Chapter 7

Idiot. I smirk as I fall through the time-portal I had been sent through. Seemingly random flashes of color were passed as I fell further and further into my own past, feeling confusingly like Alice in the rabbit hole. As I tumble end over end through my past I see flashes of my past, the past where I was human. Where the people going against me now were my friends. 

I see the first time I truly spoke to Zandra. It was the sixth grade and I really didn't know anyone in my homeroom. I see Gabriel and James in the other corner, I'm tempted to walk over to them when I see Zandra. I remember seeing her spending time with Sarah, so I walk over to her and start up a small conversation. We both smile and laugh, I had sat with her in homeroom for that entire year.

I see myself in the hallway of the junior high school we all went to, walking with Zandra and James. I make a comment about how the three of us walking together looked like an anti-racism poster and we all laugh. 

I see a sad conversation at our lunch table, where I'm telling everyone how I'm being forced to go to a different high-school.

I see the first day of me at the high-school I didn't want to be at. Me chasing after the bus as it drives away, the awkward drive to the school with the neighbor I hadn't talked to since I was seven. Finding out I was going to school with her daughter. Walking into my first class to see a white-haired old man screaming angry German into his cellphone, then finding out he was yelling at his wife who had invited his in-laws to stay with them while they were in America. Meeting the people I would spend my time with during that year.

The first day the boy I liked, Matt (not the one who became a vampire), sat with me and my friends half-way through my freshman year. 

My three-week long absence when I had mononucleosis.

The day I got a text from Matt asking me if I really did like him, Me asking him how he found out, Me planning to murder the girl who told him... Then he told me he liked me too. 

Our first date.

The first time I received a text from him with the words, "I love you." The complete panic attack I had because I didn't know if I loved him.

The day I finished the paperwork to get me transferred to the high-school where the others were. 

Matt asking me if I was sure this was what I wanted to do, my telling him a definite, "Hell Yes." the slightly crestfallen look in his eyes before he wished me every happiness.

Then the colors stopped flashing, memories stopped flowing through my head. The time portal stopped spinning and it spit me out into my own life.

I was the me from before I was a vampire, I assumed. I figured I would check when I got to a mirror. I took in my surroundings to find that I was in a bar-hopping outfit. One that I recognized, too. It was what I was wearing when I was turned into a vampire. So... was it possible for me to keep myself from becoming such a creature? If I was never turned, That would mean that the blood-lust would never effect me. I would never turn my sisters, or any of the others I had bitten. I would 

never turn Mary, who would never turn Libby, who would never turn Starla, who would never turn Ashley, who would never turn... oh forget it. What I mean is, that there would only be two types of vampires if I was never bitten. I whipped my face over to the window, I could see my reflection in it. 

My eyes...

they were...

Blue.

I could stop the grotesque creatures from ever taking power. But at what cost? 

If I never became the golden eyed vampire, I would never meet Luna, I would never find most of my old friends again, the council would never be created. The vampire world would never become organized.

But...

I wouldn't watch the life drain from my beloved's eyes. I wouldn't see the look of disgust in my family's eyes when I walked home, bloody and energized.

I wouldn't ruin the lives of hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people.

I had a decision I had to make...

Fast footsteps coming down the alleyway.

...And no time to make it in. 

So, I did the only thing a rational human being would do. I took off my heels and darted off into a sprint, wishing for a split second I still had my vampire speed. I knew that I had made my decision in that moment. I was going to give up being a vampire, I was going to give up being a queen. Even if it meant jumping off the bridge into freezing cold winter water. Even if it meant dying.

"Damn it, girl. Stop running! I won't hurt you!" the man chasing me said. I knew it was Sam, I could tell from his voice. And the fact that he had been the to turn me. The only difference was, I remembered this chase in vivid detail this time, he hadn't lived it before. I remembered my one screw up, turning left into a dead-end instead of turning right towards freedom. This time, I turned right. 

I sat panting inside the open-late coffeehouse. The waitress saw me and looked shocked. I turned to her and softly spoke, "I just outran a man who was trying to kill me, may I use your phone to call my boyfriend to come and pick me up?"

Astonished, she nodded and led me over to the phone. I picked it up and dialed the number i had memorized so long ago, so I could talk to him whenever I was available.

"Hello? Who is this?" a voice I had nearly forgotten called through the old-time black phone.

"Mattie. It's me... Tess. I was.. out with the girls and I left one of the clubs. Some..thing.. chased me all over the city. I'm at the little coffeehouse we came to after the last time we went ice-skating," I tried to add a slightly scared tone to my voice, but it came out as more ecstatic. How couldn't I be? Two months after I was turned someone killed him, I got to him just in time to watch the light fade from his eyes. The entire world had gone to hell after people started getting bitten, after vampires had become a widely known creature. I don't know why he was killed, or by whom. All I had known was that he was dead.

Now, that wasn't true. Gabriel had made the mistake of sending me back into my past, where I could now change the future. 

"Tess!" Matt's voice called from outside, he sounded panicked. I whipped around to see him grappling with Sam. I ran out of the door and towards the fight.

By now, Sam had trapped Matt. He couldn't move and Sam was about to bite him. "Wait!" I screamed. All movement stopped and they both looked at me.

"It's not him you want. I  was the one who you were chasing, I was the one who evaded you, and I'm willing to bet you were going to wait until I left the coffeehouse to jump me." Think, you idiot. Sam is the king of the Orange-eyed vampires. Intellect is his power, and he can't be manipulated easily. However, his want for blood 

should be clouding his judgement right now. Intellect's weakness is anger. They can be angered easily. "So take my blood, and let him go you useless waste of space!"

Sam growled at me, before dropping Matt and stalking towards me. I backed into a tree... A tree! 

You see, there is a type of wood that can kill a vampire. Populous Trimuloidies. It's a fancy way of saying an Aspen tree. Here in New Orleans Aspens grow everywhere. I thanked god for the summer I spent working for my Uncle's Tree company. I could tell by the feel of the bark that this tree, the one I was backed up against, was an Aspen. Of course, It would do little good for me unless I could break a piece off or get Sam to impale himself on it.

For the second time that night, I was faced with a choice. Kill a friend, or end my life as a human being for the second time? 

I needed more time.

I climbed the tree, reached the top and looked down to see Matt inside the coffeehouse. To see Sam climbing up below me.

"Jesus, girl. What are you? A monkey?" I froze, a memory taking over my mind.

"Monkey! Get down from there! You're going to hurt yourself!" My father called from the base of the big blue spruce in our front lawn.

"But Daddy! I can see all the way to the fairgrounds from here!" my small little five-year-old self yelled down to the ground, amazed at how far I could 

see. The fairgrounds were about five miles from out house and I had wanted to go to watch the balloon festival, but mother wasn't feeling well so we couldn't go.

This was the closest to the big, colorful hot-air balloons that were talking off for the last time this summer that I could get to.

"Monkey, please? If mom finds out about you being up in that tree again you'll get in trouble."

"You won't tell?"

"Our little secret, Monkey-shiner," he smiled.

That was one of the few times I ever got to see my dad smile, whenever he called me that he smiled. Only later did I find out it was because his father used to call his brother, my uncle Billy who had died before I was born, Monkey-shiner. My Dad's dad had died young, My Dad's brother had died young, my father hadn't expected to live past his fortieth birthday.

"Come here," Sam's voice broke me from my thoughts. He was reaching for my ankle, I kicked him in the face. I felt slightly bad about it, as he was my friend.

Not in this time! I reminded myself before swinging myself out of the tree. Running for the coffeehouse again, Matt pushed the door open again and tried to reach for me. His arm perfectly whole one minute, dripping blood the next. 

I immediately knew what had happened. Matt had taken my place as Sam's victim.