Old Fashioned *Jasper Hale* (UNDER EDITING)

Prologue

Talia's POV
Dallas, Texas 1896

I walked down the street next to my brother Max. We were headed home for dinner after spending the day wandering around town. It was dark now, and our parents didn't like us out past dark. "Come on, Talia. Mother's going to have our heads if we aren't back soon," Max rushed. "I'm coming, I'm coming. You try rushing in one of these ridiculous dresses," I said.

He rolled his eyes and continued to pull me after him. We were almost home when I tripped and fell, scraping my hands on the rocky ground, causing them to bleed. "Are you okay?" Max asked rushing over to me. I nodded my head, "Yeah, I just cut my hands up a bit," I told him. He grabbed one of my hands and inspected it, "When we get home you need to have mother clean them. They'll get infected otherwise," he said.

I nodded and bent over to retrieve my purse that I dropped when I fell. When I stood back up Max was held in a choke hold, by a man with long red hair and intimidating red eyes. He was absolutely, astonishing, unhumanly beautiful. He gave me a sickly sweet smile, "Hello there, beautiful. Is this your brother?" he asked. I nodded, utterly terrified. "Well then, I'm very sorry that you're going to have to witness this," he said. At first I thought he was just going to kill Max then me, but he didn't.

He bit down on to Max's neck and I gasped loudly. I was about to scream, but a hand covered my mouth before any sound could come out. I heard the beautiful laugh of a woman and saw pieces of brown hair out of my peripheral vision. The man continued to drink my brother's blood, and I was sure he dead.

"Now, Joseph. Are you killing him or turning him?" the woman asked. 'Joseph' glared at her, but removed his mouth from Max's neck, letting him fall to the ground. A tear rolled down my cheek as I looked at the lifeless body of my brother.

"Go ahead Mary. You can have that one," Joseph wiped Max's blood from his chin. The only thing I felt after that was pain. Horrible, burning pain. And it didn't stop.

Until nearly a week later.

I shot up from my laying position. I looked at my surroundings, noticing that I was in some sort of old barn-like structure. It seemed to be falling apart, the roof littered with holes, broken boards dangling above my head. I was still wearing my dress that I had on when Max and I were attacked. It was covered in blood and torn in some places.

Max. What happened to Max? "Talia? You're finally awake! I was beginning to worry." Nevermind, there's Max. I turned my head to look at him. He was walking towards me, the first thing I noticed was how quick he was moving, it was incredibly fast. The next thing I noticed, I didn't see until he was crouched down, level with me on the makeshift bed I was laying on,, mainly being dirty straw and ratty pieces of cloth. He had piercing red eyes. Just like the one's Joseph and, I'm assuming, Mary had.

"Max," I breathed, "What happened? Where are we? Why are your eyes red?! I thought we were both dead! I saw you on the ground lifeless!" I rambled. "Hey, hey. Calm down, Tali. I'm going to explain everything," Max said. I nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"You've been asleep for about a week now," he started. My eyes widened as I went to ask how that was possible, but he cut me off. "Let me finish first and if you have questions at the end, I'll answer them, okay?" I nodded. "Good. So anyway, after that night when we were walking home, I was out for about three days they said. When I woke up, some man named Joseph told me what we are. Talia, we're vampires," my jaw dropped but I didn't say anything. "That's why our eyes are red. We don't eat food, or drink anything normal, we don't sleep, or get tired. We're very fast and strong, though. And we drink blood," he finished.

"Vampires? Those are real?," I said. Max nodded, "I thought so too. But they're definitely real."

"So, then where is Joseph and Mary now?" I asked. Max sighed, "After you didn't wake up for four days they just assumed you had died. They said that happenes sometimes. They told this one guy, Henry I think, to take you somewhere far away. To dump your body where no one would find it. I told them that I would do it. That I'm your brother, I wanted to be the one to do it. After pleading and begging for a while they finally agreed and I took you out back and I ran. Honestly, I didn't think they would be stupid enough to fall for that, but here we are. I didn't believe that you had actually died, I felt it. I knew you were alive, I can't explain how, but I knew. We're somewhere in El Paso now."

My eyes widened, "El Paso?! Max, we were in Dallas! That's like 600 miles, at least," I said. "We don't get tired, remember?" Max said. I frowned, forgetting our conversation as the back of my throat began to burn like fire. My hands flew to my neck rubbing up and down, trying to sooth the burning, but it wasn't working. I looked frantically towards Max. He looked at me with sad eyes, "You need to feed," he said simply. "Come on, we're not to far from town. It's dark so it'll be better to go now," he said.

I got up and followed him out of the barn and into the dark. We got to the edge of town and Max looked at me, "You have to be quiet and quick. If we get caught, it won't be pretty. Got it?" he asked. I nodded. "Okay, there," he pointed, "Do you see that woman walking alone? Maybe you can even take her clothes, yours are a bit of a mess, Tali," he pointed to the blood stains running down the side of my dress. I nodded and took a deep breath before remembering that I don't have a need for oxygen anymore.

I ran up behind the woman, pulling her into a nearby ally so we wouldn't be seen. She tried to scream and I wanted to feel bad, but the only thing I felt was a burning thirst. I put my hand over her mouth, like Mary had done to me, and bit into her neck, sucking all the blood from her body. Once I was finished, I dropped her to the ground, just like Joseph had done to Max. I stared in horror at what I had done. Max came up behind me, wiping blood from his mouth.

I looked at him sadly and then back to the woman I just killed. "I'm sorry, Talia. This is what we are now. We live like this or we die." I continued to stare down at my victim, "Maybe that would be better."

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A/N: It didn't cross my mind when I wrote this that Mary and Joseph were biblical names. I didn't even think about it until people started mentioning it in the comments😂 It wasn't my intention to have them associated with the Bible, it was just two names I thought fit together well, and now I know why it felt familiar.