You wipe the remaining tears from your eyes, as your foster-mother locks your door and stomps down the hall. You grab your striped arm-warmers and slip them over your scarred, burned, and bruised arms. Your long, faded jeans cover your scratched legs. A black tee-shirt covers the worst of your scars. You take your cell-phone from the nightstand, shut it off, and slip it into your satchel, which clings to your black belt. Black sneakers on, brown, highlighted hair pulled into a clip, you open your window silently. You glance at the clock. 8:56. Moving quickly, you stand on the ledge and re-close your window from the outside. You turn and leap from the ledge, dropping two stories. Upon landing, you stand up straight, unharmed. You walk towards the fence and slip through the bars, almost like a cat. Once through, you walk, hands in your pockets, towards your favorite place. The cemetery.

You hate your life right now. You had lived in an orphanage for a while, but recently, you were 'adopted' (more like enslaved) by Maria and Carl Jacobs. They both use you like a servant, make you do everything, and, worst of all, they're both abusive. Maria's verbally abusive, though she'd never hurt you physically. All of your scars are from Carl. Not a day goes by without you earning a few new ones. They say you're worthless, and a freak.

A freak, well, that much you believed.

You aren't human, not fully anyway. Sure you look normal, but that can change if you will it. In short, you're a dhampir, a.k.a. a half-vampire. You have all the abilities of a vampire, like strength, flight, the ability to drink blood, but none of the weaknesses. Though you prefer the dark, the sun has no effect on you. You can live without drinking blood, and you can eat and drink what humans do. Also, if you are ever bitten by a vampire, you go completely unaffected. The bite-marks would disappear in minutes, and you wouldn't feel pain at all. All-in-all, you're above being normal, and have the heightened senses of a vampire.

You could always kill your foster-parents, but you believe that it would be wiser to endure the pain, rather than try to avoid the cops. Bobbies. Whatever. You have, however, admitted to yourself that you liked their idea of moving here to Scotland. It's quiet in the country where you live now, and the graveyard is within walking distance. You're never bothered there. Not like you have friends anyway. Nobody your age talks to you. You do have one friend, however. A little, nine-year old boy named Tony Thompson. You love him like a brother, and his parents are very nice.

You'd met Tony while walking past the park, where you'd seen him being bullied by the McAshton boys. You scared them off and got to know Tony a little bit. You walk him home from school, since your foster-parents didn't pay for you to go to school. You don't really care, though. You were always smarter than most adults. You read a lot.

So now, you're climbing skillfully over the cemetery gate, landing inside with a soft thud on the dead grass. It's around 9:05 and dark. You can see perfectly, courtesy of your dhampiric powers. You walk through the grounds, jumping over stones and weaving around grave markers. You feel something nearby, but disregard it, thinking it's a rabbit or something. You just keep walking, the thought of being paranoid nagging at you. After a few minutes, you feel it again. 'Someone's out there, no... There's more than one...' It's true. You can feel about three auras, two of them somewhat similar. It's the third one that interests you. It's... familiar. 'Wait a sec... that's-' then it hits you. Hard. 'Tony!' Your eyes widen in panic. 'His aura is strong, he's alright, but he's scared,' you think, as you take off running towards Tony's energy, hoping you aren't too late.