Night and Day

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Katie Rivers stood on the bleachers, staring at the evening sky. She hated night. Darkness gave her a sense of unwelcome anxiousness that she would much rather ignore. She was a bubbly person filled with light and joy that was hard to surpress. 
"There they come." Ann Talley, another of the cheerleaders whispered with glee. She was talking about the night students, of course, those that only showed up at night. 
It was the first night of the year and all the students were gathering on the field for the annual "meet and greet" that kicked off the year. 
Katie stood on tiptoe on the bleacher to see, frowning at the sudden cloud of darkness that was preventing her from seeing anything at all. The night students were a mystery to everyone. They avoided the day class and no one really knew why. Rumor had it it was because they were from rich families. At least ones that were richer than all the others. 
The little blonde was looking so hard to see she slipped on the cold metal and lost her balance. The ground behind her began to come up fast and she shut her eyes. There wasn't even enough time to scream. This was going to hurt.

Raife Saunders scowled at the giggling girls that were watching the night students arrive. "Stuck up and stupid." He growled, not sure if he meant the girls or the night class. He hated them both. The cheerleaders were whores and hr had no words for the night class. This wasn't his first year with them. He knew something wasn't right. He just wished someone would listen. 
Sighing deeply he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. He was bound to get in trouble sooner or later. Why not start the year off right? 
He watched Katie Rivers as he took a drag and wondered where her sister was. Probably under the bleachers tying shoelaces together he concluded with a laugh. When Katie fell and hit that cotton ball head of hers, he'd know for sure...

"My god..." the headmaster stared at her, taking her chin in rough fingers. "You are one of us. How were you missed...is your sister...no....there is no way..."

"No. He told me he was going to...ruin me...hurt my sister..." Katie's lashes fluttered to her cheeks, her besting still hitching.

Ebony was staring up at the headmaster with wide grey eyes. He had no idea the effect his words were having on her. "When I was growing up... I heard my parents talking, about how it was unfair to have been stuck with me, that I unbalanced their 'perfect' family." She whispered. "What do you mean 'one of you'? Who are you?" There was the thought she was simply somewhat of a misfit within her own bloodline, and then there was the secondary thought that maybe she wasn't part of that family at all.

"He couldn't hurt her if he tried, trust me." Tobias assured Katie, though didn't elaborate on why he had such unprompted hatred for her sister, yet also this blind faith she could take care of herself. "Sleep, if will all be well in the morning, you'll see." He added, leaning down and kissing her forehead gently.

"Come. We're going to my office." The headmaster said, pulling her in a different direction. "We're calling your parents."

"You...won't leave me...will you?" Katie all but begged, falling asleep before he could answer.

"NO!" The was genuine horror in Ebony's voice at this thought. It was true neither parent ever showed up... unless it was bad news. "I haven't done anything wrong!" She insisted.

Tobias stayed a little while, until business called him away. "Who would like to tell me where Jolene is?" He asked the other members of the dorm who had gathered to ask why one of the day students was within their walls.

"No but THEY have!" The gray haired man roared, still pulling her along. "An unregistered Hunter. Oh this is going to hit the fan. They'll have your family killed just to squelch the blood line!"

The chatter that had been a dull roar gave way to sudden silence. No one answered. All of the dark ones stared at Tobias as if he'd suddenly become human.

"What?!" Ebony screeched, unable to put up any fight now as the headmaster pulled her along. In the space of a day she was potentially losing her best friend, and now hit with the thought that her own parents were in grave danger. "I don't even know what a hunter is! I can't be one... You have everything wrong!"

"What is this? Everyone of you is ignoring me?" Tobias asked thinly. "Such insubordination..." He tutted and shook his head as he walked the rest of the way down the staircase. "Two humans were attacked this past day. One of them was lucky, the other... Well that remains to be seen."

"Oh I'm never wrong. We are going to have to bring in your sister...perhaps that is why she is so athletic...you are twins after all..." he went on, still muttering. 

"Why do we care about humans?" One of the older males said , waving his hands in disinterest. "Another will be born to take their place soon enough. As long as it doesn't effect us.:

"Well there you go, I'm not athletic and I'm not a part any team that would suggest so." Ebony huffed. "But by all means, bring in perfect Katie! Everyone's favourite twin!"

"You are really so naive as to think the hunter association doesn't watch this school very closely?" Tobias asked. "If they realise that one of us has taken to consuming the blood of the students here... And I do not mean a taste, I mean to the point of draining them dry, then everything we have been working for will be pointless!"

"You are just lazy and obsinate. The same as Raife. Which is why you two get along so well." The elder man said. "You don't know what you're capable of. But after you are properly trained...this will be resolved."

"And who was it that was drained?" The boy asked him, growling.

Ebony scoffed and rolled her eyes, all but proving the headmaster's point. "Well that's pointless. Raife told me to forget I ever even met him. So you little plan, wont be happening. Have Katie do it, we all know what a people pleaser she is."

"The headmaster's son." Tobias replied, not taking kindly to the tone that was used to address him. "So you'll have to forgive the urgency with which I wish to locate Jolene." He added, though there was a sharp edge ot his own voice now, that was far less than forgiving.

"It is no longer up to you. You withstood on of the most powerful creatures we are aware of...Raife cannot do that... I cannot all the time..." the elder man rambled.

"Jolene is..." a small female stood and then nearly sat back down. "In with Raife." She squeaked. "She told me you sent her there...I couldn't locate you..."

"Will you please just tell me what is going on!" Ebony was basically pleading now. She didn't like the conclusion she had come to with the pieces she had, and needed someone else to confirm it.

"Damn it..." Tobias didn't offer any further explanation as he swept back up the staircase. The whole school was going to hell, and all he could think was that it meant Katie would slip away from him. "You really thought you could get away with it?" He demanded as he threw open the door to the room where Raife was being held.

"Haven't you figured it out?" The headmaster sighed, finally near enough to his office to shove her inside and shut the door behind him. "You are smarter than your sister, dear heart. .." he muttered, pausing to read a note on his desk. After a moment he sighed heavily. 

Jolene looked up, her eyes glittering red. Kneeling at her feet, Raife looked up as well. His eyes were no longer silver like his father's but gold like the vampire lineage he now belonged to.

"No..." Ebony felt she was saying that so much recently. The young girl was shaking her head, unwilling to accept that her own answer had been the correct one. "NO! Vampires? Hunters? How can any of that be real?! How can I be a hunter if my family aren't?!"

Tobias sighed heavily and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "All this, to try and punish me?" He asked wearily. This was not what he had planned for at all. The headmaster would have every last one of them added to the execution list for certain.

"How do you know they werent? Just because your loser parents were never good at anything does not mean one of them didn't have family that was." 

"You left me in an alley with my dress around my hips for some stupid little human. You deserve this and so much more! This is your fault! You must answer for it." Jolene growled while Raife snarled like an inhuman dog.

Ebony had sat down in the chair by the headmaster's desk as she processed this. "You have it backwards." She murmured. "Look at them... Everyone loves them, just like they do Katie. There isn't a single thing any of them tried that they didn't excel at. Then... There's me. All I was ever good for was getting into fights and not keeping my mouth shut..."

Tobias glanced to Raife, then shook his head as he returned his gaze to Jolene. "You think this hurts me? The boy will be put down soon. He is a danger to all the day students. An inconvenience, yes, but hurt me? I despise the hunter beast."

"I have heard of your drunkard father. There are not many who havent." The headmaster sat at his chair and sighed deeply. "Ebony, stop fighting it." He pulled a strange looking book from his desk and handed it to her. She wasn't to know it was the very same one Tobias had been reading the first time Raife had woken. "This is the laws of our kind. The history. Sit down and read."

"Yes but, the little cotton haired girl? Her blood was far more lovely than his. She won't survive the night. I can hear her heart." Jolene snarled.

Ebony simply rested the book in her lap and stared down at it. Yes, she was beginning to accept the truth of what the headmaster had been telling her all along, but something else bothered her. The creature Raife had been in that room tonight when he turned on her... "How do we know which vampires to hunt?"

"You hear only your own desire." Tobias corrected. "You say I left you in an alley with your dress around your hips... Perhaps if you didn't act like a whore, I wouldn't treat you like one!"

"It's all there." The headmaster said, tapping on the leather bound book. "Read. I have phone calls to..." his fave changed expressoon, became heart broken. "To make..."

"And you can treat these two the same. I am not ashamed! I warned you I was bored!" Jolene pouted.

Ebony couldn't bring herself to open the book. Raife had been her best friend since she was eleven years old and first come to this school. The dark haired girl couldn't even entertain the thought that he was gone now. That he was something else, something she would have to... kill.

"Your boredom has put everyone's lives in danger, girl." Tobias warned, his fingers snapping out and grabbing Raife by the throat. "This one is the headmaster's problem now."

"I will do it." The elder man said, knowing where her thoughts carried her. "I will take care of the boy as I always have. I'm so sorry, Ebony. For us...this is a defining moment. One that makes us what we are. I just hate that...yours had to come at such a high price."

Jolene flipped her hair and licked at the wound on her wrist as it healed. "You've never acted so silly over humans before. Perhaps you are going soft." She said hatefully.

Ebony looked up at the headmaster, her slender fists balled up on top of the heavy leather bound book. As she was looking at the elder man, a fat tear rolled slowly down her cheek. No one but Raife had ever seen the tough little girl cry. "They aren't my family, he is!" She insisted. "I have to see him... please?"

"Perhaps you were a higher risk than I first thought. I should never have allowed you to come here, girl. I'll be sending word to your family that you are no longer welcome here." Tobias told Jolene firmly as he dragged Raife to the door.

"He is in their hands for the moment. Besides, it's better if you dont. Remember him like you did before, not as he is now." The elder man picked his phone a day dialed a  number, looking numb as he waited for someone to answer.

"What?!" That got her attention. "No! They will kill me! You can't do that! You wouldn't dare!" While she screamed and flailed, Raife was oddly silent. He allowed the other man to drag him out without even trying to attack him.

Ebony was shaking her head as more tears dripped off her chin. "No, there were so many things I never told him!"

"Perhaps you should have thought about that before creating this situation." Tobias told the other vampire coldly. "They will be informed of everything you have done, especially in creating this pathetic creature." He added, giving Raife a little shake.

Jack Saunders hadn't spoken to Marie Rivers in many years and with good reason. He really didn't want to be speaking to her now. But he needed answers and only his former wife had them.

"Tobias, please!" She screamed as the others shut her inside. Now they had to deal with her screams which were much worse than Raife's. 
Still the young man remained silent other than the angry snarls he directed at Tobias.

"Yes?" Marie answered the phone with the kind of regal attitude common for a woman of her social standing. "If this is about the Easter Island fundraiser, I'm afraid now is not a good time. I am absolutely snowed under!" She added without even waiting for a reply.

"Oh stop that." Tobias told Raife curtly. "I heard you talking with the Rivers girl, I know you are not a complete loss. Yet."

"That is your excuse for everything, you bitch." Jack hissed, his eyes on Ebony. His long fingers were tapping the desk in front of him. "You and I need to talk. I think you need to give your husband an excuse and make a trip up here to see me." 

Raife lifted his lip, showing off his new set of canines. "Screw off, Vampire. I know what you are now without any doubt! You lied to me. All of you!"

Ebony's moonlight coloured gaze was watching the headmaster closely. She had never heard him speak to anyone this way, and was oblivious to the fact it was her own mother he spoke to.
"Jack..." Marie breathed, and it was clear from her tone she was smiling. "And what pleasure would bring me on such a lie fueled trip?"

"And what would you do about it?" Tobias asked coolly. "Yes, we are vampires. But would you judge us all based on the actions of one?"

"That ship sailed for you a long time ago, woman. And you know it." Jack's anger was more than a little apparent in the the pencil that snapped in half with a loud crack in his fist. "We need to talk about your twins. If you can even call them that. Don't sweet talk me. I know your tricks." 

"Hell yes!" Raife roared, now beginning to try and fight. It was as if calling him out had woken him up. "Where is Ebony?! What have you done with her?!"

Marie's whole attitude suddenly shifted, her tone becoming rather icy. "You dare speak of my daughters that way?" She hissed. "What could possibly have happened to need me to come there in person? Are they okay? Katie hasn't been injured, has she?"
Ebony had jumped slightly when the pencil snapped. She was hugging the heavy book close to her chest now, worried that everything she had ever known had been a lie.

"That useless little hunter? Your father whisked her away." Tobias snorted. He too had noted the way Ebony had been able to resist the desire to look into his eyes, and they was only one explanation.