Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They are the property of CW network. I just have fun playing with them!
Title: Turning

Prologue

Annabelle watched the shadow moving behind the thin white veil hiding the boy that was forbidden to her. He knew about her. This boy who had been through more than most humans could even comprehend knew her secret. It was the most unexpected twist in a life she had so meticulously kept hidden from everyone.

Jeremy surprised her from the very moment she met him. He came across as aloof and hopeless. The guy was a drugged-up loser. This was the reason why she had no qualms using him to seek vengance for what John Gilbert put her mother through. Just desserts.

Now...Now he was this guy, who had just made her reveal just a little piece of herself. He cut his hand to see if what he believed about her was true - was she a vampire? It was insane. She had told him as much as she could have killed him.

Two weeks ago she would have killed him without a thought. What had changed?

It was stupid. How many lifetimes had she lived? She had been through puppy love. She was not some inexperienced lovestruck girl. No, that was over a hundred years ago. The bloom had worn off her as some would have said decades ago. Yet here she was, standing outside his window, contemplating what it would be like to grant him his request.

Turning Jeremy Gilbert had been an option. Technically it would have been quite satisfying turning the descendant of a Gilbert into the monster that he 'loathed'. But then, in the end, she and other vampires would have had to live with the ramifcations of that revenge...for eternity. And who really wanted to live for eternity with a stuck-up descendant of the Gilberts? So no, it had never been an option. She would never have given it a second thought...two weeks ago.

Now...now, he was Jeremy. He was just Jeremy, not Jeremy Gilbert.

When he broached the question the first time, Anna had been more shocked than anything. Why would he want to be like her? Why would he want to be one of them? I had to be some kind of joke. This guy who had a living breathing family who loved him, who was smart and had everything going for him wanted her to turn him? He had to have been playing her. No one wanted to become the undead.

It was a world of secrets. It was a life of fear, death and more one chose this life. At least she did not remember being given the choice. She and her mother had been 'turned' by Katherine. Anna supposed her mother thought this was a gift from her best friend. And if one chose that slanted perspective, it was true. Immortality had its perks. However, being feared and hunted was something Anna hated. Her mother had taught her well; she was a smart vampire. Pearl had taught her quickly that to live in peace was to live that she had.

If she had wanted, no one would have ever noticed she existed. It wasn't hard. Before she had been turned she had been a mousy creature, invisible to the naked eye. She blended very well into the background.

He was different though. Jeremy was different. He saw her. He was actually paying attention.

And maybe for this reason she hesitated.