We were going to name this one "Honesty" but then we just couldn't resist the pun.

What?! Two chapters in one night? Inconceivable! Well, we're compensating.

Also we felt that Amber deserved her own chapter. She's special, okay? And Morgan wrote the entire thing by herself, so you should be proud of her! First time only one of us had creative control over a whole chapter. And this chapter kind of overlaps a bit with the last one and the next one. It's sort of like what Amber's been up to while Mary Sue and everyone are distracted with their own lives and thoughts. Enjoy it! And thanks for all the love!

The bell rang, signaling the end of fourth period, and Amber gathered her things and headed toward the door with Krystal.

“Hey, I was wondering, maybe if you’re not busy,” Krystal ventured. “If you might like to hang out after school?”

Amber smiled, but immediately replaced it with an expression of disappointment. “I can’t,” she sighed. “I have something else I have to do.”

“Oh,” Krystal responded, trying to sound casual, but Amber could hear the disappointment in her voice. “What do you have to do?” she asked.

Train with long-range weapons in preparation for a vampire apocalypse that could happen at any time.

“Babysitting,” she answered.

“Okay,” Krystal sighed. “Maybe some other time then.”

“Yeah,” Amber nodded. “Some other time.” She watched as Krystal hurried off to her next class.

She hated lying to people she cared about. Trouble was, she had been doing it a lot lately. She had lied to Eunhyuk about Donghae, she lied to Donghae about Jonghyun. She had been doing a lot of lying lately. It was only worse now because she was lying to everybody constantly now, always having to cover her tracks about where she was going every single day.

Worse was, she really did want to spend some time with Krystal, take at least one day off from training just to hang out. But she knew she couldn’t. They didn’t know when the vampires would make their move, and she had to be prepared for it. She couldn’t be caught off guard.

“You seem a little distracted,” Kris said after her arrow missed the entire target completely.

Amber blew her bangs out of her face in annoyance. “I’m fine,” she answered.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” she said shortly.

He seemed to consider her for a moment, doubt written in his eyes. “You can tell me if something’s bothering you.”

“It’s nothing,” she urged. “Let’s just continue with this. I’m alright.”

Kris sighed patiently. “You know,” he began. “I would be much more comfortable knowing that there was something else bothering you, rather than believing that you missed that shot just now simply because you suddenly just at it.”

She sighed and resignedly put down her bow. “I’m just … tired,” she said. “Finals are coming up. I’ve been studying a lot lately.” She glanced at his expression, still one of concern. “That’s all,” she waived his worry.

He considered her explanation before suggesting, “Maybe we should cut it short today then. You can get some rest.”

She hesitated before agreeing. As she made her way home, she wondered why she couldn’t seem find it in herself to simply answer honestly.

“Hey, do you guys want to do something together today?” Krystal asked at lunch.

Amber felt her heart sink slightly at the question.

“That sounds like fun,” Sunny chimed. “I’m in.”

Krystal looked to the rest of the table.

“We can’t tonight,” Amber answered, hating herself for having to say it. She watched Krystal’s expression become sullen.

“Why not?” Sunny asked disappointedly.

“We have a…” Mary Sue began to explain, before realizing that she hadn’t actually thought of an answer before opening .

“Book club,” Key filled in for her.

Krystal looked to Amber for affirmation. She nodded and tried to swallow the guilt she felt when she looked at Krystal’s dejected expression.

Amber trudged through a park, tainting the fresh sheet of the first snowfall with her footsteps.

“Why are we training out here?” she breathed, her breath condensing before her face.

Kris chuckled in response. “I thought a change of scenery would be nice,” he said. “Maybe you’ll be able to concentrate better out here than in that stuffy old church.”

Amber hissed in amusement. “So what, are you having me shoot at trees or something?” she asked.

“I thought we could try moving targets today,” he answered.

“What moving targets?” she asked looking around her. “You’re not going to make me shoot birds, are you?”

A splash of freezing cold suddenly struck the side of her head, and she whipped around to see Kris laughing mischievously. Disgruntled, she eyed him with the sternest expression she could muster and scooped up some of her own snow and threw it back at him. Only after she was satisfied with the way it disintegrated upon impact with his face did she allow herself to break into laughter.

“So, snowballs then,” she gathered.

Kris nodded. “Yup.”

“Resourceful,” she commented.

“A Hunter needs to be resourceful,” he shrugged.

When Kris threw the snowballs, Amber liked to think they were actual vampires she was hitting when her arrows exploded them into dust. It made her feel like she was preparing herself for something important, that this whole thing wasn’t futile. That maybe there was a reason why she had to lie to the people she loved.

Krystal sunk down by a tree and knelt in the snow, holding her face in her hands, trying to quell her sobs. She shouldn’t have come here. She shouldn’t have followed Amber. She should have just stayed quiet and unassuming, and just believed everything that Amber told her. Then maybe she wouldn’t have seen her with some guy in the park when she said she was spending time with her grandmother. Maybe she could still delude herself into believing that not everything she had ever said to her was a lie. And maybe she wouldn’t be sitting here in the cold snow balling her eyes out for god knows how long. She didn’t even know how long she’s been here, but the sun had already made its way past the horizon in wintry haste.

“You shouldn’t cry.”

Krystal was startled by the sudden voice and looked up to see a man with a friendly demeanor. She hadn’t even heard him coming. She stood up slowly, sniffling and hastily wiping away her tears.

“What ails you?” asked the stranger.

Krystal stared at him, a bit taken aback by his question.

“Broken heart?” he asked.

Her face contorted, and she nodded and looked away, feeling a fresh wave of tears coming.

“What is your name?”

She looked back up at him. He was suddenly closer to her, but she hadn’t even seen or heard him move. “Krystal,” she answered shakily. She wasn’t sure if the shaking was entirely from her crying, or if part of it was the anxiety she felt in her gut when she looked at this guy. “What’s yours?” she asked him.

He smiled warmly at her, but she only felt cold. “I’m called Se7en,” he answered her. He stepped closer to her, more noticeably this time. “There is only one cure for a broken heart,” he cooed. He lifted her chin. “Do you know what it is?”

Krystal shook her head in response, hoping the gesture would also release her from his oddly paralyzing touch. It didn’t.

He smiled again, only this time he showed her his teeth. Krystal’s heart stopped when she saw the points of two fangs glinting just behind his lips. “You have to give your heart to somebody else.” Krystal didn’t see his lips move, but she knew he had said it.

“What do we have here?” Krystal was relieved to hear somebody else’s voice. Se7en smirked and calmly stepped back from her a few steps, and her heart sunk a little when she saw just whose voice it was, and who was with him.

Amber stared at the two people in front of her, trying to look as brave as Kris was right now. Her stomach was flopping around uncontrollably though, because there was a vampire right in front of her, and this was the first time she had actually seen one in person, and suddenly this whole thing became very real.

And then she realized who the girl was. And things became even realer.

“Krystal?” she gasped, causing Kris to glance at her in surprise.

“You know her?” he asked under his breath.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Kris took a step toward the vampire.

“Stay where you are, Hunter,” he snapped.

Kris abruptly complied. “Picking on helpless girls, Se7en?” he chided.

The vampire smirked. “Merely offering comfort to a heartbroken damsel,” he answered.

Amber felt a pang of guilt from his words.

Kris let out a tch! “Somehow, I don’t think she finds your presence very comforting,” he mocked. “Why don’t you let her go, hm?”

Se7en let out a chuckle that sounded more like a growl. “What have you to offer me in return?” he asked skeptically.

Kris spread his arms out in a gesture that suggested he was offering himself up to the vampire.

Se7en laughed again. “We both know I can’t drink your blood, Hunter,” he retorted. “Not while you’re wearing that trinket of yours.”

“Then maybe I can offer you a thrilling experience,” Kris offered.

“Somehow I think I would enjoy this flower’s warm nectar more than grappling with you in the snow,” the vampire countered.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Kris replied. “I’m a hell of a ride.”

The vampire didn’t offer a retort. He narrowed his eyes at Kris, glaring at him, and then his lips turned up in a smile that seemed to be challenging the other. Amber didn’t know what thoughts lay behind that expression, but she found it absolutely terrifying.

In a flash, Se7en was on Krystal, and the next second, Kris had him pinned against a tree.

“Take her and go!” he yelled over his shoulder at Amber.

Amber could only blink for a second, trying to register what just happened. She finally gathered herself enough to take Krystal by the hand and begin leading her away. “Will you be okay?” she asked Kris.

Kris was struggling slightly to keep Se7en from escaping his hold on him and going after the two girls. “Don’t worry,” he answered. “I always have protection.”

The moonlight glinted off of his silver cuff with the strange cutout design on it.

Amber quickly led Krystal away from the park and toward the church, where she knew they would be safe. When they finally got inside and Amber closed the huge wooden doors behind them, Amber let out a shaky sigh of relief. Krystal sat down in one of the pews and stared straight ahead of her. Amber noticed her hands were shaking. She sat down next to her and took hold of one of her hands. They were freezing against her warm ones.

“That man,” Krystal whispered. “H-he was a…” She shook her head, like she couldn’t find a way to believe what she knew now to be true. What Amber had known to be true, but couldn’t tell her. “And that guy… the one you were with…” She inhaled shakily. “Is this where you go every day?” she asked. She turned her head to make eye contact with Amber. “This… whatever this is… this is what you’ve been hiding from me.”

Krystal looked back down at their hands, and Amber followed her line of sight. She felt her heart sink as Krystal pulled her hand from Amber’s.

“Please tell me,” Krystal whispered. “The truth.”

“The truth,” Amber repeated softly.

How was she even supposed to do that? What was she supposed to tell her? What could she tell her? She couldn’t tell her everything, could she? Mary Sue didn’t trust Krystal with any information about the whole vampire apocalypse thing, because of her tendency to gossip. And while Amber understood this, she just couldn’t bear not to tell Krystal the truth after having lied to her for so long and hurting her as badly as she did today. She was so torn.

Amber inwardly sighed as she wondered when honesty became so difficult. Krystal’s eyes turned to her again, and she met them with her own. And she made her decision then. She would tell her everything, because she knew she could trust her, because Krystal deserved the truth. Because she owed her the truth.

So she told her everything. Starting with “Vampires are real,” because Amber figured that was a good starting point. And then she told her about Mary Sue being the Chosen One, about the clan of vampires and their plan to block out the sun and begin a vampire apocalypse, about the Hunters and their effort to stop it, and about her own involvement with the whole thing. When she finished telling, Krystal stared at her with such a bewildered expression.

“I don’t know whether to feel terrified or relieved,” she admitted. “I mean… I thought you were cheating on me.”

“I’m sorry,” Amber said. “I’m sorry I made you think that, and for lying to you constantly, and for acting so suspicious. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Krystal said, effectively quelling the string of apologies. “I understand why you did it now.” She smiled then, and took Amber’s hand back into her own, causing Amber’s heart to flutter. “Just be honest with me from now on,” Krystal said.

“Okay,” Amber agreed. She inhaled then, suddenly feeling way more honest than she had been in a long time, and before she could stop herself, blurted, “I love you.”

Krystal’s features suddenly took on a look of surprise. Amber was sure her heart would beat right out of her chest as she anticipated Krystal’s reaction. “W-what?”

Amber’s mouth felt very dry. She swallowed in a fruitless attempt to fix that. “I love you,” she said again meekly.

“That’s what I thought you said,” Krystal breathed before bringing their lips together in a kiss.

It was the first time they had actually kissed, and Amber felt it couldn’t be more perfect. Their lips melded sweetly together, and Amber thought her chest was going to explode, she was so elated. She doesn’t know how long they stayed like that before she finally took Krystal home and bade her goodnight before kissing her again, suddenly unable to get enough.

The next day at lunch, Mary Sue hurried to the table with her tray. “We found out what the event is,” she said.

“You did?” Jonghyun asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “Chanyeol and I—“ She cut herself off as Krystal sat down at the table. “Uh… we were reading the book, and the… protagonist… uh…”

“I told Krystal everything,” Amber said bluntly.

The other three at the table eyed her questioningly.

“What do you mean you told her everything?” Mary Sue asked.

Amber waved her hand flippantly. “The whole vampire apocalypse thing, you being the Chosen One,” she answered. “I told her all of it.”

Krystal smiled in affirmation, while the other three stared at the two of them with terror, bewilderment, and amusement etched across their respective faces.

“What?!”