Dylan blinked. Twice.

As though it would change everything he was seeing for the time being.

Maybe it would.

The colours draining out of Meet's face had to be an illusion. How can someone grow so pale and gaunt in a matter of seconds?

"Y..your face... " Words cluttered inside his mouth. He gulped. What was so wrong with her face, he wondered with a vexed gasp.

That was the question even Meet couldn't answer to herself. What was wrong with her entire existence that each day she found herself besieged by this insatiable hunger that turned her remaining shreds of humanity into monsterity which she couldn't recognise herself.

Dylan watched her pupils dilate. As the colours drained out of her face, that of her pupils changed. Her beautiful honey browns were now ruby red, lined with the signs of veins and capillaries underneath that peeked in through the pale and translucent skin of her.

"You are.."

"A classmate"

The terror in his face crept inwardly as he felt himself tremble at the touch. A familiar hand tapped on his shoulder so maybe he wasn't supposed to feel that much frightened but he couldn't shake that off.

"Anshh... She is a Va.." Dylan found himself being interrupted by the presumably uninteresting classmate of his.

"She is a classmate. " He re-affirmed. His composure startled him. Never had he or Meet or any of the Duttas had tried to make an acquaintance with him or anyone else he knew and all of a sudden the degree of affirmation in his voice perplexed him.

"I saw her face changing," Dylan said with a brief snarl. "What is she?"

With an agitated sigh, he found himself getting back to his feet. "Or wait..are you...as well?"

Ansh's face stiffened. His hands gripped Dylan's shoulder. With a resolve that he couldn't shake off. To Dylan's surprise, Ansh hovered his index finger before his pupils making him blink and focus and repeat without his will.

"You came in here to play the guitar and Meet asked you to reform your guitar chords. You two shared a heated argument and she was angry.." Ansh stated with a sense of truth as stoic as though everything else other than what he had been uttering was utter rubbish.

Dylan's face befuddled into nothingness. He was nodding, to Meet's surprise. The memory wiping session was working.

Ansh pulled his hand back and shoved it inside his pocket.

"Hey, Dylan. What are you doing here?" Ansh asked with a small smile.

The agitation and fright that mingled with the helplessness in Dylan's face gave away to a pleasant expression of nothingness.

"Hi, Ansh. I was just playing the guitar when your sister started the argument with me." A smile flickered on Dylan's face, the benign one.

Meet gasped in wonder. How did he even do that, she pondered over.

"Dy.. "

A voice peeked in with a small push. Janice confusedly glanced at the three of them mostly balancing her stare between Ansh and Dylan.

"Jan... See my classmates are here. You should get to know them as well" His voice was jovial. Quite exaggerated than his own self, thought Janice.

"We are starting school tomorrow anyway" She pursed her lips. "But now we should get going. You know the sun sets earlier in the North East. And it's almost 4:30"

"Right." Dylan scratched the back of his head. "We have got to make it inside our houses before its 5."

"Did I waste too much time here?" Dylan turned to Ansh, blinking innocently.

"No, you didn't.." Ansh uttered tapping softly on his shoulder. His night-black pupils dilating once again. "We just shared a banter"

"Right. I'll see you in the school tomorrow"

Dylan marched up to Janice only to meet her bewildered glance lingering upon the duo of foster siblings. She didn't like the command in Ansh's voice or his demeanor either. The icy cold way he looked at her or spoke to Dylan had an authoritarian appeal in itself without even his trying. It was like he was pulling her towards this mystical aura despite not knowing.

"Let's go" She murmured to Dylan before wheeling her head straightaway.

A moment after the footsteps faded off, Meet walked up to Ansh, tugging his sleeve in a child-like glee.

"Meet you got to learn how to keep yourself together... You got to attend public places and schools and so you have to learn to exert the control.." Ansh added politely, emphasizing each of his words.

"How do I do that Ansh?" She cried. "My own reflexes are uncooperative and I don't know why I just cannot.. "

"You aren't supposed to feel so strongly" He mumbled, reflecting.

Meet looked up, feigning astonishment.

"I know you do. You feel anger, empathy, attachment, and lust way stronger than any of us do. Which is why your reflexes cannot bear it.."

"I.. "

"I saw how you were looking at Dylan in the history class..."

"I don't know Ansh what's wrong with me" She muttered incoherently. "It's as though my eyes unintentionally hover around the white spot at his throat. My eyes even without trying focus upon the throbbing veins that line through his neck and it is as though I can hear them.."

"You'll learn.." He traced her steps walking out of the closure. "How to keep these emotions in control and also your hunger"

Meet this time didn't meet his eyes. Her eyes perplexingly searching for something.

"Tell me Meet, didn't you get attracted to him right on the first day itself... " Ansh's words made her gasp. She smiled. Not to him but to Kaushik who had been waving from their booth.

~•~

Marilyn frowned at her own self. She shouldn't have allowed herself the privilege to relax and chill until it was the curfew hour. Although she did miss loitering in the streets at night but things had changed ever since they had shifted to Ruksin. But rules were rules. And if her twenty-six-year-old ass couldn't abide by them, how could she expect to boss around her younger siblings.

She balanced the shopping bag in the right hand side of her hand, as she propped on her knees to search for the spare keys underneath the cactus plant. The dirt in her baby blue kurta didn't bother her given that it was already a quarter past 5 and the door was locked so she had got to find the key and a proper excuse unless she wanted to be an object of derision to her family.

The grey sky gradually was filling in with indigo wisps of the cloud but all of a sudden the misty air had taken more of a solemn and a somber form and the humidity of the place seemed to enhance itself by degrees. Strange for her, the sky made it obvious as though it would rain now.

The deserted leaves rattled on the grounds, murmuring softly underneath and shifting closer to the heap of dry leaves accumulated in the garden.

All of a sudden, Marilyn felt over conscious. As though she had just heard a pair of autumn leaves trail up to her, standing right behind and waiting for her to greet them.

Only that it wasn't a pair of leaves at all.

It was a pair of feet.

Marilyn hoisted up herself to her feet. Turning back to meet the man in black, grinning ear to ear.

"I am sorry but do you need something?" She asked, partly astounded. Because at the current hour, he was the only human out of its humanly abode.

A glint of mischief flickered in his charcoal black eyes. Marilyn scrutinized from top to toe. Apart from his dusky face and jet black hair, the leather jacket and dark denim pants made him look like a weirdo. As though a Raven had taken the form of a human.

He inched closer to her. His pupils dilating like it were a heap of ink scattering over a blank canvas.

"Where do you work at?" He asked.

Marilyn blinked, compelled to answer. "HSBC bank, Ruksin Branch"

"And I am an old customer that you know.." He asserted

"And you are an old customer that I know... " She repeated in a chant-like manner.

"Today I came to your house when no one was there" He made the antic again.

"Today you came to my house when no one was there"

"You know me"

"I know you"

"Won't you give me your number?" He said with a salacious sense of familiarity. His eyes once again became how you used to be.

Marilyn blinked, feeling a trail of daze after her mind was set free of the control. She blinked again.

"Sure." She smiled at him.

~

Who was the man who played mind games with Marilyn?

Do you think she is in danger?

And what do you think about Ansh wiping out Dylan's memory?

Do you think vampires in Ruksin are a threat?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Do not forget to vote and share.

Extremely sorry for this late update, but we swear we would surely update this book every alternate week.