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wanted to be as far away from this place as possible. I never wanted to come back.
    Ever.
    I closed my eyes, my Saviors face staring back at me within my mind’s eye. He saved my life and I didn’t even know his name. The way he just took that guy down, snatched the gun from his hand and shot him in the leg. It was like some Jason Bourne shit. Then he disappeared, just up and vanished. How could anybody do something like that? How could a person move that fast?
    He knew who I was, knew my name. I tried to pass that part off considering the small size of our town. Not to mention, if he was at the party, it would have been easy to ask random person number three who I was, yet, the way he spoke my name, it was as if he actually knew me, knew who I was, not in just passing, but rather on some deeper level altogether.
    The things he said though. The expensiveness of the gun, the gun that was now resting comfortably in my trunk, God, I hope we don’t get pulled over.
    I called out randomly to Ethan. “Don’t speed okay.”
    “ Sure.” He was looking at me through the rearview mirror and I could see the worry in his eyes, see the guilt he carried for not being there with me when everything went down. He doesn’t even know what happened and I could tell he was blaming himself because he wasn’t there to stop it.
    “ Whatever you say Madison.”
    I didn’t want to speak anymore and just closed my eyes, trying not to concentrate on anything at all, but it was futile. I couldn’t get the vision of the gun barrel pointed at my face out of my head. I just kept reliving the Man in Black striking me repeatedly, only to have his face replaced by my Savior. My beautiful, Dark Haired Savior. The more I thought of him, the more I wanted to know more about him.
    He was no older than me, seventeen at the least, eighteen at the most. He knew how to handle a gun with ease and when he shot that Man, there was no remorse, no hesitation, just BAM! When he ejected the clip and cleared the chamber, he didn’t even look at the gun when he did those things, he was looking at me the entire time. Something like that, you just don’t pick up randomly at The Dave’s, smoking weed and playing video games.
    “ So you have to ask yourself Madison. What’s so special about you?”
    That was the last thing I thought before sleep overtook me in the back seat of my Father’s car.
    I was in the forest again. The rain was dying down to a mist, the darkness of my situation overwhelming. A dead Vampire lay at my feet behind me, the essence of his Soul drained away into the Blade of Osiris for all eternity. At my front was impending doom as the Vampires attempted to circle around me and cut off any means of escape.
    “ Well what are you waiting for?” I screamed in challenge. “I haven’t got all fucking night!”
    It was the dream again, the same nightmarish hell that has been plaguing my afterthoughts every night for the past month. Yet this night, this one time, the dream held no sway over me. Tonight I had experienced real terror, came close to true death and not this subconscious facsimile of one.
    Everything freeze froze, going from normal, to slow, then from extreme slow to stop. I was taking control. Taking back what was mine. I refused to be terrified by the phantom images my mind created. Not now. Not ever.
    I was looking at myself. Looking at the still frame of me that was bent low in a warrior’s crouch, about to strike out at the closest person, the closest Vampire that was near me. I didn’t recognize the dress she was wearing, the torn little white dress that clung to her skin because of the rain.
    I walked close to myself, circling the Dream Me, that innocent little girl with a face twisted into a hate fueled, murderous rage. I didn’t even recognize this girl, even though she was me. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to turn her from who I am now, to what she was, yet I could feel strength radiating off her person, a kind of