Chapter Three- Backstabber, Literally.

It was a week into my eighth grade school year and my class was on a bus to go to a campsite in Fallowfield for a camping trip. I was sitting next to one of my best friends, Tegan Levi. She was playing on the iPod Touch she had gotten for her birthday while I stared out of the bus window, deep in thought. “Why have you been so...down, lately?” she asked me. “I’m contemplating my existential dilemma.” I replied. “Human words, please.” she said. “I’m questioning my life. Why I’m alive, what my purpose in life is. You get the point.”
“Not really. What’s with you lately? At my birthday party you were happy and laughing and full of life. Now you’re just...kind of jumpy. And you don’t smile. You barely talk to us, you keep your distance from everyone, and you’re always deep in thought. What are you, a zombie?”
“Something like that.” I muttered.
“Well, you might want to cut it out before people start to notice. They’ll think you’re suicidal, you know? You’re kinda gloomy.” I shrugged and sat back in my seat. “Fine then. I will put on an act for the world and pretend like I am the same Kieyra Gordon who skips and laughs and ‘tra-la-la’s down the hallway every morning.” I rolled my eyes. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
“It’s hard to explain.” I replied.
“Try me.”
“Tegan , I don’t even understand it that well.”
“Has your Grandma been telling you witch stories again?”
“No, this isn’t about my Grandma, who by the way, is crazy. I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Whatever. Talk to me when you want to.” she turned her attention back to her iPod.

We heard a loud gasp from the bus driver followed by the bus swerving. I ran to the front of the bus. The bus driver was unconscious, and not breathing. “Does anyone here know how to drive a bus?” I asked. The tallest guy in my class, Ryan, came to the front of the bus. “My dad started teaching me how to drive in the grocery store parking lot. I can try.” I clicked the button on the bus driver Mr. McIntosh’s seat belt and pulled him into the empty seat behind him. The bus swerved again. “Ryan!” I shouted. “I said that my dad was teaching me, I never said I’d had many lessons!” I groaned. There was another sudden swerve and the bus was hurtling towards a steep ditch at the side of the road. I felt the bus jerk forward down the hill. “Everyone, hold on to your seats! Ryan, find the brake!”

“I’m trying!” he panicked. The bus ran over a bunch of bushes. Tree branches were hitting the front windshield. Finally, the bus crashed into a large oak tree. “Found the brake.” Ryan said. I rolled my eyes. “Everybody, don’t panic . There’s a radio.” I took the radio out from it’s case at the front of the bus and it fell apart in my hands. “Or not. Okay, now we can panic.” Everyone started screaming their heads off as they ran out the emergency back door of the bus. Tegan came to the front of the bus with my friends Sara and Emily. “What happened to the bus driver?” Sara asked. I checked Mr. McIntosh for a pulse. “He’s kind of dead.” I declared. “Where’s the teacher?” Emily asked. I scanned the bus for anyone left inside besides me and my friends. There Mrs. Stewart was, of course, asleep in a bus seat with a book open beside her (And she was snoring very loudly, I might add). We ditched the teacher and went outside. The boys in my class were running around like idiots while the girls in my class were waving their cell phones in the air looking for reception. It took me only seconds to figure out where we were. We were at the same campsite that I was at when I found the hole. I ran into the forest until I was so far away that I couldn’t see anyone except Tegan, who had followed me. “Kieyra, what’s wrong?” Tegan asked. “Nothing. I just have bad memories from this place.” I said. “Do you want a hug?” she asked. I nodded my head. She came closer to me and hugged me.

I felt a sudden sharp pain in my back followed by searing pain washing through my body. As I dropped to the ground I saw Tegan holding a dart filled with liquid vervain. “I had to know.” the words that came out of her mouth were harsh, burning with betrayal. I tried to say something, but all that came out was gasping and choking. I couldn’t see anymore and finally I fell unconscious.

When I opened my eyes, I was tied up to a tree. I tried to break free, but I was still weak and it just hurt more.
Tegan appeared from behind a tree. “How could you?” I rasped, my voice weak from the vervain. “What are you?” she demanded. “You already know. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have done this.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. I need you to tell me. What are you?”
“I’m a vampire.”
She stepped back. “But you already knew that. Why else would you have had a vervain dart? By the way, where did you get that?”
“A few days ago, I visited your dad in Clayton. I told him that I suspected someone I knew was a vampire. He told me to stab them with a vervain dart, and if it hurt them they were vampires.” I sighed. “This is why I can’t trust anybody.” I said. “I trusted you.” She said. “I trusted you to tell me the truth. Best friends don’t have secrets.”
“You’re right, best friends don’t have secrets.”
“Then tell me exactly what happened this summer.” I sighed.
“Where should I start?”
“The beginning, after my birthday party.”
“Then get comfortable, Tegan. You’re gonna be sitting here for awhile unless you untie these ropes.” She went behind the tree and untied the ropes. After about five minutes-and yes, that’s how long it took my best friend to untie her own knots-the ropes fell off of me loosely and I stood up carefully. We began to walk around in the forest. I explained to her everything that happened on the camping trip. I told her how I was held captive by an evil mad man named Damien and his minions Lukas and Antoine, I told her about the innocent looking Ana and Ophelia, I told her about the little girl, Elena, and I even told her about Alec, the sweet vampire boy who had saved me. And then I told her about Katerina.

“So, I’m confused. What’s a doppelganger?”
“Pretty much an exact double of someone.” I explained.
“Does that mean, you’re like, this Katerina girl’s clone?”
“No. It means we pretty much look exactly alike. We think differently, though. Our brains aren’t the same. And sure as heck we’re not the same. I want you to remember something, Tegan. I am not Katerina. I never was and I never will be. I don’t know her, but from what I’ve heard she’s kind of psycho. I’d stay away from her if I were you.”
“How will I know it’s her?”

“Don’t be worried about that now. I heard she’s locked up in a tomb somewhere around here. But if she ever gets out I swear to god don’t invite her into your house.” Tegan nodded.

“DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just found a dead squirrel. Let’s go poke it with a stick!” I heard Matt White scream. Matt is the most disgusting, immature guy in the entire eighth grade. I swear, once I was passing the boys change room to go get a drink of water from the water fountain, and I heard him , Ryan, and Chris (the OTHER most immature guy in my class) having an armpit farting competition (at least I THINK they were using their armpits). “Hello! Hannah? Did you get my text! Monica! Can you hear me?” These more girly screams were coming from Hannah West talking to her friends Hannah Kingston and Monica Taylor, the “Pretty Athletic Girls” in my class. I think Sylvie French, a girl who was more Tegan’s friend than mine, was climbing up a tree, threatening further injury upon her broken arm. Suddenly, a crow swooped down, knocking Sylvie off balance. She screamed and fell, catching her cast in between two big branches. Her cast was so stuck that she was just dangling from the tree. There were leaves and pine needles tangled in her auburn hair, and her shirt was covered in some sort of tree fungus. There was also weird black stiff lodged in her cast and socks. “Somebody help me!” she screamed. I gave her a look that said “I could, but since you talk smack about my friends behind my back and tell me not to listen to your conversations with Rachel that people on the moon could hear, I think I’ll leave you hanging up there in a tree.” “I’ll help you!” Damon Jensen, a.k.a. chicken butt, ran as fast as he could to the tree. He tried to pull Sylvie down, but all he managed to do was pull off both her shoes. I know I should feel completely bad about this, but i-the only person out of 25- was smiling, mouthing “karma” to her in a snarky way. Sylvie screamed and called me a series of cuss words that could get even the president of the united states banned from his own country. “Ditto.” I replied calmly, still smirking. The crow flew back and started pecking at Sylvie’s hand- the one attached to the broken arm. “Ow! Stupid bird! Go away!” secretly, I was cheering “Go bird! Go bird!” but I wasn’t about to say that in front of Tegan, who was desperately trying to get to Sylvie to help her. “Kieyra, let go of my arm!” Tegan yelled. “Tegan, she’s not worth it. She calls Roxy a poser behind her back, says, that Roxy’s boyfriend is scared of her and thinks she’s creepy, and then is totally hypocritical when she asks Roxy why she’s mad at her.”
“So?”
“She also steals my Oreo’s at snack time.”
“Oh, well, that’s crossing the line.” Tegan picked up a stick and started hitting Sylvie with it. “Ow, Tegan, what the heck?”
“You never steal another girl’s Oreo’s!!!!” Ryan came running through the crowd that had gathered around Sylvie with the bus’ emergency axe. He chopped the branches around her arm and she fell to the ground with a loud thud. I heard one of her other bones breaking with my highly developed sense of hearing. “Ow! Kieyra, this is all your fault, you-” at this point, she let loose about a dozen swear words I’d never heard before, and some weird ones like “Stephen Harper’s nipple!” or “Obama’s armpit!”. I rolled my eyes at the ugly mess that was Sylvie Pascal French and skipped off into the forest as if I’d just won the lottery. Somehow, I got satisfaction from Sylvie’s pain. The crow circled around me before landing on the ground. Then, suddenly, the bird transformed into Alec. “Huh?” he saw the confused look on my face and laughed. “We can all turn into animals, even you. But you only get to choose one animal, so choose wisely.” he smiled. Then, of course, he disappeared.