Nora’s eyes shot open and they were glowing a bright white. Every vein in her body began to glow. She convulsed on the ground as power ran through her body. The lights to the house flickered on and off and just outside lightning struck twice in the same spot.

Soon Nora’s eyes turned pitch black, and her body grew still, the faint glowing fading away, the house once again becoming dark.

Nora sobbed as she struggled to get up, she hadn’t the first clue as to what just happened. She watched in a mixture of horror and fascination as the cut on her finger and the many glass fragment cuts on her skin healed up.

She felt sick to her stomach, like every fiber in her body was telling her something was horribly wrong. That something was in her body that shouldn’t be there. She needed to expel it out as soon as possible.

Unable to stop herself from being sick Nora began to vomit all over the hardwood floor. But this was no regular vomit. What came out of her was a black inky liquid. Nora had the chills and her body shook dramatically because of it.

No matter how many times she puked up the black liquid she still felt awful, still felt that something bad was inside of her. She whimpered and stood up, black ink running down her chin and from her nose. Staining her shirt and dripping to the floor.

Her vision came in and out of focus, her head felt heavy. She stumbled around until she fell down the stairs and landed on the ground below. She lay unmoving for a moment before once again struggling to her feet. She grabbed onto the kitchen bar for stability.  As she cried her tears ran black, her eyes still not back to normal.

“Mommy?" She whimpered, unsure what to do or how to get help.

She then vomited again before soiling herself. Her head throbbed in pain, her skin felt like a thousand pinpricks were touching her, her heart beat fast and heavy like she was about to have a heart attack.

“Nora…” She heard a voice call.

Then a loud ringing bombarded her ear like when a mic gets it gets too close to a speaker. Nora grabbed her head in pain and screamed at the top of her lungs as the ringing increased in pitch and pain. As she screamed every light in the house lit up before all the bulbs shattered.

Lighting was striking all around her house. Lighting up the horrific scene with flashes of light.

Nora’s body went rigid and though she kept screaming every bone and muscle in her body locked up until she could scream no more. She stayed like that in complete pain and agony as if fighting for control over her own body.

“Give in Nora.” The voice said.

Nora whimpered and not sure what to do and wanting more than anything for the nightmare to stop she said,

“Okay.”

Her body levitated into the air and a blast of power shot out from her causing a town-wide blackout. Nora’s iris began to glow white lighting up her pitch-black eyes. She felt like she was being electrocuted but was unable to do anything to stop it.

Finally, it was over. She felt her body relax and the awful sickness went away. Her eyes turned back to normal before rolling to the back of her head. Her body fell to the ground with a loud plop.

Nora lay there in the middle of the dining room unconscious.

At Lyssa’s mansion, all the vampires sat down taking inventory of their injuries. Joan and Rooney had just arrived, walking in unannounced.

“You don’t listen to me! If you would have just listened.” Bex chastised Lyssa as she wrapped up the vampire's broken arm.

“You think I asked for this!?” Lyssa shot back.

“You guys, enough. Let’s just regroup.” Vinny said.

“What’s going on?” Joan asked.

Just then the power went out trapping the group in pitch blackness. Loud thunder made them all flinch as it sounded like two cymbals crashing together right next to their ears.

“Just perfect,” Rooney frowned.

Bex sighed before looking to another female vampire who looked to be in her mid-twenties.

“Can you go light some candles?”

“Sure,”

“Check the garage, third shelf. Down the hall to the left.” Lyssa instructed.

The vampire quickly walked off.

“Okay, someone want to explain now?” Joan asked.

“Long story short, not everyone is on board with our vampire unity plan and we have sort of procured some bad enemies along the way who have decided to join forces and just take us down. They think if we die so will our movement.”

“What movement? What is going on? I thought you two took care of this a long time ago.” Joan said.

Just then the female vampire came back with several candles and lit them up, placing them strategically around the house.

“So did we,” Lyssa grunted as she pulled her broken arm away from Bex.

Bex frowned at her.

“Turns out they were just biding time and gathering forces while we made strides and expanded our movement,” Vinny said.

“They are underhanded bastards who have no sense of dignity. Allying with demons and succubus, despicable.” An older man hissed.

“Around this time last year, they approached us and demanded we stop. Made vague threats to us and then left. We didn’t really take them seriously.” Bex said.

“Then what happened?” Rooney asked.

“Then…” Bex trailed off, a painfilled look on her face.

Lyssa grabbed Bex’s hand to comfort her, interlocking their fingers.

Bex clenched her jaw and her eyes turned red in rage.

“Then they killed my parents.” Bex finished.

“What!” Joan’s eyes went wide.

Vinny walked behind Bex and rubbed her shoulder for comfort.

“They wanted our attention and they got it. They threatened to kill all of Rebecca’s family and friends one by one if we didn’t stop what we were doing.” Lyssa said.

“Bastards!” The old man slammed his fist down on the wall.

“Joan, why do you think we are here? I had to beat them here. My brother was in a car accident, no one saw what he hit but we know it was them. He’s in a coma, Joan. His wife and kids have no idea about me or vampires or anything. I told Abby to go into hiding, she took my nieces with her. She’s in one of Lyssa’s safe houses being protected by parts of our pack.”

“What are you saying?” Rooney stepped closer, her heart racing.

“They found out she’s alive. They know. They’re coming for her; they’re coming for Nora.” Bex sobbed and used her free hand to wipe her tears.

Joan and Rooney were silent for a moment.

“We raced them here, we tried to stop them. What you saw was our last chance to put an end to this. They won’t stop until we give up.” Lyssa said.

“We have to go, we left her alone. She’s in danger.” Joan quickly turned to leave.

“I told you to stay away from my family! Look what you’ve done!” Rooney snapped at them.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t want this.” Bex cried.

“We won’t let them hurt her.” Lyssa stood up.

“Nora doesn’t even know she’s in danger! We told you to stay away after you two almost got her killed the first time! One time wasn’t enough? You had to bring them here!?” Rooney shouted.

“We had no choice!” Bex shouted back.

“How about giving up!? Ever think of that?”

“Rooney enough, we have to go.” Joan grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the door.

“We’ll come too.” Lyssa volunteered.

“No!” Joan turned to them. “Nora doesn’t know about any of this. She doesn’t know about you two, she doesn’t know about vampires or the supernatural, and I would like to keep it that way.” Joan said.

“Joan she’s in danger, she needs to know. You have to tell her.”

“No! I promised her a normal life and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep that promise god damn it. You two need to clean up this mess now and I want you out of Thorndale and out of Nora’s life for good!”

“Joan—”

“I mean it this time,” Joan growled before she and Rooney quickly left.

When they got in the car Joan slammed her fist down on the steering wheel,

“Damn it!” She cried out.

“Joan we have to go. We need to protect Nora. From now on no more missions, no more leaving her alone. Not until this is all over.” Rooney said.

“I should have never let Nora be around them. Never!”

“It’s too late for that now. We can’t go back.”

Joan started the car and quickly began to drive home.

When they got home they unlocked the door and walked in.

“Nora!? We’re home early? Nora!?” Joan called.

The house looked the way they left it, not a hair out of place. They walked upstairs and over to Nora’s room.

“Nora?” Joan opened the door her heart racing in fear.

There was Nora staring at her phone screen like any normal teenager.

Joan sighed in relief.

“We were calling you, you didn’t hear us?” Joan walked in.

“Huh?” Nora looked up at her.

“I said we’re home early. Emergency handled. Did you order pizza yet?”

“No, the cell towers are down.”

“Well, I can make your favorite,” Joan smirked and rubbed Nora’s shoulder.

Rooney walked around the house and tried flicking on the lights but found the power was out in each room. Upon closer inspection, she saw the shattered light bulbs.

“What the hell?” she picked up some glass.

“Hey, what happened to all the lights?” Rooney walked into the room.

“Oh uh, lighting struck the house twice, they all exploded it was crazy,” Nora said.

“Are you okay?” Joan asked.

“Yeah. Never better.”  Nora smiled at her.

Rooney caught sight of the soiled clothes on the floor, shoved carelessly under the bed. She bent down and picked up the shirt that had the black inky vomit on it.

“Don’t!” Nora shouted too loudly and caused Rooney to flinch.

“Don’t touch my stuff.” Nora snapped at her.

“What is this?” Rooney asked.

“It’s mine,” Nora said.

“Okay… well you should ask first before you destroy one of your shirts.” Rooney dropped the shirt on the floor.

“Anyway, let me get started on dinner.” Joan smiled before getting up to leave.

Rooney shrugged and walked out.

Nora’s eyes followed them closely until they left the room.

“They lie to you, Nora.” A voice said.

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

“They are full of it. There was never an emergency because they aren’t private investigators.”

“How would you know?” Nora challenged.

“Who do you think locked me in that box?”

“They did?”

“Bingo. They aren’t private investigators. They work with the world of the supernatural. They are liars Nora. They lie to you all the time. They don’t care enough about you to tell you the truth. But I do. I want you to know because you deserve to know.” The voice antagonized.

Nora got up and looked in the mirror. She could see her reflection but she could also see the reflection of another person. Just a dark outline of a person. Unable to tell if it was male or female from just the outline or the voice.

“What exactly do you know?” Nora asked.

“I can tell you everything.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch, you get to use my powers, you get to become something greater than yourself. Haven’t you always felt like you didn’t quite fit in to your world? That’s because Nora you don’t belong to that world, you belong to my world. I can help you, give you what you always wanted most. Make you into a legend, in return all I ask is that you allow me to live through you. Allow me to see through your eyes. Feel through your skin, breathe with your lungs. I just want to live again, and I can through you. What do you say?”

Nora eyed her reflection.

“If you want a deal all you have to do is shake my hand.”

“How?”

“Try it.”

Nora reached towards the mirror her fingers grazing the glass.

“Reach Nora, reach.” The voice urged.

She pushed her hand through the reflection into some other dimension. She yelped in surprise when she felt someone take her hand.

“No need to be alarmed it’s just me.” The reflection said.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” Nora asked as they shook hands.

“Gender is fluid to me and meaningless.”

“Oh.” Was all Nora said.

“Now to finalize the deal I just need to do one more thing.”

“Ow.” Nora flinched when she felt her hand get cut open.

“Sorry about that, but it’s final.”

Nora pulled her hand back and watched as the cut healed up.

“Whoa, cool.” Nora smiled.

“So what do you want to know first?”

“Are vampires real?”

“Nora, who are you talking to?” Joan called as she walked by the room and heard Nora quietly talking to herself.

“Nobody!” Nora called.

“Well, I’m going to go to the store to get some light bulbs, want anything?” Joan called.

“No!”

“Well, your mom’s preparing dinner if you need anything.”

“K!” Nora called back.

Joan frowned at the door but quickly walked downstairs.

“So what should I call you?” Nora asked once she knew Joan was gone.

“Most call me Jinn.”