More Than Meets the Eye

By Megan Kathleen Flaherty

Bethony Jane Collins seemed to have a nearly perfect life until the day she celebrates the end of the school year with her friends. Her world is turned upside down when she is turned into a vampire and has to choose between the love she has discovered for the vampire who bit her and the love she has just taken to a new level with her boyfriend. Both her friends and familys lives are just as threatened as her own is. In the dangerous world of vampires, a power-hungry man makes Bethonys life even tougher. Now, to save everything she knows and loves, Bethony needs to make choices that could affect her whole world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9781469121888

Megan Kathleen Flaherty

Megan Kathleen Flaherty was born on February 15, 1996. She lives in Pennsylvania with her parents and younger sister. She has been writing since before she can remember. Megan participates in an array of different activities. She spends much of her time that is not spent on school, sports, or satisfying her thirst to read and write, on being with her many friends. Megan plans on writing for her whole life.

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Copyright © 2009 by Megan Kathleen Flaherty.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4415-5861-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-2188-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

EPILOGUE

Dedication

For my grandfather who is always with me in my heart.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First to all the wonderful people at Xlibris, thank you. I cherish all the help and patience with my constant questions.

To my mentor, Mitchell Sealtiel and to Valerie Bandeh, I am grateful for the great advice and support you’ve given me.

Thank you to my whole family for being supportive and loving. I love you guys so much. I will be forever thankful. I thank my parents, Michael and Laurie Flaherty, my grandparents, and my little sister, Jenna Flaherty in particular for helping me through all the frustrations and the times where I was about to give up on being an author.

To all my friends who have been there from the beginning, I have to say thanks for everything. You all are great people and you keep me laughing no matter my mood.

Thanks to the best soccer coaches in the world, Ron and Robyn. You two helped me from my second season until now and now I can truly say that I am a soccer player.

I want to give a special thank you to my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Jones. When I still wrote short stories, you read them and gave me confidence. Without you, I would never have even thought the word ‘publication’.

Last, Grandpa, even though you are not here in solid body, I know that you will always be by my side. I want to say thank you for giving me an imagination and loving me. You gave me support, love, and the best childhood any girl could ask for. I miss you so much and I want you to know that I love you. Hey, I’ve finally reached our goal. I am now a published author.

PREFACE

I took Aiden’s hand as we entered the huge stone castle that lay in front of us. An immense room opened up in front of me. A set of stairs filled the right side of the room. Gigantic crimson curtains covered big windows. Beautiful assortments of vibrantly colored flowers in vases were scattered about the room. I took a deep breath of the sugary scent and filled my lungs with it until it hurt to breathe in anymore. It seemed to be a very happy place.

I noticed a man wearing black armor sitting on a magnificent throne and a woman dressed in a gorgeous dress beside him on another. The man in black armor snapped his fingers twice and commanded his knights to escort Aiden and me to the dungeon. The man in black armor watched them take us away through cold, narrowed eyes. Men in suits of armor held my arms and lifted me. The armored men dragged us toward an enormous wooden door. Next to me, Aiden grunted and struggled to be released from the steel girder grip of the knight. The man holding Aiden opened the great wooden door to reveal a large murky torture chamber. As we reached the bottom, the men strapped Aiden and me onto two separate platforms made of steel.

As they clicked the lock on the shackles that held down my wrists and ankles tight against the metal, two more men wearing black ski masks walked in the door with an air that made me think that they believed they were the most important people in the world. They held in their hands something that looked like a dagger and an object that was not at all familiar to me. The people who had strapped us in moved across the room to stand in a dark corner.

Aiden stared at the men who came toward him with terrified eyes. I saw him eyeing the huge muscles that bulged under their tight, black shirts. The really bizarre thing was that, oddly, I was not in the least afraid of either the torture weapons or the fact that I was about to watch the worst thing I would ever see in my life. Even as I watched them start to torment my boyfriend, I was still numb. I did not feel anything at all that I should have felt. While I watched the gruesome pain inflicting Aiden, my Aiden, I heard an earsplitting, bloodcurdling shriek that reverberated off the walls of steel and came back to my ears, hitting me like a train. After a moment, I realized that the sound of pain came from me. Suddenly, I realized that the fright had caught up with me. Finally the situation had clicked in my brain: Aiden is suffering on my account, I am at fault for him finding out, and lastly, he very well might die with me to blame. As I figured this out, a grimace settled itself onto Aiden’s angel face. He let out a cry of pain and squirmed to get out of the iron hold of the torture platform. I saw a stream of warm tears roll down the tanned face of my boyfriend. I felt my own tears fall out of my eyes.

They left him there to suffer and moved onto me. As the men came toward me, grins imprinted on both of their masked faces, I made an attempt to cry out to Aiden, but all that came out were frightened screams. Their dark, evil black eyes were full of amusement; it was like they enjoyed hurting people and watching other’s pain. I truly believed that they would choose to do this their whole life. They came closer, and I let out another screech which made them jump back a few inches in surprise. I felt the cutting agony roll through my whole body as one of them took the bloody dagger and ran it down my wrist, cutting through my skin and into my veins. Hot red blood spilled on my clothes and covered the floor. My sight grew blurry until all I could see were silhouettes. More pain covered me and I felt the knife touch my neck lightly and then slit a little bit into my skin. I screamed again and I heard Aiden cry out my name in sobs.

The scene began to fade now and I woke up in my own room, covered in cold sweat. The sheets were soaked with my sweat and I was gasping and screaming loudly. Across the room, my sister sat up and rushed over to my bed side. Are you okay? What happened to you? Can you hear me? Talk to me! she cried. I sat up to look at my sister. Her eyes were worried and I could see that even in the dark. My brother and step-mother ran in the door. My sister went over to them and whispered something in my mother’s ear. She nodded and took my little brother back out the door. My sister shut it after they were gone down the hallway.

I lie back down and put my hand to my forehead. It was hot and wet. What did you dream about? she asked me. I shook my head and closed my eyes. Pictures of the dream came back to me and I forced my eyes to open again. I held my breath, and when I could not hold it anymore, I let it out in a sigh. I don’t, uh, can’t remember. Sorry I woke you up. I will be fine. Go back to bed. I lied, speaking for the first time. My sister looked skeptical, but did as I said. You should change into new pajamas and get new sheets. She suggested before lying back down on her bed and falling asleep again.

I got up and replaced my sheets and changed into shorts and a tank top in the bathroom. Staring in the mirror, I looked at my neck and arm, where I had been cut in the dream. I shook my head, as if to shake the bad images away, and turned the sink on. I splashed water on my face and rubbed water on my neck and arms. I turned off the light and went back to bed.

Pulling the blanket up to my chin, I tried to think of happy thoughts. I glanced at the glowing red numbers on my alarm clock, it read: 2:36 a.m. I groaned and rolled onto my side, waiting for sleep to find me. Every shadow, every sound, and every object in my room and outside seemed like it was something that was going to jump out and get me. I shed a few tears and stared up at the ceiling. I do not know how long it took for me to fall back into unconsciousness, but it eventually consumed me. I slept dreamlessly for the rest of the night.

1

Plans

I rolled onto my side and moaned as my bothersome alarm clock screeched loudly in my ear from where it sat on the bedside table. I slapped the snooze button, pushed the switch with my finger so that it would not go off again, and flipped onto my belly. Across the room from me, my sister, Shayna stirred in her bed. I laid there for a while. Bright sunlight poured into the room from the open window. A gentle wind blew through it, carrying the sweet smell of the roses which were planted beneath our second story room. I did not want to smell flowers; it reminded me of the nightmare.

I kicked the blanket off of my body and rolled back onto my side. I took a deep breath and held it. After a while, I let it out and laughed quietly. The pure happy feeling that such small laughs made me feel good and safe. Very often I did not feel safe. I felt something was coming for me lately. I focused on Shayna’s voice. It sounded so different from mine. People thought that just because we were twins, it meant that our voices would sound exactly the same. Sometimes we both would love to scream that fraternal twins do not even look exactly the same. My sister was talking in her sleep again—well, actually it was a lot more like screaming really.

Tim! she cried, No, please don’t go anywhere near her. She is so stupid! Hailey is trying to steal you back. She is trying to take you away from me again. I laughed silently again.

Tim Connors had just broken up with his girlfriend a few months ago. Her name was Hailey Summers. He had dumped her just to ask out my sister. She had without thinking about it said yes, and ever since they had been nearly inseparable. Hailey used to be Shayna’s best friend and they ruled the school with a fabulous iron fist. No one would ever question what Hailey and Shayna said. If they said something was true, it was true, even if everyone knew it was a lie. Hailey was the mean cool girl, while Shayna balanced out her evil with a caring, soft voice and calm reasoning. But Hailey’s reign of terror ended when she had found out that Shay had had a crush on her boyfriend, Tim. Hailey ended the friendship fairly quickly, making her considered the bottom of the high school food chain. Hailey had always been over protective of her boyfriend. When Tim found out about my sister liking him, he broke up with Hailey and went to her straight away. That was three months ago, and Shayna spent almost every waking moment of those three months that she could with Tim. The only time she could not be with him was when our step-mother made her stay with the family for a little while. Shayna dreaded these rare times.

No! she cried, Tim, come back! No, no, no, no, no! Hailey, you are such an idiot! Stay away from him! I decided it was time to wake her up. She has suffered enough of that dream, I thought.

Come on, Shay. Wake up time, I called. I sat on the side of my bed and slid my slippers onto my feet. I walked over to Shay’s bed and sat on the edge. I pulled the blanket off of her head, revealing a haystack of black hair and my sister’s sleepy face. She groaned and flipped the blanket back over her head. Shay, come on! It is time to get up. I