Heart of Glass

“Hey,” Annika said,” I just told him all of the...er, 'rules' all night! I didn’t know it took so long! God, how did you explain so fast to Jason?! It takes so damn long! Augh!” She Squint Glared at me while putting extreme quoted on rules.

“Ummmm…I don’t know???” I said with a weak smile, waiting a couple seconds before cracking up about her sudden spaz attack. Kyle was fidgeting a lot, and i knew he had something to say. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Annika interrupted him, her eyes flashing."And he still has more questions!” she said waving her hands in the air. Kyle closed his mouth suddenly, so his teeth make a snapping sound. He scowled at Annika. I turned to Annika and put my hands on her shoulders. With my awesome outrageous strength I shook her back and forth while saying in a zombie voice: "Annika. My God! Take a freaking Chill Pill or something!" i was about to crack up, but I had to last just a little longer. She was staring at me her glazed expression fading away, her anger and frustration leaving her and took a deep breath.

"Okay. Im fine. You can ask me ANY question you want. I guess." she said, chilling out.

"Um. Okay. So. If i like REALLY need blood what do I...do?"

"You go to like a forest or something, or a blood bank. You can drink human blood, it is reallllllly good. But you can just go to a forest or whatever and drink animal blood. Even though technically human blood is better for us vamps. It makes us a bit faster and stronger and stuff. Oh did i mention about our looks? Okay right now you and i and actually everyone in this room has their looks tuned down to look more....human. I can teach you how to change it to your full...prettieness if you like Prettyboy. You use it to allure humans so you can drink their blood if need be."

Kyle turned a deep red. "Aww wook hes bwushing!" Ally cooed like she was talking to a wittle baybie. "Do you not like being a pretty boy, Prettyboy?" Ally laughed. "Oh come on. It's okay; we're just having our fun. So Annika. Show. Him. Already." I said gritting me teeth and trying to send her telepathic messages, then smiled like an angel. Apparently she got the message.

"Um. Okay. So I guess just think of your face features changing i guess." She shrugged and her face changed into her true Form. "Easy as...er...drinking blood!" she said brightly. Kyle flinched. He squinted his eyes and his face started to change.

"Good. You got it. Round of applause eveyone! Bravo!" He rolled his eyes and smiled.

"Hey I think I'm geting the hang of this!" he said obviosly relieved.

"Sure, sure. But you still have a lot to learn. Prettyboy.' she smiled.He frowned at her, wanting her to stop. “All right, all right! So….dance party anyone?” Annika asked playfully with a raised eyebrow.

“But it’s only nine o’ clock! In the morning! Too early! And yes its even to oearly for a vamp,"Jason whined.

“Yeah but it’s a great nine o’ clock, and well, do you guys have anything to do?” We all shook our heads to her pleasure. “Then perfect! We can have a partaaaay!”

“Woot!” I said then rolled my eyes. “Ah, great, this is gonna be fun,” I thought to myself with sarcasm. Annika was already over the place using vamp speed to grab the phone, a book with all of our friends’ addresses including all the addresses and phone numbers of all the vampires of the area. “Wait-!” I started to say but was interrupted by Annika yelling from my room, “Hey Ally, can I use your iPod and dock?”

“Um...sure?” I answered unsure of what the answer should be, and afraid of what would happen if I said no. Either way if it got to a fight I would win anyways. I had always been the stronger one.

“Good answer. Also, Kyle you know those speakers you have at your house? Can you go get them?”

“Sure” he got up and started to Annika’s room where he had left his car keys.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked emerging out into the hallway.
“To your room to get my keys?”

“No. You are going to run there.”

“Wh-what???”He stammered, “What do you mean? I can’t run all the way to my house!”

“Oh yes you can. Did you not see me going incredibly fast a couple seconds ago?” She took another stealthy look at his face then got a sheepish look on her face. “Oh, sorry. I, um, forgot. Our kind, and well, your kind too, I guess, we can run. Not run like humans, but run at speeds that you could win the Olympics with in less than a nanosecond!” she was saying with more excitement as she exclaimed with each word.

“-Like, really, really fast!” I interjected, “It’s sooo much fun!”

“Cool. But when you were going fast i just noticed you running. not at any alarmingly extraordinary pace...”, Kyle was saying with a bemused look upon his face, but I was barely listening because I was busy looking at Jason, who looked like an ice sculpture, he was sitting so still, but that wasn’t the odd part. He was sitting stiffly, and almost glaring at something outside through the sliding glass doors. I followed his gaze and saw a partially hidden Blake spying on us through our bushes. I started to go to the sliding door to go out and scare him off, but then I realized that our windows were all really darkly tinted, though you couldn’t tell from the inside. I smiled darkly.

“So what should we do to scare him off?” I whispered to him after sitting down right behind him, “Use the trap or set the," I gave a dark evil villanous laugh...which really sounded like a tinkling bell. Oh well. ,"‘guard dog’ free? Ooh, or can we chase him out ourselves???” I really wanted him to say yes to the last choice.

“Hmm…I like the last idea," "YES!" ,"but we probably shouldn’t.”

I pouted, “Why not?”

“Because.”

“That’s not a good answer!”

“Well it’ll have to do, because you’re not getting another one.”

I made a very convincing growling sound at the back of my throat that made him smile slightly. I growled again louder than before, and alerted Annika and Kyle to what we were saying. They had been staring into each other's eyes in a way that made me sick. Not that Jason and i didn't do it either though. Anyways, back to the topic, All I had to do is thrust my chin in the direction of Blake’s 'hidden' figure and understanding lit up her face. “Oh. I understand now.” She nodded and looked away, walking back to Kyle who was now sitting on the couch. A questioning look came across his face then he smiled and nodded.

“Oh yeah,” Annika said, “weren’t you gonna run home to go get your speakers?”

Kyle laughed like he was a kid who had just gotten caught stealing cookies from a cookie jar.

"Dammit! i wanted to watch the fight!" Annika’s eyes narrowed and she just pointed to the door and gave him a little push and Kyle was out the door in about .5 seconds. "if you're fast enough, you will be back her in less than ten seconds!" she growled. In the seconds that Kyle was gone, we were busy making Blake go away. First we tried the trap, a simple red laser alarm that would signal us that someone was on our property. The alarms were pretty loud, but annoyingly enough he just glanced around cautiously and crouched lower behind the bush.

“Aarg!” I yelled, “What should we do now?”

“Time for Plan B.” Annika said grimly whipping out binoculars and taking this totally too seriously. I laughed and lifted up a cushion of one couch to show a small red button that alerted the painted robotic ‘guard dogs’ that looked so real to the human eye, it was scary.

“Jason, would you do the honors?” I asked.

“Gladly.” He pushed the button and the two psycho cyber-dogs ran out from a hidden little section of the bottom of the house near the small windows from the very top of the basement.

“C’mon, c’mon! Chase him away!” Jason was pleading to himself under his breath. The dogs pin-pointed their target. Blake looked up and screamed. The look on his face just made it harder not to laugh. We all burst out laughing, and then Kyle was back with the speakers in hand. Annika motioned with her hand to come over and see out the window where Blake was frozen in fright, then turned and ran like the idiot he was. I cheered and walked to the love seat to pick up the long-forgotten tray with the cold scraps of breakfast. Annika collected the rest of the stuff for the party and Kyle followed her around. Everything had settled down, and the weirdness was out of the air. Blake was gone. Everything was alright. For now. I sighed and sat down. Jason sat down next to me and started stroking my long dark hair.

“What’s wrong?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. Something just feels…off. I never really did like Blake you know.”

“Well I have a feeling that is the least of the problems we will have.” He answered quietly.

“Oh great.” I said. Little did i know things would get a lot worse.