Chapter 2

I wake up to the beeping of my alarm clock which reads, 5:30 a.m. I throw myself out of bed looking outside at the tree that always swayed like it was alive and thought about the curtains in our living room. I yawn and walk into the bathroom, changed into the outfit I had laid out for the day. Grey tank top under a white long sleeved over shirt, purple skinny jeans, and some dangling little earrings. Deciding to wear my hair down today I put on some eyeliner, mascara, and gold eye shadow. I make my way out of the bathroom and downstairs with my toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. Downstairs, I grab my bag and an apple, rinse my mouth out and put my toothbrush up. Seeing my brother on the couch I come up and hug him from behind.
“My brother, have a fantastic first day of school.” Smiling he hugs me back.
“You too little sis. Remember anyone hurts you. Tell me I’ll give them a free beating.” I
“Ha-ha very funny. Bye See you after school!”, and I head out of the door. Lacey was already in the driveway ready to go.
“You got a new car?” I say to her, as I get in, close the door, and put on my seat belt.
“Yeah first day of school present. Isn’t it beautiful?” She says with affection. It was amazing it was a pink Camaro with pink lights.
“I love it!” I tell her.
“Great, well let’s get out of here we don’t want to be late on the first day of school right?” I nod in agreement and we take off.
When we arrived at school there were people everywhere all over the school grounds I take a deep breath step out of her car. I walk up to the school building with my bag on my shoulder already having my schedule I walk down to my locker. I start to put my books away knowing school would start soon and I need to be on time. Then out of nowhere, Dimitri comes up to the locker beside mine.
“Wow what a coincidence just the person I was looking for.” He smiles as he puts his hand on the locker beside mine.
“What for? I don’t think I have anything you want.” Laughing he speaks again.
“I have to want something? Maybe I just want to talk. And really that was all I wanted to do was talk. Is that so wrong?” And right then the bell rang.
“So, do you mind if I walk you to class?” He asks leaning his head to the side a bit, just enough to show off his beautiful eyes.
“Yeah, I guess you can.” I reply and we turn and start walking.

We coincidentally have the same 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th hours together. I can’t help but feel kind of worried though; he’s a bit to creepy for my taste. After 6th hour Geometry, I walk down to 7th hour art. Walking in I sit down my stuff, grab a paintbrush, and walk over to an empty easel. On the board it says to paint whatever we feel like and I assume it’s because it is the first day. I set out to painting, not really even knowing what I’m going to paint. I notice no one and nothing until I finish the painting and 30 minutes of class had already flown by when I do finish it. Looking down at the painting I’m amazed. It’s beautiful; I can’t even believe that I was the one who created this beautiful piece of art. My teacher walks over with a face showing the amazement that was clearly there.
“Di-Did you really paint this?” She exclaims.
“Uh yeah, at least I’m pretty sure that I did anyways...” I say to her.
“Well it’s one of the most amazing pieces of art I’ve ever seen.” She pats me on the back and moves on. When I look over, Dimitri is there looking at my painting. I can tell right away that he is also going to be one of the favorites in Ms.Cartfield’s class because his painting is just as marvelous as my own.
“You’re quite the artist.” I say to him. He looks away from my painting and up at my face.
“Thanks you too.” He smiles at me and goes back to his painting. Looking down at my own
I sigh, picking up my piece and bring it to the drying rack. I
“Hey need any help?” Dimitri asks me.
“Uh not really but you can help if you want to.” I say to him. Without a word he begins to help me put away the paint and clean up around my easel.
“You know we have to do that social studies project...” He says to me looking over as I’m reaching up to put away the paint.
“Yeah I’m aware. We have to work on it at one of our houses.” I say looking up at him.
“Yes, so whose house?” Dimitri asks.
“Uh I don’t know my dad won’t be home at mine for a while.” I reply.
“Then we can just go to mine. It’s big enough.” He says
“Ok. What time?” I ask.
“How about 8:30?” He says, standing back up from pointing away the last bottle of paint.
“Yeah 8:30 it is.” Then the bell rings right as I finish putting away the rest of my stuff. I head to my locker to see Lacey looking at me, a mischievous grin on her face. This isn’t going to be good.
“What? I know that face what did you hear?” I say curiously.
“Well you, the new boy...” She erupts into giggles before finishing her sentence.
“How in the world did everyone find out so fast? I ask her angry at whoever told.
“Well people from social studies some people uh... saw you guys get partnered up they said, they said you got beat red and turned away...” She keeps giggling like its funny. I didn’t think so.
“Yeah just so we can get some work done.” I say to her emphasizing that work was the only thing that would be going on.
“Bu-” She tries to say but I cut her off with a wave of my hand.
“No don’t go there, let’s just leave ok.” I say to her.
“Fine.” She says, realizing that she has been defeated. So we walk out to her car together, get in, and get ready to drop me off.

I have 2 hours before he gets here so I go and do my chores then go upstairs and start listening to music while I wait. I start singing but my voice sounds different to me it sounds... better somehow amplified and edited. I shrug it off, I’m immortal why should I care about what my voice sounds like? Then I mentally slap myself because it sounds so stupid of me to say. I hate being what I am so even joking about it makes me feel bad. When I look at the time I swear, it’s already 7:50. It hadn’t felt that long. I walk downstairs and see Dimitri pull into the driveway. Right on time. Before I leave I write my dad a quick note.

Dear Dad,
I went out with a friend had to work on
A social studies project, be back by 12:00, I promise.
P.S. Tell Jeremy not to go in my room please.
Love,
Catherine

I grab my bag and walk outside to his car.
“Hey.” He says as I open the door to his car.
“Hey.” I reply looking at the car’s interior. It was dark and looked like some type of fur. I get in on the front passenger side seat and buckle my seat belt. He takes off down the road right after I get in and buckled.
“So, what are we going to do?” I try to make small talk pretending it isn’t awkward. For me at least.
“I don’t know. I thought we’d figure it out when we got to it what do you think we should do?” He asked quizzically.
“Well, I like Africa we could do something on Africa I guess.” I say the first place that pops into my head.
“Sure, that sounds cool.” He replies.

When we arrive at his house I am amazed at how big it is. I thought my house was big but I was definitely wrong about that. His house was like a mansion on the outside. It was black on the outside and reminded me of a Victorian Gothic.
“Your house is...” I manage to get out.
“Big?” He smiles. .
“Yeah. Really big... Wow!” I exclaim.
“Yeah it’s about 7 floors I think. Only been on 3 of them though. The rest are blocked off it’s an original house. With restorations of course, but it’s a lot more amazing inside then out. I assure you of that... It still amazes me every time I go inside. And I live here.” He says with a faint smile. I start to laugh and the bit of awkward tension that was left melts away.
“Well no more admiring it from outside. Come on let’s go inside.” And he opens the door for me and I walk in.
I stop breathing. It’s so beautiful I am shocked, and I can vaguely hear Dimitri’s laughter at my shock. I recover myself quickly and join in the laughing. I never thought about it, but he has this amazing laugh that just makes you want to laugh right along with him. It’s sweet and melodic it just makes me want to hear it more. I suddenly feel bad about it, I shouldn’t think about him like that when he is right there.
“So, where’s your room so we can get to working on this project?” I ask him as we both stop laughing.
Smiling he gestures upstairs and leads me up 2 flights of stairs until we get to a door. The only door on the 3rd floor is his bedroom I suspect, probably his bedroom. We walk in and I’m just as surprised of his room as I was when I saw his house.
“Wow this was definitely not what I was expecting.” I chuckle.
“What were you expecting? Camouflage bed and walls? Video games everywhere? Or wait Legos right?” He starts laughing.
“Something along the lines of that.” I manage to mumble. His room was pretty big and pretty much everything in it was black... The bed was big and had a black velvet bedspread. He had two big windows with the only color in the room which was red curtains. And it was clean. I’m surprised.
This guy keeps surprising me with everything he does.
“Well let’s get started!” He says, plopping down on his bed and patting the space beside him. I walk over and sit down. We choose South Africa to study and we look up stuff together on his laptop. I can’t help but notice our closeness and how much it affected me. His leg was pressed against mine and our hands would brush as we both looked at stuff and pointed or tried to type or use the mouse. I get up to go get something out of my bag and he looks up puzzled but just looks back at the screen. I go over and get a book out of my bag. As I start to walk back I trip on something on his floor and start to fall. I close my eyes waiting to feel the impact of the cold wood floor that was awaiting my head and back but I don’t. When I open my eyes he has me in his arms looking down at me worry on his face. I looked up into his piercing blue eyes and started to feel lost in them. Before I know what’s happening he kisses me. I look at his face startled and confused but I don’t stop him. It feels weird to be so close to him like this. It feels wrong. I don’t know this guy that well and we are kissing! I push him away and mumble, not looking up at him
“We need to get back to work.” I say quietly. He is smiling and it makes me mad.
“Yeah let’s get back to work.” He says. For the rest of the time being we make idle chit chat and finish our project. I’ve learned a lot about him from this one time. When I look at the time and know I have to leave I still feel weird from the kiss but I don’t know how I feel about it. “Hey I should really get to leaving. I promised my dad I’d be home by 12. We’re done right?”
“Yeah. It’s all done so I’ll take you home.” Right as he says this door downstairs opens. I get up wondering who it is. “It’s my dad he’s finally home from work. Do you want to meet him?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Great.”, Come on. We walk down to the first floor and I see the back of a tall man with short black hair. “Father. I have a guest here.” He turns around and I see his face and see the immediate resemblance in their features same face shape and dark hair but he has light brown hazel eyes. They sort of look yellow to me. He just looks at me so I think I should say something to him. “Hello sir. My name is Catherine Crow.”, I stick out my hand and he takes it and shakes my hand. “Hello Catherine, I am Dimitri’s father Sebastian Lucious and you have no need to call me sir you are a guest in my house and may call me by Sebastian.” He smiled brightly at me and I smiled back at him. “Well dad we were just leaving I have to take her back home before her dad starts to worry.”
“Oh well don’t let me keep you then! Goodbye Catherine I hope to see you again.”
“Goodbye Sebastian. And you probably will no worries.” I smile and we walk out of the door. He opens the car door for me and I get in buckle up and we take off. “I liked your dad he seemed really nice.”
“Oh he is.”, He smiled but it seemed to be a bit forced. For the rest of the ride it was quiet. When we got to my house before I got out he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from getting out. “About that kiss, I meant it. I really do like you I don’t want you to feel like I’m just playing with you and maybe, we could hang out again. But without the work part?” He smiles a bit nervously. “Yeah. We could definitely do that again. Without work of course.” I laughed and he let go. “Goodbye Catherine. Sweet dreams.”
“Goodbye Dimitri.” After this he left and I walked back up to my house. What am I going to do?



Chapter 3

I was dreaming I knew it but I wished it was real. I was just lying there in a field alone listening to the wind and feeling the air swoosh around me. The grass was soft like cotton and I kept running my hands through it. My dreams were always the most pleasant part of the night and so when I looked over and saw Dimitri laying in the grass beside me eyes closed, listening I knew he made me happy, although secretly I kind of hated him. He made me feel different than any other person I’ve ever met.
“I love your dreams they are so peaceful.” I looked over startled
“Di-did you just say something?” Usually when there were people in my dreams they never talked just laid there.
“Yes. I am a guest it would only be polite.”
“Huh?”
“Well. I really find it kind of embarrassing to admit but I’m immortal to.”
I was so shocked I couldn't say anything he smiled calmly at me.
“Yeah. And my dad told me we, are special we have powers the others don’t I have a few basic ones like you know fast reflexes; I can read minds no biggy. But I have a special power I can get into people’s dreams and read their aurora.”
“Mind explaining to me what an “Aurora” is?”
He laughed and started to speak again “It’s the spiritual energy surrounding a person. Immortals don’t have them because we aren’t mortal but it changes colors as your emotions change.”
“Oh... So are you sure we have these power things?”
“Yeah. You haven’t noticed anything a bit unusual after your birthday?”
“Well yeah I have I hear talking all the time... And I run faster. But... Uh I think I can...”
“What?”
“Shape shift.”
He looked at me puzzled. “Why?”
“Well I can do this...” I imagined him a very vivid image came to me of the night we were together at his house. I heard him make a noise. And then, he started to laugh he just suddenly started to laugh out of nowhere.
“You ok the-”, Before I could finish my sentence he had picked me up and started to laugh harder I changed back into myself so it wouldn’t be so awkward.
“I’m so glad there's someone who is like me out here.” He smiled and hugged me fiercely.
“I think-k you-o should-d let-t go-o now-w before-e you-u kill-l me-e”, I barely choked out.
“Oh I’m sorry. I guess I was just too excited.” He let go but didn’t step away and apologized.
“It’s fine.” I shrugged and looked up at him. I was actually relieved that there was another mix-breed just like me besides my brother who wasn’t exactly like me. Honestly I had someone now. Me, I had someone just like me.
“Please.”, I whisper “Never leave me.”, He takes me to him my head on his chest listening to his heart beat it all felt right. But, there was something else an ease of uncertainty it was too big of a coincidence maybe it wasn’t an accident we met, but I pushed away the thought for the moment we have it, I have it right now. Here and now, maybe, forever.
“I’ll never leave you I swear.”, and then someone started to knock on my door and I woke up.
“Who is it?” Mumbling I got up and opened the door.
“Hey”, I jumped back seeing Dimitri. I wonder why he’s here.
“Um hey how did you get in?”
“Your brother let me in he didn’t look very happy though.”
“He never does so um; you can come in if you want.” He walked in and looked around my room. “Nice room.”
“Thanks you can sit down wherever.”
“Thanks.” and he sat down on my bed still unmade from my sleep.
“So... were you really in my dreams?” He looked over at me and laughed a bit.
“Yeah I would never lie to you especially not about that. Why lie?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and sat down beside him.
“So, I don’t know if this is weird or not but can you like show me your shape shifting?”
“Sure.”, I imagined Lacey in her favorite leather jacket closed my eyes and felt my body morph.
“Did it work?”
“Yeah it did. It’s that girl right? Um, Lacey isn’t it.”
“Yeah it’s Lacey.”,
“You have another power too.”
“Uh what?” He was confusing me I thought he said I had only one.
“You have a few more actually. Me and you, are one of a kind mix-breeds actually we both have many variety of power and we both have the power to take and copy other peoples power. You on the other hand although you can do the same you are telekinesis, you levitate objects with your mind. I saw you do it while you were asleep.”
“You watched me. While I was asleep?”
“No!” He laughed “I saw you in my head. One of my other powers is to be able to see things and people from far distances. It comes in handy actually.” Smiling at me he stands up and walks past me over to my martial arts trophy case. I remember every one of them, black belt in each martial arts category so I have a lot of trophies.
“Wow, someone’s a martial arts champion. I wonder how much all of these would weigh together.” Walking over I look at the trophies I had won I felt like I had cheated in winning them all. It all didn’t count.
“Yeah well it isn’t that hard when you're naturally built like a super human.” Plopping down on my bed I put my face in a pillow. Why couldn’t I have been born into a normal family? That’s all I wanted was a normal life but I know I can’t have it.
I felt him wrap his arms around me and stroke my hair. “It’s ok it’ll all be ok. I’m here you’re not alone.”, and I started to cry. I broke down and I cried he stayed with me while I cried stroking my hair telling me it was ok and that I wasn’t alone. He held me to him and kissed my head he sat there with me for what felt like hours as I cried. All my sadness frustration and hurt coming out I was always acting so strong when in truth I wasn’t I was broken and I just needed to have someone who felt like I did to know how I felt no matter how bad. I was afraid of being alone and I knew I wouldn’t be able to take it. I needed someone and I knew now that it was him. He knew how I felt he was like me. I calmed down and took my head out of the pillow, “Thank you for being here for Me.”, He kissed me, this time on the lips and whispered to me gently
“I will always be here for you. If you need a shoulder to cry on or a friend to talk to I’m here for you. I always will be and if you will take me, I will be yours. You understand me like no one else does and the same goes for you. I understand you better than anyone else we have to stick together, me and you versus the world.” I looked at him and in that moment I saw the vulnerability in his eyes. He was just as alone as I was and I know even if I loved Lacey and she was my best friend, she would never be there for me forever she couldn’t. He could and would be. “Yes. Dimitri you're the only one who gets me and actually understands.” I cup his face in my hands and look into his eyes. This was what I needed was someone who knows me differently than the rest of the world. I need him just as he needs me. I’m not alone.