All weekend you were wondering what happened with those three at the Dire Bay. You walked into the school holding books and binders to your chest, and found your locker. Epiphany wasn't around that morning so you went to your class. English. All classes you worked hard and your fingers hurt from the writing, your mind hurt more though.
(For a fun Disney trivia quiz copy and paste link: https://www.beano.com/posts/the-ultimate-disney-quiz )
It was now lunch and you pulled Rosetta along.
"Let's go check on Epiphany." You say. She agrees and guys go down the stairs, walking through a crowd of elite Vampire students. How did I get here? You wonder to yourself.
There at your locker you see Epiphany at hers, looking into it. When you walk over she looks away from her mirror and smiles.
"Hey guys." She greets.
"Hey, how are you doing?" Rosetta asks. She lifts her shoulder up then down.
"Hmmm... he hasn't spoken to me since..." She says with a sigh. You looked down sadly.
"Really, he hasn't?" You ask.
"Nope." She frowns and closes her locker.
"Well that's not your problem, you go on with your life cause you don't need him for happiness." Rosetta puffs annoyed. You smile to her and you can see Epiphany is about to, what stops her is the noises coming up behind her. She turned around to see Alex looking down at her. Both you and Rosetta raised your eyebrow to him in a judging way.
"Alex?" She questioned looking up at him.
"E-Epiphany." He stuttered. You could see his eyes got glassy again. You were so confused.
"Alex what's wrong? Are you okay?" She questioned with a confused look on her face. She wore that tight knee length brown skirt again. You and Rosetta were silently watching.
"I'm... I'm great." He smiled wobbly. She made a confused face.
"I really need to tell you something. In fact, come with me. Duke and Angelina are part of this too." He said, and for the first time glanced to you and Rosetta.
"They can come too if they want." Epiphany turns around to look at you guys to see your answer. You look at Rosetta than you two nod.
"Alright then. Take us to them." Epiphany says and starts following behind the boy with messy dark brown hair and a lip stud. You get to an empty room that was once a classroom. The side wall is almost entirely windows, looking out to the birch trees of the courtyard. Duke and Angelina are already there, Dukes silver hair glowing in the window light. You walk in feeling nervous, as the atmosphere is thick. Why do I have such a bad feeling? What could it be? You wondered. Alex sat down at a desk, elbows on it, cheek resting in his palms.
"Oh, decided to bring them along too?" Duke said looking at you and Rosetta.
"You could tell them what you tell me." Epiphany says. The three of you sit down next to each other and Duke and Angelina come closer.
"Alright Epiphany, I don't know how big of a shock this is going to come to you. I heard you had an accident not too long ago?" Angelina asked. Epiphany nodded.
"Yeah, I did." She says. You remember the scars you saw on her body.
"And you don't remember much before it?" Duke questions.
"Nothing at all, really." She says. You felt like you were watching your friend be interrogated by high class detectives. You were aching to find out what the meaning of this was.
"Okay well, we'll start off with Hemo Academy..." Angelina says, sitting on the desk leaning sideways.
"Epiphany, you are attending a school created for... Vampires." Angelina says. Epiphany is silent, so is everyone else.
"What?..." She questions, kind of laughing.
"You're kidding, right?" She asks and looks around.
"We're not." Duke says. She widens her eyes and looks to you. You nod silently, and she just looks down at her hands.
"Epiphany, Hemo Academy was originally created for one purpose: educating those who had turned into Vampires. Only recently they opened their doors to humans as well." She said.
"However... that wouldn't...." She cut herself off and looked to Alex. Angelina had a desperate face and you saw that Alex's eyes were just a little red, like he had cried moments ago. He nodded to her.
"I think you should know that Alex doesn't live with his family. He was sent away long ago when he was too little to remember them." She continued.
"I knew that. He told me." Epiphany said looking to her then to him.
"Here's where my part comes in. Actually, Scarlett's part too." Duke looked up and made eye contact with you. You widened your eyes and stood up.
"What?" You questioned. Epiphany looked to you.
"Scarlett?" She said. Your heart was beating quick.
"I don't know what he's talking about." You said quickly and Rosetta pulled you back down.
"Shhh, don't worry Scarlett, I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong." She said.
"Rosetta's right, more like, you lead us to the truth." Duke said looking at you three. You gave him probably the most confused expression you've ever done in your life.
"You know that day when you bumped into me and I broke my watch? The one I hung right here?" He pointed to his hip. You nodded your head remembering that stressful time.
"Good good. Well I told you that it was my grandfathers and that I would return it." Epiphany looked dazed with confusion.
"So I did, and while I was there I happened to find a bunch of other cool things he collects. Including that stone I showed you yesterday." He explained. You could tell everyone in the room was envisioning the beautiful blood-red crystal.
"He told me a little about the crystal while putting away the broken watch. Said it was called the Veracity blood heart." He continued. Veracity blood heart... You repeated in your head.
"He also said it belonged to a Candor tribe." He announced. Everyone was silent. Rosetta looked at you and blinked twice. Duke squinted his eyes at everyone looking annoyed.
"By your silence I'm assuming you have no idea what I'm talking about?" He questioned.
"No." Rosetta said.
"Well, for your information then, the Candor tribes were people who were aware that beings like us existed, and they were always trying to supervise the vampires every move. They made many gadgets with dark magic and apparently this crystal is one of them." He pulled it up again. Epiphany was leaning in, face expression still stung with shock.
"So I had to see if it was true or not, and when I looked into this stone I was shocked to see Angelina's secret." He said looking to her. Angelina exhaled, closing her eyes.
"My secret... heh..." She let out a pained laughed. You looked at her concerned.
"I'll have to end up saying it sooner or later because it's all connected, so might as well say it now..." She rubbed her temple than she looked to Alex.
"Go on, I'm not hurt by it, I told you that." He said. You were so confused. Alex knew her secret already?? You just couldn't comprehend what was happening.
"Well... when I was seven I was bitten by a full-blood Vampire..." She said. Epiphany had her mouth hanging down the entire time.
"And when you're freshly turned... your blood lust is the highest it will ever be... so I naturally bit the first person I could see. It happened to be Alex... When he was six. His cries were enough to break my dead heart... and I found that I was haunted by the moment forever after more. I went through withdrawal, I couldn't look at myself, or I felt sick. It all caved in on me... during my middle school days I suffered the most. Memories haunting me."

"...Since that day I've known that I would never hurt a living being again. When I went into this school I knew that it was open to humans. I pledged to protect as many souls as I could." She explained.
All three of you were shocked. So that's why she's so tough... You thought to yourself.
"She did well," Duke started. "didn't you? You even managed to keep me under control." He smiled. She rolled her eyes to him laughing a bit.
"Heh, whatever." She said and you saw that Alex was amused by the duo.
"Well, either way, that year the middle schoolers were coming for the open house, and I was volunteering for the event. That's when I saw Alex, all grown up. I recognized him instantly. When he came to the school I gathered all my courage up to talk to him. I was in grade ten then, him nine. We made up and ever since then he's like my own son to me." She said and smiled to him. You couldn't help but smile as well.
"Aw..." Epiphany said quietly.
"But Epiphany, he's not my son." Angelina looked directly to her now.
"Here's what we couldn't understand. When we first met you... We couldn't tell if you were human or not..." She said referencing to your pink haired friend. Rosetta suddenly looked like she understood everything. Epiphany looked like she was in denial with what Angelina was intending.
"So we looked at you through the stone." Angelina said.
"And you were able to find something out about me?..." Epiphany faced what was coming. Not even she knew the truth about herself. Angelina nodded.
"Yes... when I bit Alex there was another person there. A woman with long brow hair in a gothic black dress... She also had bangs..." Angelina said.
"That day Alex was..." Angelina looked to Alex. He nodded and took a breath in. It was the first time he shared his story himself.
"That day I was... meeting someone for the first time... and when we looked at you through the stone... it showed us so much more than we wanted to know... it showed me that you were that lady that I was meeting. And on that day I was meeting... my mother." His voice let out and it was silent. You could hear everything. You could hear your own heart beat.
"What?..." Epiphany whispered, looking down at the ground.
"Alex..." She looked up and you realized that she was crying, it made you want to cry.
Suddenly she ran to him and wrapped him in her big embrace, rubbing his back. You could hear that they were both crying as they hugged and it brought tears to your eyes, and Angelina's. You were shocked at the news you just heard.
"Alex," Epiphany pulled away from him and looked up at him in the eyes.
"There was always something I felt deeper for you... It felt platonic... I knew it was something... I knew..!" She said and Alex brought his head down, trying to hide his tears as he cried into her shoulder. Now that you really looked at them, hugging and crying, you saw the resemblance between them even more.
"How?..." You could only utter that one word.
"Epiphany... you were knocked out right after that. I wasn't the only Vampire there when I bit Alex. One of the others had really beaten you... after that a man found you and took you away, and Alex's guardian shoed the rest of us away too. I believe... that was the big accident you had... a Vampire attack..." Angelina said, trying to hold back tears. Epiphany looked at her from Alex, then back to Alex.
"I can... remember it... just a little... this must be why our bond was so strong. It really was love at first sight... The same love that a mother feels for her baby the first time she sees him in the hospital..." She cupped his face. After a long moment of silence and crying Rosetta spoke up.
"There's still so many unsolved things... We still don't know the full story. Like how are you a grade younger than your own son? How did you get to Hemo Academy? And we still don't know if you're a Vampire or not..." Rosetta said confused. Epiphany pulled away from Alex and gave Rosetta a smile. She looked exhausted and relieved and happy and done at the same time.
"Don't worry Rosetta, I'll be sure to ask my father all about it when I get home. In fact, I'm going to skip my afternoon classes... Obviously I'm older than I think." She laughs in a sniffly kind of way.
"Sounds great." Duke said with a small smile on his face.

(Go to the chapter called 'Final'. )