Chapter 1
Selena walked home from school, that night. She attended night-school at the Community College due to her “advanced learning skills.” At least, that’s what the teacher’s called it; Selena called it summer studying. She’d get bored and read an encyclopedia or dictionary and her brain would soak it up like a sponge.
Recently, though, her grades had dropped tremendously. She wouldn’t pay attention or do her homework, and she wouldn’t do class work or even try on her tests. Her teachers had contacted Tonya, but she hadn’t cared. The Orphanage was paying for her to be in school, and Selena had already gotten three scholarships to college.
The sidewalk was dark and the street was quiet. The waning moon provided enough light and Selena listened to the rhythmic beat of her footsteps. She was absorbed in a vampire novel she had checked out of the library. She was so engrossed she didn’t notice a second person walking down the empty sidewalk. He was walking with his head down, deep in thought.
Selena looked up and barely dodged the guy. She gasped when he looked up, icy purple eyes catching hers. He smiled at the sight of her.
“I was just thinking about you.” He said coolly. Selena said nothing, her eyes were locked with his and she could do nothing but stand there. His smile widened and Selena began to feel faint and her vision became darker.
She opened her eyes to a torch-lit room. She lay in a large canopy-bed covered with crimson satin sheets and a black canopy hung over her. The room was furnished with rich, dark oak and black curtains over the balcony window. A large black tapestry hung on the wall opposite the windows, covered with intricate silver designs. Selena was wearing a short black slip that hugged her every curve and her hair had been taken out of its usual bun.
She slithered from beneath the covers and crawled off the bed. The stone floor was cold beneath her bare feet. She made her way to a large door in the corner of the wall opposite the bed. She opened it slowly, not making a noise and peeked into a corridor.
Torches lined the walls between paintings and tapestries and a long rug stretched from one end of the corridor to the other. To the left lay a dead end and the right turned down to another hall.
Selena slipped, noiselessly, into the hall. She went right and followed a hall, lined with doors, to a pair of enormous double doors. They groaned loudly, echoing off the stone walls. Beyond the doors lay a cavernous room with an extremely long table running down the middle. Moonlight filtered through a towering window at the head of the hall. Extravagant chairs lined the sides of the table and at the head of the table was what looked like a throne. All the smaller chairs were upholstered in crimson and the throne seat was covered with black. Candelabras were spaced evenly in a line running down the center of the table.
The soft patting of Selena’s feet echoed off the walls of the empty room. She gaped at the size of the room. It made her feel like an ant.
She returned her attention to her escape and she hurried to the opposite end of the room and opened a smaller door. She was now in what looked like a medieval kitchen. A large stone oven sat in the far back corner and the whole side and back walls were lined with stone counters and a rickety wooden table sat against the wall next to Selena.
A door lay at the other end of the table and Selena went to it. A staircase led down into darkness. Selena looked behind her, for a source of light, but there were none. She couldn’t backtrack now…
She descended the stairs, slowing to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Even after a few minutes, she could still see nothing but black. She hugged the wall and felt for the next step with her feet. She felt the stairs end, but a hand grabbed her arm. Selena cried out and fought to wriggle free, but she was pulled into a warm body. Selena couldn’t see who her captor was but she had a good idea.
“Let me go!” She screamed. She tried to push away, but she was held even tighter the more she struggled.
“Let go!” She screamed, again. She was spun around suddenly and a light tap hit her neck. She passed out immediately.
She awoke back in the bedroom, but the silver-haired boy was standing at the foot of her bed, watching her. Selena jumped up and crawled over the mountain of pillows until her back was against the wall.
The boy just smiled, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Selena glared at him, “Why should I trust you? You’ve kidnapped me.”
“I haven’t harmed you in anyway, and you don’t look like you’re happy at home.” He sounded sincere.
“Why did you kidnap me?”
He turned away, saying nothing. Selena’s distrust returned, a little. He was right, she wasn’t happy at home and she didn’t have much to go home to. She was sure Carmen would worry. She was about the only person who would care.
“Why did you kidnap me? I want to know.” Selena demanded.
“I had a dream about you, before I saw you in the park.” He looked at his hands.
“How do you know it was me?” Selena’s anger was quickly replaced by her natural curiosity.
“I never forgot your face.” He looked at her, with care. He turned away again, “You had a friend named Raya Mitchell. You spoke her name in my dream.” He added, answering Selena's next question. Selena just looked at him. Who was this guy and what’s with this dream? Selena was sure she would have been flattered if it weren’t for the odd circumstances.
“You kidnapped me because you saw me in a dream?”
The boy shook his head, “There’s more to it than that, but I understand if you want to go home.”
“Would you really let me go?” Selena looked at him, amazed that he would kidnap and keep her for a few hours, just to tell her he had a dream about her. He stood and walked over to the door.
“Only if you want to leave.”
“I would like to.”
He seemed disappointed, but he nodded and left the room. Selena leaned against the headboard, letting out a sigh. She wasn’t trapped here with a maniac; that was good. What kind of person kidnaps people they saw in dreams? That was the one strange thing about this guy.
He returned with Selena’s stuff: clothes, black satchel, and shoes. Selena got off the bed and took them from him. Everything was there.
Selena waited until he left the room before changing. She slid off the slip and pulled on her torn jeans and black top and slid on her black flip-flops. She opened the door and looked outside. The boy was nowhere to be found.
“Where’d he go?” Selena stepped back into the room and waited. After what seemed like an hour, she went into the hall and followed the path she had used not that long ago.
She remembered how dark the stairwell had been in the kitchen and grabbed a torch off the wall before continuing down the hall to the great hall. He had found her down there so he must be there, now. Why else would he be down there in the dark? He must have been sleeping and heard the great hall door open.
Selena continued across the great hall and into the kitchen. She felt weird now that she wasn’t sneaking through here. She opened the door in the kitchen and saw a faint light at the bottom. She descended and came into a plain room furnished with a small metal bed with dirt underneath it, a small desk with a single burning candle, and two doors, a foot apart, stood next to the foot of the bed.
Selena went to one door and found it was a closet with a few black suits, black shirts, black pants, everything was black. Selena’s closet was nothing but black and two pairs of torn jeans.
She closed the closet door and opened the second. It led to a second stairwell and Selena could see stars coming from a large square opening at the top of the stairs. A cool breeze blew against her face as she climbed upwards. She wondered if she’d be able to make it home by herself or if she should turn back and wait in the room.
She found that the opening led to a stone path leading through a maze of bushes. Selena could see street light at the other end of the maze and started toward them. She looked back to see that she knew where she was. She was at McCormick Castle on the opposite end of town from where Tonya’s mansion sat. It would take a while to walk there and It wasn’t long before morning came. The sky was already brightening.
Selena made it to the end of the maze and found her self at the end of Castle Drive. She knew exactly how to get home, but a thought came to her head. Did she want to go home? She couldn’t really call it home. There was only one thing she wanted to see there, and that was Carmen. She was the only good thing about that place.
Selena looked back at the castle, wondering if that silver-haired youth had noticed she was gone. She realized she hadn't even gotten his name. She turned and continued down the street, the light sounds of her shoes filling the quiet morning.
Selena locked herself in her room, once again, and pulled out her diary, a black book with blood red letters reading “DIARY.” She wrote all about her nighttime excursion and the silver-haired boy. He intrigued her and she couldn’t pull her mind away from him. She kept picturing his face and those purple eyes. She could hear his voice and wanted to see him one more time. She wanted to know his name and what happened in that dream of his that caused him to kidnap her.
She closed her journal, rolled over and fell asleep.
