After an hour or so of dancing and chatting, the massive group of students slowly migrated over to the collection of large circular dining tables positioned on the outer edge of the massive hall.

Thankfully I had received my table allocation details earlier that week, so I had a general idea on where I was seated. I hunted around the maze of tables until I found my name card. Lisa’s name card was on the table beside me, I snuck a peek at who was sitting on my left. The card read ‘Bertha Rumbotha’. Unfortunate last name. Seeing as Tully had put in the request to be seated at the same table as me, I assumed that this Bertha was the one I’d met earlier. Actually, she was the only person named Bertha I had met in my entire life.

Lisa came up behind me and patted me on the shoulder before taking her seat. She had been off talking to her band friends for the past twenty or so minutes. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Rachael since our little dance.

Lisa patted the chair beside her, motioning for me to sit down. I scanned the room quickly for the Spanish girl before grudgingly taking my seat. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask Rachael, but I guess they could wait.

‘So how was your dance with Rachael?’ Lisa slid her notebook over the tabletop so that it rested in front of me. She didn’t give anything away in her features, and seemed genuinely curious about what the Spanish girl may have said.

I contemplated on telling Lisa the apparent ‘truth’ behind Red Generation vampires but decided against it. This was not the time or the place to bring up such dismal conversation, we were meant to be relaxing and having fun tonight.

“Not much really, she just made general chit chat,” I lied, “I had the feeling she was just taunting me though. You’d know what she’s like.”

Lisa’s gave me an odd sideways glance, as though she were deciding whether to believe me. I honestly thought that after years of lying, I’d have to be pretty good at it. Maybe Lisa was just more perceptive than most people. Either way, she let the issue slide for the time being.

I felt the chair move beside me, Bertha and Tully took their respective seats next to Lisa and myself. Like with most formal events, the tables were laid out alternating between male and female, which means I was between Bertha and Lisa. I assumed that the meals would be served in the same fashion.

Lisa tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention, and began pointing to the mass of cutlery laid out before her. She slowly moved her fingers from the outermost cutlery, to the innermost, then to the dessert spoon.

I shot her a frown, insulted by her assumption that I didn’t know what order the cutlery was used in. “I have seen Pretty Woman you know. I do watch movies, and I know what order the cutlery goes in.” I growled.

The blonde took no offence to my defensive manner and smiled sweetly at me.

---

The dinner proceedings were rather troublesome. I ended up with a vegetarian meal which I had ordered in advance. But that didn’t stop everyone around me from eating meat.

I placed my cutlery down on the table top and wiped away the sweat that was beading on my forehead. I honestly never thought that my bloodlust would get so bad that I couldn’t even be around people eating meat, but I was determined not to let this fact ruin our night.

Lisa noticed my discomfort, like always. However this time she didn’t bother to write anything in her notebook. Instead, she quickly finished her meal, laid her cutlery across the plate to signal that she was done and excused herself from the table. I cocked my head to the side in confusion when she stood up and looked nervously around the room.

”Toilet?” I asked her.

She shook her head and tugged on my sleeve, motioning for me to go with her. I had already lost my appetite so I saw no reason to struggle through the rest of my meal. I followed her example and placed my knife and fork together on the plate before getting up.

She led me by the hand through the labyrinth of tables. I noticed a few sour stares directed at Lisa from the many girls who had tried so hard to get me to attend this event with them. In hindsight, I really didn’t see what all the hype was about. It was a Ball. Big deal. The only reason why I would even turn up to something like this, would be because of Lisa.

We exited the ballroom and suddenly found ourselves out in one of the hotel’s quiet carpeted hallways. The transition between the loud ballroom and the sudden muted atmosphere of the hallway made my ears ring.

“Where are we going?” I asked Lisa.

She continued to lead me down the large hallway until we were quite far from our ballroom. We passed several other large rooms much like our own, some held balls, others conventions, even a wedding reception. Despite the large volume of people in these rooms, the corridors were almost devoid of life with the exception of a busy hotel staff member or a smoker heading out for a cigarette in the courtyard.

Lisa took a sudden turn into another corridor and looked over her shoulder. It was then that I noticed that something was wrong. Her face was pale and her hand had begun to tremble slightly.

“Hold up, where are we going? What’s wrong?” I asked again, tugging back on her hand and forcing her to turn and face me.

She didn’t have a notebook with her so it made the situation a little difficult. Again, another irritating reminder that I should have at least learnt some basic sign language for her sake.

She looked around and pointed over to the fire escape door. Judging by the look on her face though, I didn’t think she wanted to go in there just to make out. Something was clearly upsetting her, just as it had been over the past few weeks. Was she finally going to let me know what’s been going on?

I breathed an uneasy sigh before following her into the concrete fire escape. As soon as the door closed behind us she threw her arms around my neck and assaulted me with a deep kiss. It felt different to her usual ones though, this one felt… desperate. It was the only word I could find to describe it. I broke it off abruptly, taken aback by her suddenly odd behaviour.

“Wait.” I held my hands up in a desperate bid to cool off the situation. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong. Lets just go back to the ball and grab your notebook, ok?”

She shook her head.

“Not this again. Are you playing games with me or something?” I said in an exasperated voice.

Lisa averted her eyes and absentmindedly fumbled with the silver star on the choker that I had bought her for Christmas.

I was starting to feel irritated with her again. “I’m going back to the ballroom ok?” I informed, not wanting to let our night end of a bad note.

As I turned to exit the stairwell, Lisa grabbed me from behind in a tight embrace, her body was heaving, as though she were crying into my back.

“Lisa,” I began, before being abruptly cut off by the sound of a fire alarm. I jumped, startled by the sudden interruption. I turned to face Lisa and quickly realised that she was gone, running up the flight of stairs.

“Hey wait! It’s a fire alarm we’re meant to be running down!” I shouted after her. My voice echoed off the cement walls and was slowly drowned out by the blaring alarms. I swore loudly to myself and started to climb the stairs after her. A thousand thoughts were going through my mind. Was she heading for the roof? Why would she do that at a time like this unless she… My heart suddenly froze. No, she said she wasn’t serious when she threatened to jump off the roof that day. Surely she wouldn’t?

I quickened my pace, adrenaline pumping my legs forwards up the ever spiralling staircase. How many floors were there anyway? Just as I had anticipated, the stairwell began to fill with people making their way down to the ground floor.

”Hey kid what are you doing, there’s a fire!” One man grabbed my arm as I passed him.

I knew he had good intentions but I couldn’t just leave Lisa. I had to get to the bottom of this mess. Pulling my arm out of the man’s grasp I continued to climb the stairs. More and more people began to crowd the cement stairwell, making my ascent more and more difficult. Some people were pulling me down with them, others were abusing me for getting in their way. They had every right to do so, running upstairs while there was an apparent fire wasn’t my brightest act.

I’d lost count at around fifteen levels, suddenly feeling too exhausted to bother counting anymore. By this time my throat was burning and my legs were protesting with every movement I made, threatening to give out. I really needed to exercise more often. Lisa must have been much fitter than I gave her credit for.

Finally I reached the top of the fire escape. I bent over to catch my breath, breathing so heavily that I was actually wheezing. Lisa stood at the door leading out onto the roof. She too was struggling to catch her breath, leaning on the door handle for support.

“You… got me all the way… up here…” I said breathlessly.

She didn’t make eye contact. Instead, she opened the door and stumbled out onto the freezing rooftop. It was windy and snowing outside. I followed her out, making sure that I was only a few feet behind her in case she did anything unpredictable.

From behind I felt something hard nudge my back. A gun?

”Don’t move,” came a cold and authoritative voice.

“Lisa run!” I screamed on impulse. I’d never forgive myself if anything bad were to happen to her.

“Run? Why would she need to do something like that?” A disturbingly familiar voice rang in my ears as Rachael stepped out in front of me and placed a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “I’d never do anything to hurt my best friend.”

There wasn’t much light on the roof, just a small circle cast by the fluorescent lamp that hung from a pole above the fire escape door. Another middle-aged man in a suit stood beside Rachael, he held what appeared to be a Glock, levelled threateningly at my face. Why were they even up here?! How did they know that I’d be…

Then suddenly it all hit me in the face.

Slowly, I shifted my eyes over to Lisa. She still had her back to me, standing beside Rachael.

”No…” I said in a defeated voice, my mind numb with incomprehension. I simply couldn’t process the situation. I didn’t want to process it.

It just wasn’t possible.

“Aww, what’s wrong Kasper?” Rachael asked in a taunting voice. “Having a revelation?”

I ignored the Spanish woman and continued to fixate myself on Lisa. “Lisa, what’s going on here?! Why would you do something like this?!” I yelled, trying not to sound desperate, but failing miserably.

She finally turned around, her eyes full of remorse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mouthed.

I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was stand there and let the reality of the situation eat away at the last shred of humanity that I had left.

This wasn’t happening. It must have been a bad dream. Lisa was my girlfriend, no, she was more than that. She was my light, and my rock, and the reason I was starting to look forward to the future. She said she’d stand by me, always.

And to think that it was all just a lie?

I sank to my knees onto the cold, drenched rooftop. “Just shoot me already,” I seethed.

Rachael folded her arms across her chest. She wore a heavy jacket over her white dress to protect her from the wind. The man standing to the right of Rachael moved to throw a similar jacket over Lisa.

“I’m surprised, and just a little disappointed that you’d give up so easily,” Rachael sighed. I had a hard time hearing her over the continuing drone of the alarms beneath us. “I mean, don’t you even want to know why I’m doing this?!”

“Does it matter?” I asked.

Wrong answer. Rachael stomped her foot in anger. “Qué?! Of course it matters. It matters to me!” She poked a finger at her chest. “What I don’t understand is how you are still allowed to run around among society when you murdered someone! What’s up with that?!”

”Murder?!” Here we go again. “I didn’t murder anyone!”

“You did! You can’t deny it! I was there! You killed my little brother! You attacked him like an animal slaying its meal.” Rachael’s eyes were wide with fury as she pointed accusingly at me. “You’re nothing but a monster! You shouldn’t be alive.”

”I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” I yelled at her, aggression beginning to rise out of my initial grief. “I’m telling you, I never killed anybody!”

I was telling the truth, I’d never actually killed a human. Sure I had sent a lot to hospital but they all recovered right? That’s what I was told by The Order.

Rachael seemed unsatisfied with my response. “Ok fine, José Rodriguez? Ring any bells?”

I furrowed my brow. No… It didn’t sound familiar. I slowly shook my head as I searched my memories.

”Nine years ago!? Teresa of Ávila!?”

“Wait, yes!” I blurted out, the name finally striking a chord. “Teresa of Ávila. That was one of my old schools back in Poland. And José…”

“You attacked him,” Rachael finished. “He died in the hospital shortly after they admitted him. The blood transfusion went bad and he didn’t make it.”

“No, The Order told me that he had survived!” I protested.

“Well he didn’t!” Rachael screamed, tears welling up in her eyes. “And you… all you got was a deportation for your family. They didn’t even tell you why, you didn’t even live with any fucking guilt!”

In a fit of rage she grabbed the pistol off the man standing beside her and waved it around in front of my face. “You see that’s what makes me so mad. You commit these crimes and you’re allowed to walk free! They think they can just cover it all up, but they can’t. I paid people a lot of money to find you!”

“And where does Lisa fit into all this?” I managed to ask.

“Lisa is my loyal and one true friend. Being the daughter of a Spanish Gangster, I live in a pretty corrupt world. But Lisa is a true friend and I trust her with my life, as she has trusted me with hers.”

I turned to look at her. She was standing off to the side, staring at the ground.

“Let’s just say that we’ve been through a lot together, good and bad. When I got wind that you were on your way to our humble private school, under the name of Lucian Starr, I instigated a few rumors, pulled a few strings and got the whole school believing that she and I had a falling out. Lisa was an instant outcast, honestly people can be so easily manipulated. This allowed her to get close to you without raising any suspicion.”

So it was nothing but an act from the very beginning?

“And leaping from the rooftop?” I asked.

“Pretty believable huh? Although I didn’t expect her to slip and nearly fall.” Rachael frowned apologetically over at Lisa. The mute replied with a meaningful glance. It did seem very obvious that these two indeed held a close kinship.

”So then, I assume that all the violin crap as well as the hockey stick to the face was all a façade too then.”

Rachael nodded. “Sí.”

Sirens could be now heard in the distance.

”The police and fire department will be all over this place any moment.” I stated, trying to buy myself some time. “You chose a bad time to perform an execution.”

”Oh we started the fire down on tenth.” Rachael smiled. “The emergency services will have their hands full with that, they won’t be up to check the roof for quite some time. It provides an ample distraction you see. Since everyone is waiting down in the car park, which leaves nobody around to bother us. When we’re done we’ll just throw your body in the fire on our way down and make our way out like normal guests.”

Clever. Time was obviously running out for me. I took a look at my situation. Goon with gun to my back and crazed Spanish lady with a gun to my face. Putting it simply, I was pretty rooted. Not that it mattered anymore anyway. This whole situation just summed up my belief that life was simply not meant to work out for me.

The Germans used my relatives to fight their wars, the government and The Order had lied to me about my victims and Lisa used me to help out with her best friend’s plan for revenge. I couldn’t be certain of anything anymore. The world that I had struggled to live in, was nothing but smoke and mirrors.

If José really did die by my hand, how many others weren’t I told about? That would make me a murderer, and if that were the case then my life deserved to end right here on this rooftop. I killed an innocent boy, someone’s little brother. That obviously made me the bad guy of the story, right?

No. That wasn’t true. I wouldn’t accept that.

”Well it looks like we’ll have to put an end to this.” Rachael handed the gun back to her the man standing beside her. “I’d love to kill you myself but then that’d put me in the same boat as you right? That’d make me nothing but a monster.”

”A monster huh?” I spat, suddenly feeling a dark anger rising again. This time I welcomed it, rather than trying to suppress it. “You call me a monster, and a murderer, and yet you command someone to kill me and believe that you’re wiping your hands of this?”

”You killed people! You killed MY brother!” Rachael repeated. “I’m simply cleaning up a mess that the government won’t clean themselves.”

“But I didn’t know did I? How the hell was I supposed to be accountable for my actions when I was a victim from the start!?”

Rachael was momentarily lost for words. “Tch! Just shoot him will you?” She instructed the fellow gangster. “He’s pissing me off.”

I noticed Lisa from the corner of my eye. She clasped her hands over her ears and sank to the floor, unable to watch my execution.

I didn’t want it to end here.

Just like when I suffered a fit of bloodlust, the world suddenly went silent around me. All I could hear was my heartbeat, my own quickened, erratic, panic-stricken heartbeat. The rest of the scene folded out before me like I was watching through someone else’s eyes.

I quickly spun around and grabbed at the gun poking me in the back. The thug fired off a shot that ricocheted off the floor tiles. Rachael dove out of the way trying to protect Lisa as the other man fired off two rounds at me. They both hit their target and I felt them rip into my torso. But there was no pain, my pain receptors weren’t working, my mind wasn’t working. Only my body was, doing what it did best, which seemed to be killing people.

I used the gun to shoot the armed gangster square between the eyes, then spun around to shoot the other in the back as he tried desperately to escape through the fire exit door.

Rachael and Lisa huddled together several feet away. The Spanish girl held a protective hand out over her friend.

“Monster!” She screamed. “See?! You’re nothing but an animal. You should all be put down before you hurt any more innocent people!” It was a dying cry. There was no escape for Rachael and she knew it.

Odd, I wasn’t even feeling hungry for blood and yet it was all around me. I wasn’t killing because I wanted blood… it was almost as though I was killing simply because I wanted to.

I grabbed Rachael by her hair and pulled her away from Lisa. “Just leave Lisa alone please!” The Spanish girl begged, reaching for her hair. “This had nothing to do with her.”

”Oh it has everything to do with her, from my perspective.” I seethed.

My vision was clouded, and I blinked away what seemed to be tears. Why at a time like this?! I wasn’t feeling upset… I just felt angry. Sickeningly so.

I fired off a few unfocused shots at the girl on the floor. Red erupted in patches on the ground around the now motionless body, staining her white dress and snow around her. I felt the world sway a little, suddenly feeling very dizzy. Oh that’s right I was wounded, again, and badly by the feel of it.

I dropped the gun and stumbled backwards. My crazed heartbeat was beginning to slow down as the heat of the moment dissipated and the adrenaline left my system. I looked down to assess my damage, one bullet through the chest, the other in my abdomen. My mouth was filled with the taste of iron, my own blood.

“Shitty hired muscle.” I wheezed, looking over at the two dead men laying a short distance away. “I’d be wanting my money back.”

A movement in my peripheral vision suddenly got my attention. Lisa had moved to Rachael’s side, checking frantically for a pulse.

“I’d be a bit more concerned about yourself.” I said to her.

The mute stiffened, panic clearly evident in her eyes. She quickly looked towards the door as though tossing up whether to make a run for it.

And she did.

I moved quickly and tackled her, pinning her to the ground with ease. She lay on her back, tears streaming down her face. Lisa Lisa Lisa… what was I going to do with her?

“I really really liked you, you know.” I growled close to her ear. “You’re a good actress I give you that. But I don’t tolerate being used.”

I tightened my grip and Lisa began to squirm underneath me, desperate to get away. Her mouth was opening and closing as though she were trying to yell, but only a hoarse rasp was being emitted.

”You can’t scream if you have no voice.” I said to her.

Slowly she stopped her struggle, defeated and accepting of what was about to come. She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes ‘I’m so sorry Lucian,’ she mouthed.

There was no use killing this person, but I wasn’t about to let her off easy either. This girl wasn’t completely innocent of the situation. In fact, Lisa’s betrayal was the biggest blow to me. After learning to trust, to believe and to love... What the hell was left for me in a world like this?

So I bit her.

Hard.

I pulled off the choker I had given her and tossed it aside, then proceeded to sink my fangs deep into the flesh of her neck. Her blood was hot and sweet, exactly as it had been on the night of the accident. But I couldn’t lose myself in it completely. The taste of my own blood was a stark reminder of what kind of situation I was in, which was probably a good thing since I didn’t want to kill her.

Lisa quivered beneath me and tried desperately to push me away, but even with my injuries I was still far too strong. I sank my fangs deeper, drawing more blood, more than was necessary.

But I was hurting. God knows I’d never felt so burnt in my life, and it was only fair that she felt the same pain. Rachael and her hitmen had gotten off easy. A bullet was quite a quick death, but I was going to let Lisa live with this for the rest of her life. That was a much harsher punishment in my opinion.

A burning sensation in my chest caused me to finally pull away from her. I fell to the side and coughed up a lot of blood, my own blood. It was starting to feel really cold. I didn’t remember it feeling this cold before.

There were patches of red everywhere. Like roses staining the white snow. How strange that I was feeling so calm and peaceful, and above all, tired.

I let out an uneven sigh and watched my breath fog around me for the last time before closing my eyes. Dying wasn’t so bad. This world kinda sucked anyway.