The next night, at seven o'clock, Charlotte started getting ready for the party. She shut herself off from the boys, wanting to see their faces when she emerged from the room later.
She didn't need much make-up: she never had. She made her eyes up beautifully, black all round with eyeliner and gorgeous mascara to emphasize her already thick, long lashes. Simple, but pretty, she smirked.
After quickly dressing in black designer jeans and black collared shirt, she walked down the stairs towards the boys.
They turned towards her, and two of them gasped.
"Wow...you look stunning," Lee said, his eyes drinking her in.
"Thank you," Charlotte replied, politely. "Ready to go then?"
"Er...yeah," Kian said.
They all walked through the door and onto the street.
Charlotte didn't even know why she was going to this party; she only used humans as food. But there was a nagging little feeling in the back of her mind that said she should go. But why?
The girl's house wasn't far away. Elena, the boys told her, was having her eighteenth birthday party, and Lee had been told to bring his friends if he wanted to.
"She's a nice girl. Bit selfish. But who isn't these days?" Lee said, eyes never leaving Charlotte.
"Elena's not selfish, man. Or at least she doesn't mean to be," Kian said.
"Spoilt?" Charlotte asked, grimacing. If the girl was spoiled, Charlotte was definitely not going. Going to a spoilt little bitch's rotten birthday party when she had so much more interesting things to do was not what Charlotte wanted.
"Nah, not really. Her parents died, so she hasn't really had anyone to spoil her."
They were at the house now. It was decorated with pink heart-shaped lights around the roof, with perfumed candles along the windowsill.
Oh yuck.
"Eeurgh," Sam said, ringing the doorbell, obviously hating the little pink lights shining above him.
A red haired, chocolate-brown-eyed girl with freckles opened the door.
"Oh god! You came!"
"Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie..." Sam tutted. "Have you been having memory loss again?"
The chocolate brown eyed girl called Bonnie flushed. Charlotte looked at the appetizing red of her cheeks, and her translucent veins.
"And you've brought somebody..." Bonnie's eyes widened.
Charlotte looked into her mind. Bonnie was some sort of physcic. Figures- Charlotte thought- Her blood does smell different.
The girl called Bonnie sensed the Power in Charlotte, but the girl had quickly composed herself in time for the boys not to notice anything strange.
"This is Charlotte. Our roommate," Kian said.
"Right..." Bonnie said slowly. "Nice to meet you, Charlotte." She quickly glanced at her again.
Charlotte smirked.
These human girls are so pathetic its funny.
"Can we come in then?" Sam asked, getting bored.
"Er, yeah, sure."
She stepped back to let them all in.
Including Charlotte.
Realizing what she'd just done, Bonnie turned to Charlotte in alarm. Charlotte smirked at her.
What a stupid kid.
Inside was somehow worse. There were banners everywhere, and the stench of fresh blood was surrounding Charlotte in a way that she'd have been all over the boys in the room if she hadn't eaten just two hours before.
There was cake and snacks on the tables that we're dotted around the room, and balloons were hanging from every available surface.
Charlotte was bored instantly.
She stayed for all but fifteen minutes.
As she was making her way towards the front door, she heard an old familiar voice.
Familiar voices were not a good thing to her; as she took that to mean someone was hunting her down.
She turned and hid behind a wall that went down a hallway. Her back was now hidden against the wall from the people talking.
Her vampire instincts told her there were five people on the other side, and Charlotte had a sneak suspicion they were talking about her.
She listened in to the conversation, and caught the end of what the people were saying.
"...what are you talking about, Bonnie?"
Charlotte realized with a jolt to her stomach that the speaker was her older brother, Stefan.
Holy fucking Jesus.
He's here! Five hundred years- and here he is.
A quick scan of the other people's minds, and she found that two of them were vampires. Both the vampires were her brothers.
Both of them! Both of them here! Why? Why were they here at a spoilt little rich kid's party? And how did they know the thick one called Bonnie?
But Damon should have better things to do than to stick around here. After all, he did when he was human back in Italy.
Charlotte turned her attention back to the conversation.
"There's another vampire here, a girl..." Bonnie paused.
"Well?" Charlotte heard Damon's charming, impatient drawl say. I forgot about that voice- thought Charlotte.
"She's young, very young. Only about sixteen, maybe seventeen. She has long dark curly hair and she's pretty...very pretty actually. Well, more like beautiful, to be honest."
"What was her name? Did you invite her inside?" Stefan's voice sounded urgent, and more than a little impatient.
"Err...oh god! I can't remember it! She's inside though."
"Dangerous?" she heard another girl's voice ask urgently. Charlotte couldn't look round to see who.
"Yes, I think so. I couldn't see far enough into her aura. She blocked me. She's powerful though," she heard Bonnie say.
"So she's not a veggie like you, little brother." Damon sounded slightly amused, but mostly sounded like his mind was elsewhere.
"We'd better look for her then, she might have gone outside, I'll check there," Stefan said, ignoring Damon's comment.
Veggie? Stefan was a vegetarian vampire? Jesus. But, now that it was pointed out, Charlotte could sense the weakness emanating from Stefan's aura.
"I'll come with you," a girl said. Charlotte hated not knowing who the girls were, but she didn't want to feel around their minds; they might sense her.
"Are you sure, Elena? This girl could be very dangerous," she heard Stefan say. Oh. Elena. The birthday girl, Charlotte smirked.
"I'll come," Elena said firmly.
Charlotte hid deeper into the shadows as she saw Stefan's back view and a girl's back view- presumably Elena's -move towards the front door. They both walked out of the house, and shut the door behind them.
"Meredith, shall we look in the kitchen?" Charlotte heard the human called Bonnie ask.
"What would a vampire be doing in a kitchen, Bonnie?" she heard another girl say. Right. That must be Meredith then.
"I...I dunno. But we can't just stand here."
"Come on then," Charlotte heard the girl called Meredith sigh and walk away with Bonnie.
Silence. Well, not total silence. But silence from the now non-existent group.
Charlotte stared at the wall opposite of her for a while, thinking of the best way to get out of the house. When she decided upon legging it out of a window- hardly a graceful escape route- she looked up, then her eyes darted to the person standing looking at her.
Damon.
The last time she had seen him, he had been nineteen years old, and she had been fourteen. During the two years between the last time she'd seen him and his death, his facial appearance had not changed much. Like her, he was dressed all in black. Black leather jacket,- real leather, not the cheap crappy stuff- black shirt, black jeans, black belt, and black boots. He looked basically the same as he used to in fifteenth century Florence, all except for the change in wardrobe.
He didn't say anything. Just stood and stared at her, taking her all in. She couldn't tell what the emotion in his eyes was- he always was a very hard character to read.
Despite her shock of seeing him again, the first words out of her mouth were:
"So, Stefan's a veggie is he?"
