Amaranthine

Izzy couldn't explain it--he was so familiar, though she had never seen him before. The vampire crept closer, a sadistic smile gracing his inhumanly beautiful face, and all Izzy could think was: "I am going to die."

When Elizabeth Danes was asked—over, and over, and over again—how she found herself in her current life situation, she would normally reply by grunting and turning around and muttering “Go away”. But, it wasn't as if she didn't remember; in fact, whenever Elizabeth Danes had quiet time, the chance to think, the situation replayed itself over, and over, and over again in her head.

 

Quiet—well, not necessarily, but nobody was talking to her—time presented itself right now.

 

Elizabeth, or Izzy, as she was more commonly known, remembered it all very, very clearly. She remembered how the air smelled of charcoal grills and wet dirt and gravel; she remembered saying bye to her friend, and assuring the friend's mother that a ride home wasn't necessary; Izzy remembered crossing her arms and looking around, reminding herself to not be paranoid: there haven't been any serious crimes in this city in years.

 

She rememberedthe split-second decision to cut through the park, in hopes of getting home before her curfew arrived.

 

Between the orange-yellow glow the street lamps casted onto the park's pathway, and the constant sounds of cars zooming by on the nearby streets, Izzy felt perfectly safe. But she walked quickly, anyways, accompanied by the soft crunching of gravel with every step. As Izzy began to near the opposite side of the street—she could see the occasional headlight in the distance—she figured she was home free.

 

Until, that is, a hand was placed on her shoulder, with the deft mixture of softness and strength, and a cool voice purred into her ear, “Shh. If you even open your mouth or flinch, I'll kill you. Do what I tell you, and you might get lucky. Okay, little girl?” Izzy was completely silent and still, just as the voice told her. “Good, good, you passed the first test! Oh, Gabriel, did you hear that? She follows orders, unlike some people,” his head was turned around as he said this, but he then directed his attention back to Izzy, who had begun to quiver and quicken her breathing. “Now, little girl, I'm going to turn you around—don't run, though; I swear I'll catch you—and I want you to tell me what you see. Okay? So you can talk now, but be too loud. Gabriel and I will hear you just fine if you whisper.”

 

Izzy, of course, perfectly believed these threats; after all, she didn't even realize there was anybody else in the park before he made himself known.

 

He turned her around, steering her with a hand on each shoulder. Izzy looked at the man in front of her, confused. The expression on his face was a mixture annoyance, exhaust, shock, and terror. “Don't drag her into this, Michael.” His accent was strongly Spanish.

 

“Excuse me, but I don't recall myself ever asking you to speak,” Gabriel met this sentence by clenching his jaw. “Now, please little girl, I'm extremely curious. What do you see?”

 

“H—him?”

 

“Him. Do you have anything else to add?”

 

Izzy didn't. All she saw was a tall man with wavy, light brown hair and paper-white skin. “No. He's just a man.”

 

“Wrong,” sighed Michael. He paused between words, using this time to bend over slightly, and rest a tiny bit of weight onto her shoulders, a hand on either one. “No, girl. This is Gabriel, as I've already mentioned. He is not a man. Neither am I, of course. Not in the whole gender argument, but more in the usage of 'man' as a spec—“

 

“Michael, don't you dar—“

 

“No,”he repeated tiredly but in a strong voice, in an attempt to show Gabriel that he was not the one talking. Michael took a dark, red-brown curl of Izzy's and tucked it behind her ear. She shivered at his touch, but he didn't kill her as promised. “But for the sake of keeping things simple—you're twelve or so, right? In that case, I do suppose I'd need to boil it down for you—let's just say that we are, in fact, men. Can you tell me, little girl, what the worst sort of man is?”

 

Izzy was silent for a few seconds, before finally choking out, “A murderer?”

 

“A murderer! How cute! Did you hear that, Gabriel? A murderer,” Michael seemed genuinely amused by her answer, but quickly clicked his tongue and corrected her, “Why, if murdering is the worst thing a person can do, well, we've been associating with nobody but the scum of the earth these past years, huh, Gabriel? No, little girl, the worst type of person is a traitor.” As he said the last word, Izzy could tell that he looked in front of them at Gabriel and cocked his head to the side smugly.

 

“Yes, because I'm the traitor,” Gabriel mused, and then shrugged. “Well, I suppose you're right. I've been a traitor since the moment I stepped outside to follow you—then again, I'm sure you've been going on for much longer.”

 

Michael shrugged. “Of course. But, I think that the question of 'Who?', instead of 'When?', is the more important—and blood is thicker than water,” he turned down to Izzy. “Isn't that right, little girl?”

 

Izzy hadn't even been listening to the conversation—her eyes had been following the slow, inconspicuous movements of Gabriel. He had already been holding a gun in one of his hands, his left, but at some point where he was speaking, and Michael was probably looking more at Gabriel's face than his waistline, Gabriel put his hands on his hips. There was something in his belt. But just after Michael asked her a question, Izzy choked out a “Yes”, knowing to agree with the person closer to her.

 

“See?” asked Michael, almost mockingly, “Even she agrees—oh, and speaking of blood and water and whatnot...” He lifted and dropped his fingertips on Izzy's shoulders; she gulped.

 

“Are you proposing a deal?” Gabriel raised an eyebrow, and Izzy began to feel uneasy—or, more uneasy than before.

 

“Sure. I get her...Oh, and then what, Gabriel? I surrender myself?”

 

“I'm certain I'll go much easier on you than the others—“

 

“You're assuming that you could catch me in the first place. Anyways, I'm sure that once I even started, you would probably shoot me, no?”

 

“Meaning?”

 

“Drop your gun, I get the girl, we carry on as before, and we won't have any more distractions.”

 

“You aren't turning her.”

 

“Drop that gun,” commanded Michael, lifting his right hand up and pointing to Gabriel's hand.

 

“You aren't turning her.”

 

“Oh, of course not. Why would I do that, anyways?”

 

And that was it. Gabriel's gun hit the ground; Michael had the permission to kill Izzy. And Izzy was just one scared little thirteen-year-old who should have accepted that ride home. She felt tears well up in her eyes and a lump grow in her throat—and the only thing she could do was look up at Gabriel with pleading brown eyes. His face looked uneasy and nervous, biting the bottom right corner of his lip. She took a last glance down to his hip, and noticed that—slowly, gingerly—his hand was moving towards something.

 

She felt two, needle-sharp teeth sink into her neck, and she began to feel nauseous and unbalanced, like she was about to fall over—then, Izzy heard a gunshot, but it was too close to her to be Gabriel shooting at Michael. But they were quickly met by two more shots from the opposite end—by this time, Izzy was wobbling and threatening to topple over, while not being able to see anything but blackness.

 

It was only then that the word—the horror-movie, romance-novel being—appeared in her mind.

 

Now, Izzy couldn't escape the questions of, “What if I didn't go through the park?” and “What if Gabriel had shot Michael before they stumbled across me?”, because every day, the repercussions of that night showed themselves vividly, boldly. In fact, as Izzy recalled those events, she was on a cab in New York City—on her way to a meeting with a vampire.

Author's Note

I love reviews with a passion. A fiery, fiery passion. ;D
Anyways, give it a chance. It's not a Twilight ripoff at all, I swear. (I know whenever I see a vampire story, I go "Oh Lord. Not again", so hah. I know the mindset.)
I have the first few chapters written, but I'm a fast writer. Kinda.