Too Close | Rosalie Hale

The world blurred around Lex, the city lights streaking past like angry tears. Her breath hitched, a dry, ragged sound, as she clumbled into her mother's car, the metallic taste of anger thick on her tongue. It was her seventeenth birthday, and Paul, her boyfriend, had just shattered her world into a million pieces. "It's my fucking birthday," she'd seethed, the words raw and laced with disbelief. He hadn't even flinched.

The car sped through the night, a desperate escape from the humiliation and hurt that clung to her like a shroud. Tears, hot and furious, streamed down her face, blurring the already dark road. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, not really. But the dam had broken, and now there was no stopping the torrent.

Then, the flashing lights in her rearview mirror. A cruel, mocking punctuation mark on the worst birthday imaginable. "Damn it," she sniffled, pulling over, her hands shaking on the wheel. This couldn't be happening.

Later, in the chaotic energy of Seattle, still fuming, she stalked through the streets near the concert venue, the tickets for a show she now despised burning a hole in her pocket. She just needed to sell them, get some money, and disappear. As she rounded a dark corner, her body collided with something solid, unyielding. "Oh, crap," she mumbled, looking up into eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. He was pale, impossibly handsome. A charming smile, a velvet voice. And then, a searing pain, a bite that stole her scream, and darkness claimed her.