Daniel lies on his bed thinking about Rose, and the war both his family and hers had in the past. But overall, he can't just stop thinking about her in general. She looked good today, she always does, she is badass after. But then he's completely confused as to why and how he didn't bleed so much from all the telepathy he was doing.
And talking to people using his mind usually causes the most nosebleeds. Maybe his body can tell that he really likes Rose. He hasn't had a crush in a long time; his last crush, well, it was tragic.
But he doesn't know; this crush seems different. He just wants to ask her out, make her his girlfriend, kiss her, but consensually and romantically, of course.
He knows she feels something for him, too. She looks like a closed-off person, but she's going to get her to open up to him. Everyone opens up to him.
The door swings open, and it reveals his sister, Cecelia.
"You look smitten. You're thinking about her, aren't you?" Cece says.
"How can I not? She's just so pretty," he groans. "How can someone be that beautiful. She can only be compared to the moon and the stars and to the gems and the ugh! Pretty."
Cecelia shakes her head with a smile on her face.
"You're such a dork."
Daniel laughs, and so does she.
"I really haven't seen you like this since…" Cecelia stops, yet he knows exactly what she's about to say.
"Since Adele."
Cece doesn't say anything; she just looks away.
"It's okay, you can say her name." Daniel sits up in the bed. "I mean, it's a tragedy what happened to her, but I'm not going to be mourning her forever."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Cece says. "But she's the one, right, from that family. Rosalie Lockwood."
Daniel sighs. "Yes."
"Wow, history seems to be repeating itself." Cece sits on the bed with her legs crossed.
"No, it's not." He says defensively.
Cece raises her hands in surrender.
"Hey, I'm not the one who decided to keep an important family lore from you. If you want to get angry at someone, get angry at our parents." Daniel looks away from her; he doesn't even like to think of the fact that Rose's family and his have a history. That's the past, and he doesn't like to dwell on the past.
And besides, it's the twenty-first century. People should be more accepting.
If gay marriage and interracial marriage can be accepted, who can't say interspecies couples can't be accepted?
Even though it's rare. Well, Rose's parents were an interspecies couple. Or were they? He doesn't even know.
"I still can't believe they'd keep something as important as that from us," Daniel says. But Cece stopped paying attention to him when she saw his phone showing Rose's IG account on display.
"Oh my God, you stalker," she takes his phone. "You already found her IG account." She looks at it.
Her bio says: Bad bitch, account run by her best friend, Violet Martinez.
It's obvious she doesn't do social media, and most of the pictures are of her and her friends and her cousin. The captions don't match the way she poses for pictures; she either puts on a small smile or she doesn't smile at all.
Well, that's because her best friend is the one who opened the account for her and is running her account.
"She's so beautiful."
"Yes, I can see that. And you are a weirdo."
"Is it my fault that she is so beautiful? That I just have this urge to run away with her."
"That's cute, bro, but does she feel the same way about you?"
"Yes, she does."
"And he's delusional." Cece rises to her feet.
"She does, I know she does."
"Whatever you say, brother." She's headed for the door.
"Wait!"
"What?" She turns her head slowly to face him.
"Wanna go to that memorial with me?"
Cece furrows her brows. "The memorial of the dead kids we didn't know. You want us to go there."
"Yeah, just because we didn't know them doesn't mean we can't go to show our respects."
Cece squints her eyes. "Uh-huh, so this has nothing to do with the fact that you want to see the love of your life."
"No, that would be…" he scoffs. "That would be wrong. I'm going to pay my respects."
"Okay, whatever, I'll go with you. Oh, I completely forgot. Not only are you a love-sick vampire, you're the vampire version of Sherlock Holmes. You want to know more about these kids to find out what or who killed them."
"Okay, fine, yes," Daniel says. "I heard this couple was on the run when they were killed. Their hearts were ripped out of their chest. Obviously, this isn't something normal. It's supernatural. Some monster must have done that to them."
Cece shakes her head while she stares at her brother. He's been like this since they were kids. Always finding out stuff, teaming up with the werewolves and witches to defeat monsters. At first, they didn't want to be around him, but they saw he was different, so they warmed up to him.
Of course, his parents were against it, especially after the last time he went to investigate, and that was when he was fifteen, when he almost got killed because he wanted to know what happened to his crush, Adele.
Cece thought she was going to lose him. Because that entity was scary and powerful as fuck, and an average vampire couldn't handle that entity except Daniel, because his powers were connected to the entity somehow.
She doesn't want Daniel to be in danger again, so instead of just letting him do as he wants, he's going to be there for him.
"Well, it is strange this creature would want their hearts," Cece says. Her brother is very stubborn.
"Exactly, and I don't know, but I have this feeling the thing that did that to those kids isn't done." Daniel scoffs. "And here I thought this town was going to be boring."
Obviously not, because look what happened when they just arrived.
The whole town is outside at the town square, standing in front of the Lufsum fountain, placing candles, flowers, and cards next to the pictures of the victims. There's crying, loads of it. Nora's parents are here, but Abdul's parents aren't, and Daniel can't blame them because he's heard a large number of people blame Abdul for this.
Which is absurd because how can someone remove his lover's heart just to then remove his heart in the after? Doesn't make sense.
Cece and Daniel walk up to the fountain, where a lot of people have placed their candles, and they do the same. Put their candles next to their pictures.
Daniel pauses to look at them for a second.
They looked so beautiful, and they were in love, yet the person who did this to them didn't care, so they ripped their hearts.
He looks away from them and then walks away from the fountain for others to place their gifts. He can't go home now; he wants to know about them first, have a clue as to why someone would do this to them.
But then he hears bickering, he looks for where the back and forth is coming from, and he sees Rose arguing with someone.
"Uh, Cece, I'll see you later," he says, walking away from Cece.
"You really shouldn't say what you don't mean. Just because both their parents didn't want them together doesn't mean they killed them." Rose says angrily, but at the same time, she knows that it could be a possibility.
"And also, why are you accusing Abdul's parents and not Nora's, going by your accusation?" She folds her hands with raised brows.
"Are you calling me racist? I am not racist. I joined the black lives matter movement back in 2020."
"By doing what? Posting a black box and using the hashtags."
"Isn't that what we were meant to do?" he says, and Daniel cannot believe what he's hearing; they both can't.
"Ugh, whatever, just get out of my face," Rose says, and the boy walks away looking confused, like he didn't know what he did.
"Damn, people and their fake activism, am I right?"
Rose spins around, and she groans when she sees Daniel. "What do you want, moroi?"
"Wow, nice to see you too, and I have a name, you know."
She gives him a look; she doesn't care.
"Oh, okay, I know you're investigating what happened to Nora and Abdul." he looks around and leans closer to her, like what he's about to say is so top secret. "I'm doing that too," he smiles, and he nods his head.
Rose just looks at him.
"Why? You barely even knew them."
"Oh, but you were their best friends, I presume."
Rose rolls her eyes and sighs; she looks away.
"Just what I thought."
"Look, I don't know why you're-" she stops when she feels a sudden chill. Yes, it's supposed to be cold, but she can feel her spidey senses tingling.
"What's wrong?" Daniel asks.
Rose doesn't answer him.
And then a scream almost burst their eardrums.
A young girl screams and screams until she falls to the ground. One of the adults walks up to her to understand why she's screaming. Rose and Daniel exchange looks, and they move toward the scene; everyone does.
"EVERYONE GIVE HER SPACE! Stacey, what's wrong? Talk to me."
Stacey cries. "They, they they're-"
"Stacey, calm down. What happened?"
"They're dead! They're dead! Their hearts are gone too!" Everyone gasps, and they panic.
Daniel and Rose look at each other.
Daniel knew it; this wasn't the end.