This Bites!

The Perfect Moment

Stiles

Artemis and I are in my jeep. We at almost half way to her house. I know cause she gives me 30 second updates on how far we are. She seems genuinely scared. I'm about to turn a corner when Artemis grabs my are and throws her hand onto her stomach. I stop the car and look at her frantically. "What?! What's wrong?!" I ask but I get no answer. Instead she grabs her backpack, opens it and pulls out what looks like a blood bag. She stares at it for about ten seconds before her eyes go wide.

"Bad blood." She chokes out. She opens the car door and stumbles out. She walks to the nearest trash can and dips her head in. When she makes it back to the car, there's blood on her mouth. God, I'm gonna have to get used to that. She wipes it off an, looks at me apologetically and climbs into the car. "I'm so sorry. The blood I had for lunch today was a week old. I couldn't keep it down." She says. I nod.

"As long as your okay." I say. I don't want her to get hurt.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Physically, at least. I'm starving though. Do you think we can stop at a pizza place?" She asks. I furrow my eyebrows. I would have thought she would want something a little more sustainable to vampires... Like blood.

"You want pizza?" I ask. She smiles shyly.

"More like an employee." Oooohhh. That makes sense. I nod.

"O...k. I can live with that." I say though the thought of it made me a little queasy. I drive to the nearest Domino's and we walk in. She immediately walks up to the counter. A server comes up to us to ask what we want but he stops talking once he sees Artemis. At first I think it's because he likes her but I see the way she looking at him.

"Follow me and don't scream." She says with an eerily calm voice. She gets up and he follows like a zombie. She looks at me. "You can come if you want." She says. After a ten second debate with myself, I hop up and follow them. Once we are outside where no one can se us she take him by the shoulders and lowers her head onto his neck. I almost faint. After a second she lifts her head and wipes her mouth. Then she does something I didn't expect her to. She bites her wrist and feeds him the blood. Is she... Turning him?

"What are you doing?" I ask. She looks at me.

"Don't worry. I'm not turning him. Vampire blood heals humans. The only way my blood could turn him is if he dies in the next 24 hours before my blood leaves his system and then feeds on human blood. I'll take my chances." She says. I nod. That's a relief. She looks into his eyes once more. "Your going to fall asleep. When you wake up all you will remember is going outside for some fresh air and then some guy came and knocked you out." He says. He falls down to the ground and she turns to me. "He'll be fine. Won't remember a thing." She says.

"You know that was actually kind of interesting." I say, and it's true. She chuckles.

"Good to know." We walk back to the jeep and drive to her house. When we get inside we find her sister on the couch watching a movie. I look at Artemis.

"Why did I imagine her in some sort of robe surrounded by candles and doing some sort of voodoo spell?" I ask her. She laughs.

"You watch too many movies." She says.

"I may be a witch but I'm still a human as well." A voice says. I look over and Artemis's sister has her hand stick out. I take it and shake. "Hi. I'm Annabeth. You must be the Stiles that my sister is constantly talking about." I look at Artemis and she is looking at the ground, though I can see hints of a blush. "Now, I would like to ask, why do you know that I'm a witch and what else do you know?" Annabeth asks.

"That's actually what we're here about." Artemis says.

"What do you mean?" Annabeth asks.

"Well, turns out that my friends aren't as normal as I thought. Scott is a werewolf, as is Isaac. Allison is a werewolf hunter and Lydia is a Banshee. I told them about us." She says. Annabeth looks at her sharply.

"The two of us or all of us?" She asks.

"Yes. I told them about Josh, though I didn't really have a choice. He 'showered us in his presence' twenty minutes ago." Annabeth's expression changes immediately. It was a look of sorrow.

"We're going to have to leave. I'll start packing." She says. Artemis grabs her arm.

"No, Anna. We aren't going to let out brother ruin out lives here. We're going to stay and we're going to fight, okay?" She says. Her sister is silent for a moment before she smiles and nods. Artemis smiles. "Good. Now I'm going outside for some fresh air." She says. She starts to walk away but then she turns around and says, "You might want to think about getting some new blood. I might have to raid the hospital." Then she walks out of her house and I follow. We walk for a bit talking about random things before she takes a seat on a park bench. I sit down next to her and ask the question that I've been wanting to ask.

"What's it like being a vampire?" She looks at me, grief in her eyes. I frown.

"Honestly?" She asks. I nod. "It sucks. People glamorize being a vampire but it's really not that great. First there's the bloodlust. And while I'm able to control it, it's still there haunting me." She says. I frown. I never actually thought how terrible that would be. "But that's not the worst part. The worst is living longer than the people you love. I outlived my parents. And it wasn't the fact that they kicked me out when they realized what I was that upset me. It was that I had to watch them grow old and die while I just sat her perfectly healthy in this 17 year old body. I can't count the amount of times I made connections with people and then lost them. Eventually I just stopped. Making friends, that is. You guys are the first human friends I've had in at least 150 years. And eventually, I'll lose you too." She says. Tears started to stream down her face and now I'm feeling guilty for even bringing it up. I move closer to her, and wrap my arms around her. She snuggles close to me and I feel a warmth spread through my body. I look her at her and give a small smile.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on leaving for a while." I say. She smiles and moves even closer to me. It was a perfect moment until...