When Snow Falls

-Chapter 3-

I was being tortured.

Forget about iron maidens and being drawn and quartered, what was going was much, much worse.

It was a fancy dinner.

I stared down at the silver tray that supposedly held the food. A lid, glistening with small water droplets, covered the contents of the plate. Everyone around the table jabbered and laughed, smiling, all talking each other. It seemed like one person kept four different conversations going at the same time.

As for me, my hands were the most interesting items of the face of the earth. My feet swung back and forth, not fully touching the floor, but brushing against it with each swing.

I scratched my shoulder, still eyeing the supposed food. White lace from the dress shoved onto me scraped against skin, pushed my ribs closer, kept breaths from coming out or in correctly. The blue was supposed to be "pretty," according to Mom, at least. The twisted hair with clips snatching strands away from my scalp one by one meant the fourteen year old was one of the adults.

While it was nice to be considered responsible enough, couldn't I act the right way without the pain?

And honestly. No matter how many people told me I looked good, I was me. 'Looking good' just didn't happen.

I sighed and nudged Raoul, who sat to my left. "When do you think we can eat?"

He stared at his covered food with the all to familiar forlorn look in his eyes. "I don't know, but it better be soon. I'm about to starve."

As he said that, my stomach roared loudly enough that he and Dad heard. Raoul snorted, trying to stop his laughter. My father didn't even bother. He stopped pretending to talk and burst into uncontrollable, quiet laughs.

At that moment, Dad was just as much, if not more, of a kid than we were.

The light-haired woman across the table my mother was talking to raised an eyebrow. Immediately, we straightened and swallowed the rest of our laughs to the point pain welled up in my stomach from not letting the explosion of giggles out.

Prissy much?

I sighed and grabbed one of my straw-colored ringlets, then started to twirl it around my fingers.

I swear, if we don't get the okay to eat soon, I'm going to explode.

A rustling from the entrance way made me jump. I turned around in my seat, trying to see what or who made the noise.

The good news was, it wasn't monster like the one from a recently read book that jumped to my mind. A taller man, though he wasn't as tall as my father, clothed in a black tuxedo pranced into the room. He made his way over to me and maneuvered his arm in the space between my shoulder and Dad's arm. Something clinked lightly as he set it on the table.

The closeness of the man sent chills crawling up my spine. Why couldn't people understand what personal space was? What on the world was so interesting about being too close to another human being?

I turned around to tell him just that, with a little more tact, but the words died in my mouth.

His eyes were as black as pitch.

Fear rose up in my throat. The butler's small, beady eyes met mine coolly, staring me down with no feeling only... emptiness. His thin, gaunt face was flat, no ounce of energy or life and no inkling of death. He was alive, but living in motions.

Vampyre.

Immediately, I brought my shoulders up to my ears and leaned toward Raoul. No vampyre could eat me.