Bella_Higgin Presents: When Darkness Falls Bonus Chapter

Star In the Dark

@Bella_Higgin

Standing just beyond the ring of light cast by the bonfire, Luke reflected that being a vampire really wasn't what most people thought. Thanks to Hollywood, people thought of vampires as vaguely romantic creatures, rather than understanding the reality of them being hunted, persecuted victims. Not that anyone actually believed in them – except vampire hunters, which was precisely why the life of the average vampire was a far cry from the one depicted on TV.

A girl, walking past him to the fire, paused and gave him the once-over. "Cheer up. It might never happen," she said, and pushed a plastic cup into his hands. It wasn't worth refusing, even though the smell of the beer tied his stomach in knots. Refusing to drink at a party was a good way to encourage awkward questions, which was the one thing Luke tried to avoid. He smiled politely at the girl and when no one was looking, he tipped half the beer out of his cup and onto the grass. It wouldn't kill him, but drinking anything other than blood was the equivalent of a human eating mud – doable, but hardly pleasant.

Maybe it was a mistake to come here tonight.

The town of Dalwick was a small one, hemmed in on all sides by rolling English countryside, and there was precious little for kids to do. But the patchwork spread of meadowland just beyond the outskirts of town offered the perfect place for impromptu parties. A blazing bonfire carved the darkness into flickering shapes, casting shadows on the faces of teenagers who thronged around the flames, all clutching plastic cups of booze. Most of them knew each other from school or college, and the buzz of gossip was louder than the crackling bonfire.

Luke stared around, letting it all wash over him. Vampires couldn't do normal things like go to college, not unless someone had the bright idea of holding off classes until the sun went down. Vampires weren't even supposed to befriend human kids because it ran the risk of too many questions being asked. Questions led to suspicions, and suspicions led to vampire hunters sniffing around. They were the constant threat in the shadows, but you might never know who they were until they stuck a knife in your chest.

Luke knew better than anyone what vampire hunters were capable of.

He sighed, and surreptitiously tipped away the rest of his beer. Bad pun or not, sometimes being a vampire really sucked. More than anything else it was suffocating. Any self-respecting vampire knew to constantly be on their guard in case of hunter threat. They knew that getting too close to humans was usually more trouble than it was worth. They knew that keeping their heads down and sticking to the shadows was the safest way to live. But exercising that kind of caution all the time wasn't really living.

Ultimately Luke was lonely. He loved his parents and the other vampires that made up his clan, but hanging out with them every night wasn't enough. He was seventeen years old – he wanted more. Though he could never go to college or really make friends with local kids, sometimes he turned up at the parties they threw because it was the only slice of normal he could grab.

His lip bitterly twisted. It was pathetic when he thought about it.

"This is stupid." One voice rang out slightly louder than the others, and Luke turned in that direction.

Two girls about his own age stood on the other side of the bonfire. The taller one had a wild mass of dyed red hair and a silver ring through her lower lip. She was gesturing wildly as she talked, her drink slopping out of her cup and splashing anyone that stood too close. The other girl – Luke blinked. The other girl was beautiful. Petite build, blonde hair that whipped around her face with the wind, features set in a determined expression. But it wasn't just her appearance that caught Luke's eye. In a crowd of pretty girls, something about her stood out. It was the way she held herself; one arm folded across her stomach, the other holding her drink out in front of her like a barrier. There was a look in her eyes that Luke recognised, a certain wariness that matched the tension in her posture – probably imperceptible to most people, but not to Luke who spent his life on the lookout for a threat.

This was no normal girl, he was sure of it.

But who was she? How could he not have noticed her before?

"A dare is a dare, Kiara," said the red-haired girl.

The blonde – Kiara – rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but we're not kids anymore."

The tension in her posture didn't relax and her eyes didn't lose that wary look. There was something almost predatory about her, a cat among the pigeons. Normal girls didn't look like that. Normal girls didn't shoot suspicious looks at the shadows around them as if they expected monsters to leap forth. Normal girls didn't seem quite so averse to mingling with other kids their own age.

Her friend nudged her. "That's why we turned Truth or Dare into a drinking game."

Luke hadn't even realised anyone was playing games tonight. It was all very well indulging himself by coming to these parties, but he still had to remain on the outside. Even if he watched the human world for a lifetime, he could never truly be part of it, and he could never afford to get close to anyone. Maybe it was better if he just went home. Standing on the outskirts of human happiness only made the shadows in his own life seem more pronounced.

"Guys, Kiara's doing it," the red-haired girl yelled, clapping her hands.

Her announcement was met by scattered claps and cheers.

Doing what? Luke wondered. He'd tuned out for a minute or two, and hadn't heard what Kiara and her friend were talking about. It shouldn't matter to him what she was doing – he was a vampire and she was a human. They were from two different worlds, and those worlds could never meet.

So why wasn't he leaving? It wasn't hard – the swathe of woodland that separated the meadows from the town lay just behind him. All he had to do was turn around and start walking. He could leave this bonfire and this party and these people behind, and let the shadows swallow him up again. But his feet didn't want to move. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from Kiara.

She was striding away from the party, following the land as it sloped downwards, towards –

Suddenly Luke understood.

The sprawl of land around them was uninterrupted countryside as far as the eye could see, except for the lone building that stood out like a blocky tumour amid the many shades of green. Greylark Asylum. It was an ugly building of weathered grey stone, the walls interrupted by dozens of dark windows glaring out like blinded eyes. Abandoned for years, it had come to be considered a haunted spot by locals, and it wasn't uncommon for kids to dare each other to venture inside and brave the possible ghosts that lived there.

Finally Luke's feet started to move, but not leading back into the woods and away from the party. He found himself following Kiara. No one saw him leave, and Kiara had no clue he was there. Beyond the light cast by the bonfire, the countryside was wrapped in shadows, and Luke had vampire stealth on his side. He was a smudge of darkness, moving swiftly through the night in Kiara's wake. With her blonde hair streaming out behind her and the determined stride that carried her swiftly across the field, she looked like a bright star cutting through the darkness. And Luke was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

He reached the asylum before she did, and climbed through one of the broken windows. Old shards of glass crunched under his feet. Luke didn't believe in ghosts but, looking around the ruined asylum lobby, he could understand why other people did. The whole place screamed haunted, from the smashed windows to the weeds stubbornly punching their way through the concrete floor, and the wallpaper that peeled in strips off the wall. Cobwebs hung everywhere, thick with dust, making the whole room seem grey and ghostly.

At the far end of the lobby stood the double doors that Kiara would be pushing open any second now. Luke walked towards them, sidestepping the scattered beer cans that were evidence of other people successfully venturing inside this supposedly haunted building. Just before the doors, he stopped, suddenly feeling like a total idiot. What was he doing here? If he wanted to approach the pretty girl that made him think of stars and light, then this was hardly the way to do it. He'd come off as creepy at best, and a stalker at worst.

He needed to get out of here before Kiara saw him.

Too late – the door started to creak open.

Luke had already come too far from the broken window that had been his way into the asylum, so he did the only thing he could – he ran up the curving staircase.

Idiot, he silently told himself as he reached the top of the building and ducked into a room at the end of the corridor, as far away from Kiara as possible. What the hell was he thinking, coming here? There was no reason for him to follow her in the first place, except that she fascinated him, but telling her that would just be creepy. There wasn't really a way around this that didn't come off as creepy.

Still, she never had to know about this. Once she left the asylum, he'd make his way back downstairs, climb out of that window and rejoin the party without anyone knowing. That was the good thing about not having any friends – no one missed him when he wasn't there.

Luke's ears pricked, his keen hearing picking something up. A human being wouldn't have heard it from up here, but Luke could discern the faint sound of footfalls climbing the stairs.

She was coming up here?

"No, go away," Luke whispered. He wanted to meet the girl, but not like this. Not in a situation that would make him come across as a complete freak.

He hoped she'd stop at the first floor, but Kiara kept going, heading all the way to the top of the asylum. The same floor that Luke was hiding on. Apparently just going into the asylum wasn't enough; she had to explore the damn place. Which meant that, sooner or later, she was going to find him. The way Luke saw it, he had two options. He could stay where he was and wait for her to find him, or he could approach her and let her know he was there. It was probably better to suck it up and approach her; marginally less weird than to hide until the shadows until she found him.

Either way, he'd probably blown any chance he had of her taking him seriously. Normal boys didn't skulk around abandoned asylums in the middle of the night. And he couldn't explain to her that he wasn't exactly normal. So yeah, chances blown. He should be used to it – it wasn't as if this was the first time he'd been attracted to a human. But something about Kiara was different, which was ridiculous since he'd never even spoken to the girl. She could be a horrible person for all he knew. But Luke's world was always dark, always night, and this was the first time someone had lit up those shadows. He was drawn to her, even though he felt foolish for it.

Her footsteps weren't far away; if he was going to approach her, he needed to do it now. Taking a deep breath, Luke stepped out of the room. Only trickles of moonlight made it through the grime-smeared windows, but Luke could see through the darkness as clearly as any human could during the day. Kiara froze when she spotted him, fear and suspicion flashing in her eyes. Without vampire vision, all she'd see was a shape at the end of the corridor. If this was the better option for seeming like less of a stalker, Luke was completely screwing it up.

He moved slowly towards her, careful not to make any sudden moves. He didn't want to frighten the poor girl. Now, was it best to go straight ahead and introduce himself, or should he first apologise for lurking in the shadows like a...like a freak?

Luke didn't get a chance to decide.

As he passed through a small shaft of moonlight, the fear on Kiara's face solidified into fierce determination. It was a cold, hard look, nothing like the reaction he'd expected.

And then she promptly kicked him in the face.

Luke stumbled back, pain exploding along his jaw. He'd expected confusion, maybe anger, but not flat-out violence. Kiara delivered a second kick to his stomach, and he doubled up. The girl might be slightly built, but she was a lot stronger than she looked and she clearly knew how to fight.

Kiara jabbed an elbow at Luke's face, but he threw his weight backwards. If she'd landed the blow, she'd have broken his nose. He'd known there was something different about her from the moment he spotted her, but this was the last thing he'd imagined. Kiara's leg swept through the darkness again, and Luke batted it aside. Her eyes flashed like fire, hatred twisting her features. She was still beautiful, but it was a deadly sort of beauty now, the proverbial rose that was suddenly showing her thorns. And those thorns were sharp.

The last thing Luke wanted to do was hurt her, but if he didn't stop her, she might seriously hurt him. He reached for her, planning to pin her arms down, but she was incredibly fast, ducking under him and ramming both fists into his midsection. Luke grunted, and Kiara delivered a neat kick to his kneecap. His leg collapsed beneath him.

Whoever taught her to fight knew exactly what they were doing. Kiara's movements were precise and neatly executed. Luke started to climb to his feet, but Kiara was already running. The loud thud of her feet on the stone staircase reverberated throughout the asylum, followed by the creak of the doors as she shoved her way through them.

Using the banisters for support, Luke hauled himself upright. His stomach and jaw throbbed from Kiara's blows, but that dimmed next to the awful realisation turning to ice inside him.

There was only one rational explanation for why Kiara had attacked him – she knew what he was. Worse than that, she'd clearly been trained. Trained to fight his kind. Luke closed his eyes. She was a vampire hunter. That was why she seemed so different, why she held herself like she was ready for a threat to spring from the shadows.

Before arriving in Dalwick, Luke and his clan had been forced to move around a lot, never being able to settle because of the constant hunter threat at their door. He'd thought they'd finally found a safe haven in this quiet, rural little town, but no. And the irony of it was that he was actually attracted to a girl that had probably trained her whole life to wipe his kind off the face of the earth.

He wanted to hate her. Hunters had slaughtered his biological parents when he was just a kid, and had tried to burn him alive in his own home. They were responsible for the death and suffering of countless vampires, and they were the reason that his clan had been forced to pursue a nomadic life for so long. He should hate every single thing about Kiara, but somehow he didn't. And he couldn't explain why.

Maybe it was the way she set herself apart from the other kids, making sure she kept her distance from everyone but the noisy red-head. Luke could relate to that kind of isolation. Or maybe it was the bleakness he'd glimpsed in her eyes. She might smile with her friend and join in drinking games with the other kids, but she wasn't happy. Luke was sure of that, if nothing else. And even when she'd attacked him, it had been methodical but somehow perfunctory, as if she was going through the motions. She hadn't cursed him or spat on him or really tried to kill him. She'd reacted the way any hunter would when confronted with a vampire, but she'd also chosen to flee the asylum rather than stay and make the kill. Was that because she was unarmed and knew that flight was sometimes better than fight? Or was it because her heart wasn't in this, not the way other hunters' were? Someone of her age was unlikely to have learned to hunt and kill vampires on their own, which suggested that she came from a hunting family. Killing vampires was all she would ever have known. It wasn't something she had chosen for herself.

Luke couldn't shake the image of her from his mind, the golden halo of her hair, the determined set of her jaw and fiery gleam in her eyes. Yes, she'd just attacked him, but she hadn't really hurt him. Whatever bruises she'd landed would have faded already, thanks to his advanced vampire healing.

He headed back down the stairs and climbed out of the window, just in case he was wrong about Kiara and she was waiting outside the doors with a wooden stake. They were archaic and not as effective as a good knife, but some hunters still used them. He needn't have worried. His keen eyes picked out Kiara's petite shape at the top of the sloping meadow, back by the bonfire. The girl was fast, he'd give her that. She ran as well as she kicked.

No one noticed when Luke silently rejoined the throng of kids laughing and drinking around the fire. Girls often hit on him, but quickly lost interest when he didn't give anything in return. No one really noticed when he wasn't there.

He resumed his spot on the other side of the bonfire, watching Kiara through the flames. What was it about her that made it difficult for him to stop staring? It couldn't just be that she was pretty – lots of girls were pretty. It wasn't as if Kiara outshone every other girl he'd seen. Except in a way she did. Something about her, something he couldn't quite explain was so incredibly alive. She was fire and fury and spirit and rage, and all that energy seemed to blaze around her, making even the bonfire dim in comparison.

But she was a hunter. She was everything that a rational vampire hated and feared.

Kiara's red-haired friend wagged a finger in her face. "Oh no. You are not going home, K-girl. I don't care how freaky it was in Greylark."

Kiara opened her mouth and the other girl promptly pressed her finger to Kiara's lips, silencing whatever she'd been about to say.

"There's no way I'm letting you leave, Kiara Morrow, not when you're being checked out."

Luke couldn't see Kiara's face, but he could imagine her rolling her eyes at that.

"Let me guess, another cute guy?" she said.

"Nope, this guy is about a thousand miles beyond cute." Kiara's friend took her arm and steered her around until she was looking in Luke's direction. "Dark hair, black t-shirt," she murmured.

With his mind still in turmoil over what had happened in the asylum, Luke was slow to catch on. It wasn't until Kiara's eyes widened fractionally that he realised she was looking at him. His eyes met hers, and it felt like an electric current running straight through to his heart. There wasn't a single glimmer of recognition on Kiara's face. The girl looking back at him now had no clue that Luke was the vampire she'd attacked in Greylark. She thought he was just some regular kid, one of many who'd come to the party tonight. He could go over and introduce himself, talk to her like he was a regular kid, and she'd never know any different.

But hadn't he screwed things up enough for one night? And what was the point of talking to Kiara when nothing could come of it? Even if she wasn't a vampire hunter, she was still human. She couldn't be with him.

"Nice, huh?" he heard Kiara's friend say.

Kiara looked back at her, and the spell was broken. Luke no longer felt pinned in place by the intensity of her stare, but if she'd look at him again, he'd happily stay pinned. He knew what it was like to be instantly attracted to someone, but he'd never felt that jolt of pure heat just from meeting a girl's eyes. He'd never felt so awkward and tongue-tied. And he'd never felt such searing regret that he had to walk away and not look back.

Someone else tried to push a drink into his hands, but he declined, turning his back on the bonfire and heading towards the tree-line at the top of the field. Maybe it was time he stopped trying to hang out with these kids. He could never be one of them, and siphoning off trickles of their happiness was a pretty pathetic way to live.

But when he reached the trees, he couldn't stop himself from looking back. Kiara was peering through the flames of the bonfire, her eyes scanning the place he'd just been standing. She was looking for him. Luke didn't imagine the flicker of disappointment that slid through her eyes when she realised he wasn't there. She didn't see him standing in the shadows, apart from everyone else. No one saw him.

For a moment Luke just stood and watched her. Even among so many other kids, she stood out, a star brighter than the rest. A star he could never have.

He turned back towards the trees, but the shadows that made up his world didn't seem quite as dark now, as if Kiara's light was somehow reaching him even here. The sensible thing to do would be to stay as far away from that girl as possible. But Luke didn't know if he could do that. Maybe it was complete and utter madness to care so much about someone he didn't know – someone who was a threat to him – but all Luke could think was that, one way or another, he was going to see Kiara Morrow again.

A smile touched his lips as he made his way home. Vampire hunter or not, he had the strangest feeling that something had started tonight.

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