Chapter 1

North Dakota, 2009

Brown leaves covered the ground from past years. The leaves on the trees were green as spring turned into summer. Lost once again he wandered in the woods. His uncle told him not to wander far in fear this would happen. Again. Caleb tried to remember how long he had been walking. He had been thinking of his parents again and lost track of time, and he wasn’t watching where he was going either. He was thinking about the accident that claimed both his mother and his father’s lives. He remembered everything that happened that night and the last words they said to him. 

It was only two weeks into the summer and his parents thought he was hanging out with the wrong kind of people. They were afraid that he was going to get in trouble or get hurt. They had a fight and his father told him, “We are sending you to stay with your uncle for a few months. You need to get out of the city and get some fresh air. We know you don’t want to go but it will do you some good.” They were right, he didn’t want to go, and he let it show. He yelled at them, threw stuff and broke a lot of things. He finally agreed, but only because of his mother. The look on her face as he tried to defy them was like taking a walloping hit straight into his gut. The whole way to his uncle’s he had been thinking about his friends and the plans they had made for that summer, about the girl he had planned on asking out. He smiled at the thought of her. A week after he got to his uncle’s is when they got the call; his parents had gone out to their weekly dinner and movie when on the way home they were waiting at the railroad tracks when a train derailed and hit four cars waiting to cross the tracks. His parent’s car was right in front of the tracks and the train hit them first. The cars exploded and there wasn’t much left of anything.

Knock it off Caleb, he told himself, stop thinking of the past and try to figure out how to get back into town. He wiped the tears off his face, he didn’t even realize that he had been crying. He has done a lot of that. He stopped and looked around to see where he was and realized that he had never been in this part of the woods before as it didn’t look familiar. He was always walking in the woods just to be alone and think. Almost every time he gets lost and either his uncle or one of his cousins comes to find him. But in the past few weeks he started learning the woods and has been able to get back on his own. He kept going in the direction he thought he had come, that’s when he saw them, three girls, so beautiful, each just as pale as the other. 

One with long blonde hair that went straight down her back, she was wearing pants and a dark green tank top that clung to the top of her body, the other girl had dark hair that curled down hers. She wore a light blue sundress that was tight around her breasts and belly and flared out around her waist down to her knees. The third had shorter blonde hair that rested just below her shoulders. She wore a pale-yellow shirt that had short sleeves and was wore loose around her belly and cut low to show the swell of her breast and a pair of white shorts that you could barely see under the shirt.

They were absolutely stunning. But the dark-haired girl was the one that captured Caleb’s attention. I must be getting close back to town, he thought. He looked up at the sky and seen the sun overhead. He started to ask the girls which way back to town but when he looked back, they were gone.

Odd, he thought, where did they go? He kept walking ahead thinking that he would come to a road somewhere, but the woods were getting thicker and started to get darker. This isn’t the right way, he thought, but he really didn’t know which way was the right way, so he turned around to head back in the other direction. He thought he heard a twig snap and when he looked back, he couldn’t see anything. His heart was racing, he had a bad feeling and was starting to get worried. He picked up his pace, he heard footsteps and he started to run. He went from worried to scared. Out of the corner of his eye he saw dark green and turned to look but didn’t see anything. This is getting really weird he thought and he kept running. Still hearing someone behind him, he readied to turn around and see what was chasing him. He turned and saw nothing, heard no footsteps. He looked around to see where he was and noticed the woods had thinned out and it was brighter. He continued to walk in the same direction and started to notice some things that were familiar to him. Finally, he came to the path that led him out of the woods and into the backyard of his uncle’s house.

“Well, there you are. We were about to send a search party in after you.” 

“Sorry Aunt Lara.” he told her. She had been so welcoming to him since he has been there. She was the one that told him after his parents died that he could live there with them. He hadn’t expected that, and he didn’t know where he would’ve ended up if she hadn’t offered him a place here. It hasn’t been so bad either. “It’s quite alright. I knew you would come out sooner or later. You must be getting hungry. You have been gone for hours.”

“I went farther in than I have before,” he told her, “I didn’t recognize anything, the trees were thick and it was dark. I thought maybe I was coming close to town when I saw three girls, so I followed them. But then it started to get dark and I had to turn around.”

“Three girls?” she asked with a concerned look on her face.

“Yeah, I thought I saw them, but I looked up at the sky and when I looked back, they were gone, I tried to follow them but I couldn’t figure out which way they went.”

“You were probably just imagining things dear, hunger does that to you. Come inside and I will fix you something to eat.” He followed her inside and made himself something to drink. She made him a sandwich and walked out of the room to let him eat.

Lara went outside to find her husband. He was in his shed working on his latest project, a chest for their youngest daughter. He looked up when she walked in, “Caleb is in the kitchen eating a sandwich,” she told him.

“I guess we don’t have to send Andrew and Colin out to find him again.”

“No not this time. I’m worried about him William, he keeps to himself most of the time and even when he doesn’t it seems he is off in a different place.”

“He is still grieving dear, give him some time. He will come around and he will be fine.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s been almost six months.” And six months he has been living with us, she thought, and he only speaks when someone speaks to him first. “He spends so much time either in his room or getting lost in the woods. He was out there so long today without food he started to let his imagination run away with him and having delusions. He ended up all the way into the old part of the woods.”

“The old woods? How can you be certain?” he asked.

“He said that he went farther than he had before and the trees were thicker and there was no sun shining through.”

“That would be the old woods alright. It’s a good thing he didn’t get lost in that part. We wouldn’t have thought to go that far to look for him. Could’ve taken us days to find him. Wait, what do you mean delusions?” he gives her a puzzling look.

“He said he saw three girls and he tried to follow them. That is how he ended up in the old woods.”

William shrugged his shoulders “delusions” was all he said before he returned to work on the chest. 

“Don’t you think that is a little strange to be having delusions of girls in the woods?” she said, but he didn’t say anything. Lara watched her husband for a moment and then turned and walked out of the room.

Alaina walked in the house and met the glare of her sister. She had stopped her sister from hunting the human, he was lost. She had been watching him for a while and he hadn’t even been watching where he was going. He looked like he was thinking about something painful, something that had hurt him deeply. Then she had seen the tears falling out of his eyes and she felt heart-wrenching sympathy for him. He looked young—17 maybe 18—and Abigail was hungry. They had been out hunting and hadn’t come across anything until they heard him approach. He had seen them, looked right at them and walked right towards them. He had a beautiful face but even from the distance she could see the sorrow in his eyes. 

She felt something that she couldn’t explain, some kind of connection to him, so she stopped Abigail from hunting him. He had looked right at her. Her. And when he did, he became hers. She didn’t know what it was but she just knew she had to protect him. Even if it did cost her sister being very angry with her. She would understand, Alaina hoped anyway.

“Why the hell did you do that?!?!” Abigail screamed at her. “There was nothing else to hunt and I’m thirsty! None of us has had anything in almost three weeks, we are weak and we need blood! What were you thinking?”

“I felt sorry for him Abby, you didn’t see the sorrow in his eyes like I did. Damn it he is so young, even you never hunted so young.”

“Right now, I really don’t care.” Abigail shouted.

“You don’t now, but once it’s done you will regret it. I know you better than this, you are angry with me now but only cause your thirsty. Calm down, we will find something soon.”

“No, you will find something. You stopped the kill so now it’s up to you. I don’t care what you get, but get something. Don’t come back until you do.”

“Fine, I will return shortly.” Alaina turned and walked out of the room and left Abigail sitting in the living room. Arianna came downstairs as she was about to walk out the door.

“Laina, please be careful.”

“Don’t worry Ari, I shouldn’t be gone too long. I’ll have to go a little farther than we usually go, but I will hurry.”

“Do you want me to go with you? Together we will find something quicker.”

“No, you stay here with Abigail. She is weak and upset. Stay with her and keep her company.”

“Ok, hurry back.” And with that Alaina turned and walked out of the house. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining bright and you could hear the birds in the distance. It wouldn’t take her long to cover the distance between her and the birds, but they need something a little more satisfying. Birds just wouldn’t cut it. They needed something bigger and with more blood. They didn’t usually hunt humans because they don’t want a lot of unwanted attention of people coming up missing and search parties for searching them. So, they mainly just hunted animals, but the animals knew they were being hunted and picked off one by one in that part of the woods, so the animals avoided that part.

It’s almost time to move to a different place, she thought, whether Abigail wants to admit it or not. This was very close to being Abigail’s favorite place to live and hers too. Only one other place topped this one for her, two for Abigail. Alaina ran for a few miles away from the house before she stopped. She still couldn’t smell anything appetizing to hunt, so she ran just another couple of miles. She was just about to give up when it came suddenly—the movement in the corner of her eye, the smell, the sound. The bear stood tall, taller than her, but she was faster and stronger. She could hear its heartbeat and she could all but taste its blood already. It swiped out its claw at her and she jumped and turned to land on its back. Before the bear knew what was happening, she snapped its neck. She listened to the heartbeat slow and then stop. 

It was heavy, but with her strength it didn’t weigh her down at all. All she could smell was the bear’s blood and all she could think about was the anticipation of getting to feed. The house came into view and when she walked in, she could feel something was deeply wrong.

“Abigail? Arianna?” she called out. She couldn’t sense them anywhere in the house. She started to get a really bad feeling. She put the bear down and closed her eyes, she had to concentrate, she had to find her sisters. The tingling started in her belly worked its way up to where her heart was. She felt the pull that told her which direction her sisters were in. Except this time, it was pulling in two different directions. Arianna was pretty close but Abigail was a good distance away and getting further.

They aren’t together, oh no, something is wrong.

She took off out the door and went in the direction of Arianna. She was closer emotionally to Arianna then she was to Abigail because there was a big age difference between them than there was with Arianna and herself, but she still loved Abigail as much. But still she went to find Arianna first. She was sitting on the ground and was sobbing, she looked up when she heard Alaina approach.

“She left us Laina, she said she needs to be alone for a while.”

Alaina sat down next to her and put her arm around her sister. “I knew she was upset, but I didn’t think she was that upset.”

“She calmed down a little after you left, but she wasn’t right though. She wanted to get away from here and everyone.” They sat in silence, the only sound was the sobbing that was coming from Arianna. A million questions raced through Alaina’s mind. Why would she leave? Did she not love them? Were they ever going to see her again?

“She needs her own life for a while, I guess. It’s not like we will never see her again. Cheer up, I have us food.”

“I miss her already.” Arianna looked up at her sister and wiped the tears out of her eyes.

“I know. I miss her too, we will see her soon enough. When one has eternity, a few years don’t matter much.” She hoped she was right. “Was she still mad at me when she left?”

“No. She told me to tell you that she forgives you and that you were right, she would have regretted it afterwards and to tell you that she loves you and she was sorry for the way she treated you.”

Alaina stood up and held out a hand for her sister. Arianna took it and together the two sisters ran back to the house and fed on the bear. Satisfied they drained the bear of the rest of its blood and stored it in the fridge and disposed of the body. After the work was done Alaina went up to her room and laid down in her bed, questions still running through her mind, but she wouldn’t say anything to Arianna. She had finally stopped crying and she didn’t want to upset her again.

Downstairs Arianna went into the library and got her favorite book off the shelf and sat in her favorite chair and trying to get her mind off Abigail leaving, she read. She knew why she had left, but she didn’t want to admit it, and she wasn’t going to tell Alaina. Alaina was trying so hard not to blame herself, Arianna knew that she would, so she didn’t want to tell her. Shaking her head, she told herself to stop thinking and concentrated on the words of her book.