As Cadere finished doing his rounds and checking up on the boys, Belmont having finally returned, Roman stood in his room. An obsessive desire began to grow inside him, not for the first time this week.

The only sound came from the forest nightlife, and the only light came from the glowing orbs paving the way across the castle through Roman's bedroom window.

Fire... light... maybe that was the solution.

Roman gritted his teeth and pulled out the handkerchief from y/n. A sparse patch of crimson bled through the tissue.

After doing his best to clean up Bel's mess, Roman was appalled. Cruel even. And certainly not understanding. Belmont had been one of them for a long enough time- and had Cadere to teach him. He didn't understand how one stupid girl could drive him to attack in broad daylight.

But after that, he understood.

Roman growled and lifted the handkerchief above the flame rising from his palm. The fire reflected in his burning eyes- but... he couldn't.

The redhead scrunched it up and threw it at the wall, leaving a small mark. Roman sat on his bed angrily and pretended that he was fine. If he couldn't see the blood, there wasn't any.

But he could smell it. And more predominantly, he could taste it. There was nothing in all his years on this Earth like it. Y/n had become more of a temptation than he'd let his primitive side admit. And for some reason, gazing at the handkerchief on the floor, Roman didn't like the idea of anyone else having her.

The night student slowly paced towards the source of his anxiety, and picked it up. And without hesitating, he took her scent in, invisioning her blood down his throat.
~

"Don't touch my neck!" You yelled at Theodore.

Tickling was not something you tolerated- especially not in the dark; from behind, in front of a scary castle.

"Sorry," the red haired boy laughed with a shrug.

"So this is our brave and noble night patrol," a familiar voice said from behind you.

You and Simone nearly jumped, but when you turned around, you saw Cadere. For a moment you didn't recognize him- which was previously thought to be an impossible feat. He always wore the same dark clothes and long black cloak. But he didn't have his hat on.

For the first time, even in the dark, you were getting a glimpse of Cadere's face. And it was nowhere near as terrifying as you expected.

Instead, he had surprisingly soft eyes, that seemed an unreal violet in the darkness. His hair was slick, blonde, and young looking. The way he carried himself and spoke always led you to believe he was much older, and more threatening- but he didn't seem much older than your homeroom teacher.

Who hurried up behind him with her arms folded.

"You hired a brave night patrol, you got it." Saluted Theodore. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

"With the time you've spent trying to talk to students here, that doesn't surprise me." Cadere remarked. He looked so different without the hat shielding his eyes.

"This is Eleanor, Simone, y/n- you know Theodore." Sylabil introduced you.

Cadere's eyed scanned the four of you, analyzing. For some reason, he was scariest when he was silent. You took back what you thought before- at least with his hat on you couldn't see his eyes.

"Yes, I remember you." He said after a moment. "The others should be here soon."

After a few minutes of the bell in the clock tower summoning curfew, four other students arrived at the end of the bridge. Sylabil introduced them, but everyone got a bit distracted when Dimitri stepped outside.

Of the four other students, three of them were girls- and you could tell by the way they were batting their eyelashes- very excited to see Dimitri.

"Cadere- a word?" He asked the night class teacher. "Hi Sylabil, y/n."

When Dimitri greeted you, you could practically feel the other girls' glares burning a hole in the back of your head.

You could tell Cadere was irritated to say the least at being interrupted, but he nodded to Sylabil and disappeared inside with Dimitri.

"Alright," Sylabil sighed. "Thank you all for being here. Patrolling the castle grounds is a job we take very seriously, and as we ensure safety during the day, we must also ensure safety at night."

Most of your group was paying close attention. Except for Theodore, who had heard the speech before and was presumably eager to get to the action.

"While the night students are studying, you have a three hour patrol to start off, and in the morning, you get extra time to sleep in. As well as leaving your last class half an hour early on certain days as I'm sure you know-" Explained Sylabil. Her eyes found yours and Eleanor's. "Tonight is the first night for some of you, so try not to worry too much. For now we'll give you a brief tour, and you'll be on your way."

The massive doors to the night class dorms opened and Cadere gestured for everyone to enter inside.

Unlike the day class dorms, filled with warmth and light, even at this hour, the night class interior seemed to catch the darkness and hold onto it. The building looked older too, in an elegant way. A chandelier glittered atop the ceiling, illuminating the space as best as it could, while spiral staircases led upstairs, and several beautiful doors begged to be opened.

As the group filed into the main room, you recognized it as their common room. You weren't the first one inside, but when you got to the front, you saw a fireplace, bookshelves, regal sofas, and a certain white-haired bookworm invested in Pride and Prejudice.

"This is the common room," gestured Cadere. "Our night students tend to pass their time here when they're not in class."

Lucian leaned away from his book, probably feeling like an exhibit at a museum the way everyone was staring at him. While Cadere was talking, you smiled at your friend and Lucian gave a small wave.

"He waved at me, did you see that?!" One of the girls whispered excitedly to the other.

"No, Ree, he was waving at me." She whispered back.

"And the boys have their own recreational space as do the girls," said Cadere. "The boys reside in their own rooms while the girls do in theirs. Each room is private to that student and isn't to be entered except for occasional inspection."

Without waiting or asking if anyone had any questions, Cadere strolled away. The rest of the group followed like sheep, except for the two girls, who seemed eager to stare at Lucian for a few seconds longer.

Going down the hallway, you saw that the building connected via several enclosed bridges to other smaller buildings, over the lake. This was not visible from your dorm, or the plaza.

"These buildings are for classroom endeavors, they're all relatively simple, we won't be going in them," said Cadere. "But our biggest classroom is right over here."

You entered the classroom with your new night patrol, and were surprised at the size. A podium and desk setup was at the front, followed by many desks (but fewer than your class) and a lecture style interior. This room had a few large windows overlooking the lake, but was extremely dark aside from the candles illuminating the walls.

What interested you more than the classroom itself were the few students inside.

At the back of the room, sat a girl with white hair that rivaled Lucian's. A messy bun kept it in place, while she boredly gazed up to see what was happening. The girl had an effortless beauty- much like the other night students you had encountered.
And while the males wore a dark uniform, the females wore something similar, with a black jacket, white blouse, black skirt, and black bow in front.

In the middle of the room, sat two other girls. One had amazingly long pigtails- green ribbons securing her chocolate brown hair into place. She was laughing loudly about something with the girl next to her, a taller night student with shoulder length blue hair.

Dimitri sat near the front, writing something down.

"This is the room where I am likely to be in most, if not in the office we passed on the way here," Explained Cadere. "There are only nine students in the night class at this present time."

"I only see four," one of the boys muttered to the other. The other one chuckled.

"The clock is about to strike 9, meaning class will begin." Cadere said, making his way to the podium. "You are not to disrupt me unless it's urgent."

"I'll split you up and assign you your locations-" said Sylabi slowly. She was scanning through a clipboard as another night student entered the class. Avery waved flirtatiously at your group, taking his time.

"Ladies," he greeted, before galavanting over to the middle of the room and sitting with the girls. The blue-haired one seemed particularly annoyed.

You felt bad, a slight grin coming on. You got to experience Avery for a little bit during the day, on occasion, but these girls had to deal with him all the time.

Sylabil gestured for your group to follow her into the hallway. She split you into four pairs of two. You were lucky enough to get paired with Eleanor. You could tell he was relieved too.

Simone got paired up with the other boy, Theodore with one of the flirty girls, and the final two girls were together. You basically had shifts to follow- you would patrol the interior or exterior, depending on your schedule.

Simone seemed reluctant to go with the guy she was with, but eager to get it over with. You gave her an apologetic look as she made her way down the hall. "We're here to do work, capeche?" You heard her say in the distance.

Sylabil wished you luck and said she was going back to the teacher's building to do work.

"If you're marking the English assignments, just remember I'm doing extra work Sylabil!" Theo hollered at her as she disappeared into the night.

You and Eleanor slowly said goodbye to your group, Theodore more than happy to patrol the girl's side of the dorm.

"The first night will be different," Eleanor told you. "When Maurice did this, he said most of the time he was outside."

You looked around the room you'd entered- the common room. Lucian was no longer in it.

"Hey y/n." Belmont greeted you happily. A sly grin lit up his features as he descended the stairs.

"Hi Bel," you said to him.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" You asked him, noticing a familiar mess of orange hair emerge from the corner behind Bel.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" Roman asked sarcastically.

You put your hands on your hips.

"I'm just doing my job," you said proudly. "We could get you in trouble, you know."

Roman rolled his eyes.
"Yeah okay hall monitor."

"He's always grumpy," Belmont winked to you and Eleanor.

"BEL." Roman said, walking towards the hallway leading to class.

"Coming....jeez mom." Bel said with a playful sigh. "See you around."

You looked at Eleanor, who seemed amused by the boys' antics.

"Let's go stake it out," he said.

Stepping into the cool night air once again almost made you miss the dark calamity of the night dorm interior. At least being inside- although a bit nerve-wracking- provided some sense of security.

You and Eleanor paced around the back of the night dorm, the lake absolutely stunning and seemingly endless. You had no idea the property was this big. The rest of it was absolutely covered in forest. You could only imagine what was living inside it.

"It's kind of spooky, isn't it?" Eleanor said, pushing up his glasses.

You nodded.

"I don't know if you noticed, but Simone's injury on her neck looked really similar to Sophia's when we visited her in the hospital." He said, looking out at the water.

Your eyes widened as you turned to him. This conversation came out of nowhere.

"What?" You muttered. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Eleanor began, "Before we walked over here, and you were getting ready, Theodore tickled Simone the same way he tried with you... and her bandage came off."

An owl flew overhead, disrupting the relative quiet of the night.

"She was livid,' Eleanor said, shaking his head. "I have never seen anyone that mad over an injury in my entire life- but even though it was almost perfectly healed..." Eleanor gestured to his neck,

"two bite marks."

"So... you think that whatever attacked Sophia, also attacked... Simone?" You thought out loud.

Eleanor shrugged.

"But Simone said she fell up the stairs." You reminded him.

"And you said you saw Simone that morning even though she said she didn't get her uniform until after falling down." He said, his glasses hiding his expression.

He was right- but nobody believed you when you said you saw Simone that morning.

"I don't know Eleanor, there's a lot of things we can't always explain," you told him with a sigh. "And everyone told me I was probably just seeing things."

"I've had a lot of time to think about things," Eleanor said, his voice more serious than you'd ever heard. "I've been wondering if there is something else at play here that we haven't considered."

"Like what?" You asked.

Eleanor looked down at you, then back at the lake.

"I don't know." He said quietly. "Let's patrol."

And then he slowly began to walk away.

Something else at play? What could he mean? Okay- sure- there was a thing or two- alright, more than a thing or two that didn't make complete sense... but there's a solution for everything... right?

Your mind wandered back to Simone's unforgettable black hair as she disappeared around the corner. Avery seemingly vanishing after a group of girls caught him in their sights. You remember passing out in the underground lair, and waking up in your warm bed after having the most fun dream.

But maybe Eleanor was right.

Whoever was responsible... what else could Cadere have meant in the hospital that day? It didn't sound like he was talking about a wild animal...

And you injuring your hand and it healing without a scratch and you falling from the tree and Belmont catching you and the unconscious body of a first year-

What did it all mean?

You were lost in time for a moment. Your hair was the only thing along with the rustle of trees moving in the night.

Which was worrisome because when you snapped out of your thoughts, Eleanor was gone. Did he leave you? Were you just that distracted? Add that to the list of questions you didn't have the answers to.

"Mind if I join you?"

~
Thank you infinitely for reading ♡ Publishing this at 4:00am. The story is picking up the pace, hope you're stoked as I am! I wanted to write more but it's already extremely late (I don't for you) and this chapter is already long.

Which character are you most like so far and why? Curious question of the day. I'll comment my answer too when I wake up, haha!

Thank you all for commenting, favoriting, following, adding it to your virtual shelf... it means the world! Actually I wrote this chapter because of how much you inspired me. Thank you! Nobody I'd rather sacrifice sleep for than you guys.

Stay safe, all the love in the world,
~ Fanfunctional ♡