Esmeralda

I remember that day. Two weeks before Christmas. Ember and I were doing a last Christmas shopping to do. I was nine. He was eighteen. We had turned into an abandoned alleyway. That's when they came. The red eyes. One reached out and grabbed my mouth. I watched horrified as one of them bit my brother's neck. I whimpered and turned to move but it was like a stone creature had come and turned me into stone also. I felt tears falling. One of them looked at me. I will never forget her face. Her golden eyes held sadness..no pity for me. Her blond hair was in curls down her back. She was slender and had white, smooth skin.

"Let the little one go," her melodic voice rang out.

The one that held me hissed, "What?"

"We don't need her. We got what we came here for, now let her go."

The red eyes didn't let me go. Her eyes narrowed.

"Or Claude will hear about this."

Red eyes hissed and let me go. The woman picked me up in her arms and ran. Wind blew my hair out around me. She stopped near a store and placed me down. She sighed and took my hands.

"Promise me little one that we will meet again. And to beware of those who are like me. Your brother will me fine I promise. I will watch over him. As I promise a give you this."

She took off a necklace and put it around my neck. It was a simple gold band with a sliver cross. She kissed me and left me there. My cheek still burns. The necklace still sits heavy on my chest. There I had sat for hours on end. Finally someone came. Someone. They took me to my parents. I lied that night at the police station. I had said that some men came and took us. Ember threw me out of the van but they didn't stop for me. They looked for three years.

I knew they won't find him. No one would. He was one of them now. One of the red eyes. I lied to protect her and him. To protect their kind. And I still do to this day. I watched out for them but never came to talk to one of them. It was after my sixteenth birthday that things fell apart.