The Rock's of Beauty by Meghan Escott (books for new readers TXT) 📕

me and my stomach was hurting.
“Her turner bracelet. Get it off of her; that’s what’s killing her not the bite.” A voice said beside me.
“She’s been bitten?” A new voice shouted from across the room I was in.
“Yes but that’s not what killed her.” Another new voice said beside me, moving me onto a flat, hard and cold surface.
“But wouldn’t we have felt it if she died? I mean, she is our turner.” A girl said reasonably. “We didn’t feel anything that strong. To be honest, we didn’t feel anything at all.”
“She’s not dead. She can’t be. I would have felt it.” The shouter said, almost to himself.
“Look at her. Her body’s been drained of blood and even her tattoo’s are disappearing.” The first voice beside me said. I could feel someone touching me. He or she had freezing cold hands.
Then there was silence.
There was a sound of crying from some girls and murmuring from the shouter and I could hear him pacing.
“She’s not dead. She’s taking on the transformation.” Voice two said to everyone. “She’s turning back into a human.”
“See. I can turn her again and it’ll be like none of this ever happened.” The shouter said with hope in his voice.
“That’s our best hope for her. Josh, you need to give her blood so she will make it through the turn and then Sam. You need to turn her immediately when she is stable. Quickly Josh otherwise she’ll complete the transformation.” Voice two said sounding urgent and worried.
I wondered what was happening to me that was so bad.
Suddenly another person was next to me and they had a cut somewhere on them and it was leaking blood. It got shoved into my mouth as someone massaged my throat. It was so much easier to swallow. Someone else healed the bite on my neck and started to stroke my hair.
The blood going into my mouth stopped but seconds later the cut had been re-opened and more blood was been poured into my mouth.
“Stop now.” Voice two said quietly and the blood stopped going into my mouth.
Something was placed on my cheek, something like a bracelet. My cheek started to go numb and I heard sighs of relief when my cheek started to go numb. Obviously this was a good sign.
Minutes later the bracelet was taken off my cheek and I heard some muttering next to me and sizzling of pain all over my body. Something was happening to me but since it wasn’t stopping any time soon I guessed it was good thing.
The muttering stopped and the sizzling pain continued for only seconds after and then stopped too. I physically relaxed and then a wrist was shoved into my mouth with blood dripping from it. I started to suck on it immediately and I heard lots of sighs again.
Memories started to come back. Tristan. Aaliyah. Dance. The Head. Eric. Kahn. Turning 19. Sam. New School. Earthquake. Joshua. Aunts Torture. Parents Death. Being Turned.
All of these seemed like physical images swirling in the air around my head and one by one, they all got pulled inside as did I. Piece by piece. I sucked in some breath and screamed.
Josh breathed out a breath that he obviously didn’t know he’d been holding and sat down heavily on the steps up to the top table. Sam moved his wrist and pulled me into a hug while he whipped away his tears.
“Get off me. What’s going on? Where’s Tristan?”I said in a girly voice. Sam turned to face me and looked at me funny. “I’m going to kill him for killing me.” I said directing all my anger at Tristan.
“You remember what happened?” Josh said instead of Sam who was still looking at me funny.
“Yes, he came to my room and said that if I didn’t kill him then he would kill all of my people in turn until I did. He asked me to kill him there and then and I tried but I didn’t have enough blood in me to do it. Damn it, why didn’t I have some of his blood?” I said referring to Sam.
“Do you still love me Lucy?” Sam said randomly, walking over to me now I was sat up. I started randomly playing with my hair which felt different.
“Course I do silly.” I said to Sam getting up and putting my hands on his neck and pulling him into a kiss. People started clapping including The Head.
Sam pulled away from my kiss and looked at me again.
“Why are you just staring at me like that?” I asked Sam in a voice I didn’t recognise as my own.
“Have you looked in a mirror to see how different you look now?” He asked. I shook my head just when Angela gave me a mirror.
I took the mirror from Angela and looked into it, expecting to see the same girl I always saw when I looked in the mirror. But instead, I saw lots of blonde, wavy hair, big blue eyes and perfect complexion. I looked from Sam, who was looking at me with wide eyes, to Angela who was fiddling with her own hair to Josh who was smiling softly at me. I smiled back at him then turned on The Head.
“What the hell have you done to me?” I asked him in new voice that surprised me.
“Turned you back into a Vampire instead of letting one of our finest turn into a human all because of Tristan.” The Head said back to me.
“I worked that out but why am I different?”
“We’ve put a spell on you to disguise you from him. You’re the one in most danger so we have to protect you. Now, go to your people while I explain why we’re all here.”
I did what The Head said and went to my people in the silence. Everyone was staring at me and Josh came up to hug me. “I’m so glad you’re al right” Was all he whispered in my ear then turned away from me and went back to his turner. I went over to my people and they all smiled at me. I smiled back and was about to say something when The Head started speaking.
“I’m sorry that this meeting is all such late notice but we had another attack on one of our students. Lucy Daniels here has been the second in our school to be attacked by one of our own, Tristan. As you all saw, Lucy was nearly killed and Aaliyah, one of Lucy’s was killed only hours ago.”
For the rest of The Heads speech, I zoned out because I already knew everything. I started playing with my new hair and started moving my fingers through it. I found blood at the ends and randomly started plaiting it. I got drawn out of my thoughts by a sharp pain in my back.
Sam had been watching me rather than listening to The Head because he thought he could find out from someone’s head what was going on and he looked generally worried about me. He watched me absent mended plaiting my hair when I suddenly gasped and grimaced in pain.
Sam looked into my head – I could feel him rummaging around in my head - and found out that my tattoo was changing. He looked up to The Head who nodded at him then continued talking. He walked quickly over to me, took my shoulder and took me out of the hall. He took me into an empty classroom and lay me on the floor and locked the doors.
“Lucy. Are you al right?” He asked, walking over to me and kneeling down beside me.
“I don’t know. I know my tattoo’s are changing but the rest of them are moving. It’s like there trying to get off of me and go to someone else.” I was grimacing in pain and letting tears drip down my face. “Ugh. Why didn’t you just let me be human again?” I was shouting at him now and pushing him away.
“I would have gone through all the pain again and so would you. Kahn would lose his mummy and all of your friends would either starve or Tristan would kill them. It’s two a day at the moment unless he strikes again and guaranteed, one of the two is going to be you. You need to prepare for that and start defending the next in line.”
As he was speaking, my tattoos were all moving to my hands and sliding off of my fingertips and into the air. I could see them shimmer for a second before disappearing. While this was happening, my new blue eyes were turning blood red and so was my original tattoo on her cheek. I could feel all of this happening like a running commentary in my head. My teeth were sharpening as well as my nails and I let out a growl at me which made Sam retreat into the corner of the classroom.
The Head then came barging in, took one look at Lucy and clicked his fingers making silver chains come out of his fingers and restrain Lucy.
“What happened?” The Head asked me visibly out of breathe.
“Her tattoo on her back changed then the rest of her tattoos started moving and have vanished. Her eyes started turning red when the tattoos vanished. I have no idea what’s going on now. I can’t get in her head and the silver isn’t even burning her, I doubt if it’s even hurting.” Sam said never taking his eyes off of the growling Lucy.
“This is bad. Really bad. But we can use it for our advantage. Tristan wants to be killed and it has to be Lucy. If we take the disguise off of her, Tristan will recognise her as her. Then we can let her loose and she will bite him and kill him. We can sort out getting her tattoos back later. As long no one else dies.”
“Okay. It’s a plan.”
Chapter Nine

Blood. Blood. Blood. I need blood. I need blood. I need blood. Someone give me blood. Someone please give me some blood.
Once again, I detached from my body and flew up above my body and witnessed the scenes as an innocent bystander which I wished I was. I saw Sam and went into his mind.
I sat with her for the rest of night and just looked at her blood red eyes, envisioning the deep green they used to be and thinking about her thick black hair. Every now and again I would talk to her and say something to her but all she would do is growl at me and snap her teeth at me.
During the day, I slept next to her and woke up every hour on the hour to make sure she was al right I would dream about us together if we were both human. We would be together