AN: I know, long post, but I just couldn’t find a good halfway point to break it off at. Hope you enjoy!!! 😀 Oh, and there is some F bombs in this chapter. So watch out if that offends you.

Elijah crouches next to me in the bushes. Sidney left us a while ago to watch from the other side of the house. So far this new world has been extremely strange. Noises fill the air around me I’m unfamiliar with. Different bird and animal calls. In front of me movement can be heard in the house we’re watching. I look over to Elijah whose been silent and unmoving this whole time.

“Why you?” I ask him quietly, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Hmm?” He grunts, his ice blue eyes sliding to me.

“Why did they send you and not my darling husband-to-be?” My disgust for Victor is apparent in my words.

Elijah smirks. “I’m expendable if something goes wrong, but important enough to take care of you.”

He sounds almost amused. Something flutters in my heart. Memories of our friendship rise to my mind from long ago. Expendable? I’d rather see Victor dead than Elijah. Elijah may have turned his back on me like a coward, but at least he doesn’t keep humans tied up to tease, torture, and feed from. I open my mouth to speak again but Elijah shakes his head and nods towards the house. As I look over I hear a door open.

“He’ll be over later mom!” The woman…no…the vampire yells.

We’re watching vampires? They must have run from the royal court or something to be important enough for us to keep tabs on. The vampire’s bright red hair jars my eyes. I’ve only seen a hair color like it on one other person, the young vampire that used to appear in my dreams. Sadly we’re too far away for me to see her face’s features. The vampire heads to a table and pulls covers over her eyes. I hear the rattling of metal and then sparks begin to fly into the air as she does some sort of magic on the metal.

An aging man with dark gray hair comes onto the porch along with a vampire woman. They speak to each other, looking out from the porch. The wind has shifted so I can’t hear what they’re saying anymore.

We watch the family through the night as the go about their business, unaware of our watching eyes. Around 3:00am we watch them all get into a car and leave the house. The machine’s loud growl fills the air as it pulls out of the driveway and down the road, away from the house. As soon as the car’s noise disappears into the night I step from behind the trees.

“What are you doing?” Elijah asks.

“We’re here to figure out what this sickeningly sweet family is up to aren’t we? What better way than to dig through their stuff?” I say, starting off towards the house.

Elijah doesn’t reply, instead he falls into step behind me. Sidney comes around the corner and looks at us.

“Just what they hell do you think you’re doing?” She asks me.

“Will you two stop questioning me? I’m the commander here. Sidney, go follow the family. Make sure they don’t surprise us when they come back. Elijah and I will look through their things and see if we can figure out what they’re up to.” I stare Sidney down.

“Fine.” She says through gritted teeth.

As she runs off into the trees to follow the family Elijah and I continue our trek towards the house. We slip in through the backdoor and I look around. Everything looked…strange.

“I’ll look through the desk.” Elijah says, movig quickly and quietly towards a desk near the front of the house with a strange contraption on it.

“Mmkay.” I mutter, pictures on the wall catching me eye.

I walk over to them and study each one. The paintings are remarkable; they’re so lifelike they seem real. I half expect the people inside them to begin moving and step right out of the frame. The family it depicts is smiling in all of them. A happy little daughter, mother, and father. Another large painting shows two older people, grandparents perhaps. Anger burns in me. Why do they get to be so happy when I can’t? Is this what my life would have been like if I wasn’t whatever I was? If my family didn’t leave me for dead and a family of vampires picked me up? I wanted to smash every painting.

“Guinevere, calm down.” Elijah’s voice whispers.

“Shut up.” I hiss, turning from the pictures.

I walk to a door and open it up. tile lines the floor and appliances that look better than the ones we have fill the room. A bathroom. I stop in front of something hanging on the wall. I freeze. Inside it, someone moves. At first, I begin to ready a spell, but when I stop, she stops. She looks just like the vampire in the pictures on the wall, just like the vampire we were watching earlier, except, she’s not a vampire.

“Elijah.” I hiss, beginning to worry.

His form appears behind me in the object hanging. He looks at me, amused. How can he be two places at once?

“It’s a mirror. I forgot we don’t have one in the castle. That’s you, don’t be scared.” He explains unusually kind.

“I’m not scared.” I snap at him.

I turn from the mirror, confused. If that was me, why did I look like the woman we were watching? I bite my lip as Elijah steps out from the bathroom. I follow him and look around. He moves to another part of the house to search. Why did I look like the vampire woman in the pictures? I go back to them and look at the man. He’s older, with graying hair.

“Elijah…” I whisper, fear rising in me, “Elijah, why do I look like this woman in the painting, the vampire woman we’ve been watching?” I ask, pointing to the woman in the painting.

Elijah moves next to me, his eyes scanning over the picture. Slowly he turns to look at me, studying my face with the same intensity. It makes my heart beat faster. Pity fills his eyes and anger mixes in with the strange feeling his gaze gave me.

“What?” I ask, getting mad.

“Gwen…” He begins.

“It’s Guinevere to you.” I hiss.

“Guinevere…I…” He pauses and cocks his head to the side. I heard it to. A car and a whistle from Sidney. “Come on.” He whispers, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind him.

We speed into the forest, trees flying past in blurs. Anger and confusion still burn in me. After a few minutes we stop and Elijah turns to me, his eyes searching the forest around us.

“We don’t have long. You need to listen, and listen carefully.” He whispers quickly, stepping close to me so I can hear better. “The family we’re watching, they’re yours. You look like that woman because she is your mother. The red head is your sister, your twin, and the man is your father.”

Shock rips through me, followed quickly by anger. Anger at them, at their happiness, at their abandonment. Anger at Elijah for knowing this and not telling me and the ever present anger of his abandonment of our friendship. A noise rips from my throat and I lash out at him. He catches my hand.

“Quiet, calm down. Sidney will be here soon, she can’t know you know.” He rushes out.

“Fuck you!” I scream. “Fuck you, and Sidney, and my family!” I lash out again.

“Gw-Guinevere, get it together. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you alone, I’m sorry I went with my parents. I do care for you, I always have. But I knew the best way to keep you safe was to act like I didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your family. I didn’t know they existed until just before we left for this mission. Sidney can’t know you know, no one can. You aren’t supposed to know anything.” He tells me.

I pause and stare at him, hearing nothing past him telling me he cares for me. My entire life of loniless, and he cared for me? What a lair. What a liar!

“Fuck you! If you had cared for me you should have fought for our friendship! You should have let me know you still cared! You saw everything I went through, everything your parents have and are doing to me, and you just stood by and let it happen! You don’t care for me, you never did! You’re just a lying piece of –“ I yell, but then get cut off.

Elijah’s lips are pressed against mine, hungry and passionate. His arms wrap around me, his fingers tangle in my hair, his fangs scratch against my lips. And me…I’m kissing him back just as hungrily. I push him away and glare at him.

“What the hell was that?” I ask through clenched teeth, and why the hell was I kissing him back?

“I care for you, Guinevere. More than you can imagine.” He steps close again and pulls me to him so his lips brush against my ear. “I need you to remember that. No matter what I say or do, remember that I always have your best interest in mind.”

I open my mouth to say something as he steps back, but Sidney emerges through the trees. She looks between us, studying me more than Elijah.

“What the gnome are you looking at?” I sneer, taking my anger out on her. “And why did you take so long to get here?”

“I like long walks in the moonlight.” She replies, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s get back to camp.”

She begins to walk off and I look at Elijah. His eyes are back to their cold, haughty stare. But when she turns her back, they soften a bit as he glances towards me. I sigh and start of after Sidney, trying to hide the fact that half my world was just thrown from its axis. I needed a drink, and some sleep.