Hey! Well, this is the first chapter of a novel length story that I've been writing for the past year. As of now, I have about 27 out of 35 chapters written. Please give me as much criticism as you can!

By the way, this is rated PG-13 for some minor language, though the rating may go up in later chapters!
_________________

Elizabeth sat on her windowsill, thinking because sleeping was impossible. Especially when she had so much on her mind. She didn’t know what time it was, but judging by the fact that the night was quiet, or as quiet as New York City could get, she guessed that it was probably sometime after midnight.

She was just thinking (more like hoping) that she would be able stay here in New York for awhile, longer then the two months that her family had already been here. Her dad was always being relocated for the company he worked for, so Elizabeth, in the past three years, had gone to ten different schools in five different parts of the country. Life sucked and she really hoped that this time they would be able to stay longer in New York then they had any other place. They usually only stayed in one place for about three and a half months before they packed up and moved again. She liked it here and was hoping that they could stay for at least a year or two.

She had just recently found out the real reason why they were always moving. Granted, it did have something to do with her father's job, but it was mostly because of what had happened over twenty years ago, when her mother was pregnant with her older brother, Ronny. Her father had gotten into some bad business with a group of vampires. And this said group of vampires did not like him very much. That was all she knew, for her mother refused to tell her anything else because she felt that it was too grisly for her youngest daughter to hear. Elizabeth didn't believe her for one second, she was sixteen, and she was certain that she could handle whatever her father had done. She probably had heard worse at school. But even after explaining this to her mother, she still refused to say why they had been on the run for her entire life.

She was getting totally sick of moving and for once she just wanted to stay in one city for longer then the usual three and a half months. She sighed, she had a feeling that that was never going to happen. To her, it felt like they were going to be running for the rest of their lives. She didn't like that idea, but was pretty sure that it was very true.

She glanced at her alarm clock and was surprised to see that it was way past midnight. It was two in the morning! "Oh shit." she muttered as she scrambled from the windowsill, closed and locked the window and proceeded to crawl into bed, cursing herself for getting lost in her thoughts for longer then she should have. She had to get up in five hours for school. The thought made her groan in frustration. Her mind was still buzzing with information and she didn't get to sleep for several minutes. But, she finally dozed off after ten minutes of waiting for her brain to begin to shut down for the night.
_____________________________________________________________

“What the hell are you talking about Josh?” a man, who looked to be in his early twenties, sitting behind a mahogany desk, glared at the boy standing in front of him. Not looking very happy at being bothered.

“Well sir, I’m talking about that man, you know the one that betrayed vampires everywhere? You know, the same one that killed half of our kind, twenty or so years ago?” the man standing said, he looked to be in his late teens and rather terrified at the older man’s outburst.

“Yes, continue…” the man behind the desk waved his hand impatiently.

“We’ve tracked him down and it turns out that he is right here, in this very city!” he said. excitedly. He no longer seemed scared of the former, even though he was capable of killing him for being disturbed.

The man behind the desk suddenly looked interested in what the boy had to say for the bored expression was replaced with one of relative curiosity. After a few moments, the boy continued. “We have been doing a lot of research, you know watching him, and his family stuff like that.”

“Can you get to him?” the older man asked anxiously.

“Not exactly…” the teen said, preparing himself for the anger that would ensue. But the older man simply looked at him and asked two simple words,

“Why not?

“He is very, very well protected."

“What do you mean ‘protected’?” he asked curiously.

“Well, we’re not exactly sure, but we think that he is protected by some sort of magically binding…”

The man behind the desk was quiet for a second before he said “Hmm…. that’s interesting.” No doubt from that horrible wife of his the man thought, but aloud he said, "What about his children?”

“I don’t know, but they are most likely not…"

“Ah….good, any information on them?” Smirking at the stupidity of the whole thing. Protect the husband, but not the children? Now that didn’t sound right… oh well. He would enjoy punishing them for their stupidity.

“Yes!” and the boy pulled a paper out of the folder he was holding and began to read, “There are five in total, two girls, three boys, the oldest boy- Ronny- is twenty and out of the house. The oldest girl-Ashley- is eighteen and goes to Green Oaks High School. The second oldest girl-Elizabeth- is sixteen and goes to Green Oaks High School as well. The-” the older man interrupted him again. He was smirking and there was an evil glint in his eye. He knew exactly what to do now.

“That will do, Josh, can you please bring me David?” The boy nodded and swiftly left the room, leaving the manila folder with the man. He didn’t take long and when he returned he had a boy with him, the boy looked about the age of seventeen or eighteen, he had brown spiky hair with blonde tips and the most amazing blue eyes, he stood about six feet.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked after Josh had closed the door behind him, leaving the two in private.

“Yes, I have a job for you David. And I think you’ll rather enjoy this one .” He smiled at the young man standing before him.

“What is it you want me to do?” David asking, without any hesitation.

“This girl.” He held up a picture of Elizabeth, that he had found in the folder, “just happens to be the daughter of a very important person, in fact her father killed almost half of our kind twenty years ago,” David stared and remained silent. “We have been searching for him for a very long time and we have found out that he is in this very city. But, he is very well protected by some sort of magic, he has five children, all of which are unprotected, at least that is the information that I have been given. That is where you come in. I would like you to go find this girl at Green Oaks High School and bring her to me, unharmed. But not right away, make sure she trusts you first. I don’t want you to bring her here kicking and screaming. Go on a couple of dates, do whatever you want but bring her to me as soon as possible. Understand?” He asked, after a second or two David nodded his head slowly.

“Good, now you are to report back to me everyday to tell me what you have found out, now go on school starts in a couple of hours.” David got up and was almost out to the door when the man stopped him “and David don’t you dare think about drinking from her, if I find any bite mark on her I will kill you, understand?”

“Yes sir” He said and he left heading for Green Oaks High school, luckily he knew where it was.

The man smiled leaning back in his chair knowing that now he finally in a couple of week’s time would kill the man who killed his father.
____________________________________________________________

Elizabeth was woken up the next morning by the annoying sound of her alarm clock. She groggily got out of bed knowing that if she pressed the snooze button her mother would kill her. She made her way out to the bathroom in the hall; she turned the knob to find it locked. “Damn it.” She muttered, her sister was hogging the bathroom, what else is new? She thought as she banged on the door screaming at the top of her lungs, “ASHLEY GET THE HELL OUT, NOW!” She waited and waited and when there was no response she banged some more, but it was clear to her that her sister was not coming out any time soon. She screamed in frustration and made her way downstairs to get some breakfast. Maybe she would have time to take a shower after breakfast…

“Good morning sunshine.” Her dad said from behind the copy of The New York Times he happened to be reading.

“Good? What’s good about it?” she spat back, opening the refrigerator door and grabbing the milk.

“My my, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, didn’t they?” Her dad asked peering at her from over the newspaper.

“Well you would be pissed-“

“Watch your language, young lady.” Her mother interrupted her coming into the kitchen. Looking in a rather foul mood already. That might have been because she had just gotten the twins up and Elizabeth knew what it was like to do such a thing. She had to do it on more then one occasion. And it was not very fun.

“Sorry,” she grumbled “anyway you would be angry too” she put an extra emphasis on the word ‘angry’ so her mother wouldn’t snap at her again. “If your sister was hogging the bathroom!” she huffed as she grabbed a bowl and poured some cereal and milk into it. She sat down and began eating.

She was just done when her sister came sauntering in all ready for school. She glared at her, “About time Ashley.” She spat angrily at her as she left the room heading for the bathroom. Her bus happened to arrive in only thirty minutes, and if she didn't hurry, she would miss it. And her parents had already told her that if she was to ever miss the bus then she would be walking. And the school was a good six blocks away. And she was not at all keen at walking anywhere at that time of the morning.

When she got out of the shower she quickly blow-dried her hair; she only had fifteen minutes, she had never missed the bus and she was not about to start now.

When she was ready, she went back to her room and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was somewhat satisfied with her appearance and her choice of clothing, which was a blue sleeveless blouse and a pair of low-cut faded blue jeans. She sighed, well at least she looked presentably. She grabbed her bag from her desk chair and headed back downstairs. After saying a quick goodbye to her family she left the house heading for the bus stop. Sighing in relief when she saw the usual group of students waiting. At least she didn't miss it. But, it did show up only a few minutes after she had gotten there, she was just thankful that she hadn't missed it.

When she got to school she headed off to her locker, but as she was walking inside the school building she couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was being watched. She shuddered at the feeling it brought, and turned slowly around to see a boy, no older then eighteen leaning nonchalantly against a tree, not too far from where she stood at the entrance to the building. His blue gaze was intense and she found it rather hard to look at him. But he held her gaze, and would not let her go for several long minutes. A small smirk appeared on his pale lips before he broke contact and turned around heading in the opposite direction of the school.

That was creepy… Elizabeth thought. Holding in another shudder as she heard a loud squeal from behind her, and she turned around to see her best friend Katie standing just a few feet from her and staring in awe at the retreating boy.

“Oh my gosh Elizabeth!” she gushed. “That guy was so checking you out!!”

Elizabeth turned back around to where the boy had been standing moments before. “Yea…” was the only thing she could say. She turned back around and with Katie in tow they both headed into the building.
__________________________________________________________________

David smirked to himself after he saw the girl for the first time. Elizabeth was her name. She was rather pretty… with straight dirty blonde hair that reached just below her shoulders and beautiful green eyes that were the color of emeralds. From the distance it was hard to tell but she seemed to be of average height for her age, 5’5. He had seen a picture of her… but pictures can be so very deceiving. It was nice to know that her picture actually did her justice. Nice to know he would be seducing a pretty one for once, he usually got the ugly ones. And trying to seduce something that you don’t want to be near was difficult.

He made his way to his car, intent on enjoying his last few minutes of freedom before he was forced to go into the school for seven hours of hell. He hadn’t been in school for over two hundred years, but it couldn’t have changed that much.

He unlocked the door and sat down in the driver's seat, he got out his schedule and stared intently at it for a few seconds before he got out the girls schedule as well. He had made sure that he had been put in every single class that she was in, except Chorus and math, due to his old school ‘records’ that he had provided, he was not yet ready for Algebra II and had been put into Algebra I instead. But they still had the bulk of classes together and that included lunch.

He heard the bell ring in the distance and smirked again. Let the fun begin.

Oooohhh. *is holding breath* Vampire stalker...BWAHAHAHAAAAA (evil laugh)

*hem* er...yes.

I have to tell you, I don't usually go for vampire stories...because of the fact that the concept of vampires is based off a German demon - but I did open yours because my sister is writing a novel with the same title: Expect the Unexpected. It sort of caught my interest rather jaringly, so I read it...and I'm rather glad I did!

Enough nonsense. On to the critique! *straightens cravat*

Overall, a pretty good start to the story. I can't give you any points for originality because I know absolutely nothing about most vampire stories, so I don't really know what is actually original. The only one I've ever read was the Vampire's Beautiful Daughter, so there you go.

She was just thinking (more like hoping) that she would be able stay here in New York for awhile, longer then the two months that her family had already been here.

Parenthesis...bad, generally, in fiction, unless you're adding them for humorous effect, which in this case I have a feeling you're not. If the statement in parenthasis is important enough to be mentioned in thh first place, then it deserves to be MENTIONED, not stuck inside a little parentha-cage.

The whole first part of this is slightly info-dumpy...as in, you're giving us a LOT of information at the same time. You might try going for an artsy effect and adding little paragraphs of information interspersed with Elizabeth's musings as she watches the rain, or something. That might break it up. Or you could just find an original way to put that information into your story. Maybe have the vampire add some of the info later when he's telling David about Elizabeth, you know?

One more thing about this section...you're using "she felt" and "she thought" a lot. This doesn't do a lot for the reader. The reader doesn't get into a story where we're just TOLD what they feel...we want to, in some sort of small way, feel what they feel, or at least sympathize with what they're feeling.

For instance, instead of saying "She felt confused" you could go into a lot more detail and perhaps provide graphic images for the reader to put into their minds: "She felt as a mouse feels when it has wandered out of the corn fields of Kansas and into the middle of New York City - deserted, bewildered and utterly lost." Obviously that's stupid, but you get the picture.

Also, it seemed a little nonchalant and casual, how you just casually threw in the whole vampire concept...I mean, I don't know what your society here is like, but if I found out my father was in trouble with a bunch of vampires, I certainly wouldn't believe it until one came up and started sucking out my blood. You know what I mean? So either make it clear that your society does include vampires and accepts them, or make the fact that her father is involved with them a little more startling to her.

Okay, for the first section, that's about it. It seems like a lot, but really I'm just long-winded and use a lot of words to say very little. Ignore me.

Moving on...

What the hell are you talking about Josh?

Comma after 'about.' "What the hell are you talking about, Josh?" Good startling first sentence, by the way. In fact, it might be better to start with this scene and then go to the whole Elizabeth scene. This sentence catches my attention much better than your other starting sentence.

Not looking very happy at being bothered.

That's a sentence fragment. Either connect it to the sentence before it, somehow, or lengthen it into a real grown-up sentence. "The man didn't look very happy at being bothered," for instance.

"Well sir, I'm talking about that man, you know the one that betrayed vampires everywhere? You know, the same one that killed half of our kind, twenty or so years ago?" the man standing said, he looked to be in his late teens and rather terrified at the older man's outburst.

Okay, first dialogue sentence seems quite...er...casual? For the content. He's just SAYING it like it's normal..."yeah, you know that one guy who exterminated half our race? Well, he's here." Isn't that a little casual considering the circumstances? Also, since previously you referred to the male vampire standing up as a 'boy' it might be better to continue doing so.

Also, don't connect your dialogue sentence with the description. Let me explain. What the man is saying has nothing to do with his appearance or whether or not he's terrified. (another point: can one be 'rather' terrified? Terrified is a very extreme word, there's no 'rather' about it. Anyway...) You don't put two unconnected things in the same sentence. "The pig ate the pizza, the girl had green eyes and a stony expression" doesn't make sense! It's the same with your sentence.

So a quick fix? Take out the description of the boy and put it in earlier, before he says anything. You can use it to highlight his state of terror, in fact, like this:

The standing teenager cringed, green eyes widening at the man's outburst, but he forced his stiff lips open to answer. "Blah blah blah," he said, etc.

See what I mean?

ANYway...

He no longer seemed scared of the former, even though he was capable of killing him for being disturbed.

I would really strongly suggest giving at least one of these people names and then USING it! Who is he? Who is him? Who is capable of killing whom at what time...for what? The former from what? If 'he' is the latter, is 'him' the former? ACK! See what I mean? We know the teen's name is 'Josh,' so take advantage of that and use at least Josh's name to help clarify above sentence.

"Why not?

Quotation mark after question as well as before.

OKay, well, as far as I can see from there on you're pretty good grammatically - your dialogue is awkward in some places, but I would just suggest you read through it aloud, putting commas where you pause to take a breath and stuff like that.

Also, through the entire first part of the vampire scene, you never once refer to Josh as Josh, always as the boy, or the teen, which makes it very confusing when David comes in and is referred to also as the boy and the teen.

Don't be discouraged when you see the length of this critique! It means your story was worth it! Please keep on posting, and I'll try to keep on adding my two measily little bits worth, and we'll see where it leads, eh?

Just remember, all of this stuff is just advice. You can take it or leave it or ball it up and throw it to the dogs, it's entirely up to you. Overall a great story and I look forward to reading more...

*goes to bed dreaming of stalking teenaged vampires...BWAAAHAHAHAHA...yeah.*

Yours most truly and sincerely,
~Mademoiselle Kool

The boy nodded and swiftly left the room, leaving the manila folder with the man. He didn’t take long and when he returned he had a boy with him, the boy looked about the age of seventeen or eighteen, he had brown spiky hair with blonde tips and the most amazing blue eyes, he stood about six feet.

Sorry, spotted this one last thing and decided to pop it off before going to bed...

USE JOSH! FOR GOODNESS SAKE, WHAT'S A NAME FOR???

I've re-written this paragraph so you can see what I mean, because it's still incredibly confusing! who's the boy now, whos' the teen, and most importantly, who is 'he'? Also, you've got some run-on sentences in there having to do with David's description.

Here's my version:

Josh nodded swiftly and left the room, leaving the manila folder on the desk. He wasn't gone long, and when he returned he had brought another boy with him. The new arrival was tall, with brown spiky hair and amazing blue eyes. He looked about seventeen or eighteen and his height of nearly six feet made Josh look even shorter.

Somethign like that...if you hate it, I understand, but at least we have a relatively clear idea of who is who. Which, I find, is very important.

Anyway, those are my last...um...pearls of wisdom, I promise! I'm off!

~M-K

Thank you very much for your comments! They are much appreciated! It's funny really, because I've posted this on several sites, and NO ONE has EVER mentioned those things to me before.... but I'm really grateful that you caught them, I'm going to try to edit this thing soon, at least that's the goal.

Hey! I was kind of bored at first, but when the vampires started to talk.. that was interesting. I am glad that I read this. I can tell that this is gonna be awesome! Just a few things:

The second paragraph is kind of an info dump. It was really hard to read and get through. Could you find another way to place this in the story without flat out telling the reader? Maybe add it into the conversation bewteen her father and Elizabeth.

Would Eliz (I'll call her that for short) really shout that early in the morning? And would she really swear? She would wake the whole house up. Maybe just sort of put it in a fierce whisper. Unless she is really angery, but then the parents might also be angery at her for yelling. Just saying!

I loved the whole conversation between the vampires. Very good!

Ok.. just a min.. ok, now it's morning and she's out of bed. Why is she so pissed off? Is it just because her sister is hogging the bathroom? Is that really such a big deal to make a fuss out of? I wouldn't know - I'm not a woman.

Something you also need to add: I have no real concept on where this story is happening. Like what state, or if not in America, where? And the setting. Is it cold? Hot? we want to know these things.

I like the rest of it. You are very clever author. I can't wait to read chapter 2, and I am off!

I hope this helps!

BBB