If I'd had to tell you what was going to happen that night, I probably would have shrugged and said that I'd end up on my couch with a microwave dinner and my Beagle, Chuck Berry, tucked behind my legs, reading one of the library books I'd recently checked out.
Or maybe, I'd have said that I'd be on the phone with my best friend Andrea Dresher, yawning and pretending to listen to her recount how her Psych. professor had preached to her entire class about their lack of projected intuition, which only she seemed to possess.
Which wasn't true. If she could tell how other people felt, she'd have talked about something more interesting once in a while. But whatever.
Yet, what I wouldn't have guessed about that night was that my existence was going to take a very drastic turn about.
And not even like a normal kind of turn about either, where somebody gets like an epiphany and jumps the next plane to India to become a Buddhist, or gets held at gunpoint and resolves to live the rest of their life treating every day like it's their last day.
Nope. I, Rose White, got the kind of turn about that would make normal people run screaming, the sci-fi nerds lean forwards in their seats, and of course, the goths to come flocking.
Don't have a clue what I'm talking about? Let me clue you in.
They're beautiful, pale white, superhuman, constantly thirsty, and have got huge-ass incisors.
Yeah. So, I got stuck with vampires.
Fucking karma.
"Bye, Rea!" I called to Andrea as I exited her apartment, shrugging on my Jersey BlueClaws zip up.
The evening air outside her stuffy apartment was cool, and most of the smog from downtown Newark had been blown away by a steady breeze so that the stars were visible.
I turned to look at her boyfriend, Cameron, who'd exited the apartment with me. He was tall, almost six feet, with an angular build, and a permanently angsty expression slapped across his face. Probably because he was worrier; almost constantly concerned about everything, and unafraid of being a pain up everyone's ass about it.
"You got a car?" I asked him, zipping my hoodie up. "Wanna drive me home?"
He shook his blonde head, looking down at me. "Nah. But I can walk you halfway home, if you're worried about being out at night. I live down by Washington Park. I know your's is a little ways past there."
"I'm okay." I assured him, then turned to head across the street. But it figures that Sir-Worries-A-Lot would have to walk me home anyway, since not a moment later, I heard his boots clatter across the pavement to reach me.
"Well, I'm going to walk you anyway." He said, falling into step beside me.
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes, but I gave him a polite smile anyway. "Sure. It's fine."
We walked to the end of Andrea's block in awkward silence, turning onto Greenwood Avenue when Cameron spoke up.
"Rose?" He asked.
I looked over at him. "Yeah?"
He looked at his workmen's boots. "Well, this is going to sound like I'm a big worrier, but, um, do you think--I dunno--that maybe Andrea's thinking about breaking up with me?"
"She hasn't mentioned it to me. Why? Was she acting weird?" I questioned.
He shook his head. "Well, kind of. Not, you know, at her apartment. But in Relations she keeps looking at Martin Hennessey. You know, that guy who's dad owns James Hennessey and Company? The wine place? And she's been giving him these looks for like a week. I think she might break up with me."
Instantly, I felt bad for Cameron. It was a lost cause if Andrea was shooting glances at Martin Hennessey. The guy was not only like uber-rich and ridiculously smart, but he was also extremely nice and could put freaking Orlando Bloom's looks to shame.
The guy was like something out of a cheesy romance novel, where the hero never has any flaws.
"Ouch." I said to Cameron, wincing. "I'm sorry. You want me to ask Rea about it? Not telling her that you were asking, or anything. I'll just do it casually sometime."
Cameron nodded, and I noticed that we'd reached Washington Park. "Would you? That would be awesome, Rose. Thanks."
"No problem." I waved him off, then stopped dead in my tracks as we started along one of the foot paths through the foliage. A few meters away in the bramble, I could see the glow of the end of a cigarette, watched it flicker as someone told a long draw from it.
Cameron accidentally stumbled into my back, causing me to fall forward into the leaves, which made a tell-tale crackling noise.
I looked up and saw the cigarette being dropped and quickly extinguished.
"Shit." I quickly scrambled to my feet, taking hold of Camerons sleeve. "Let's go. Hurry."
I pulled him down the foot path, back towards where it entered into the street, only to find our way blocked by what looked like six or seven stereotypical gang members; decked out in the usual sleeveless shirts, baggy pants, inked head to toe, and holding handguns at their sides.
I froze up.
In the dim glow of the street lights, I could see that all of the men were wearing identical grins, sickly with pleasure.
"You're kidding me." I muttered, tensing up. "The one time I actually walk home with someone."
" 'Ey. Look at this, man." One of the members nudged another in the side with a beefy, tattooed arm. "One of them's a chick. It must be our lucky day."
The man he'd nudged's grin got wider, more perverted.
"Oh, come on." I said to them, feeling Cameron freeze up behind me. "You're not serious are you? Your 'lucky day'?"
They all jerked, surprised by the fact that not only had one of us had the courage to say something, but that it was me, the girl, and I was scoffing at them.
"Seriously," I continued. "You've cornered two college students. So you know we have no money. And as for me being a chick, can you honestly not do any better than me? I'm not exactly gifted in the looks department."
They gaped at me for a minute, until one of them said, " 'Ey. Shuddup."
That seemed to rouse the rest of them.
"Yeah, shuddup." Another echoed. "You're lying, girly, about the looks. It's not that dark that we can't see you. So I'll tell you what. We'll let your boyfriend go, but you're gonna have to stay here."
Cameron shook his head. "I'm not leaving."
I looked up at him. "Cam, just go. Obviously we have no chance, and it's better if at least one of us makes it out and knows what happened."
His naturally worried features deepened with even greater concern, but I turned and shoved him down the path. "Go."
The gang members laughed.
"You've got five seconds, kid, before I start shooting at you, so you'd better run!" One of them called after Cameron, and I could hear his hesitant footsteps break into a desperate run.
The rest of the guys laughed as the man counted to five, then began firing off shots into the woods. I dropped to the ground to avoid being hit and covered my head with my arms.
A moment later, the firing ceased, and I felt myself being lifted up roughly by the arm. Instantly, I kicked out at whichever one of them had been dumb enough to pick me up, smashing him in the face so hard I heard his nose break.
He dropped me as if he'd been burned and screamed, clutching at his face.
I landed on my feet and aimed a kick at the next closest gang member in desperation, hitting him in his, um, reproductive system. He went down hard. I whirled around to have a go at another gang member, when one of them caught me around the middle and pressed a handgun to my head.
I stiffened and relented immediately.
"What the fuck, man." One of them with a dark crew cut said, with no regard for his fallen comrades.
"That bitch is vicious."
"You're going to pay for that." The guy with the broken nose stood up, still clutching his face. He stumbled over to me and grabbed onto my sweat shirt, ripping it off roughly.
I made an attempt to block him, but the man behind me cocked the gun, and I froze up again.
The guy with the broken nose reached for me again, latching onto my Descendants tee-shirt. He made a move to rip it off as he'd done to my hoodie, but before he could, he crumpled to the ground, a black-haired figure attached to his neck.
The guy behind me repositioned his gun and aimed it at the figure and fired, making me cringe as it went off next to my ear.
The bullet ripped through the air and into the back of the man, who promptly stopped moving.
The guy behind me threw me to the side, and I fell into the brush for a second time that night, landing heavily on my side.
I looked up to see the gang crowd around the man who'd been shot, only to jump back in surprise, swearing, as he leapt onto another one of them.
I stared, unable to move.
He should have been dead, I knew.
I watched the gun go off. I saw the bullet rip through his back into where his heart was. I saw him die.
Yet there he was, easily fighting the four remaining gangsters as if he were fighting toddlers.
I stared a moment longer until I was able to scramble to my feet and take off down the foot path, racing towards my street.
Only when I was safely locked inside my apartment did I stop running, sinking down against my door in stunned silence, hardly daring to breathe.
What the hell had just happened?
I'm feeling very emo right now. =(
