• I decided to trust an unusual instinct of mine, so I waited until Naomi was out of earshot, and asked her mother if I could go with her.
    “Sure, but stay together.” Mrs. Linda replied in the stern voice of a parent, one who finds it particularly hard to give their children some freedom, but does it anyways.
    “Yes ma’am. Thank you.” She then walked away and I slinked toward the window, peering out onto the cold winter night.
    Naomi was walking at a slow pace, her dress moving with the wind. She turned around the dark alley corner and disappeared from my vision.
    Rubbing my hands together, I announced to myself quietly, “Alright, stalker mode is so on.” I shoved the green stain glass doors open and ran on my toes, trying to remain light, while visioning myself as a cat. Slow, quiet-like, stalking prey even. Then launched my body and ran like Forest Gump. Please, please do not let me stumble, do not let me trip, do not let me fall…
    I stopped at the street lamp pole; it’s over bright caress stayed on me like a spot light. It was freezing out here. I almost considered going back inside, where the heater was. I willed myself to continue, and headed for the alley way in-between the drugstores.
    Bitter Jack Frost nipped at my nose, and clawed at my legs. My will started to deaden as soon as it was born. I couldn’t see Naomi anywhere, and I was just about to turn around until I heard,
    “Okay, I’m here, what do you want?” Naomi’s voice rang cold and hard throughout the air.
    “Such bitter warmth you show me.” Someone else was speaking, “Yet, I am the only one left of the race who still treats you as my own kind.” I could practically hear the sneering.
    “Well, I suppose I should thank you and your adeptness to my situation. However your idiotic-ness is less to die for.”
    I snuck up closer to the edge.
    “Now, here it’s the last vial I could find. Took a while for me to get my hands on it, how do you plan for compensate?” The dude spoke with a smirk, and raised his eye brows, letting his spiked hair move around stiffly.
    “Just this once, and never more,” Naomi stood on her tip toes and the spiked hair guy leaned in closer.
    They kissed.
    The shock blew breath from my lungs out into the cold air.
    “Someone’s here.” They jumped apart and took cat like stances, balancing in ways it would take me tons of practice to pull off.
    “Be prepared to erase memories.” Naomi whispered, and I myself remembered that she had not the power to do such.
    “Be prepared to kill.” The boy, who now seemed much more menacing than just a boy whispered. The seriousness of his tone reminded me of something more, of a man...
    I backed up, mentally “Uh-oh-ing” myself. Think! I screamed at myself. There was nothing in the alleyway but a whole bunch of crates and the footsteps were coming closer. No!
    A feminine figured shadow rounded the corner of crates where I hid myself.
    Don’t see me…. Don’t see me….
    “Koum,” Naomi stared at me.
    “You’ve found someone?” Sonic hedgehog hair guy was getting closer. Naomi took a step back, reeling on her heels.
    “No, there’s no one.” She sighed and pushed past the guy.
    “What are you doing?” He sounded controlling and mad.
    “Leaving, my time with you is up. Bye-bye.” She planted a bitter smile that shone with cold warmth in the moonlight on her face.
    He placed a hand on her shoulder, “Really now, there’s someone here isn’t there?” He started sniffing the air like some dog.
    “No, there’s no one, I can’t find anyone’s aura, no one at all.”
    “There.” He appeared to be looking straight through the crack of the crates and at me. His lips pulled back and revealed a gleaming smile.
    I’m so dead…
    “No! Go away!” Naomi shoved herself at him, knocking him away from the crates.
    “What is wrong with you?!” He heaved her body out the way like she was nothing but a mere bag and rushed to a stand.
    “Whatever who or it is, I’m going to find out.” He neared the crates again and I scooted back until I was pressed into the crate’s wall. Yep, I’m a goner.
    “Oh no, you don’t dare go against me,” Naomi was chanting something in an old language. She told me about it once, it was a native language of her race, but hardly used anymore.
    She flung out her wrists and shouted louder, her eyes clouded over, dress flailing.
    “-And by me, and me only I send you away to another place!” The temperature was starting to freeze and the wind came fiercely.
    Wind gusts erupted from Naomi’s palms, hurling themselves at sonic guy knocking him far from the ground. A blur of black and blue flew from the ground and crashed loudly into the alley, causing dust to fly and boards to scatter.
    I gasped and looked at Naomi.
    “He’ll be fine.” She uttered quietly and ran.
    I hesitated for a moment, seeing her waver from side to side along the alley way. She looked like she was having a hard time, her white dressing flowing in the breeze again.
    Then I ran after her, my own white dress was making it some difficult. I was careful, trying my best to stay in the shadows, less a tiny slip and I’d be bathed in moon light. I was on my toes and at her heels, making frequent stops to hide behind crates and walls whenever I felt she may turn around. Weird, I thought, Was I not supposed to be following her?
    Naomi ran straight slipping in and out of shadows and moonlight, her running was graceful, yet Velma from Scooby Doo like, despite the comments from her family that she could not run.
    She stepped into a warehouse and disappeared. I ran in after her and made my first mistake. I ran into the door onto wood floor, which does not agree with socks. I then lost my balance and landed on my back.
    “Ouch!” I covered my mouth with my hand a bit too late to cover up the slip of tongue.
    The warehouse door closed. It slid down with the loudest of thuds. On my hands and knees I looked back and saw the shadows move.
    With a click, all of the lights were off. I flicked my head again to the crates in front of me. There standing in the dim moonlight upon all of the crates, was Naomi. She stood in her white gown also. Her face had the expression of sorrow. As if she seemed to say ‘I’m sorry…’
    “Oops, I- I’m sorry Naomi, sorry I followed you.” I’d probably be scolded and given a stern look. Not the most punishing of punishments, but for me it meant that I would go on for days giving mental punishments to myself, saying how bad of a person I was for not trusting….
    “Stop talking.” She sounded like she was giving a command.
    The still air began moving near me. I stood up slowly, cautious, I’d been trying my best to fine tune my senses to be almost as good as Naomi’s. I smelled mold. I couldn’t hear anything though, except for the rocks and wind moving together in a dance at my feet.
    Suddenly the wind began coming at my feet faster. The little pebbles were hitting my legs, bouncing off then being picking back up to hit me again. My dress began flowing rapidly, billowing. I stared at Naomi. She was the only one able to do things like this. Why though?
    My feet were coming off the ground, and my hair was wiping around my face. I was floating.
    Naomi suddenly leaped off the crates, throwing her whole body back, like some sort of acrobat, but she didn’t fall, she landed gracefully on air. Moving wind made tangible like a platform, in order to break her fall.
    Rapid wind gusts erupted from her standing post. It gushed past me almost knocking me over, had it not been for the wind harnessed beneath me, keeping me locked in place. The outbursts of wind shattered what was left of the old broken windows, sending shards everywhere. They managed to snake across my ankles, leaving red ribbons in their places.
    “Naomi!” I yelled up at her, shielding my eyes from the suddenly too bright moonlight. She was crying tears, and her eyes were covered in film, a luminescent yellow, she looked like a demon the way her bright red hair wiped around her in flames.
    Her voice was cracked, but she was able to speak clearly, and loudly.
    “Why? Why is it that you follow me so? Why do you even care for me?! I’m a monster!!” She yelled the last bit, rage leaking out. The wind reacted, even stronger bursts exploded from her podium. It threw rocks and glass shards at my face, leaving red spots behind.
    “You’re not a monster!”
    “Stop lying to my face! Do you not see what I can do?! Do you not see how much power I hold?!” Mini tornado-like winds erupted from Naomi’s post and hurled themselves at me. I was engulfed in a tornado, yet still within that dark warehouse.
    Naomi’s cry still managed to come clearly, as if she were in my ear, “Don’t tell me I’m still worth being loved, Koumeiseidai! Don’t deny what I am!!”
    “Then this talk would be pointless! You are capable of being loved! You have your family who loves you! Your friends love you! Even I, I even love you!” I cried too. I cried from the pain of the glass sliding over my legs and ripping through the dress, I cried from the fear of being rejected, I cried in fear that Naomi may kill herself in all this chaos. Then I realized too, that I was being selfish. I had to remember the reasons that weren't my own, the other reasons that people may have needed her, what would happen to her emotion state one day, if she'd be able to handle it all, or if it would morph into and endless cycle of sudden death by suicide.
    “Please! Don’t kill yourself! Don’t do this to yourself!” If she were to, in her next life she would one day remember. And in that one day, she would fall into a miserable pain.
    “Seeing you in pain, the thought is too much to bear! You don’t have to go on keeping secrets! You can tell them to me! I’ve been with you all along! I won’t betray you! I love you. I do love you! Please!” I cried harder. I let my arms stretch though the tornado and yelled “Naomi! I was there with you all this time! I wanted you to tell me- to share your stress, as I do mine with you!” I began to plead, for the next words I spoke were what I wanted, true no matter how much of a plead it sounded. “Let it not be your pain, but let it be ours! I don’t want you to suffer alone!” My words seemed to strike a switch on in Naomi.
    “Really? Koum?” Through the harsh winds of the tornado I could see the gist of Naomi’s eyes, turning back to their normal grey. The bright yellow film that seemed to cloud not just her vision, but her mind as well was seeping into the corners of her eyes, and down her face. She cried it all out.
    “Naomi,” The rapid wind flared before beginning to settle. I felt weakened. My hair landed on my shoulders in a tangled mess. I slumped over; I thought the pillar of wind would remain so I fell on my knees.
    “Naomi!!!” The pillar collapsed into still air as soon as my knees touched it, and I was falling, straight toward the wooden floor.
    Through my own blurred vision and messed up senses I heard Naomi gasp and shout, “KOUMEISEIDAI!!!” Naomi hurled herself from the pillar with great speed and tackled me through the air.
    “NO!!” It would be bad enough if I were to die, but if Naomi were to die with me, and leave all of her bright future ahead into dust? It’d be too much. I’d be the blame, again.
    Naomi held me in a hug I thought to be to intimate for her. The wind spiraled and appeared again, saving us. It guided us to the floor with a gentleness I thought to be exaggerated compared to what happened a few minutes ago.
    Our knees scraped against the floor as the wind disappeared. I heard Naomi’s soft sobbing in the background, I thought it weird that, before today, I never heard her cry, yet thousands of times before; I’d been the one to weep such meaningless tears.
    I began to cry again, at my own worthlessness. How can I be so uncaring to her?
    “Koum, I’m so sorry, don’t cry,” Naomi managed through stifled sobs, which made me cry harder, she was thinking of my feelings at a time like this.
    “No, I blame me for this.”
    “You oversensitive girl, you over think everything,” She sighed. “For once just let me take the blame.” She held me even tighter. This wasn’t one of Naomi’s regular hugs. Her emotions never came through her hugs, and most of them didn’t go over five seconds.
    She was sorry. It felt like she wanted to give me protection from everything in the world, including from herself…
    “Naomi, um, I think we should be leaving now,” the others may be looking for us. “We’ve been gone a long time.”
    “Can you stand?” She spoke softly.
    I scoffed at this. “Can I stand? Can you stand?”
    She giggled. “Maybe,” There was my old Naomi. It made me smile. But when she stood, she wobbled and collapsed into a heap of white sheets and red hair.
    “Ohmigod! Are-are you okay?! Please tell me you are!” I touched her gently, as if I was afraid that she may break.
    “How is it,” she breathed heavily. “That you aren’t, shaking? You’re not on the verge of fainting either.”
    “I handle stress and things really well,” I continued, “I told you, I’m like Bella. I take everything coolly.” I smiled awkwardly. Even though inside that cool demeanor was something telling me to flinch away from her. A natural reaction is what it is, but a harmful one to her. I didn’t want her thinking I was afraid. Something like that could scar her for the rest of her life, or even worse, lives.
    “So, can you stand?” I was standing, resisting the wobble in my knees. I offered her a hand and smiled crookedly.
    Her grip was firm, but not enough to support her weight. She slumped.
    “I can’t stand…” I blinked before yelling.
    “You idiot! Sorry but, you idiot!” What was she thinking?!
    “You couldn’t have used too much of your own power have you? What if you used it all while we were in the air? You would’ve killed yourself!” I felt terrible again, terrible enough to cry and scream and kick. I wanted to throw a tantrum, yell and wave my hands in the air.
    Wait, if most of her energy was gone, what if she needed…
    “…blood?” Naomi looked up from the ground quickly, an ashamed look on her face.
    “Eh? Blood? Of course I don’t need any:” Even as she spoke her voice was on the verge of cracking again.
    I frowned. My body reacted on its own, automatically looking for a piece of glass. I found one a couple of inches away from Naomi. Then I questioned myself.
    ‘What?! I’m going to cut myself?’ I glanced behind at Naomi. She was staring at me holding the shard. She looked indecisive, stuck between saying ‘No! Don’t cut yourself!’ and ‘I vant to suck yer blood…’ Sure the stereotype was mean, I know, but she acted as if it was okay. I kinda felt like she wasn’t telling the truth when she said that though.
    I breathed deeply, taking in the smell of mold. ‘Yep, I am going to cut myself.’ I added ‘For her.’
    I re-opened a cut on my arm and flinched. Walking over to her, I held my arm away from me, as if it wasn’t mine.
    “Here, drink.” I held it out for her.
    Her lips twitched, she opened her mouth to object, then closed it, then opened it again, like a fish.
    “Just drink already, it hurts.” How long was it since she fed anyways? The only thing she told me was that she fed on random people in the neighborhood, not enough to kill them but it couldn't have tasted that good. People with random aura's each time? That couldn’t have tasted as good as feeding on a human with aura like mine, pink. Nice and fluffly and sweet like cotton candy- she had told me this once just by tasting the air aound us. She had then blushed and turned away swearing to her self that this aura crap was destined for the perv's.
    I doubted she could resist though, sheesh, she wasn’t Carlisle Cullen, it was an unfair comparison, I know, the dude had centuries of practice and was able to work in a hospital! I did want to think she had more will power than that, take the statement of mind-babble back, but she just didn’t.
    Naomi grabbed my arm and swallowed a gulp of air. “Thank you…” her voice was just above a whisper a meer dry rasp. I’m not even sure if she spoke it.
    Her mouth came down hot on my arm as she drank.
    I had some worry that popped up if she actually fed from me. Feeding from a human is supposed to be a sexual experience, but only for her. I was afraid. I kept steeling myself telling myself not to pull away, not to flinch. Naomi would groan and breathe loudly for air. What she was feeling, it could probably only be described for her as something exquisite, hot and pleasurable.
    I on the other hand felt, unbearable pain. It was like one of those ‘Every fiber within my human being”-moments. And right now, all of fibers were telling me to wrench away. My head lolled back, and my back arched. My brain and heart felt like it was on fire! I was being buried within a fire, within its ashes, its core. It burned! It burned so much! It hurts…
    My legs and feet were distant, cold, the only piece of reassurance I had to tell me I was alive. My eyes shut tight, I groaned in pain. I was doing it again, putting myself through unbearable torture, ‘For her.’
    I didn’t want to let go of my control and snap back. I didn’t want to ‘wild out’ as the kids at school might say. If I let go of my control, and in the aftermath, what would happen? What if we couldn’t look each other in the eye? What if we said nothing on the way back? What if we didn’t say anything to each other for the rest of the week! I didn’t want us to fall into one of those not talking phases like on television!
    So I used my only solution to solve this problem; I held my breath. Every now and then my body would convulse, a ripple going up and down my spine, and then shiver to a point where I needed to breathe again, and when I inhaled, I trying filling my senses up with the mold, trying to let it sink in skin deep and let it fog up my mind. But a thought kept hitting me:
    ‘What if, she was going to take too much?! What if she’d kill me on accident?’ It felt like I was being killed, and I had reverted back to a seven year old child’s thinking, that a vampire was going to eat me…
    “Un, Naomi. Stop it!” I pulled on my arm and her sucking slowed.
    “Let go!” I yelled in a hushed tone. She with drawled and I was shocked at what I saw. She looked like something out of that old movie ‘The Ring’. My blood dripping from the corners of her mouth, staining her lips vibrant red. It didn’t exactly frighten me; I was very, very, very, surprised with myself.
    It just scared me that I could decide if she was okay the way it looked, for it was natural for her, I guessed, or if she was scary-looking, which is what humans like me were supposed to think. The frightened scary feeling smoldered my heart and a wavering fire that made me feel queasy, rose in flames from my stomach toward my neck. In the next instant, I puked up my guts onto the ware-house floor.
    “Oh, god! Koumeiseidai!” She leaned forward, but didn’t touch me, which, to me, was quite the excellence, because I didn’t want her to touch me right now.
    “Ugh, you have blood over your mouth.” I stared wearily up from my bile and pointed to her mouth. Her tongue flicked out automatically, licking at the corners of her mouth, desperately trying to get as much as she could, it was disgusting. I never wanted her to forget from whom this blood was from, yet I didn’t want her to ask for blood ever again.
    “Sorry,” Naomi spoke moving her hand in front of her mouth and looking away. “All of this,” she gestured to my arm and its weeping wound then to the ground were my lunch rested. “It must be extremely weird for you.” She looked at the floor.
    “No, no!” I held my hands up and regretted it, I felt dizzy. “Not at all, zero weirdness!” I quoted unconsciously from Twilight, “I’ve read about it before, it’s not weird…” Of course I lied; I then stared at my thumbs, then my arm. She grasped it and I flinched, just the action I didn’t want to do, but she surprised me, and I’ve had enough of surprises.
    “I can’t heal it all the way, but it’ll be a good boost to recovery.”
    “Huh?” She licked my arm, from the line at my wrist all the way up to the crease were my elbow was. My inner workings were just screaming ‘Danger, danger’ ‘Get the hell outta here and away from her!’ I cringed. It just didn’t feel right, especially since it was freezing in here. When her saliva cooled and closed my cut, I wiped it off on my dress. Then I sniffed my arm, very happy it had no apparent scent that I could find. I still made a mental note not to touch it until I washed it later.
    “Let’s go.” Naomi made her way over to the door. She needed no help getting up this time.
    “Okay.” I replied so stupidly. The shaking and vibrating I felt in my knees and arms heightened. My face was hot too. I was lucky to be a couple of colors darker than Naomi. Perfect enough to hide the blush of my searing cheeks. My feet felt numb too. I wasn’t on Cloud Nine, just distant. I paused before walking out the door, taking time to smash my cheeks against the cool were-house doors, trying to sooth the raging fire that burned within my cheeks, and tummy that threatened to show its weakness again.

    The walk from the warehouse alley back to the performance center was a slow. It could have been effortless if we ran. Naomi just insisted on walking the way back. I passed the time by singing. Not really humming, because I used my voice too, but for instrumental I used humming. I was having an adrenaline rush. Which was bad, I didn’t get them too often, but they made me all jittery, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d stutter like I didn’t know the alphabet.
    I did the first, very stupid thing that popped into my head. I sang a song.
    Not just a normal song, one in Japanese. Very, very, poor of me, I felt ashamed to be blurting out the lyrics of J-pop (Japanese pop) loudly, and uncontrollably.
    “Rapping in Japanese, huh?” – Naomi must think I’m an idiot with a weird form of a panic attack. If not her, whoever is floating in her head like a chat room must think it, heck, they already think I talk too much and babble like an idiot, not my fault at all to become nervous around her.
    “You know, for someone who was just bitten by a vampire and cut by a thousand little glass shards, your pretty giddy.”
    “I k-know,” I sighed, in and out, trying to stop the stuttering and sound normal. “I’m just different l-like that.”
    “Or, you’re just a quagmire.” She started laughing. Horror froze through me, I didn’t know if she was laughing at me, or with me, and I began slumping down as I walked, the distance between us starting to grow.
    She of course reached the door before me, and held it open, her expression was neutral. I sighed and walked towards the door, keeping my eyes everywhere else but at Naomi. The street lights out here were pretty though, especially during this time of year. Across the street, something caught my eye, a blurry black line with sharp messy ends on the top.

    It was the spiked-haired sonic guy.

    My breath caught in my throat. What is he doing? He smiled crookedly at me, teeth gleaming in the lamp post light. He waved like a child at me, opening his fingers up and out at me then flicking them back down towards his palm.
    My head turned unconsciously toward him to stare then turned down to take interest in the side walk. Heh, I laughed nervously on the inside, is this slab of concrete going through thermal expansion?
    “Koum?” Naomi’s expression showed a slight worry and she reached out for my arm this time. I let her touch me and drag me inside. Casting a glance behind me, I didn’t see him. Most of my hair covered my vision.
    “Are you okay?” My curiosity started to burn brighter.
    “Yes, Naomi, can I ask you, who was that with you earlier?” I bit my lip, wondering if Naomi would actually answer.
    “Well... first, I hate that you went behind my back..." She stared at the door infront of her and continued. "I give you those precautions because I want you to stay safe. What I deal with is far too dangerous.” Cause of what, because I’m a human it’s too dangerous? Well, if I wanted to stay safe I would have stayed inside. I miss everything cool. I frowned inward and outward.
    “His name is Ethan, okay? He’s a were-.” Were as in werewolf?
    “So, why were you with him in the alley way?” My eyes narrowed, and still found no trace of emotion except for thought. She was thinking carefully, rewording and piecing whatever she was about to tell me, so as not to give out too much.
    “That vial,” She began. “Is something very important,” Her eyes strained then relaxed, figuring she could tell me the rest, probably.
    “This vial holds some of the rarest plants and items on earth, all mixed into some herbal essence.” Haha.. herbal essence's shampoo, ne?
    “What’s it for?” Naomi glanced around.
    “Tonight I will tell you, have your phone near you. Too, too many people around with good hearing…” She turned around on the balls of her feet and left, heading towards the stage.