Rue

"I always knew they were real. I swear to god when I catch one of those little bastards." Lola mumbled to herself as she swept clean of the dust.

I sat in complete silence as I realized she now got the truth. This means she will eventually find out that Hunter and Jason are vampires and that I was keeping it from her.

I don't know what's worse, that I'm hiding a secret from her, or she hating the thing that the one person I am attached to is.

Yes, I have this weird attraction to Jason, I'm never going to openly admit it though.

I wouldn't want her to hate me, but either way it's not a good outcome because I know she's been catching feelings for Hunter.

I want to explain that this is a feral and not an actual Vampire to her but how can I do it without exposing what I actually know?

"Hey Lola?" I spoke up

"What." She still sounded upset.

"Why do you hate the idea of vampires so much, the other night you were so adamant on them being real and now that they are real you're just angry."

It's true. Every time the news came on mentioning another murder with a similar MO to the pervious, she's always pointed the fingers towards there being vampires. At the same time, she sounded a bit excited about it. Her theories too, she sounded so confident and happy about it.

She shrugged and looked down at her legs. When she looked back up to me her eyes were glossy and her eyebrows were raised and her lips were pursed. It's like she was trying not to cry.

"You know how I always tell you and the others that my parents and cousins moved to another country while I decided to stay here?"

I nod my head.

"I lied."

I widened my eyes in shock and gasped.

I remember every time Gia, Fran, and I went over to her home we always asked where her parents were. She avoided the question for so long, until she eventually ended up telling us that she lives alone. She said she didn't want to tell us because she doesn't want us to feel bad for her and she didn't want to feel like a burden. I never questioned it any further.

She works long hours most likely to pay rent. She works hard in school to get a suitable job.

I never would've second guessed her.

"Are they vampires?"

She shook her head. "They're dead."

My heart dropped.

She never told me this. In fact, I don't think she's told anyone this.

"How come-," She cut me off.

"They were the first victims in this whole murder spree ordeal. Because of that, and me being the remainder of my family, the law decided to ignore it. They knew public outrage would happen and if it's just said that they moved and I stayed back, no one would question it."

I didn't even know how to react. Lola isn't one for sympathy. She hates when people feel bad for her. Since it looked like she wasn't done talking, I stayed quiet and let her finish.

"This was 3 years ago. I was only 16." Years were coming out of her eyes at this point. "I was 16! Can you imagine coming home seeing half of your family drained of their life laying out on the carpet of the living room floor then having to fight one of those shits on your own!" She practically began screaming.

"I killed at least 3 of them. 3." She held up 3 fingers. "By myself, at 16. I knew what they were the moment I saw it. I did have doubt for a bit, but the autopsy came back showing they were drained of blood. They died slow deaths, painful."

"The police covered it up, like I said. I practically begged and begged, I even got on my knees and begged them to expose the truth and protect our people. With every murder came guilt, it turned into rage, sadness, there came everything."

"I'm so lucky to have come when I did, but Rue."

"Yes?"

"It bit you." She pointed to my bandaged neck.

I placed a hand on it.

Thinking about what she told me scared me a bit. Common knowledge by us humans is when you get bit by a vampire you turn into one. Is it really that simple though?

"You're not going to try to kill me are you?" My voice was a bit shaky.

She looked at the bloody stake that sat next to her foot then looked back up at me.

"I don't know."

"You won't, right?" I needed a definite answer.

"I don't want to. But if you turn, you being alive adds onto the problem and increases the victims. Rue, once you turn into one of them you're not human anymore. You won't be the same Rue."

I was at a loss for words. Nothing would come out of my mouth. What I'm getting out of all of this is that my best friend would kill me.

I tried putting myself in her shoes. What if my family was killed by vampires and the police tried to hide the crime and my best friend randomly turns into one.

Would I kill her because of my hate for vampires?

No.

I felt betrayed and hurt.

"I'm just going to go to my room." I got up cautiously. "I just wanna talk to Jason, okay?"

"Don't worry Rue, I won't do anything to you until I'm sure you turn."

I mentally rolled my eyes. How fucking considerate of her.

When I got into my room I locked the door and began panicking. I grabbed my shoes, my sweater, my phone, and my phone charger, and my wallet.

I rang Jason's cell a few times but he didn't answer.

Anxious and scared I did the unthinkable. I jumped out of the window and ran. If I had the possibility of turning, I wasn't going to allow Lola to kill me.

I ran to the nearest gas station.

"Hi, can I use your bathroom?" I said out of breath.

"Only if you buy something." The women smiled.

"Okay, but can I use your bathroom first?"

Her face fell as she realized I was going to be persistent.

"Fine."

She handed me the key and I went to the bathroom.

I checked my text messages to see if Jason answered or at least saw what I messaged him.

He didn't.

So I called him again. Luckily this time, he answered.

"Jason, I was bit by a feral and Lola came in and killed him and now she fears that I am going to turn into a feral and she wants to kill me." I cried out.

"Woah, wait, wait, what?" He sounded stressed.

I explained what happened a little slower and then he told me to go wait in front of the gas station for him.

-

A honking horn caught me out of the trance I was in. When I looked up I noticed Jason in the driver seat of the car.

I looked around to make sure there were no suspicious eyes on us and ran to his car.

"Let me see." He said, referring to the bite mark.

"Are you sure? It may look kinda gross." I placed a hand over the bandage.

"Rue, I'm a vampire who lived for 300 years. I saw more brutal things than a feral bite." He said flatly.

"Okay."

I slowly began removing the bandage. However, instead of looking disgusted, he looked perplexed.

"It might be true." He muttered to himself.

"What?" I asked.

I turned towards the mirror and looked at my neck.

There's nothing there.

"Jason I'm not crazy I swear-."

"Rue." He placed his hand on my thigh. "Don't worry about it, I believe you."

"Does this mean I'm going to turn?"

If the bite is gone and I'm not dead, does that mean I already turned? Vampires have a healing ability and my wound healed.

Please don't let me turn.

"No. Turning isn't that simple." He told me.

"So I'm not going to turn into one?" I felt a big weight coming off my shoulders.

"No. Actually I don't know what you are Rue. You're not normal. I wish I could tell you what's going on back at my home but the truth is, I don't even know." He glanced down at his lap. "Truth is, I've heard something but I'm not too sure if I want to believe it."

I don't even know what you are.

That stuck in my mind like glue. Not too long ago I  had a weird dream that felt pretty real when I passed out from the feral bite.

"Hey Jason?" I decided to tell him about the hallucination.

"Yeah?" He kept his eyes on the road.

"Uh." I began fiddling with my fingers. "So when I got bit by the feral I had this weird hallucination where this guy was in my room. I was stuck to the bed like I couldn't move at all. He came in and knew everything about me. He told me I was in The Inbetween. I wasn't dead, but I wasn't alive either. He asked me if my mom told me what I was, he knew her name as well. He knew Jeff. He said he was stuck there too and that he was going to find a way back to us. I may have been hallucinating but I don't know. It felt so real."

He stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and looked at me in shock.

"We have to go to Samuel now."

"Is everything okay?" I finally asked.

"Honestly Rue, I'm not sure. I'm feeling very overwhelmed right now." He took out his phone and began dialing Samuels number.

"Samuel, are you done talking with father, yeah, everything's okay? Did he hear our conversation earlier, good, okay." He let out a sigh. "Meet me in the old abandoned building on 49th street. Be quick."

He hung up the phone and zoomed down the road.

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