DUSK

eight

As first light began to break the sky, I moved.

Will reflexively gripped my waist in his sleep, but I easily slipped from his grasp.

I stood for a moment watching him, his arm laying across the spot I no longer was and a deep ache went through me.

I was conflicted. The first one to touch me in this way and he's a human my body desperately wants to consume.

Of course, there was a solution for that, but to take him away from his life, his parents, his sister...

Mine were gone when Tess turned me.

I couldn't do that to him.

At least Stephen had left me me alone, last night.  No more waking dreams to bother me.

But I still had to worry about this killer of our kind. Possibly a threat to me and mine.

"Why?" I thought.

I slipped out into the dawn and headed back to the house, practically flying.

When I got there, Tess was up waiting for me.

"I think you may be in love." she said, as she sat in the easy chair, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

I sighed "I think you're right." I said after a moment's thought, completely at ease with the notion.

"You'll eventually have to turn him.  Or perhaps I will. You'll likely kill the poor boy."

I couldn't have been less amused.

~~~~

I drove to school the next day, looking forward to seeing Will and Clara, but something was different.

I smelled someone new.  Another like myself, and not one I had already met.

He was quickly heading straight for my vehicle. I swerved but so did he.

He collided into my truck, causing me to skid off the road onto the desert sand.

The passenger side concaved deeply inward, with sound of bending metal.

The door flew off of it's hinges and I was roughly taken from my seat.

And then something I hadn't felt since I was turned. Pain.

I finally got a look at him.

Brown hair, piercing black eyes, a black suit. He held me aloft by one hand, his fingers wrapped around my throat until they nearly overlapped, I was so tiny compared to his towering figure.

"You should not exist. None of us. Made to prey on flesh," he began to squeeze.

I gripped his thumb and pulled back, causing him to drop me to the ground and then I tried to run. He caught me easily, his arm swung around across my upper chest, restraining me.

His husky voice was at my ear.

"Sinner. We're all sinners. We all should die."

Something knocked him away. 

Stephen.

They fought fiercely.  I joined him, though my throat felt like it was on fire.

The stranger got to his feet and looked at both of us.

"Another time." he said, and was gone.

We couldn't track him. It was as if he'd simply dissapeared.