I haven't really finished the first chapter yet, so this will work.

So, a short explaination of what happened is that seventeen year old Amelia is put into Caroline Heaton's care as a foster child, because her father dissapeared. Carol's son, Felix, dissapeared and was declared dead months ago. This isn't a mystery book, but you'll figure out where the romance part comes in, and why it is called 'bloody' kisses. I'm sorry that it's so long!

I was sitting on the carpet in front of Carol’s big black-leather couch, drawing swirl patterns on the back of my hand with a black ballpoint pen boredly. Soft music played in the background, and I was surprised to find that Carol had surround sound. A part of the T.V. was supposed to be playing the radio, but I didn’t understand the setup.

Carol was perched behind me, pulling a brush through my hair. Her cool fingers were so gentle, and cold, I wasn’t used to it. I had never had a mother, because she had died in childbirth. I had never known her, but the absence of her presence hadn’t affected me. My dad had said that I was born knowing all the girly rules and protocol.

“Your hair is so beautiful, Amelia. It’s such a scarce color, I’m jealous.” Carol teased. I smiled warmly at the complement. I had barely just met the woman but she already felt like my mother, or a close aunt.

“You certainly have nothing to be jealous of.” I teased back. I could hear her titter behind me.

I had always known that I had gorgeous hair. I was a rare occupant of a recessive gene from my mother’s side that showed up every generation. I had hair that looked like every strand was permanently stained by moonlight. My hair was slightly thin and as straight as pins, reaching to the middle of my shoulder blades. When it’s wet it looks like sterling silver.

“I have an idea!” Carol suddenly exclaimed, excited. I looked up in time to see her jump off the couch and jog out of the family room to the entryway.

Carol was wearing a baggy pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt that made her look twenty-nine (like she always did), though she was really thirty-five. She was also wearing huge, ridiculous fuzzy slippers that were big lion heads, making her look like some Amazon barbarian who was wearing her enemies head’s as shoes.

I heard her shuffle up the stairs at a surprising rate, almost a run. I wondered how she managed to run that fast up the stairs wearing those clumsy slippers without tripping and falling on her pretty face. The thought made me giggle nervously.

She zoomed back into the room, the slippers still attached to her feet, holding a mirror and a butterfly clip, bobby pins held in her teeth. The flushed, flustered look on her face, and her winded breaths that made her chest heave, combined with the way she was armed with hair supplies, with help from the slippers, pushed me over the edge. Hysteria bubbled up inside me, and made me laugh loudly.

Carol turned her head to the side and grinned cheesily, eyebrows lifted, making me laugh harder. Tears welled out of the corners of my eyes and my stomach hurt I was laughing so hard.

“Oh common! It wasn’t that funny!” Carol giggled, climbing on the couch behind me again. I gasped, trying to stop laughing so I could hold still for her, but a few giggles escaped.

“You should wear a little more makeup.” She commented.

“Yeah, I prolly should.”

I held as still as I could while Carol created some obscene monstrosity on top of my head. She refused to let me watch, so I went back to the pattern on my hand. Then she made me turn around and did my makeup with a bag full of her own makeup I hadn’t seen her bring.

“Alright! Tell me what you think!” she squealed, pushing the mirror into my hands. I gasped.

I looked like a river nymph. My heart-shaped face was framed by hair that looked like moonlight, the bulk of the hair pulled into a clip that made a feathery spray at the back of my head. My eyes looked huge, vaguely walnut shaped, framed by tangled ink-black eyelashes, my eyes a familiar fog grey color, my eyelids a dark purple making my eyes look dreamy.

My skin was pale, but with a faint pink on my high cheekbones. My full lips were a light pink, perfectly feminine with gentle curves. My eyebrows were a shade darker than the rest of my hair, preventing the sallow, bleached look that came with fair skin and hair this light, but not too dark that they looked bushy, now were shapely elegant curves.

“Oh Carol! You’re a goddess!” I gasped, “I love it!”

I burrowed through my suitcase, looking for my favorite Chap Stick, pushing my perfectly arranged clothes onto the floor in a rumpled circle around me. It probably was a little eccentric of me, chucking random articles of clothing over my shoulder, but if I didn’t find it, it would drive me insane.

I need to put these in the dresser already The thought was a heavy mental sigh. I’d been procrastinating for days, but I wasn’t in the mood to do it now, and my lips hurt. Shirt, shirt, shorts, shirt, jeans, ooh! I’ve been looking for that one! I set that one neatly on the floor by my thigh for later.

My suitcase now almost completely empty, I spied a small cylinder. I snatched it up and twisted the cap off eagerly. The small translucent cap flew out of my hand and bounced slightly on the hardwood floors with a sharp plastic tink, then rolled on its side in a dizzy curve until it disappeared under the dresser.

“Damn.” I cursed, running the now exposed Chap Stick over my dry lips then setting it on the floor. Crawling on my hands and knees to the dresser, I stretched my hand under the edge. The dust under the dresser got on my hands as I blindly patted the floor. I moved my hand too fast to the side and was rewarded by snubbing my hand on something hard, cold, and solid, which possessed a painfully sharp corner.

I grimaced and fingered the object, trying to feel what it was. It felt like metal. I leaned over and glanced under the dresser, my hair falling in my eyes and spilling on the floor like strings of soft ice. There was an average sized metal box pressed against the wall, wallowing in the dust. The box was about as long as a ruler you used at school (a.k.a. about 12 inches, genius) and half as wide, with a silver lock on it.

Suddenly curious, I reached foreword and slid it toward me inch by inch. The box sounded hollow when it scraped against the floor, leaving a trail of clean floor. The box refused to leave it’s hiding place, giving me a nasty struggle to get it under the lip of the dresser, but finally giving up and letting me pull it onto my lap.

I pulled the edge of my shirt up and scrubbed the thin film of dust off, then tried unsuccessfully to unlatch the lock. I frowned, disappointed. I was hoping that I would find something unexpected and interesting. I straightened stubbornly. No, this thing is going to open.

I leaned over and shoved my hand into the jeans I wore yesterday, then tried the other pocket, and came up with a paperclip I had found. I bent it so part of it was relatively strait and took a deep breath. This was my first time pick locking, so I expected a great struggle ahead. And I was right.

I fumbled and twisted the paperclip, wiggling it back and fourth, jigging it up and down, taking it out and putting it back in again to repeat the process. I was just about to give up when there was a soft click and the lock slackened in my hand. I blinked in disbelief, and then felt my mouth twist into a proud, impish grin.

“Success!” I whispered anxiously. I flipped the top of the box up and stared at the contents. The box was overflowing with folded pieces of paper. There were countless varieties of paper: lined paper, printing paper, blank note cards, on slivers of weathered newspaper, even paper towels. I opened a random folded paper, the paper crinkling dryly.

Silently now the moon dominates the sky

Silver fruit upon sliver trees

Moonlight shines

Silver pools

Like a blanket on the garden

Silver fruit upon sliver trees

Fish leap

Moonlight shatters

In the water droplets soaring in the air

Glinting off scales

Silver fruit upon silver trees

Impressed, I folded it back up and fished out another. This one was a good sketch of the Grim Reaper. He had seemed to be one of those artistic types who, if they got an idea in their head, would write it on dirty toilet paper just to have it written down.

I had always been musically challenged, I had never been able to even play a triangle, and had a mediocre voice. Felix seemed as though he played some kind of instrument, and I could tell that he had been good at it. I was suddenly depressed that the talented boy no longer existed. Yes, the person who had spent who knows how long filling this box was undoubtedly Felix; even a monkey could figure that out.

I Reached into the bulging mass of papers and encountered a smooth surface under the pieces of paper. I grabbed a fistful of papers, careful not to bend them, and set them on the floor beside me. I grabbed at least ten more handfuls before the box was relatively empty. A black notebook rested at the bottom of the box, almost the same size as the box.

“Jackpot!” I pulled the book out carefully, and then froze. Under the book was a white shirt folded neatly at the bottom of the box, covered in blood.

I shivered, suddenly afraid. I almost put the notebook back, shoved the paper back in and put it back where it came from and forget it ever existed, but I had to investigate. I carefully set the notebook on the floor and swallowed before I picked the shirt up. It was stiff from long since dried blood and when I lifted it out of the box, it unfolded slowly.

The white shirt was stained brown from the dried blood, the greatest amount of blood on the front near the right shoulder. There was a black stain inside the brown on the collar and shoulder, and also several smaller drops on the front. At first I thought that the black stuff was oil or something, but when I touched it, it felt no different than the bloodstains. It smelled thickly of blood.

I folded it back to it’s original form, witch was easy because shirt had puckering wrinkles were it had been folded before. I muscled it back into the box, trying to get the dry shirt to fit, and then lifted the notebook off the floor. It was a composition notebook, pure black, and worn. I lifted the cover, witch crinkled from disuse.

The first page had a date and a short entry under it, a diary or journal. I skipped the date and read the entry.

God, this feels so stupid. I can’t believe that I’m actually writing a journal. I’m not sure why I do want a journal, so I’m keeping it a secret. That sounded stupid… I’m not going to write ‘dear diary,’ or ‘journal’ because that’s crossing the line. So… whatever.

Boys. I smiled and leafed through the pages. They were all what you would expect in a guy’s journal, daily this’s and that’s, so I flipped to the last entry, but stopped at the second to last entry because the first sentence caught my eye.

Something really freaky happened today. I was walking in town this afternoon to my car. It was really eerie and the whole street was empty. It was cool at first, but something or someone grabbed my shoulder and I can’t remember anything past that.

I woke up in a dark alley next to a dumpster, covered in blood and this weird black stuff that was the same consistency as blood. There was this big gash in my neck; the gash went clear into my jugular artery. I practically shat in my pants when I found the black stuff in the gash.

I went home and by the time I got there the wound was healed! Now I feel like crap, I think I caught something while I was knocked out. My neck hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt, though it’s healed. I wonder what the hell that black shit was.

I scanned over the entry several times, reading it over and over. My eyes flickered on their own accord to the open box and the shirt seemed to stare back at me. At least he didn’t commit any crimes or murders. I flipped the old flimsy paper to the last entry. The writing was messier than usual.

I haven’t written anything for a long time because I’ve been feeling so horrible. My teeth hurt, my skull hurts, I have horrible headaches, my eyes hurt, my nose hurts, my heart hurts, my muscles hurt, my bones hurt, even my nails hurt. I can barely move, either, because my muscles feel eternally cramped.

I can’t eat anything; everything tastes disgusting and makes me vomit, even though I feel like I’m starving. Nothing I take helps. My doctor is dumbfounded.

Another thing I noticed is that even though I hurt, my senses are sharp, making it hurt more. Maybe I’m just hallucinating again. Mom is really worried. I am too.

I think I’m dieing.

Carol had never said much about her son, and I had never asked because I didn’t want to hurt her, but I would have never imagined this. The poor guy, whatever he had been sick with had probably had killed him. Maybe it was the ‘black stuff’. Another shiver ran down my spine.

What if it’s still contagious after all these months? I stared at the black stains of the shirt, my skin suddenly crawling. I should burn the shirt, just in case. I stood up, setting the notebook down on the floor and held the box with the shirt still in it like it was radioactive ooze.

Carol was at the store, so I would be able to pull it off without unnecessarily bringing the subject up. I moved out of my room and shut the door tightly, stepping down the stairs slowly, my hand over my nose and mouth to try and prevent breathing anything in.

I moved slowly trough the archway in the entryway into the big kitchen. Carol’s kitchen was beautiful. It was a vertical rectangle shape –the same shape as the living room-, the northern wall holding the refrigerator, the double oven, cabinets, and counters. The counters continued along the northern wall then wrapped around to cover part of the eastern wall, where the expensive stove was. All of the appliances were black and the counters were granite.

The sink and dishwasher were on the island at the center of the room, with three bar stools parked on the other side. The floors were a tan stone tiles. The walls were a red color and decorated by big windows and paintings, with several decorative items on the counters.

The sliding glass door had a slim window between it and the ceiling that made it feel more open. I had opened the sliding glass door earlier this morning to air the house out and make it easier for Carol’s cat, Winston, to get back inside.

I felt my pace quicken as I neared the open door. Carol had a moderate sized cement patio that was curved and vaguely round, with broad flat cement steps that led to the rich green grass. Forgetting caution, I dumped the foreboding box on the cement patio in Carol’s backyard and jumped back. The box tipped over, and the ugly shirt flopped onto the cement.

I don’t want to get whatever killed Felix, but somebody’s got to do it. I ran my hands superstitiously on my thighs, trying to get the invisible invader off my hands and onto my jeans.

Crap. I don’t have a lighter. I spun around and jumped into the kitchen and bolted to the sink. Using my wrist to turn the water on, I shoved my hands into the boiling hot water that painfully scalded my skin. After I couldn’t stand having my hands in the steaming water, I turned the heat down and scrubbed my hands with more soap than necessary.

I dried my hands on a paper towel then threw it away, and then hunted around the kitchen for a lighter. Yanking open random drawers, I dug into papers and other kitchen supplies until I gave up. Maybe she has a grill, those usually have lighters. I went back onto the patio again and scanned the flat patio.

Carol’s patio was uncovered, open to the elements, with a small round iron table with matching chairs, a bench, but no grill. I huffed, irritated and leaned around to look scan the backyard.

Carol had a huge, healthy lawn without a fence. People in this area seemed content to go without any kind of fencing sometimes. She had a huge, old apple tree in the right corner of the stretching green, several natural looking flower beds, another cherry tree, and another ivy plant growing on the back of her house. You could see the yard of her neighbors and the house directly behind her house. No grill in sight.

Ugh. I stepped into the grass and walked around the side of the house and looked across the street. Two teenage boys were skateboarding across the street, bantering loudly, their skateboards making familiar sounds when they rolled over the small wooden ramp they had crafted in the street.

The boys were typical skateboarders, their pants sagging under their butts, showing their boxers, wearing clothes with skateboard company logos, big clunky shoes. One wore a striped hat over his shaggy hair, and the other had gelled spikes. They probably have a lighter of some kind. I sucked in a big gulp of air and crossed the lawn to the street.

As I walked toward them, the one with the striped hat stopped and looked at me, then elbowed his friend. I wasn’t wearing anything special, just a pair of hip-hugger jeans, a t-shirt, my hair down, not wearing much makeup, but I recognized the look on their faces.

“Hey pretty lady!” the one with the spikes called. I smiled, flattered. It was nice knowing that someone thinks you are attractive. They rolled over to me on their skateboards.

“Sup, what’cha need?” the one with the hat asked, and the one with spikes eyed me appraisingly.

“I was just wondering if I could borrow a lighter. Do you guy’s have one?” I asked pleasantly.

“Sure, here ya go.” The one with the spikes said immediately, shoving his hand into his pocket and producing a red lighter. Just what I need.

“What are you gunna burn?” the one with the hat asked curiously.

“A shirt, nothing special. Thanks for letting me borrow it.” I said graciously.

“Do you live here?” Spike said.

“No, I just moved in with Miss Heaton.” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder “She’s my foster mother.” I saw the change in their eyes when they realized I was a foster child.

“Why are you a foster kid?” Hat asked sympathetically.

“My dad disappeared.” I said, my throat feeling tight, “I’ll be right back with your lighter.” I added shortly, and spun on my heel, lighter in hand.

I walked through the grass worriedly, and kicked the shirt out of the metal box. I squatted by the shirt and flicked the lighter on. I swallowed and stared at the flame that flickered in my hand. It was the shape of a large teardrop, a dark orange at the bottom the slowly fading to lighter shades until it was a golden yellow.

I stared at the flame, then at the filthy shirt that sat in a sad lump on the cement, abused and battered. I frowned and turned the lighter off then stared at the shirt for what felt like minutes, not thinking.

I wiped the tears off my cheek with the heel of my hand and went back to Spike to give him his lighter.