Vampire Dance Chapter 1-6

1.          Dresses
“So what do you think of this one?”  Hannah smiled twirling
around watching her skirt flutter up from her knees, creating a golden halo around her waist.  Her blue eyes dancing.
         “I like it.” I nodded in approval.
         “Maybe.”  I saw uncertainty trace her mind.
         “Well, it’s your dance.”  I laughed.  She shook her head and laughed with me.
         A dressing room door clicked open behind us.  We both turned toward to sound.
         “No Roc, it’s your dance.”  Leslie’s voice cut the air, it was light.  I sighed.  My mind raced back to that fateful night.  I remember dancing, a waltz, with my “father”, a man, young, beautiful green eyes, asking me to dance.  I forced the image from my mind.  Leslie’s emerald eyes searched her perfect body in the tri-fold mirror. 
         “Leslie, it looks amazing.”  Hannah’s voice dressed with excitement.
         “I guess,” Leslie looked over her shoulder at the black, opened-backed dress.
         “It does,” my voice comforting her doubts.  Her eyes fell upon me and she thanked me with her mind.  Leslie stepped back behind the white door. 
         “Funny.”  I cocked my eye at Hannah’s word, I didn’t see any humor.  There was something playing behind those aqua orbs, “how you’re not going to your own party.”
         “Dance,” I corrected lightly, “I don’t know, it’s not worth it.”  She knew I meant it wasn’t worth the kids at school thinking I was a vampire by the dance being thrown in my honor.
         “But us mortals aren’t supposed to attend.  No one would know.”
         “They always show up,” I knew that all too much, “besides I have more than one reason not to be there.”  She didn’t know that I meant to onslaught of memories that would get the best of me if I attended.
         “Like…” but her question was lost behind Leslie’s words.
         “No one believes in vampires anymore anyway, Roc.  No one will think anything when the dance is held in your honor again.”
         “I don’t know.”
         “You’re the most beautiful of us all, it’s a shame.”
         “Les, if I don’t go the dance will be in your honor.”
         “Please.” Her voice almost pleading.
         “I’ll think about it.” She won; I would consider it.
         “Well get a dress,” Hannah gushed.
         “No thanks, maybe later.  I’ve got to run.”  I rose up from the crimson armchair I had been enduring the fashion show in and moved toward the door.
         “Where are you going?”  Hannah’s face was contorted in genuine curiosity.
         “Let’s just say I’ve got some thinking and some homework to do.”  I smiled my suggestive smile.  The one I used when I wanted to leave people questioning what I was really up to.
         “See you later,” Leslie’s voice drifted from behind door number three.
         “Yep, Later.” And I disappeared.













2. Morning
He’s here in this room.  I can smell him.  I can almost taste him.  He shouldn’t be here.  It’s not safe.  Remain in control.
         My eyes shot open.  Sweat ran down into them.  I shifted, uneasy.  I hadn’t seen that face in a while.  Since the last dance I attended more than two years ago.  The face of someone longing for me, but he terrified me; I wanted nothing to do with him.  I remember looking into my father’s eyes hoping he would tell the demon-angel ‘no’ when the jungle eyed vampire asked me to dance.  My father smiled and released me into the arms of evil.  I waltzed with the devil wrapped in his haze.  He spoke, his voice almost inaudible.  As I remember it now, maybe he didn’t speak at all, perhaps I only read his thoughts.  He told me things I wanted to hear, like was beautiful.  He fingers brushed up my neck, “How beautiful it must have been to feel your pulse, to taste your blood, to hear your heart beating.  I can barely remember.”  With each word his face drew closer to mine until we nearly touched.  I smelled his breath, the rusty-salty smell of blood.  Then he closed the space remaining between our lips.  I closed my eyes but the only things I could see were the innocents he killed.  The innocents who would never see another day, never breathe a new breath, the innocents whose blood I smelled, tasted on his lips.  I shook my head hard to release his face from my brain.  I turned to the window.  My eyes absorbed the painting the sun was creating, changing the gray-blue sky pink.  It would be hours before the world would wake.  I reached my fingers above my head stretching, relieving the tension from the nightmare.  I like to be among the living before the rest of the world (figuratively speaking of course.)  I looked down at my carpet the green shag make me feel like I was in a meadow, my meadow.  The one I go to when I want or need to think alone.  The one with my tree house.  I would have to go there soon.  I draped myself in my powder blue bathrobe and glided to the yellow and blue bathroom down the hall.  The hall was white the wood floor would nip at my feet if I could really feel it, but most of my feeling has left me.  I looked at the pictures.  Various sizes and shapes plastering the wall in bright splashes of color and contrasting black and white.  I have passed them a million times yet I examined them nearly every time I walked pass.  I gazed at the beautiful creatures that set a firm foundation for us ‘living’ now.  There were also pictures of creators, my father’s, Leslie’s, mine, all of our in this house.  My eyes stared into those of my creator, those deep green eyes, eyes of evil.  I pulled myself away from his face and looked into the eyes of Leslie’s creator.  Soft, breathtaking same as Leslie’s almost as if Leslie had created herself.  The woman’s blond hair and emerald eyes match Leslie’s, but her face was slightly different.  I forced myself away from the wall.  I watch my feet instead of the faces whose eyes burned into me as I passed them.  The deep wood of the bathroom door was only steps away, but I picked up my pace for the last few feet.  Wanting to get out the hallway too much.  Once in the safety of the bathroom I allowed my bathrobe to drift to the floor.  It lay crumpled on the deep blue carpet.  I glanced up to the mirror.  The reflective silver outlined with gold did little good here.  Our reflections are visible to humans if they believed to should been there.  If they imagine it in the glass.  We can see them, our reflections, if we wanted.  It was difficult.  A process.  Leslie had mastered it.  Most of the time I don’t even bother.  It’s a matter of light and positioning.  Too hard for me.  I stepped over the high edge of the yellow bathtub.  I closed the blue curtain.  I reached for the silver knobs and turned the water on as hot as it would go.  Steam rolled up from my icy skin.  I rubbed lavender shampoo into my hair.  I stood directly underneath the water rinsing the golden and caramel strands clean.  I covered my body in lavender soap (my favorite) and rinsed myself of that.  I turned off the water, feeling slightly less like a moving ice sickle.  I stepped back over the edge of the tub.  I took my yellow towel and dried my body off.  I returned to my room ignoring the pictures.  I hung my robe up on the nail behind my door.  I put on a cream tank top and an old pair of jeans.  I tied my black bandana around my wrist as I did everyday.  Something I wore before my rebirth, something I wear now.  I pulled my socks over my feet and my heart shaped tattoo just above my toes.  I picked up my yellow running shoes.  I carried them with me down the black marble stairs through the other long hallway in the house.  My eyes drifted to the ballroom on the right the room where everything played out.  I saw elegant couples dancing together.  I saw myself at that black grand piano on the platform playing my favorite song.  The one I wrote.  Then I saw him.  He was walking toward me, more like floating.  I watched him lay his hand on my shoulder I heard him ask me if he could play a song.  I wanted to walk away to leave that memory there playing like a home movie on repeat to perform without an audience, but I was glued.  I moved from the black leather bench, he sat, his white fingers raced over the keys.  Most people stopped dancing.  They watched him, but no one watched in such awe as I did.  I was sure that I couldn’t have been the only human in the room.  My opion changed when everyone returned to dancing as he changed his song.  His eyes were on me.  I watched his song end.  I watched as he turned to me and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk.  Then his eyes turned from my former self, me as a human, and looked into my present self, vampire eyes.  I know this didn’t happen the memory I know that he takes my hand and walks me outside, but he was standing still my former self turned to stare at him knowing this is not how the memory goes, his lips open to say something.  I felt horror creep over me, I turned abruptly and ran to the door barely pausing to open it.  I continued racing the memory, racing him, racing myself, racing what I have become.








3.          Running
I didn’t stop to look at where I was running.  I focused on my
needless breathing.  I didn’t need to breathe to remain ‘alive’, but I did anyway.  The fields of corn and beans blew past me in flashes of green and yellow.  I was going too fast; too inhuman.  If anyone saw me, they would know.  They would figure out there was something wrong with me.  My mind told my body to slow down, but my body refused to listen.  Something it has a tendency of doing, refusing to obey.  I passed an oilrig on my left a blur of blackness.  I leaped the one in front of me, not even thinking about it.  My eyes viewed an opening in the mix of green, brown, yellow and black.  A gray break.  I slowed by the realization of the highway ahead of me.  My focus shifted from the sound of my breath to the yellow lines in the ocean of gray.  My feet toughed the ground noiselessly.  Even though I saw no one I still was on my guard.  Tense, unsure.  I smiled in spite of everything.  Smiled at how ridiculous I was being.  I glanced to left and then my right as I crossed the silver tracks.  I had passed a green sign on my right white words were painted on it:
Clay City
Pop.: 1,000
I didn’t understand why I looked when I moved over the tracks; I could stop a train with a finger if I wanted to.  I didn’t want to though.  I didn’t want to expose my family like that; I couldn’t expose them that way.  I wouldn’t be fair.
         There was a tan building with a bright mural painted on it to my left.  It caught my eye.  There was something about the creativeness of a human that I never understood.  So sporadic, unplanned yet always uniquely beautiful.  I took it in.  I looked at the houses, the beautiful trees, world that I didn’t know, couldn’t know.  I looked at each of the houses, listening what each inhabitant was thinking, dreaming.  The sky was turning from pink to orange.  I heard one ‘voice’.  It wasn’t sleeping whispering dream like the others.  It was loud and awake.  I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.  I closed my eyes and bowed my head; trying to focus; to pinpoint the location of the words that screamed in my head.
         “Raquel, look out!”
         My eyes shot open.  I swore that I heard that and not in my head.  I began to lift my head, but was sent sprawling by a sudden impact.





























4. Don’t
         I felt the rip of my flesh on the old concrete.  I smelt it then: blood.  The deep crimson, sweet nectar of life.  Not my blood though, not the ice of death in my veins, but the hot living liquid of someone who still had a heart beating in their chest.  I leaped up; too quickly.  My eyes looked toward the ground searching for the object that sent me crashing.  My eyes locked with a pair of chocolate ones I knew.  I held out my finger reaching for his.  I watched as he reached and grabbed.  I felt the twitch in his hand as a reflex from grabbing the frozen stone one I possessed.  Warm, my mind whispered at the though of his palm on mine.
         “Are you okay?” I watched his lips move, forming the words, but the wind stole them.
         “What?” I felt far away.  I knew him; I’d seen that hair, that lopsided smile that for some reason sent my body in a different world.  I gazed into those eyes with the same slightly panicked look before.  His mind spoke to me not his lips.
         “I hope she’s okay.  I wonder what she does to look like that.  So unnaturally perfect.”
         Don’t, my thoughts breathed, Please.
         “Raquel, how long has it been?”
         Don’t
         “Since we talked, since those eyes stared into mine?”
         Don’t my brain was screaming now.  I shut if off.  I ignored his mind and tried to comprehend the words spilling from his lips.
         “Raquel, are you okay?”
         “Yeah, I think.  Oh crap, Chester, you’re bleeding.”  Crap crap crap crap my brain was angry with me for noticing his open arm, his blood dripping on the gray-white stone.  I stopped breathing then.  I had to stop smelling him
         one bite, just one, no one would ever now just you and me Chester then just me.  No one would know.  Just you and me.
Blood, his blood especially, called to me.  Chester Conway, Six foot two, dyed black hair covers his right eye, brown eyes, like chocolate, younger sister, Megan, cares for her very much, likes his eggs scramble, in my English, Spanish, and Math class.  I had to think of him as a human, if I didn’t he was dead. Has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.  Something like the sun.
         I open my mind to him again.  I needed to see his thoughts.  I needed to see him being human.  I saw him envisioning me in his arms.  I smiled poor humans; they simply can’t control themselves.
         I reached my fingers from his hand to cover his wound.  He winced for a second then smiled.  I listened to his mind,
         “That feels so good.  Her fingers are so cold.”
         I reached with my free hand across to the opposite wrist and removed the bandana tied there.  I watched his eyes as my fingers gently shifted from the awkward way I had to untie the knot in the bandana.  The movement in my fingers caused tiny spasms of pain to shoot trough his arm.
         “I can’t believe she’s touching me.”
         Don’t
         “Maybe if she could just stay here with me.”
         Don’t
         “If I could only think of something to say.  If I could tell her how beautiful she is.”
         Don’t
         “Why does she have to take my breath away like that?”
         Don’t
         I wrapped the bandana around his wound while he still debated what to say; what wouldn’t sound stupid.  I released a tiny amount of power into his arm not enough for him to feel it, but enough to fix it.
         “Looks like you’re all fixed up.” My voice caused him to jump. 
         “Yeah, looks like it.”  I sensed sadness in his voice.
         “See you at school?”  His face perked up when I mentioned that.  Dumb, now he thinks I mean something by that, a promise.
         “Yeah, okay.  See ya soon.”
         He jogged past me.  I breathed.  Kicked myself for saying something stupid like that.  I went the opposite direction as him.  Trying to clear my senses of him.  I began to think about him.  My mind commanded
         Don’t.





























         
5.School
         My blue and chrome 1969 Ford F-100 mint condition looked only slightly out of place in the school parking lot.  There where trucks in almost every parking spot, but most of them were old and dirty and half broke down.  Mine was not.  There are a few things in life that I love.  One is my family, two is my truck, and three is these people that I can’t get close enough to know.  I only get to know them from their thoughts and sometimes their thoughts aren’t as beautiful as they make them seem.  I watched my brothers get out of Walker’s Mercedes.  He was incredibly proud of the shiny black paint with yellow flames.  That was one thing that we did over indulge ourselves in.  Our cars.  We couldn’t help it.  There are few things that we can really hold on to and take care of.  Walker smiled at me.  He always had a way of making people like him.  His blond hair matched Leslie’s.  He had the most beautiful ocean blue eyes.  His face drifted from me as Leslie slipped her hand into his.  She waved at me and pulled him toward the building.  Her petite frame was so tiny compared to Walker’s muscular body.  Joshua looked up from the ground.  He smiled sheepishly at me knowing that I was still upset at him for deciding to have a relationship with Shandy.  He was my brother so I couldn’t stay angry long, but it was hard for me to understand how he could fall for what seemed like the only person who couldn’t believe that we were human.  I would forgive him soon there was not a doubt that I wouldn’t when all I could hear was his redundant apologies in my head.  I would if the would get him to stop begging.  He turned at the sound of a voice calling his name and wrapped himself around Shandy.  Something couldn’t handle seeing right now.  I would probably have to kill her so I looked away. 
         “Raquel,” I jumped at my name, “sorry.”  I turned to see Chester standing next to me. 
         “No, it’s okay.  I didn’t hear you come up.”
         “Oh, I was trying to be sneaky.”
         “Well, you accomplished that.”  I smiled.
         “So it looks like Josh and Shandy have a thing.” He motioned over my shoulder to the two.
         “So it seems.” I sighed.
         “Does that bother you?”
         “Let’s just say I don’t really get along with that girl.”
         “I see.  Mental note: no Shandy with Raquel.”  He laughed and I joined him.  A bell rang somewhere in the distance.  “Allow me to accompany you to class, my lady.”
         “As you wish.”  He bowed with his words a low, practiced bow.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to humor him a little bit.
         When I walked in the door of the High School my senses went haywire.  Everyone’s brain thinking at once still caught me off guard with a staggering overpowering.  I quickly shut my brain off.  School was school.  I had no reason to use other people’s brains here.  The smartest person in this school was Walker.  He was the oldest of all of us except our “parents”.  He had been changed for almost ninety years.  Then came Joshua at seventy-seven.  Our father changed both of them.  Leslie followed at almost sixty and I came in last at almost fifty.  I still remember coming to see my grandmother every summer and sneaking away to the “Vampire House”.  That’s where I learned to play the piano. I eventually returned to that house after I had been changed there.  It was strange to think of everything that was going on.  Most people didn’t even notice.  We could stay here for a hundred years and change our names when the time seemed fit and the only thing people would say is, ‘my do you remind me of, oh what’s her name.  The spitting image, are you sure you’re not kin. No, no I suppose not.’  Then they would go on with their lives.  In fact that’s what has been going on for a long time.  I turned the dial on my lock not really thinking about it.  It had become second nature to me.  To not think about a lot of things that involved school.  I knew that Chester was still standing next to me.  I felt him.  I was blinded by a bandana being waved in my face.  It was  mine.  I reached for it but it was pulled away from me.  I turned to look at Chester.  I tried to look angry but I couldn’t with him looking at me with those puppy eyes.  I had to get over him and soon or he might end up dead.  I sighed.  I only had to last a couple of days.  Then I could go and not see Chester for a whole weekend.  Maybe on Monday I wont want him so bad.
         “Okay Raquel, what is it about you that makes you special?”
         I was surprised by his question, “Excuse me?  What do you mean?”
         “I go running this morning.  I see this angel running down the street.  I tell her to look out and she stays there like a statue, looking at the ground, like she can’t hear me, because that ground is speaking to her.  I slam into her.  She gets up too fast and too harmed.  She wraps a bandana around my arm where I had a gash that probably needed stitches.  I take it off to find the wound gone, the only evidence that it was ever there is the blood on the bandana.  That’s what I mean.”
         “I would hardly call myself an angel.  Come on, Chester, what do you think I am, an alien?”
         “Listen to me,” his tone was joking but I felt that there was seriousness underneath that smile, “I don’t know what you are, but I am almost positive you are not human.  You can’t be and I will find out, Raquel.  You know it and I know it.”
         I laughed at him, trying to be believable, “Okay, when you come up with a theory you let me know, until then can we please get to class?”  We both looked at the almost bare hallway.  He nodded and turned to head to the room.  Mr. Barton World Literature was painted on the door.  Chester walked in before me.  I followed him.  I went to my usual seat next to Michelle.  She smiled at me, unsure as always.  I smiled back as I slid into the orange plastic chair.  My eyes fell on each member of the class.  I listened to their minds one by one.  No one said anything interesting.  Michelle’s voice was slightly distressed.  Something was going on at her house.  Something eating away at her parents and her relationship.  I would have to look into that.  Maybe there’s a way that I could help.
         “Raquel.”  My name was distinct.  Someone was purposely thinking of me; purposely saying my name.  I let my eyes fall on the owner of the voice.  A voice that I’ve heard too much lately.  The one that I know I will expose myself to and most likely kill.  His eyes were burning into mine causing my nonexistent heart to thud hyperactively. 
         “Angel.”  Theory number one.
         I shook my head no; his eyes got wide then shifted to a determined gaze.
         “So you can hear Me.” a statement not a question.
         I nodded.  He returned my nod, “Okay, this should make it easier.”  I sighed.
         “Foot binding.”  I turned my dazzling smile onto Mr. Barton.
         “Thank you Miss Dayley.”  He tried to return the smile but it wasn’t anywhere close.  His mind kept reminding him, “She’s too young, too young, too young.”  He moved on heading back toward the front of the room.  My eyes searched for Chester’s again.  They met; a second of intensity following.
         “Wow, I didn’t even hear him ask you the question.”  I shrugged.  “Can you read anyone’s mind?”
         I nodded.
         “Always?”
         I nodded.
         “Alien?”  Theory number two.
         I shook my head no.
         “Ghost?” Theory number three.
         I smiled and shook my head again.
         “Am I even close?”
         I looked down and shook my head again.
         “Darn.”
         Somewhere in the background a bell rang.  I heard everyone get up from his or her seats, but neither Chester nor I moved.  We stayed in that heart-stimulating stare down until Mr. Barton asked if he could help us with something.  I looked away first.  I flashed my smile again.
         “No,” I pushed my chair back and stood, “have a good day.”  I added a flick of my hair for effect and sauntered out the door.
         One hour down seven to go.
         The next couple hours went without any disasters, mind reading, or teachers drooling over me.  I was slightly anchous to go to lunch.  I would take my tray of food that I might or might not eat to our usual table.  I scanned the room.  My eyes met with Joshua’s.  He wouldn’t be sitting with us today, I could tell by Shandy pulling him to the table she sat at with her friends.
         “Sorry.”  He was truly sorry I could tell.
         It’s okay, just be careful.  He smiled; flipping his dust colored hair toward Shandy.
         Good deed of the day.  I felt the edges of my lips turn upward.  Joshua wouldn’t be sitting with us, but Chester would.  I sat down across from Chester.
         “Demon.”  Theory number four.
         I laughed.
         “What?”  He was defensive.
         “Nothing, that was just funny.  Tell me do you really think I’m a demon?”
         “No, but you said you weren’t an angel.  So I figured that you had to be a demon.  It’s about the only thing I haven’t guessed yet.”
         I looked into his eyes.  They went on forever, like quicksand, pulling me into them, dragging me under, “there’s plenty of things you haven’t guess yet.”
         “Werewolf.”
         “Ick, no.”          I almost gagged.
         “Radioactive tennis ball?”
         I laughed again, “No.”
         “Spider?”
         “No.”
         “Anything radioactive?”
         “Sadly, no.”
“Kryptonite bother you?”
         “Nope.”
         “Anything?”
         “That’s not a theory.”  I frowned.
         “No, I guess not,” he looked thoughtful, “just useful for more information.”
         “Yes.  A few things.”
         “Like?”  His eyes lit up.
         “Uh, un, you have to figured out what I am first.”
         He sighed resigned, “I will get this, you know that right?”
         “Maybe.”
         “I will.”
         “You haven’t yet.”
         “True, but I will.”
         Lunch passed quickly the rest of my family seamed to disappear.  Leslie and Walker probably went to hide from the jealous remarks and rude stares of the human girls.  Hannah was there but paid no attention to Chester and I.  She was focused on Ryan.  I listened between Joshua’s and Chester’s thoughts.  Chester wasn’t getting any closer to a discovery.  The only thing Joshua thought about was how to be close to Shandy without her actually knowing what he is.
I decided it was time to leave.  I didn’t want to go to any of the classes I had left today.  I rose from my seat.  Chester mirrored my movement.
         “Where are you going?”  Chester didn’t want me to leave I could tell.
         “Away from here.”
“You’re skipping?” his mouth made an O of surprise.
         “Yeah, it’s good to do it every now and then.  You know keeps your adventurous side intact.”
         “But what about…”
         “You want to come?”  I wasn’t sure why I let that slip out.  It was out there now I guess.  I guess I did enjoy his company.
         “Are you serious?”
         “Yeah, maybe I can answer some of your questions.”
         “Okay, but I’ve got a million.”
         “That’s fine, we’ll have time.”  I turned, disposed of my trash and walked out the door.  He followed me.  I wondered if anyone would notice it if he was last seen with me.  I shook the idea from my head.  He wouldn’t die.  Not today at least.




























6. Questions
         “Alright, I’ll make you a deal.  You ask one question, I get to ask one question.”
         “Sounds great to me.”  he smiled, he had be dying to ask me a few.  I could tell.  “I’ll make you a deal.”
         “What?”  I didn’t really like having to agree with deals, I liked to initiate them.
         “No mind reading.  I want this to be fair.”
         “Fine.”
         “You first?”
         “I don’t have one yet, so you.”
         “Okay, are you dangerous?”
         “To whom?”
         “What?”
         “Am I dangerous to whom?  You?  Other people?  Myself?  Humankind?”
         “Uh, Humankind?”
         “I can be, but no, I’ve tamed that.”
         “Other people?”
         “Hey two questions in a row my turn.”
         “Oh, sorry, go ahead.”
         “Why are you so curios?”
         “I’ve never met anyone like you.  So are you?”
         “Dangerous to other people?”
         “Yeah.”
         “I can be, especially large groups of people on one place, but years of discipline helped change that.  What do you mean no one like me?”
         “You’re like a goddess.  Yourself?”
         “Is that your next theory?  Yes, if I lose control.”
         “Yes.  Are you?”
         “A goddess no.  Was that the question?”
         “Yes.  Now, are dangerous to me?”
         “Yes, more than anything or anyone.  Does that scare you?”
         “No, well a little.  Why?”
         “I was just wondering.  Was that the question?”
         “No, why are you so dangerous to me?”
         “Your…” I searched for the word, “essence.  Tell me about yourself.”
         “Not a question, try again.”
         “Will you tell me about yourself?”
         “What do you want to know?”
         “Everything.”  My eyes smoldered into him.
         “I like to be with you.  What do you think about that?”
         “Bad answer, it’s dangerous for you to be with me.”
         “Why?”
         “Why not?”
         “There has to be a reason.”
         “Maybe there is.  Maybe you just can’t know.”
         “Why?”
         “Maybe it’s bigger than me.  Maybe there’s more people involved.”
         “I see your family.”  I didn’t say anything to that.  I didn’t know that to say.  I guess I could tell him the truth.  I could smile and say ‘yes my family is one of me to.  Do you want to know what that is?  Oh yes of course you do.  Oh we’re all vampires.  Yeah, and it’s not safe for you because I want to take you and suck you dry of all of the blood in your body.’  I didn’t though.  I didn’t have time.  I heard it then.  Someone was saying my name.  clearly, but not like they were talking to me, they were asking for me.  I closed my eyes and zoned in on the voice.
         “I see so there’s no way I could get you to tell me where she is, Mrs. Dolton, is that right?”  I could see him flashing her that dazzling smile that we’ve all mastered.  That at one point in time we’ve all used to our atvantage.
         “Well, I’m not supposed to give out that kind of imformation, to, uh, what did you say you were to her again?”
         “Friend, close friend.”
         “Oh well, I guess it wont break any rules if I tell you that she hasn’t been in any of her classes since lunch.”
         “Oh, I see.”
         “Yeah, so I guess I can’t really tell you where to find her.”
         “Oh, well in that case, could you do me a different favor.”
         “Yes, well maybe.  What would this favor happen to be?”
         “Could you make sure she gets this.  It’s very important.  Almost life and death.”
         “Oh yes, no problem.  I’ll make she it gets to her as soon as someone sees her.  Maybe I can give it to one of her family members.  I could call one of them down for you.”
         “No, no there’s no need in that.  Just make sure she gets it as soon as posible.”
         “Ok.”
         “Thank you so much, Mrs. Dalton.  You’re a wonderful woman.”
         “Uh, your welcome.”  He was gone before she managed to get the words out.
         

         “Damn.”  I hadn’t realized I had said that out loud.
         “Excuse me?”  Chester slowly came back into view.
         “Oh, sorry.”  I tried to smile, but it was hard.  He was looking for me.  I knew he wouldn’t stop.  He wouldn’t quit until he got what he came for and if I didn’t do it; if I didn’t give him what he asked for, he would involved other people.
         “Raquel, hey, are you okay?”
         “Chester, I’m really sorry I have to go.”  I looked around.  I hadn’t realized how far into the playground we had wondered.  I didn’t notice that we had been walking while we talked.  I spun around moved hurridly back toward the school.
         “What happened to skipping is heathy?”  he mummbled jogging to keep up with me.
         “Sometimes, going to class is healthy too.”  I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
         I didn’t go to class.  I didn’t walk with him to spanish.  He couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t following him so he parted ways with me.  I knew where I was headed: to the office.

         The door made a quiet click when it shut behind me.  I sent Mrs. Dalton that smile that I know he sent her just a few minutes before.  A smile that she probably had gotten used to from us ‘Dayley’s’ but a smiled she still couldn’t resist giving in to us.
         “Just the person I wanted to see, Miss Dayley.”  She tried to mimic the “vampire smile” but was nowhere near.
         “Why would that be, Mrs. Dalton?”  I just wanted to get this over.  I wanted to get the note and get out of here.
         “I’ve got something for you right… uh…” she started to rummage through the papers on her desk.
         Please don’t tell me she lost it.  I tried to tell my mind to just up, but it didn’t listen to me.
         “Oh, here it is.”  She looked pleased with herself and handed me a slightly bent envelope with ‘Dearest Raquel’ scawled across the front.  “someone must really like you.”
         “Perhaps.”  I took it from her hands, “Thank you so much.”  And headed toward the door. As I left I heard her wispear to herself, “Those Dayley kids, always so polite.”
         I walked to my truck.  I climbed behind the wheel and began driving.  I had to get to my medow, my thinking place.  And I had to get there now.