Blood Sisters • The Vampire Diaries [1]

III. AFTER DARK

I stirred awake sometime that night in bed after we got home, unable to sleep. Elena and Bonnie had woken me up in the car, and told me that Vicki Donovan was bitten by some sort of animal at the bonfire, deep in the woods. I was glad and thankful that I'd missed whatever it was, though I felt bad that anyone had to get bitten. Sitting up to check the time, I was met by a black crow sitting on my windowsill again. What was it doing there? I wondered if crows had good memory, if they remembered faces. Sighing, I got up, slipping out of the comfort of my sheets in nothing but a tank top and underwear, padding over to my window.

It didn't move as I walked over, though it's eyes followed me, dark and narrowed. I sat down on the window seat, tucking a leg beneath myself as I watched the bird stare at me. There was a crow. Fog. A man. Was the bird sitting on my window the same one that had followed us on our way to school? It looked like it, but it was only a bird. A lot of them looked alike, although this one was looking at me like it knew something I didn't.

I sighed, nearing my hand towards it. And again, it didn't move, just kept it stance at the very edge of the sill. Suddenly it nipped the pad of my index finger, bitting me. "Crap." I gasped, pulling back my hand, now bleeding from a tiny poke.

I had sat up on instinct, putting my finger up to see the tiny trickles of blood, before looking back at the bird, eyes gleaming at me. Maybe I was crazy, but I didn't feel safe. Whatever Bonnie had been talking about, whatever she'd seen - maybe she was right. I licked my finger, before shooing the bird away.

Quickly, I shut the window and locked it, paranoid out of my mind, wondering if I'd all of a sudden see fog followed by a strange man. Maybe I was going crazy, or maybe I was just tired. I shrugged off what happened, and got back into bed.

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Everyone was up and walking around by the time I'd gotten dressed for school, finding Elena and Aunt Jenna in the bathroom, trying to figure out how to do her hair. Where was she going, again? I stepped inside, moving between them to grab my perfume off the counter.

As I spritzed some on, Jenna looked at herself in the mirror, glancing at us through it. "Do I look adult?" She questioned. "As in respectfully parental?" She was trying really hard to look like she could handle the three of us with the least bit of experience she had.

"Depends where you're going." Elena pointed out, stepping back so that I could put my things away. Jenna was wearing a dark blue dress, and her hair was curled, makeup done. Where was she going? Did she have a boyfriend? And if she did, why were they going out before eight in the morning?

"Jeremy's parent-teacher conference." She responded, and I let out an 'oh' as she messed around with her hair in the mirror. "Hair up or down?" She questioned.

"Sexy stewardess." I chimed playfully as she pulled up her hair.

"Boozy housewife." Elena teased when she let it down.

"Up it is." Aunt Jenna responded, to which we both laughed. "You're feisty today."

"I feel good," Elena smiled, and I wondered if it had anything to do with Stefan. They were growing really close. "which is rare. So I've decided to go with it. Fly free, walk on sunshine, and all that stuff." She chimed before glancing over to Jeremy's room. "Where is Jeremy?"

"He left early. Something about getting to wood shop early to finish a birdhouse." Jenna let out a slow sigh, realizing that there was no wood shop class. "There is no wood shop, is there?"

"No." We both said together, and Jenna nodded.

"Yeah.." She sighed.

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