Elena.

"You probably know what my name is already, don't you?" I asked. I had enough energy to start moving a little so I started to unbuckle my seat belt. He nodded but looked at me in a confused way. I explained to him that I wanted to sit in the front. Ryan reached over the passenger seat to open the car door for me. As I reached from the passenger door handle. I couldn't help but slightly think about running away. I wouldn't of course, but I still couldn't help thinking about it.

"When am I going to talk to Jerry?" I said as I got in the car.

"In a couple of days I think." He responded. He drove out of the gas station as we sat next to each other in silence. He turned the radio on and looked for a song he would like but he gave up minutes later and shut it off.I looked out my window covered in water droplets to only see thick pine trees lit by a full moon. I heard the sound of a bag of chips opening so I looked over at Ryan.

"Uh...want any?" He asked. I shook my head looking back out the window, uninterested. "I know it won't help your hunger or give you any energy," he gulped as he swallowed. "because it sure isn't going to do so for me, but just drinking all that blood can get so...boring." He stated casually. I felt my eyes bulge from the surprise.

"You have t-the same...thing as m-me? I asked in a shaky voice. He gave a small chuckle at my reaction, he thought I'd been kidding.

"Yes I guess," he added in an amused voice, "if by thing you mean-"

"Hm. Okay. Give me some of those chips." I said trying to cut him off. I snatched a handful of chips to distract myself and hopefully, him. He made the same 'hm' noise as the woman in the leather scented car had made. This irritated me but at least he changed the subject. He told me we were almost there as he made a small left turn towards a dirt road. We drove on for a couple of minutes when I saw a house off in the distance. The front porch light was on, and from what I could tell it was the only house around for miles, all that surrounded it was dense forest. We were in the middle of no where.

"How long am I staying here?" I asked as the garage door closed behind the car. He shrugged and asked if i needed help getting out of the car. I said no so instead he got my things from the backseat.

"Sorry for the mess. I just moved in and it's only for a while." He closed the door and showed me up to my room. What Ryan called 'a mess' were a few boxes here and there in the otherwise spotless house. He left me to unpack my things in a room he had given me upstairs in the small, two story house. My new room was practically empty if it wasn't for an alarm clock, a bookcase, and a bed of course. I didn't care about that. The alarm said that it was past midnight.

Ryan came up to bring me a glass that according to my mother and what seemed like everyone else-was blood. I drank it down telling myself that it wasn't. I timidly asked him why the drink looked redder than when my mother had given it to me. As I asked, I chose my words carefully so I wouldn't somehow hurt his feelings about it.

"That's because she probably used food coloring so you'd drink it," he explained. He took the empty glass from me and headed downstairs, me following him. We walked down to the room I would guessed was the living room if there was anything other than boxes and a coffee table.

"Why wouldn't I drink it though?" I asked slowly as I stopped following him. He turned to read my expression. He didn't say anything for a while but took a deep breath before he spoke.

"That's something Jerry mentioned," he said gently, "you really have to work on controlling your eye color, it's reflecting how you're feeling." I was lost for words. "Jerry could have gotten to you earlier but he can't-"

"Why?" I demanded, a little angry.

"He can't resist the sun like you had, so he had to wait until it began to rain." He was about to say something else, but I stopped him.

"This-this is just too...come on you expect me to believe-what's really going on?" I tried to mask my worried tone with an irritated one, but it didn't work.

"I know you believe me," he said, "so just hear me out, afterwords you can tell me if what I am saying isn't true." I patiently sat down on one of the giant boxes and he sat by me. "It's different for every one of us, and from what I know, you have...you have more than one advantage that we're supposed to obtain." By the people he mentioned as 'we'. I guessed that it meant other people that were like Ryan, Jerry and me.

"So can you go in the sun?" I asked, not looking directly at him.

"Nope." He replied, shrugging it off. His bright green eyes had lost their light and were now cast over with a thin veil of sadness. I didn't say anything more about it. Instead, I told him about what happened to me before my seventeenth birthday, about the disappearing and reappearing fangs, everything that happened to me after I'd fainted at school. Most of it he already knew from Jerry, but either way he intently listened and made occasional questions. Apparently, Jerry had heard Mrs. Goodman and my mother talk over the phone while I was ill in my room, unaware of what was happening. After I'd said everything, I asked another question.

"Why don't we look so pale then?" I said looking into his piercing green eyes.

His answer to that question is something I still remember oh so well, word for word...no matter how many years ago it's been since he'd said it.

"The blood we drink makes us look human enough. Without it, we would be seen for what we're really become."

I looked away as he'd begun to answer me and sprung up from the giant box I'd been sitting in. I didn't want to believe anything he was saying, but only something as crazy as this could logically explain everything that was happening to me. I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I shook my head still looking away from him.

"We are what we are," he said with an alarming amount of seriousness, "We're-"

"Vampires." I mouthed.