordered myself.

"It sounds to me that you don't have that much faith in your family."

"I have plenty of faith in my family." I told him. "You have no idea what it's like for them. So stop patronizing me about it."

"I just thought you might like to know that I can tell that there are three strong, beating hearts in the plaza that are expecting you."

My hand dropped away from my hip and my legs didn't seem to be able move. "If you're lying to me…" I pointed a finger at him.

"I'm not." He said. "Everyone one deserves to see their family before their lives change." He paused. "Do you want me to come with you? In case anything happens."

He probably should, I mean, how many other times have three fresh humans come into the vampire sector? That other vampire nearly got what he wanted until Cashile walked into the room. Cashile would protect us. "Please?"

Cashile nodded and walked with me to meet my family.

We were in the same room that I first came in, the one where the train went through. The store shops were open, and people filled the area.

Mutts surrounded me everywhere with what seemed like their fathers. Even the mutts enjoyed Visiting Day because we couldn't really mingle with other people other than in the dining hall, and most of the time the 'parents' were somewhere else, feeding themselves. I assumed that the mothers didn't get a chance to ever see their children since the mothers were human; they were probably locked away somewhere. It was nice to see that they still had a small sense of family down here though.

Eventually, through the crowd of hugging people, I saw my parents. My mom was holding Wes on her hip, holding his head close to her, and they were looking around. They looked terrified.

"Mom!" I called out. "Dad! Wes!" I ran to them, Cashile close on my tail. They turned their heads and instantly their faces lit up.

"Ally cat!" Wes held out his arms to me and I hugged everyone at once.

"I missed you guys so much." I said to them, taking in their familiar, homey smell.

"We missed you too, honey." My mom said as we all let go of our embrace. She eventually noticed Cashile standing next to me. "And you are?"

He held out his hand for both of my parents to shake. "My name's Cashile. I've been training you daughter." He flashed a smile to try and seem friendlier, but neither of my parents seems comfortable with him yet.

"Cashile…" my mother thought out loud. "That's an interesting name."

"Oh, well, I changed it when I was turned. I haven't seen the need to change it back. This one is much more… suitable." He explained awkwardly. I didn't know Cashile wasn't his real name.

My mother smiled slightly and then looked at me. "Um, he's here to make sure… you know, no one gets out of hand. You can trust him." I explained awkwardly too. I had only been in the vampire compound for four days, but somehow felt distant from my family.

He was making sure to smile; he wanted to come off as friendly. He definitely didn't show me that when I first met him. "And what's your name?" Cashile asked Wes.

Wes kept his head attached to my mother's shoulder. "His name's Wesley, but we call him Wes." I explained to Cashile.

"You don't need to be scared of me, Wes. I'm not going to hurt you, in fact…" Cashile dug in his pocket and pulled out a sliver coin. "I'll show you a trick. Do you want to see one?"

Wes nodded timidly. Cashile played with the coin in his fingers, twirling it between one another, he closed his fist, and when he opened it again, the coin was gone. This grabbed Wes's attention; he lifted his head to get a better view of what was going on. His small brows scrunched together, the same way that mine did.

Cashile reached behind Wes's ear and the coin appeared. Wes's eyes grew. "Ohmygoodness!" he said. I smiled. My father did that trick before. A lot of people knew that trick. It was the easiest way to win a child's admiration; they thought you were magical and you gave them free money. "How'd you do that?" Wes asked as he inspected the coin.

"Magic." Cashile stated.

"I didn't know vampires were magic." Wes said, making us all laugh. Then, all of the sudden, I felt relaxed. I felt like all of the tension that was between my family and Cashile seemed to vanish. They saw the same ray of light I saw in Cashile.

My family and I was going to go into the dining hall for a proper meal, and we invited Cashile to join us—since he said he kind of likes eating regular food—but he refused. He looked behind him into the crowd. "No thank you, I have somewhere to be." He said and walked away. I watched him as he walked and I saw him meet up with someone. Through the crowd, it was hard to see his face, but when I did see who it was, I recognized him instantly. Viktor. The same 'Viktor' that chose me. His eyes found mine for a second and he winked.

I wanted to go and talk to him, but I wanted to spend time with my family more. I could always have Cashile talk to him sometime for me too. I reasoned.

. . .

After my parents and Wes boarded the train, I waved goodbye and found myself in tears. Their visitation had been short, but at least it was something. I would give anything to see them more, but that just wasn't my reality anymore.

I tried to relieve my depression by going back out to the rock formation I had been at earlier today. The sun was just beginning to rise and I was tired. I figured it was probably better for me to sleep anyway.

I would have headed back in right away but something caught my eye. There was someone with a bike—a motorized bike. They were dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. No skin was showing except for their head.

I looked closer and recognized the dark-haired figure. Cashile.

He tied down a large bag onto the back of the bike and shoved water bottles into his backpack. There was a helmet with a shaded face shield on the seat of the bike and he put it on, now covering all exposed skin. He grabbed the handlebars and pushed the bike down the driveway. He didn't turn the bike on until he was far away from the compound and he drove away into the distance.

Where is he going? The sun is about to rise. Is he going to be back in time for training? Why did he pack so much stuff?

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