Yay part two has finally been uploaded! Quick, start reading!
Picture: Stormy sky
Song: Set Fire to the Rain by Adele
Aria
Her twin was in a seriously bad mood. Hayden kept pacing around the room, mumbling and swearing. She’d been like that since first period. It was now getting close to one thirty in the morning, almost time to leave to prepare for the ritual, and she still hadn’t calmed down yet.
“Who does he even think he is!?” Hayden shouted again more to herself than to Aria. The he, obviously meant Tanner Preston. “He talks to me like I’m nothing, as if I were garbage!” Aria knew very well that her sister didn’t like being treated that way by anyone; it reminded her too much of back home.
“Hay” Aria tried to calm her twin down. “He’s a Day Walker, he thinks that he’s better than us Nights. Stop getting all worked up about it, they’re all like that.”
“I am not getting worked up about it!” Hayden immediately objected pointing a finger at her. “I don’t care what that stupid, arrogant, self-centered vampire says.” She sighed, and tried to calm herself down, again. “What time is it?” Her twin asked Aria with a sigh.
“Time to go” She answered. “Do you have everything?”
“Of course I do!” Hayden snapped. As soon the words left her mouth, Hayden revived herself, obviously aware that she was getting a little too on edge. “Sorry, it’s just that Preston got me so angry. But not worked up.”
“Well, you’d better calm down.” Aria commented. “If you’re too angry, the ritual might go wrong or something like that, and it’ll all be on you.” She didn’t mean to make it sound so accusing, but sadly it was true. Aria looked at her watch. “One thirty exact, c’mon if you want to have time to set everything up before everyone gets there.”
“You could help too you know.” Hayden pointed out. “It might make things go a lot faster.”
“It’s your circle Hayden, so you need to take care of the preparations, not me.” She responded, climbing out the window. The teachers still didn’t want them leaving their dorms after class, and Aria was pretty sure that so far, no Walker had respected that rule. By forbidding it, it just made everyone want to do it even more.
Hayden still had her eyes covered with Aria’s sparkly tacky sunglasses; there was a sight glow in the lenses, but you could only notice it up close. Aria hadn’t understood why her twin hadn’t told the rest of the circle about her condition. Why did the Day Walker need to know? There were still certain things that Aria didn’t really understand about her sister, certain things that Hayden refused to talk about. Was that a good or a bad thing?
They walked in silence to the woods. Aria knew better than to say anything, Hayden was finally calming down and the slightest thing could set her off again. She wondered what Tanner could have possibly said to get her sister so angry; her twin had been rambling on about it all day, but Aria hadn’t paid as much attention as she should have. Again, she wasn’t exactly the best sister in the world.
Eventually, without any problems, they made their way to the center of the forest. Her twin started to set the eighteen candles all around them, as Aria sat down on a tree trunk and read a magazine. She wasn’t sure why they needed eighteen candles; in fact she wasn’t even sure about the ritual they were doing. Hayden got all of her information out of the Night Walker Book of Rituals, and she spontaneously decided if they should do it or not. She’d been like this since they were twelve, when she’d found the book rotting to dust on a shelf in their small library back at home.
“Where did you put the lighter?” Hayden asked Aria. When her twin saw her clueless expression, she sighed. “Never mind, I’ll just ask Chayton to light everything up when he gets here.”
They waited for a while, for the rest of their circle to arrive. Chayton and Callista were the first. It took a little convincing, but Hayden had been able to get him to light all of the candles; it was actually rather pretty the light in the dark. Not long after, Ezra and Liora arrived holding hands and looking more and more in love than ever. Soon enough, they were all waiting impatiently for the Preston twins to show up— if they ever did of course. After whatever happened between Tanner and Hayden earlier today, Aria was having serious doubts about them coming.
“You’re still wearing those glasses?” Ezra pointed out to Hayden. “Did you get your eyes popped out during yesterday’s cafeteria fight and now you don’t want to take them off until they heal?” He asked grinning.
“Yeah, sure” Her twin answered. “Let’s go with that.” Hayden lied.
“Do you guys know when Evander’s getting off his punishment/ suspension-thing?”Liora asked to no one in particular. “I don’t feel like having to use Day Walkers every time we do a ritual.”She added.
“It’s just for this one time.” Hayden assured everyone that was staring at her. “When Evander gets back, we’ll only have Cole to replace. I’m thinking of Vance Daniels. Does anyone object?” Naturally, no one did.
After a while, they heard branches cracking, followed by a cuss and someone laughing. Finally, Tanner and Maria suddenly appeared out of the woods. “It’s not funny Tanner.” Maria whined to him. “I meant to fall; I thought there was an owl flying over me.” She said.
Aria saw Callista lick her lips at the sight of Tanner, but she didn’t say anything. Aria on the other hand, found herself admiring his beautiful silhouette in the dark. Tanner couldn’t really see her, so she could gawk all she wanted.
“Yeah sure, what ever you say, Sis.” Tanner replied still laughing, but instantly stopped when his gaze met Hayden’s. Aria clearly saw in his eyes that he was still angry; but even she had to admit, it was pretty noble of him to come to the ritual despite what had happened. The tension in the air was at that moment very intense.
“Sorry we’re so late” Maria said breaking the mood. “We weren’t even sure we should come, but after a one hour power nap we decided that it wouldn’t hurt. We probably could have gotten here sooner, but we really can’t see anything at this time at night. And Tanner didn’t think about bringing a damn flashlight!”
“Okay seriously, you could have brought one like yesterday!” Tanner replied to his twin clearly getting irritated. “Why does it always have to be my fault?”
“Didn’t we have this conversation like two weeks ago?!” Maria exclaimed getting angry. “Remember, when you slammed me into the wall and then threw me into the pool!” She heard a couple of vampires laugh at her story. Day Walkers could be such good entertainment.
Tanner was going to reply, but Hayden interrupted. “Okay, well, now that that’s almost settled, glad to see that you two made it.” Aria could detect a hint of sarcasm in her twin’s voice. Clearly her anger hadn’t fully dissipated yet either.
“What’s with the tacky glasses?” Maria asked Hayden. “The moon bothers you now too?” Okay, Aria had to admit, that was pretty funny.
Her sister didn’t reply, instead she asked for everyone to form a circle around a black and gold candle she had set in the middle of all the other ones. Aria had found a way to sit beside Tanner. He seemed very uncomfortable amongst all the Night Walkers; his twin sister seemed rather careless.
“Have you guys ever done this before?” He wanted to know. The worry in his voice was obvious to everyone.
“Of course we have!” Callista responded, slightly insulted. “Well, we’ve never really tried a ritual with Day Walkers before though but—”
“But besides that we know what we’re doing. Well, Hayden does anyway.” Chayton quickly finished. “Two weeks ago we did a ritual that made us to see the meeting that decided whether or not Day and Night Walkers should share the same school.”
“Cool.” Aria heard Maria whispered to her brother. “So, hum, what ritual are we doing now anyway?” She now asked everyone.
“A peace ritual” Hayden responded reading her magic book, avoiding to look at the Day Walkers. “It’s supposed to help the ambiance between the two species at school, and hopefully we’ll get along better. “ Hayden then shot Tanner a cold glance. “That’s why you two are here, because we obviously don’t like each other all that much. I could have chosen two other Day Walkers, but you two seemed to fit the profile better. Does that answer your question?” Maria smiled and nodded in response.
Hayden put away her book, and made Chayton light the half gold and black candle in the middle of the circle; she then took out from her pocket a peace letter that she had written before they left for the ritual. She put it over the gold and black candle and the letter started to burn rapidly.
When it had completely turned into ashes, Hayden took out the sacred knife and gave it to Maria. “What do I do with it?” The Day Walker asked excitedly.
“You spill some of your blood over the ashes.” Hayden explained. “Then you give it to Tanner and he does the same thing.”
Maria did what she was told without hesitation and then gave it to her brother. Tanner hesitated before spilling his blood.
“What’s the matter Preston?” Hayden asked rather evilly. “You afraid that things might change?” There must have been some sort meaning behind her words, because Tanner instantly spilled his blood; Hayden’s mouth immediately dropped as if she wasn’t expecting him to do it.
Aria twitched at the sight of the Day twins beautiful golden blood, and she noticed that she wasn’t the only one who had. The only one who didn’t seem bothered by it was her twin, which Aria didn’t really understand why. Maybe it was because she wasn’t a regular blood drinker.
Tanner gave the knife back to Hayden, sustaining her gaze in a rather defying way. She put a small cut in her hand and poured her blood over the ashes, followed by Aria who did the same moments after. The rest of the circle did it after the four of them were done. Was it just Aria, or did every ritual seem the same? Maybe she just didn’t understand it.
When everyone was done with their blood, the entire black and gold candle caught fire; so did the other eighteen that surrounded the circle. Aria felt the heat of the fire burning her cold skin, and the bright light that surrounded them was blinding, even for the day vampires. The wind had suddenly begun to pick up, but the candles remained the same. Leaves and branches had begun flying all around them along with the ashes from the peace letter; it was like a small tornado. Aria noticed that the strange tornado was only spinning around her, Hayden, Tanner and Maria. The rest of the circle just watched, for some reason unable to move. All of a sudden, it started raining, but the candles still stayed brightly lighten and as strong as ever. Aria heard thunder and saw lightning flashing in the sky, but only in the small area that they were in, nowhere else in the forest. She usually liked storms, but now it seemed more like chaos than anything else.
“Is this supposed to happen?!” Maria yelled rather calmly over all the noise.
“NO!” The rest of the circle—including Tanner—shouted back.
The rain was falling hard and the wind was so strong, some trees had begun to fall. Aria noticed that Hayden’s glasses had fallen off and had gotten lost somewhere in the wind; her eyes were glowing even brighter than they had been before, but this time they kept changing colours.
“Hayden your eyes!” Ezra shouted to her sister. “They’re glowing!”
But she didn’t answer. Hayden seemed to be in a sort of trance, she wasn’t even blinking. Her sister was perfectly still and showed no sign of emotion whatsoever. Was she even breathing? Aria wanted to get up and check, but she was completely unable to do the slightest movement from the waist down, it was as if she was stuck to the ground.
“What’s going on?!” Callista screamed completely panicked.
Aria shook her sister shoulder. Her arms seemed to be the only things that were still functioning; Hayden did nothing in response.
“Hayden!” Aria shouted. “Hayden! Wake up! Come on! Snap out of it! HAYDEN!” Aria continued to shake her and scream over the noise, and after way too long, her sister finally blinked.
As soon as she did, her eyes came back to normal and everything that had been going on stopped in one single motion, as if nothing had ever happened in the first place.
Hayden seemed out of breath and confused. She looked at everyone in the circle, then finally at Aria. Her twin’s eyes were slightly starting to glow. “What the—” Hayden begun to whisper.
“What the hell is wrong with you Hayden! You could have gotten all of us killed! What were you thinking!” Aria shouted to her twin getting up; she was completely mad at her sister’s lack of responsibility and leadership. This was all her twin’s fault.
Hayden simply shook her head and rubbed her eyes as she stared all around her. Eventually after a moment of silence, her twin let out a small cry and buried her face into her hands, and begun to cry.
Now the fun starts.
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