Bloodlines

1.3 Keep In The Dark

Wood River High, Hailey, ID (Present Day)

"I've known him for a long time. And he was more like family. Distant family. " Russell replies.

"How come I've never heard of him?"

Suddenly, the bell rings and Russell quickly withdraws his hand, and readjusts his backpack.

"Sorry but I have to go, you know my teacher is a real pain in the ass when people come late to his class." he laughs nervously. Brooke gets the feeling Russell isn't telling her something, but she just brushes it off and says goodbye for now.

While Russell is walking to his class he thinks about everything that's happened the last few years. It had been 17 years since Maxim turned him and May into vampires. He'd not seen nor heard from Maxim since that one day in the woods. Upon returning to the house where Glenn had his mental breakdown(if you can even call it that), they saw that the bodies of his mother and stepfather were now missing. For over five years, they had searched for their parents' remains, Glenn and Maxim, without much success. Each clue only lead from one dead end to another. As if neither party wanted to be found. Russell had finally decided to give up and chose to pretend that it had all never happened and that he was just a normal human being. May, on the other-hand, refused and had kept on searching to this day, she was determined to avenge her family and kill Glenn for what he had done. However, the young vampire's thoughts are abruptly interrupted by Mr. Novak, his math teacher.

"Have you finally found your way to the classroom, Mr. Nguyen?" Russell rolls his eyes and sits down at his usual spot in class.

Morgan Ridge, Hailey 8:30pm

"It's getting dark." Russell says worried.

"That's the point, remember? There must be as few people as possible in the area." May exclaims.

"I'm not hungry." He whispers angrily.

"Stop trying to be so virtuous, just admit that you're starving little brother. You stay weak when you don't drink human blood. And besides, vampires don't really get to be the good guys. It's not in our nature now is it?" May glances around, searching for a vulnerable target.

"What's wrong?" Russell asks.

"There's someone nearby." She swiftly sprints towards an old lady. Russell is looking at May with pitiful eyes trying to change her mind. But it's all in vain, she runs out, grabs the old lady and bites her wrist.

"Now it's your turn." May says, looking up from the lady's arm, thick red blood still dripping from her mouth like some vibrant lipstick. The old lady is in total shock.

"Let her go, I'm not gonna drink blood from an innocent ol' lady."

May looks into her eyes. "You were not attacked this evening, you fell down on your walk and cut your wrist. When you get home, you'll put on a bandage, swear to be more careful in the future, and you will go straight to bed."

May turns to her brother. "I cannot believe you Russell! How much longer must you keep this up? I thought you'd have grown out of this phase already. Or have you forgotten why we moved to Hailey in the first place? Why do you always have to be like this? Last time I checked, I was the girl and I certainly never acted this way, even when I was human." May turns her back on Russell and stalks off into the night. Russell slips his hands into his pockets and hangs his head in shame. He then jogs after May, coming up alongside her.

"I--I just can't do it."

"You're a vampire, it's your nature! It shouldn't be hard to resist! I love you Russ, but you've got to take care of yourself, because if you ever want to get something done as a vampire you will have to drink human blood. You'll need to be strong when we find Glenn." May had still not given up her obsession with finding their deranged brother.

"I don't want to find Glenn, anymore May. I just want to live my life now, as normally as possible."

"Glenn is the reason we're in this situation. Russ. Maxim wouldn't have turned us if it wasn't for him. Now that we are vampires, he'll be the one crawling and bleeding on the floor. That son of a bitch will be the one who'll be afraid," she says venomously.

Later that night...

"Come on slow-poke! We need to bag this wolf before Fiona misses us. She'll be pissed we went off book without a good excuse." an African-American woman yells to a man behind her.

A man crouches over the wolftracks in the dirt, and realizes they are still fresh.

"Well, Alisha, I think we are on the right track." he grins.

"Alisha?" The man starts panicking, his partner is nowhere to be found. He tries to flee but he bumps into someone.

"Looking for this?" Moses asks while holding the woman's head.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you, when hunting werewolves, one must always keep one's head about themselves?" Ben laughs while he steps out of the shadows on the far end, cutting off any chance of a retreat.

"The honor is all yours, Ben." Moses replies, smiling.