Chapter 1, Part 1
Charlotte presses her head against the wall in her room. Darkness surrounded her, but the only thing she focused on was the conversation coming from the next room.
“She can’t stay here with us Alice,” said a voice angrily.
The person who is presumably Alice began to speak. “But she cannot simply stay with Naomi, she is too young.”
There was a pause. “We will discuss this tomorrow,”
“I won’t let you take her away from here, she will-”
“We will discuss this tomorrow.” said the other voice sternly.
Those last words were followed by silence, Charlotte lay back down in her bed. All sorts of thoughts raced through her head. Were they talking about her, or someone else? Why were they talking about Naomi? Charlotte stood up and walked over to her window.
She strained her eyes to see out into the gloom of the night. The forest was completely coved in darkness. The moon shining past a few clouds barely lit the courtyard. A dark figure moved to the middle of the court. A pair of bright blue eyes stared back at Charlotte.
The sound of the knob turning took her attention away from the eyes and made her run to her bed. She quickly slid under the covers and closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. A cold breeze filled the room making Charlotte shiver under her covers. The door closed with a soft click.
“I don’t like her, she is too scrawny.” whispered one voice.
“Yes, I agree, but Genevieve has ordered us to retrieve her.”
Charlotte felt the covers being yanked off of her. Two hands slid under her body and lifted her up. She turned her head to see who was taking her. A boy only a couple of years older than her looked down at the bewildered Charlotte. His eyes were bright blue, just like the ones she had saw out the window.
“Scream and I’ll kill you, got that?”
Charlotte nodded, taking a last look at her room before everything turned into a blur. Before she knew it she was in another room. The walls were decorated with large paintings. There was a leather couch that wrapped around half of the wall and a large wooden table in the middle of it all. A man sat on the leather couch, his face hidden behind a newspaper.
The man set the newspaper down. “Took you long enough,”
“At least I was doing something instead of sitting on my butt reading comics!” snapped back one of the boys.
The man chuckled and was standing in front of Charlotte and the two other boys in the blink of an eye. “Careful what you say little boy, I’m still stronger than you. Genevieve is waiting for all of you in the other room.”
The boy put Charlotte down, grabbed her hand and led her to a door. The door swung open showing a young woman scribbling something on a piece of paper.
“Please shut the door,” said the woman, eyes still focused on the papers in front of her.
One of the boys shut the door then stood beside the lady, eyes locked on Charlotte. The woman, presumably Genevieve, looked up from her papers with a benign smile. Her teeth a glimmering white. Genevieve pushed back her long, burnished black hair and stuck out her hand. Charlotte reached out, hand shaking nervously.
“It’s beginning,” said the Genevieve happily. “But your going to have to keep an eye on her, it looks her body is refusing the new blood and we don‘t want what happened to the last one to happen to this one.”
Genevieve took Charlotte’s hand and traced a circle around her palm. The place she touched on Charlotte’s hand began to glow blue. Her nails started to grow sharp and pointed. Genevieve pulled on Charlotte’s chin showing pure white teeth. In the back of her mouth a tooth was turning red. Charlotte pulled away from Genevieve, falling down on one of the chairs behind her.
“She’s getting hungry,” said Genevieve still smiling. “This one will be interesting…”
