Naeun woke to burning pain. Her skin felt on fire, and when she tried to open her eyes, a stabbing pain forced them shut. It exploded into her skull. She kept her eyes closed, and instead used her hands to feel around. She was lying on top of something. It felt soft, yet firm. Uneven. It couldn’t be a mattress. She ran her fingers along it. It felt like plastic.

   She opened her eyes, more slowly this time, and peeked down at her hands. Plastic. Black plastic. And that smell. What was it? She turned her head just a little, opened her eyes a little more, and then she realized. She was sprawled out, on her back, on a pile of garbage bags. She craned her neck. She was inside a dumpster. She tried to remember last night. She used all her force of will to summon it back. Slowly, it came…

   Her fight with her mother. The subway. Meeting luhan. Seoul Art Hall. The concert. Then….then…. The hunger. The craving. Yes, the craving. Leaving luhan. Rushing out. Roaming the halls. Then… Blank. Nothing.

Where had she gone? What had she done? And how on Earth had she ended up here? Had Luhan drugged her? Did he have his way with her, then deposit her here?

   She didn’t think so. She couldn’t imagine he was the type. In her last memory, roaming the halls, she was alone. She had left him far behind. No. It couldn’t have been him. Then what?

   Naeun kneeled slowly on the garbage, one of her feet slipping between two bags, as she sankdown further into the pit. She yanked her foot out quickly and found some solid ground, plastic bottles crunching loudly. She looked up and saw that the metal lid to the canister was open. Had she opened it last night and climbed in here? Why would she have done that? She reached up and just barely grabbed hold of the metal bar at the top. She worried she would be strong enough to pull herself up and out.

   Just as naeun landed on the Seoul City sidewalk, a well-dressed couple had been walking past. She startled them. They turned and stared, mortified, not seeming to comprehend why a teenage girl would suddenly jump out of a huge garbage dumpster. They gave her the strangest look, then doubled their pace, hurrying to get as far away from her as possible.

   Naeun didn’t blame them. She probably would have done the same. She looked down at herself, still dressed in her cocktail attire from last night, her clothing completely soiled and covered in garbage. She stank. She tried her best to wipe it off.

   Thankfully, it was late in the afternoon. Hopefully this hangover, or whatever it was, would pass quickly. She tried to think. Where could she go? She wanted to call luhan. It was crazy, because she barely knew him. And after last night, whatever she’d done, she was sure he’d never want to see her again. But, still, he was the first one who came to her mind. She wanted to hear his voice, to be with him. If nothing else, she needed him to fill her in on what had happened. She desperately want to talk to him. She needed her phone.

She would go home one last time, get her phone and her journal, and get out. She prayed her Mom wouldn’t be home. Maybe, just this one time, luck would be on her side.

****

   Naeun stood outside her building and looked up apprehensively. It was sunset now, and the light didn’t bother her as much. In fact, as night approached, she felt stronger with each passing hour.

   She bounded up the five-story walkup with lightning speed, surprising herself. She took the steps three at a time, and her legs weren’t even tired. She couldn’t fathom what was happening to her body. Whatever it was, she loved it. Her good mood dimmed as she approached her apartment door. Her heart began to pound, as she wondered if her Mom would be home. How would she react?

But as she reached for the doorknob, she was surprised to see that the door was already open, slightly ajar. Her foreboding increased. Why would it be open?

   Naeun walked tentatively into the apartment, the wood creaking beneath her feet. She slowly stepped through the foyer and into the living room. As she entered she turned her head—and suddenly raised her hands to in shock. A horrible wave of nausea hit her. She turned and vomited.

It was her Mom. Lying there, slumped against the floor, eyes open. Dead. Her mother. Dead.

But how?

   Blood oozed from her neck, and collected in a small puddle on the floor. There was no way she could have done it to herself. She had been killed. Murdered. But how? By who? As much as she hated her Mom, she never would have wanted her to end up like this. The blood was still fresh, and she suddenly realized that it must have just happened. The ajar door. Had someone broken in?

She suddenly wheeled, looking all around her, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Was someone else in the apartment?

   As if to answer her silent question, at that very moment, three people, dressed head to toe in black, appeared from the other room. They walked nonchalantly into the living room, heading right for naeun. Three men. It was hard to tell how old they were—they looked ageless—maybe, late 20s. They were all well-built. Muscular. Not an ounce of fat on them. Well groomed. And very, very pale.

One of them stepped forward.

Naeun took a step back in fear. A new sense was coming over her, a feeling of dread. She didn’t understand how, but she could sense this person’s energy. And it was very, very bad.

“So,” the leader said, in a dark, sinister voice. “The chicken comes home to roost.”

“Who are you?” naeun asked, backing up. She scanned the room for a weapon of some sort. Maybe a pipe, or a bat. She started thinking of exit points. The window behind her. Did it lead to a fire escape?

“Precisely the question we wanted to ask of you,” the leader said. “Your human friend had no answers,” he said, gesturing at her Mom’s body. “Hopefully, you will.”

Human? What was this person talking about?

   She took several more steps back. She didn’t have much room left to go. She was almost flush against the wall. She remembered now: the window behind her did lead to a fire escape. She remembered sitting on it, her first day in the apartment. It was rusted. And rickety. But it seemed to work.

“That was quite a feed at Seoul Art Hall,” he said. The three of them slowly approached her, each taking a step forward. “Very dramatic.”

she scanned her memories desperately.

Feed? Try as she could, she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“Why intermission?” he asked. “What was the message you were trying to send?”

She was against the wall, and had nowhere left to go. They took another step closer. She felt certain they would kill her if she did not tell them what they wanted.

   She thought as hard as she could. Message? Intermission? She recalled roaming the halls, the carpeted hallways, going room to room. Searching. Yes, it was coming back to her. There was an open door. A dressing room. A man inside. He had looked up at her. There had been fear in his eyes. And then…

“You were in our territory,” he said, “and you know the rules. You are going to have to answer for this.”

They took another step closer.

she had seen enough.

   Naeun summoned all of her newfound strength to fight off her attackers. She elbowed one of them, and was pleasantly surprised to see him go flying several feet. Encouraged, she wheeled over and elbowed the other one, and was again happily surprised to see him go flying in the other direction.

   The leader landed squarely on top of her, and began to choke her. He was stronger than the others. She looked up into his large, coal black eyes, and it was like staring into the eyes of a shark.

Soulless. It was the look of death.

   This time, before she could fight back, she felt knuckles across her cheek, and realized he had just backhanded her. Hard. The world spun. She regained consciousness quickly, and prepared to fight back, when suddenly she saw the two others kneeling beside her, pinning her down. The leader extracted a cloth from his pocket.

Before she could react, the cloth was over her nose and mouth. As she took one last, deep breath, the world spun, turned foggy.

Before the world turned to complete blackness, she could have sworn she heard a dark voice whisper in her ear: “You are ours, now.”

***

Naeun woke to complete blackness. She felt a cold, metal pain on her wrists and ankles, and her limbs were sore. She realized she was chained. Standing. Her arms were outstretched, by her sides, and she tried to move them, but they didn’t budge. Neither did her feet. She heard a rattle as she tried, and felt the cold, hard metal dig harder into her wrists and ankles. Where the hell was she?

Naeun opened her eyes wider, heart pounding, trying to get a feel for where she was. It was cold. She was still dressed, but barefoot, and she could feel cold stone beneath her feet. She also felt stone along her back. She was up against a wall. Chained to a wall.

She looked hard about the room and tried to make something out. But the blackness was absolute. She was cold. And thirsty. She swallowed, and was dry. She tugged for all she was worth, but even with her newfound strength, the chains did not budge. She was completely stuck.

She opened to yell for help. The first attempt didn’t work. was too dry.

She swallowed again.

“Help!” she screamed, her voice coming out raspy. “HELP!” she screamed again, and this time gained real volume.

Nothing. She listened hard. She heard a faint, swooshing noise somewhere in the distance. But from where?

She tried to remember. Where was she last?

   She remembered going home. Her apartment. She frowned, remembering her Mom. Dead. She felt deeply sorry, as if somehow it were her fault. And she felt remorse. She wished that she could have been a better daughter, even if her Mom wasn’t great to her. Even if, as her Mom had blurted out the day before, she wasn’t really even her daughter. Had she really meant it? Or was it just something she had thrown out in a time of anger?

Then…those three people. Dressed in black. So pale. Approaching her. What were these men? Why had they used the word “human”?

Then…the alley. The chase. And then…. Blackness.

   Naeun suddenly heard the creak of a metal door. She squinted, as a light appeared in thedistance. It was a torch. A whole group of torches approached, and as they got close, she could see their leader. The man who had chased her down the alley.

He stared back, offering a smile with the warmth of ice. He was beautiful, this man, ageless, but terrifying. Evil. His large, charcoal eyes stared at her. He was flanked by five other men, all dressed in black like him, but none as large or as beautiful as he. There were also two women in the group, who stared back at her with equal coldness.

“You must excuse our attendant,” the man said, his voice deep, cold, and matter-of-fact.

“Who are you?” naeun asked. “Why am I here?”

“Forgive these harsh accommodations,” the man said, running his hand along the thick metal chain that held her to the wall. “We’d be more than happy to let you go,” he said, “if only you would answer a few questions.”

She looked back, unsure what to say.

“I will begin. My name is Kris. I am Deputy Leader of the Blacktide Coven,” he paused. “Your turn.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” naeun answered.

“To start with, your coven. Who do you belong to?”

Naeun wracked her brain, trying to figure out if she had lost her mind. Was she imagining all of this? She thought she must be stuck in some sort of sick dream. But she felt the very real cold steel on her wrists and ankles, and knew she was not. She had no idea what to tell this man. What was he talking about? Coven? As in…vampire?

“I don’t belong to anyone,” she said.

He stared for a long while, then slowly shook his head.

“As you wish. We have dealt with rogue vampires before. It’s always the same: they come to test us. To see how secure our territory is. After that, more follow. That’s how territory shifts begin. But you see, they never get away with it. Ours is the oldest strongest and coven in this land. No one kills here and gets away with it.”

“So I ask again: who sent you? When do they plan to invade?”

   Territory? Invasions? Naeun couldn’t understand how she was not dreaming. Maybe she had been slipped some sort of drug. Maybe luhan had slipped her something. But she didn’t drink. And she never did drugs. She was not dreaming. This was real. Too awfully, incredibly real. She could’ve just dismissed them as a group of completely crazy people, as some weird cult or society that was completely delusional. But after all that had happened in the last 48 hours, she actually found herself thinking twice. Her own strength. Her own behavior. The way she felt her body changing. Could vampires be true? Was she one of them? Had she stumbled into the middle of some kind of vampire war? That would be just her luck.

   Naeun stared back, thinking. Had she really killed someone? Who? She couldn’t remember, but she had this awful feeling that what he said was true. That she had killed someone. That, more than anything, made her feel terrible. She felt an awful feeling of pity and regret wash over her. If it was true, she was a murderer. She could never live that down.

She stared back at him.

“I wasn’t sent by anyone,” she said, finally. “I don’t remember exactly what I did. But whatever I did, I did it on my own. I don’t really know why I did it. I’m really sorry for whatever I did,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

Kris turned and looked at the others. They looked back at him. He shook his head, and turned back to her. His glare turned cold and hard.

“You take me for a fool, I see. Not wise.”

Kris gestured to his subordinates, and they hurried over and uncuffed her chains. She felt her arms drop, and was relieved to have the blood flow back to her wrists. They uncuffed her ankles next. Four of them, two on one each side, got a tight grip on her arms and shoulders.

“If you won’t answer to me,” Kris said, “then you will answer to the Assembly. Just remember, you have chosen this. They will show no mercy, as I may have done.” As they led her away, Kris added, “Make no mistake, you will be killed either way. But my way would have been quick and painless. Now you will see what suffering is.”

Naeun tried to resist as they dragged her forward. But it was useless. They were leading her somewhere, and there was nothing she could do but embrace her fate.

And pray.

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kai will apear in the next chapter!!!!!