Anyone could feel it; anyone would be able to taste it if they paid attention long enough and didn’t run and hide. This is the power of power; the emotions of strength; the love-sick drip of control. Pure, utter, and beautiful control; a taste you will never breathe more than once; a scent you will only taste for a moment, before it takes your life away and controls you.

It is a power only dreamt of. A skill murdered for. A talent one would even slit their throats for. All die in vain, all will and all do. For it is a skill no one is worthy of, and those worthy only feel for a moment before disappearing into oblivion, they sell their blood for it and it takes without remorse. It is a skill only rumored; those who truly know and who have truly seen never live long enough to comprehend anything beyond the burning in their heart and the craving in their souls until their throat bursts forward and drains.

There is a truth to the legend, but it is only whispered; and only very quietly, for if you speak too loud it will hear you. Shhh…you don’t want it to hear you, for then you’ll crave it…and then you too will disappear like all the others.

She steps closer to the darkened room, her hands shaking, her fingers numb, and her stomach slowly turning against her. She can hear faint breathing now, and watched her finger tips brush into the slightly ajar door. It opens slowly, creaking and screaming at her, almost a sign of warning, God telling her to turn and run. She ignores God’s voice, and watches the door open into the silent room; exposing a pool of candle light in the far back left corner. She squints to look closer, the outline of a body catching her attention just outside the ring of spilt light.

A breeze rushes behind her, and she catches her breath; forcing her eyes closed and feeling hands cover her mouth. She tries desperately to convince herself they are her hands, knowing that her arms still shiver at her sides, and that her fingers are still lifelessly numb dangling at her side.

She can hear her heart pounding in her ear, and feel it racing in her chest. It hurts; her straining heart physically hurts now. She keeps her eyes locked shut, feeling the headache slowly seeping into her skull from the strain. She remains silent, terrified to argue with those cold hands locked over her lips. She knows how strong they are, she’s seen the remains before.

“Tell me something…” It’s a male’s voice, a strong deep male’s voice. One she knows all too well by now, after all….she’s been dreaming of it for far too long. He breaths out softly against her neck, taking in the scent of her pulsing blood, the warm life beneath her thin frail warm flesh. It calls for him.

She felt herself nod her head, her mind mouthing the question even before it pushes past his lips and across the flesh of her neck.

“Why have I not killed you yet?” The way he said it sent shivers through her spine, and she knew the answer, of course, before he even spoke it. “Because you have something I want.”

Because of course, she has something everyone wants; the power and the control.
 
Chapter One

“It tastes like blood.” She muttered to herself, her right cheek stuffed with a lollipop; a blue one to be exact that only tasted like sugar.

Her best friend sat next to her at the lunch room table, sighing to herself as she watched her blindly ignoring her busted lip. “I wonder why…you only bit through your lip moments ago; shouldn’t you go…rinse it out or something?”

She shrugged, casually running her free left hand through her long dark brown hair. “It isn’t like it tastes bad or anything; I’m simply stating a fact.”

She removed the lollipop, and cringed as it moved the torn part on her bottom lip. It wasn’t bad, but it was made worse from the saliva caused by the candy. She rubbed her tongue across the blistered wound absentmindedly, watching her friend’s face twist in disgust; which only cause her to grin and stretch the skin.

It wasn’t a bad wound, just a tiny cut in the right hand side of her bottom lip that was perfectly placed between the crease of her lips, where the upper and bottom lip came together. It was also one of those wounds no one who didn’t know her would believe she could have gotten, yet one everyone who knew her would laugh about how long it had taken. You see, she had been sucking on a different blue lollipop when she tripped, and instead of anything major happening she had bitten clear through her lip. Of course other the girl who sat next to her now knew the clear through the lip thing, and she knew better than to tell anyone else that part.

“I think it’s bleeding again.” She felt the wound again, this time cringing at the bitter-metal taste her blood gave off.

“Then leave it alone idiot.” Her best friend muttered before pushing herself up from the table. She stood there for a moment; waiting for her stand, her dark brown eyes locked on her best friend’s wound.

She finally shrugged it off, the bleeding having stopped for now and pushed the remaining lollipop into her purse with the paper wrapped back around it. She pushed herself up from the table, slower than the other girl, but fast enough to not seem lazy or tired.

They had known each other since they were 3 and 6. Alessa had more than willingly taken in the orphaned three-year old when her family has been left with her. At first Gwen seemed like any other normal 3 year old child; that was until the day she broke her arm while out with Alessa.

She stood there under the tree she had just fallen from, looking at her bloody right hand with a morbid curiosity; her eyes filled with a lust no human should be capable of. Her left arm hung limp at her side, her shoulder torn and exposing bits of her shoulder blade. She never blinked; even her breathing seemed unreasonably controlled. That was when, while Alessa watched in horror, a smile played upon her lips and she raised her left hand to wave towards Alessa, the lust in her eyes gone; as if it had never been there to start with.

Alessa had taken her home, barely able to control her stomach and skin as her body threatened to overrule gravity, but she had no story. The longer it took them to return home, the more obvious it was becoming that perhaps Alessa had just dreamt it all, a fact that would have been solidified in her mind if not for the dried blood on Gwen’s torn blue shirt and right hand.

Once home she had to be quick, she had to wash the evidence, get rid of the shirt, because as far as everyone else was concerned no human should be able to heal from a wound like that that quickly.

Since then she had kept her younger sister’s ‘quirks’ well hidden, and the longer she knew her the longer the list grew. Gwen adored the taste, smell, and sight of blood; and yet loathed herself for it. She was fast and fit beyond belief, she could outrun any athlete without trying, and had to be extremely careful hiding this fact; she also never got sick and had to fake illness every once in a blue moon to escape notice. She didn’t age right; she looked too old for her age and then froze. She hit full maturity before her 16th birthday, passing easily as someone who was at least 21, and hadn’t aged a day since. She was beyond brilliant and knew human nature almost too well; to a point it felt as if she had been born as a species meant to be greater than humans.

If anyone knew her any better; or as well as Alessa did; then everyone would be able to tell just how ‘better’ than everyone else she was.

Class was boring, as always. She knew all this already; she had learned it all from various sources throughout her life. Once she learned something she never forgot it, because of this she spent class watching the people and guessing what they would do next. This was a sport she had been playing since her first year of high school three years ago and one she had become very good at. She could already guess a person’s action up to two minutes in the future, and with almost 100 percent accuracy.

Today she had gotten so caught up in guessing the ditzy Blonde’s actions, which were so predictable they had become hilariously mind-numbing, that she actually missed the bell. This was something that had never happened before for two reasons; number one the bell was so damned loud it was painful; and number two was that it was the final class.

She finally made it out.