Secret Secrets

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Humans are supposed to be afraid of vampires. They're supposed to run away in terror or splash them with holy water or something. If all of that is true, than why was I hugging Gabriel, Thom or whatever his name was, with all my might?

"I should have told you sooner." He said into my shoulder. I felt some of his tears fall onto my teal sweater.

"I'm just glad you told me." I said, patting his back.

He suddenly jerked out of the hug and sat up on his own. "We didn't meet for the first time this year."

I pulled a fly-a-way hair out of my eyes. "Well you said that you saw my face after you killed Eliza..."

He nodded. "When I saw your face, it was very familar to me. That's why you stopped me. Then I remembered."

I moved in a little closer. "Remembered what?"

"I was in Cleveland a little over a year ago before that party and I remember going to an ice cream store..."

I smiled. "Lovely Lou's."

"Yeah," He said. "that's the one. I went there to get an ice cream cone and you were scooping the ice cream. You were so sweet and so beautiful I hated to leave."

I blushed. "You remember that?"

"I do. And I've been falling for you ever since."

I couldn't help myself-I leaned over and gave him a kiss.

"Still need help on that math homework?" It was about nine at night and I had just gotten out of the shower. Della was sitting at her desk, mindlessly flipping through her history textbook.

"Oh. Yeah." I said as smoothly as I could. I rushed over to my math notebook and showed her the equation. After she explained to me how to do it, I began to work on it but decided to start a conversation. "Tell me about your family, Della."

Della seemed taken aback by this request, but she obliged. "They live in Alaska."

Of course I knew she was lying but I played along. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Nope." She lied. "Just me. What about you?"

"I'm an only child too, from Cleveland." I said, finishing up the math problem.

"Cool." Della said. "We can be each other's fill-in sisters." She added jokingly.

"I had a friend who was like a sister to me." I said, smiling at the thought of Eliza. "She was pretty cool. She's the one who looked like you, actually."

"Oh." Della whimpered. "The one who died."

"Yeah." I said, fighting the knot in my stomach. "It's funny how similar looking you two are-it's like you could be sisters."

Della was uncomfortable. "I think I'm going to go get some fresh air." She announced. I didn't fight her. After she left, I put my notebook down and walked quickly over to her desk, which was a mess. Most of the stuff was normal high school stuff, like pens and essays. But one vanilla folder stood out to me-it was labeled "Family". I slid it out of it's place by her English textbook and slowly opened it. The first thing on the small pile inside was a pleasant picture of Della and a younger looking version of herself-Eliza. I flipped it over-on the back it read "Me and 'Liza, 2004." I smiled lightly and set it aside. After that picture, there was a whole mass of Christmas cards, starting with what seemed to be the first one when Della was just a baby and ended with the most recent one, which was a picture of Eliza and her parents smiling brightly in front of their Cleveland house. How Della had gotten ahold of all the Christmas cards she didn't star in I wasn't quite sure but in a way, I thought it was sweet. I continued into the pile.

One newspaper article caught my eye. It was one I had kept too. In fact, I knew for certain it was in my bedroom back home.  The Strange Death of Eliza Sanders  the headline read. I forced myself to read this article which I had read millions of times.

July 25, 2010-On her birthday earlier this week (July 23) Elizabeth "Eliza" Sanders, 16, attended a party at her classmate Chris Locker's house outside of town. Her good friend Venice Thornbe went with her. "My name wasn't on the list." Said a still shaken up Thornbe, who turned 16 in June. "But Eliza's name was. I told her to go to the party and have fun and I waited in the car."

Venice then said that she later received a text from Eliza, telling her "something was wrong" and another one that said "woods."

"I put two and two together." Venice said. "I figured something bad was going on in the woods surrounding Chris' house. So I went to go check it out."

Thornbe informed the police that she saw a man dressed in all black torture her friend and ultimately pick up a stick and stab Eliza through the heart. Once the man ran off, Venice desperately tried to cut the ropes that held Eliza to a pine tree, but the ropes were far to thick and expertly tied that Sanders died within a matter of minutes. Thornbe called 911 seconds after Sanders took her last breath and a very bloody Sanders was quickly loaded into and ambulance.

Police also arrested Locker for minor possession of alcohol and question all of the party goers (once they were sober) with lying detector tests, but none of them new of Eliza's murder until after it happened. The police even checked Eliza's body for another humans DNA, but strangely they found none but Eliza's own.

"This is going to be a difficult case," Says Police Chief Marco Thomas. "we have yet to track down 'the man in black'."

Mr. and Mrs. Henry and Taylor Sanders are even more shaken up than Venice Thornbe. "We don't know why something like this would happen." Henry Sanders stated. "Eliza was just a normal high school girl-she did nothing wrong!"

Meanwhile, the police are hoping that this case will not grow cold.

My eyes locked on Eliza's school picture in the corner, her smile big and bright and her eyes full of life. I had to put the paper down because my eyes were threatening to rain again. More photographs emerged from underneath the paper, Della had even kept a simple note that Eliza had written to her in crayon. I made sure everything fit perfectly into the folder and then I put it back. Even though Della was evil, or rather, Gabriel told me she was evil, she really cared about her family and I was 100% sure she was devastated by her little sister's death.