Part 4

For the next month I was living in Nikolai's apartment. I had told Faith that I'd decided to drop out of high school and spend a month or two in Italy. Nikolai had said it would be safer that way. Although Nikolai and I had been living together for a few weeks, he still felt like a stranger to me. I refused to sleep in the same bed as him, even though he's constantly pointing out that we're soul mates. But, I will admit, I had been getting more comfortable around him. We'd been staying up late watching out favorite movies. I'd been telling him about my childhood and he'd been teaching me about vampires and their customs. I never knew that vampires could be so interesting. My whole life vampires had never even crossed my mind, but now they never left it.

It was going on five in the morning as I walked down the familiar, dim hallway of the apartment building. I stepped outside into the fresh air, only to see the sun rising through the clouds that were hovering just above the water. It was against Nikolai's rules to leave the apartment, but he was out doing whatever he does at night, so he wouldn't know, and I needed the fresh air.

I started walking down the boardwalk. The cold rain felt like thousands of tiny razorblades against my skin. It was calming, until I felt a presence. I turned and looked around, but found no one. Assuming it was Nikolai just trying to prank me, I laughed it off and turned around to take in the view one more time before heading home. Just then, everything went black and I couldn't breath. Someone had put something over my head and they were carrying me somewhere.