Saturday. 1AM.

The faint light from the monitors in the security office illuminated a freckled face. Hazel eyes stared at the screen, worried. Live footage from security cameras around the Mansion stared back.

Kaitlyn had plans, and she had gone too far for them all to come crashing down now. Everything relied on what she was doing now. She needed to figure out how to delete security recordings, or she’d get caught the day after she tried to do almost anything else worthwhile. But so far, she couldn’t figure it out.

The redhead spun around twice in the security office’s swivel chair, her legs dangling above the floor. It had all been so easy, up to this point. There wasn’t anyone hanging around in the office at night, and Kaitlyn was able to sneak down there and take care of the lock without any trouble at all. But now that she was in there, she had no idea what she was doing.

Stupid program. Stupid video feeds. The more things she clicked, and the more menus she explored, the less she knew about how to use it. How did they even manage to make this thing so compli

Wait, hold up.

A small silhouette moved across one of the video feeds. The video quality and the lighting were both terrible, but she could tell that it was something. And it was going to be entering the Mansion in a matter of seconds. Through the entrance right next to the open door to the Security office, which Kaitlyn forgot to close.

She tried…tried soo hard…but she couldn’t hold out. Victoria had run out of her blood packs and had gone a day and a half already without feeding. Her insides felt like they were on fire. It hurt so much, but she couldn’t feed on anyone in the mansion. Some were her friends and this was a good place for her. They would probably kick her out if she attacked someone there…but she had to feed.

Sneaking out into the night Victoria ran as fast as she could towards the city. She had seen the other mansions in the area, but didn’t think it would be good to feed so close to her school and home. So she would wander the city streets looking for her meal.

The night was rather cool so the blonde girl had grabbed a coat to keep her warm while she was out. Cars and people passed her by without making any hint of noticing her. In the night her red eyes might get mistaken for brown unless light shown into them. So it was possible the people passing her just thought she was a normal girl. All the while she was looking for a possible food source.

While walking the streets Victoria would occasionally walk down side alleys between buildings. The hope was to find someone alone and away from public view. She wished she didn’t have to feed this way. It made her feel horrible any time she had to do it, but ultimately she had to do it. She didn’t want to die nor did she want to break her parent’s hearts. So it was an emotional and mental struggle that ALWAYS lost to her hunger.

Half way down an alley a service door opened and nearly scared the bejeezus out of the girl. She spun to look what was happening and saw a guy walking out with some trash bags. He immediately saw the girl standing in the middle of the alley. “Hey there.” Victoria raised her right hand a little with a slight wave. “Hi.” After tossing the trash in a dumpster the man walked over to the little girl. Kneeling down to be eye level he looked her over. “Are you ok?” Victoria shook her head slightly and started to sob. Feeling bad the man gently placed a hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her while looking down both directions of the alley. “Where are your…” The question ended with a yell as Victoria lunged forward and bit hard into his neck.

Once she had taken her fill of the man’s blood Victoria quickly started running back for the mansion. She tried to wipe the blood from her face but mostly managed to smear a good portion of it instead. Blood had also gotten onto her coat as feeding was never a very clean experience.

Getting closer to the mansion the bloodied blonde started looking for a way in without going through the front door. She moved around the perimeter of the building until an open door was spotted. Now she just had to get inside and quickly get to her room.

Pomf!

A small shockwave shot through the office, blowing papers to the floor and knocking over monitors.

Kaitlyn didn’t care. The redhead stared at the blood-covered blonde who just ran into the room. She jumped out of her swivel chair and held her hands out towards the blonde, palms open, ready to blast her. But Kaitlyn recognized this girl.

“…Victoria? What are you doing here?” she demanded, her voice shaking. That blood was starting to freak her out. It didn’t help that Victoria was blocking the room’s only exit, and she’d just caught Kaitlyn doing something she shouldn’t.

Stepping in through the doorway a small explosion sounded off which caught Victoria off guard. It snapped her out of her mind’s eye of getting to her room as there was someone standing in front of her. Papers were settling from being abruptly disturbed, but the look on the person’s face would be forever burned into the blonde girl’s mind. It was a look of surprise and fear all at once, and the look was worn by the redhead named Kaitlyn.

“I…umm…” How was she going to explain herself? She could try to lie, but she wasn’t a very good liar. She was done for. At least that was her initial thought until she looked passed the other girl at the monitors and why were her hands up and directed in Victoria’s direction? “Wait, what are you doing here Kait?”

“I… uh…”

…Crap. If Kaitlyn deflected the question, it would be the same thing as admitting that she was doing something wrong. She cleared her throat.

“I was… I was watching the security cameras.” Technically true. “This place can be dangerous, and no one else was watching them.” Also true. Deciding that Victoria probably wouldn’t attack her, she returned the nearest computer monitor to an upright position. It wasn’t broken, and it was still showing live footage from security cameras on the Mansion grounds. She looked at Victoria. “They recorded you running around all covered in blood, by the way. What’s that about?”

Kaitlyn was curious, but she didn’t care about getting the truth as much as keeping Victoria from telling on her.

Victoria was trying to turn the subject to Kait and off herself. How would she explain her appearance? If she could make the subject go to something else maybe she won’t have to. Then she could get herself cleaned up before anyone else would see her.

Kait’s explanation actually sounded…real. Victoria didn’t know how long the redhead had been at the mansion. Maybe she had an ability that was found to be useful with the cameras. OR…maybe she was just watching while whoever was supposed to be there went to the bathroom.

Then she thought of something. Kait was around her own age. Why wasn’t there an adult if these were security cameras? “Hey…wait…where’s the adult who should be here?”

Victoria couldn’t ask another question before it was mentioned that a camera has spotted her running around covered in blood. The feeling of dread set in on her again. To make it worse Kait asked why she had blood all over. The blonde girl started to cry and placed her bloody hands over her face and dropped to her knees.

After a moment she looked up at Kait and pleaded with tear filled red eyes. “Please don’t tell on me. I don’t want to get kicked out from here. I like it here.”

Wow.

Kaitlyn knew how to use her status as a little girl to her advantage, how to use crying to make people do what she wanted. But she never really appreciated how seeing a crying kid would make an adult feel, until now. Part of her wanted to just kneel down and give Victoria a hug, whisper in her ear that everything would be okay.

She might have actually done it, too, if Victoria wasn’t covered in blood.

“Alright, calm down. I won’t tell.” She smiled reassuringly, and moved to close the door behind Victoria. She didn’t want anyone else barging in. “And I don’t think anyone else’ll find out, unless you left something that’d make someone wanna check the cameras. Nobody watches them most of the time.”

Kaitlyn could appreciate the value of keeping a secret from the Mansion. She considered offering a hand to help Victoria up, then thought better of it. Didn’t want to get blood on her hands and spread it around the office. That’d be a big red flag for Mansion Security.

“But ya mind telling me what you did? I’ve prolly kept worse secrets, whatever it is.”

Sniffling Victoria tried to gather herself up. It would be nice to have Kait as a friend if she would look out for Victoria like this. “You’d really do that for me?” Then thinking for a moment. “You said you saw me on the camera, but you also said no one watches these. So why are you here then Kait?”

Victoria was going to do her best to avoid telling what happened. Besides, she was still curious as to why Kait was there in the first place.

“Well… it’s because nobody’s watching them.” Kaitlyn answered with more confidence than the last time. She had this lie figured out. “Like I said, this place can be dangerous. It’s kinda stupid that nobody else is keeping watch. And if I’m breaking a rule by doing that, it’s a stupid rule. So.”

She sat back down in her swivel chair, spun around once, and looked at Victoria. “What about you?”

Again Victoria thought Kaitlyn’s answer sounded reasonable. She really didn’t know enough about the mansion or who did what. If the red haired girl was watching the camera’s because no one else was then maybe she was doing something she though was right, but there was still a strange uneasy feeling tugging at Victoria. It just didn’t make sense to not have an adult here.

Now the focus was back on the blood covered girl once more. Should she tell Kait what really happened? Victoria wasn’t very good at lying as she never really had to do it much at home. Kait did say she wouldn’t tell anyone and if Victoria needed a close friend it was probably right about now.

Taking a deep breath she looked at the floor for a moment and then turned her red eyes up to Kait. “Something bad happened and now someone is no longer alive.”

“Alright.” Kaitlyn shrugged, unimpressed. She already guessed that much, and murder by itself just didn’t phase the Orderling anymore. She’d need to know more before she even knew how to react.

“Did they deserve it?” That was the first question to ask. And probably the most important, in Kaitlyn’s book. No sense in feeling bad if they deserved it.

Victoria never really thought of that question. Had that man deserved to be her meal? Did he do anything bad or was he mean to her? He didn’t even hurt an animal during the time she saw him.

“Probably not. I jus…” She stopped herself. The rest of the sentence still lingered on the tip of her tongue.

Kaitlyn gave her an inquisitive look. So they didn’t deserve it, but Victoria just…?

When it became clear that Victoria didn’t plan on finishing that sentence, the Orderling moved on to another question. “Okay. Did you lose control of your mutation or something? ‘Cause I did that a couple years ago. Killed eight people on accident. Everyone thought it was a terror attack.” The redhead almost sounded like she was bragging, as if having a terrible mutation gave her a reason to brag.

Fidgeting at the new question the blonde girl thought about it for a moment. “Yeah…I guess you could say that.” It wasn’t a lie. Her need to consume blood was tied to her mutation, and since it was her hunger that drove her that must be the answer. However, it just didn’t really sound totally right. Maybe she needed to trust Kait and tell her the part about herself that no one else at the mansion knew. “I was just soo hungry…I had to feed.”

Blank stare.

“You got hungry, so you just ran off and ate someone?” Kaitlyn thought that she’d heard it all, that she’d be able to go through this entire conversation without batting an eyelash. She hadn’t considered the possibility that Victoria was actually just completely insane. “Couldn’t you, like, eat something that wasn’t a person?”