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That’s what my town thinks I am.
They think that nobody will notice or care if I just disappear, and even though I hate to admit it, I think they’re right.
Chapter 2
THE SOUND OF SCREAMING is what wakes me. I’m jolted awake and sit up in the darkness of my tent. The world is no longer quiet the way it’s supposed to be. Everyone is awake, and everyone is yelling.
“They’re here!”
“The vampires! They’ve come!”
“Monsters!”
“Run!”
“Fight!”
It takes me a minute to realize what’s happening. There’s an invasion. They really are here. So I wasn’t dreaming about those men in the woods, was I? It wasn’t just a daydream. They were real, and now they’re here. They’ve come for the town. I’m smart enough to know that even if I’d warned people when I was on duty, they wouldn’t have believed me. They wouldn’t have reacted.
After all, vampires aren’t supposed to be pretty.
They aren’t supposed to make your heart stop or make it difficult to breathe. When I’d seen the men in the woods, I’d felt so many different emotions. Now their group is here, and they are going to...
What?
What are they going to do?
Eat us?
Destroy us?
Catch us?
I might want to be a vampire, but I definitely don’t want to be slaughtered by one. Not like this. Not on someone else’s terms. The village is practically burning to the ground, judging by the sounds of things, and I know that I don’t have much time.
I grab my brown shoulder bag. It contains my spare clothes, my journal, and the doll my mother left me. I loved that thing when I was little, and I’m not about to let it go now. The bag also has the only memento Edna ever gave me: a small key that unlocked her very first home in Eagleton. She made me promise not to tell any of her children she gave it to me, and I did. I always kept it tucked away carefully. Now it can serve as a memory of everything I’ve left behind.
Climbing out of my tent, I look around quickly to assess the situation, only to find it is in utter and complete chaos. It’s even worse than I thought: the town is unceremoniously being completely destroyed.
People are running around wildly. It’s easy to see who the humans are and who the vampires are, because unlike the townspeople, the vampires don’t seem to be yelling or shrieking or even panicking. They’re just methodically walking around, grabbing humans, and tying them up.
“Are they hog-tying people?” I mutter to myself, whispering. I’m so used to whispering that it doesn’t even cross my mind to speak out loud.
“Yes,” says a voice, and I turn around quickly to see that the tall man from yesterday is standing just beside my tent. “Don’t yell.” His voice is deep and rough with just the right amount of command. If this guy wants to boss me around, well...I’ll let him. That scares me a little.
“Okay,” I whisper. If I hadn’t spent the last decade or so of my life whispering, I probably would have screamed. Just as the other people are panicking, I can feel myself growing wary and nervous. It doesn’t seem fair or okay that the world is burning down around me. I’m so not going to be fine after this is all over.
“Tell me your name,” he says. I look up at the man. In the darkness, I can’t see him very clearly, but I know exactly who it is. He’s one of the men from yesterday: one of the guys who came to scope out the village. Perhaps I should have actually told Joe about what I saw. Then maybe this wouldn’t be happening.
The man looks at me patiently, as though we have all of the time in the world. It’s a bit ridiculous, really, because we obviously don’t have all of the time in the world. Things are falling down around us. The community is burning.
“Your name,” he says again. It’s not a request. Again, it’s a command.
The truth slips from my lips.
“Tyana.”
He looks at me carefully and steps closer. There are dim lights on the walls surrounding the town, and that, coupled with the stars, lets me see the man’s face a little more clearly now that he’s closer to me. He is even more beautiful up close, and unfortunately for me, that frightens me a little. Why does he have to be so damn pretty?
