3. First sight

Vald's Pov

This was the time of the day when I mostly wished I were able to sleep

High school. Or was purgatory the right word?

If there were any way to atone for my sins, this ought to count toward the tally in some measure. The boredom was not something I grew used to. Every day seemed more impossibly uneventful than the last.

Perhaps this could even be considered my form of sleep. If sleep was defined as the lifeless state between active periods.

"Have you seen the new girl?" A blonde hair girl asked.

"I heard she did something terrible back home, so her family moved back home." Answered the girl she was with.

"I heard she killed her father." Said the other girl.

"Have you seen the new chick?" Asked  one of the basketball members.

"No, but I heard she's hot." The star player answered.

There was quite a few numbers of whispers around the school about the new girl. Which made me curious, what was so special about her?

The excitement over her arrival was predictable. Like flashing a shiny object at a child. Half the sheep-like males were already imagining themselves in love with her.

"Have you seen her?" Haden whispered, on the chair next to mine.

"No." I answered nonchantly as I listen to the teacher boring lecture.

"I heard she's a real gem." He whispered suggestively.

"Uh-huh." I said in response before drowning out his voice.

The irritating sound of the bell rang brought me out of trance and I quickly stood to my feet and left the room.

"Vald! Wait up." I heard someone shout.

Turning to the person who had called my name I saw Adriana down the corridor walking towards me.

"Is everything alright?" She asked, walking next to me. "You left home, awfully early." She mumbled a frown was visible on her face.

"It's it..." She started to say when I cut her off.

"Don't." I warned, staring at her with clench jaw before I walked away.

Fastening my pace because the rain had picked up when someone collided with me. Instinctively— I reached out, wrapping my hands around her waist to stop her from falling. 

My eyes locked for half a second with a pair of large, chocolate-brown human eyes set in a pale, heart-shaped face. I knew the face, though I'd never seen it myself before this moment. 

As I stared into those deep brown eyes, the color was like milk chocolate. But the clarity was more comparable to strong tea. There was a depth and transparency; near her pupils. There were tiny flecks of agate green and golden caramel.

It had been foremost in every human head today. The new student Ivory Quinn.

The heat of her skin burned into mine. It was like an electric pulse—the heat shot through my fingers and up my arm. Snapping me out of my hungry daze.

"I'm sorry..." She was still apologizing when I spoke in a dark tone.

"Watch it!" I glared at her before continuing to my class.

I didn't stop until I was inside the classroom. My demon, tormenting me…

I have gone centuries without feasting on human flesh. I have successfully tamed the monster within and in a mere second, she drove him to insanity. 

I don't know how long I was in the classroom for, when I heard my name being called.

"Vald?"

"Huh?" I answered absentmindly.

"Are you not getting lunch?" Mrs. Armstrong my Spanish teacher asked.

"Oh, it's already lunch?" I mumbled but it came out like a question.

"Yes." She answered, picking up her bag before leaving the room.

Letting out a sigh, I picked up my bag before walking out of the room and to the cafeteria.

"You look to be in a sour mood." Haden noticed before taking a bite from his pizza.

Ignoring his and Adriana questioning gaze. I stared at the cracks running through the plaster in the far corner of the cafeteria. Imagining patterns into them that were not there. It was one way to tune out the voices that babbled like the gush of a river inside my head.

Several hundred of these voices I ignored out of boredom.

"It has become real bad, hasn't it?" Adriana mumbled.

"Mhm." Haden hummed.

Suddenly, I was examimg the new girl one more time.

Somehow, this girl looked more fragile than her classmates. Her skin was so translucent it was hard to believe it offered her much defense from the outside world. I could see the rhythmic pulse of blood through her veins under the clear, pale membrane.

There was a faint crease between her eyebrows that she seemed unaware of. It was unbelievable frustrating! I could clearly see that it was a strain for her to sit there, to make conversation with strangers. To be the center of attention.

I could sense her shyness from the way she held her frail looking shoulders. Slightly hunched, as if she was expecting a rebuff at any moment. And yet I could only sense, could only see, could only imagine. There was nothing but silence from the very unexceptional human girl.

I could hear nothing. Why?

"Shall we?" Adriana murmured, interrupting my focus.

I looked away from the girl with a sense of relief. I didn't want to continue to fail at this-it irritated me. And I didn't want to develop any interest in her hidden thoughts.

We got up from the table and walked out of the cafeteria.

Haden and Adriana went their separate ways. While I headed to my biology class, preparing my mind for the boredom.

It was doubtful Mr. Gordon, a man of no more than average intellect. Couldn't pull out anything in his lecture that would surprise me.

In the classroom, I settled into my chair and let my books-props and spilled across the table. Again they held nothing I didn't already know. I was the only student who had a table to himself. The humans weren't smart enough to know that they feared me. But their survival instincts were enough to keep them away.

The room slowly filled as they trickled in from lunch. I leaned back in my chair and waited for the time to pass. Again, I wished I was able to sleep.

Because I'd been thinking about her, when Abby Shaw escorted the new girl through the door. Her

name intruded on my attention.

She came closer, walking down the aisle beside me to get to the teacher's desk.

Poor girl; the seat next to me was the only one available. Automatically, I cleared what would be her side of the desk, shoving my books into a pile.

I doubted she would feel very comfortable there. She was in for a long semester-in this class, at least. Perhaps, though, sitting beside her, I'd be able to flush out her secrets...not that I'd ever needed close proximity before...not that I would find anything worth listening to...

Ivory walked into the flow of the heated air that blew toward me from the vent.

Her scent hit me like a battering ram, like an exploding grenade. There was no image violent enough to encompass the force of what happened to me at that moment. Instantly, I was transformed.

I was nothing close to the human I'd once been. No trace of the shreds of humanity I'd managed to cloak myself in over the years remained.

I was a predator. She was my prey.

There was nothing else in the whole world, but that truth. I was a vampire, and she had the sweetest blood I'd smelled in more than eighty years.

I hadn't imagined that such a scent could exist. If I'd known it did, I would have gone searching for it long ago. I would have scoured the planet for her. I could imagine the taste.… Thirst burned through my throat like fire.

My mouth felt baked and desiccated, and the fresh flow of venom did nothing to dispel that sensation. My stomach twisted with the hunger that was an echo of the thirst. And my muscles coiled to spring.

Not a full second had passed. She was still taking the same step that had put her downwind from me. As her foot touched the ground, her eyes slid toward me. A movement she clearly meant to be stealthy.

Her glance met mine, and I saw myself reflected in the wide mirror of her eyes. The shock of the face I saw there saved her life for a few thorny moments.

She didn't make it easier. When she processed the expression on my face, blood flooded her cheeks again. Turning her skin the most delicious color I'd ever seen. The scent was a thick haze in my brain.

I could barely think through it. My thoughts raged, resisting control, incoherent.

She walked more quickly now, as if she understood the need to escape. Her haste made her clumsy-she  tripped and stumbled forward. Almost falling into the girl seated in front of me.

Vulnerable, weak. Even more than usual for a human.

I tried to focus on the face I'd seen in her eyes, a face I recognized with revulsion. The face of the monster.

The scent swirled around me again, scattering my thoughts and nearly propelling me out of my seat.

No.

The wood was not up to the task. My hand crushed through the strut and came away with a palm full of splintered pulp. Leaving the shape of my fingers carved into the remaining wood.

Destroy evidence. That was a fundamental rule. I crushed the edges of the shape with my fingertips. Leaving nothing but a ragged hole and a pile of shavings on the floor, which I scattered with my foot.

Destroy evidence. Collateral damage....

I took a deep breath, and the scent was a fire that raced through my dry veins. Burning out from my chest to consume every better impulse that I was capable of.

In a few seconds, she would sit down inches away from me. The monster in my head smiled in anticipation.

Someone slammed shut a folder on my left. I didn't look up to see which of the doomed humans it was. But the motion sent a wave of ordinary, unscented air wafting across my face.

Ivory sat down in the chair next to me, her movements stiff and awkward-with fear. And the scent of her blood bloomed in an inexorable cloud around me.

I leaned away from her in revulsion-revolted by the monster aching to take her.

I turned my face away from her, as a sudden fierce, unreasoning hatred washed through me. Who was this creature? Why me, why now?

The scent was the problem, the hideously appealing scent of her blood. If there was only some way to resist.

Ivory shook out her long, thick, ginge-red hair in my direction.

Was she insane? It was as if she were encouraging the monster! Taunting him.

I stopped the flow of air through my lungs; the relief was instantaneous, but incomplete. I still had the memory of the scent in my head, the taste of it on the back of my tongue. I wouldn't be able to resist even that for long.

But perhaps I could resist for an hour. One hour. Just enough time to get out of this room. It was an uncomfortable feeling, not breathing. My body did not need oxygen, but it went against my instincts.

I relied on scent more than my other senses in times of stress. It led the way in the hunt, it was the first warning in case of danger. I hadnt came across something as dangerous as I was. But self-preservation was just as strong in my kind as it was in the average human.

Uncomfortable, but manageable. More bearable than smelling her and not sinking my teeth through that fine, thin, see-through skin to the hot, wet, pulsing-

Once, toward the end, she peeked up at me through the fluid wall of her hair. I could feel the unjustified hatred burning out of me as I met her gaze. Blood painted her cheek before she could hide in her hair again, and I was nearly undone.

But the bell rang. Saved by the bell-how cliché. We were both saved. She, saved from death. I, saved for just a short time from being the nightmarish creature I feared and loathed.