If walls could talk these would be screaming. I shivered, a moan of wind whisking my blonde hair into a scraggly mop.

Greylark Asylum loomed in the distance, a huge structure of abandoned grey stone. The windows were like hundreds of unblinking eyes glaring out, and the places where stone had worn away like never-healing wounds, still weeping dust and mortar.

I swallowed past the cotton-wool dryness in my throat. I really didn't want to go into the asylum.

Riley jabbed a sharp elbow into my ribs. "You can't chicken out now, K-girl. Not with that cute guy watching."

I rolled my eyes and didn't bother turning to see who she was talking about. As far as Riley was concerned, there was always a cute guy watching.

"This is stupid," I said.

"A dare is a dare, Kiara."

"Yeah, but we're not kids anymore."

Riley nudged me again. "That's why we turned Truth or Dare into a drinking game."

As if I needed reminding. I would never have agreed to a stupid dare if it wasn't for the vodka. A whole bunch of us had come out here, to the bare patch of English meadowland that surrounded Greylark. Dalwick, the small town where we lived, was cut off from the asylum by a swathe of woodland and that was usually how people liked it. The asylum hadn't been used in years, an eerie relic of the days when people with mental issues were treated like freaks or monsters. Nowadays the only people you'd find out here were groups of teenagers looking for somewhere to drink in peace. That was the only reason I was here, for the booze and the bonfire. I hadn't reckoned on being sucked into a silly drinking game and then being presented with the challenge to actually go inside the asylum. No one went inside Greylark. Even people who didn't believe in ghosts stayed away from it.

"It's okay if you're scared," said a silky voice from behind me, and I gritted my teeth.

"I'm not scared, Georgia," I said.

Riley deliberately placed herself between me and my rival. For some reason she seemed to think I needed protecting from the other girl, that I wasn't able to stand up to Georgia. I just let her get on with it. Better than her knowing the truth.

"My girl wouldn't agree to anything she couldn't do," Riley declared.

"Whatever," Georgia smirked, flipping dark hair over her shoulder.

I didn't say anything until Georgia had moved out of earshot. I'd been having a great time until I'd been slapped with this dare, and time spent in Georgia's poisonous presence was only going to ruin my evening even more.

I snatched the plastic cup of vodka and coke from Riley's hand and drained it in one gulp. "Okay, I'm going in."

Riley whooped and clapped her hands. "Guys, Kiara's doing it."

There were scattered claps and cheers from the teenaged throng around the bonfire behind us.

I strode down the sloping meadow, away from the warmth of bonfire and voices, and towards the grim presence of Greylark Asylum. The vodka I'd just chugged sat uneasily in my stomach.

Greylark loomed over me, blackened windows like blind eyes. I swallowed the anxious knot in my throat. Everyone in Dalwick told stories about the ghosts that haunted Greylark, and in the shifting night-time shadows it was easy to see why people thought it was haunted. Lucky I didn't believe in ghosts. It was the other things that went bump in the night that frightened me.

I paused at the door, my hand frozen a hairsbreadth away. It wasn't too late to turn back. Glancing back, I could see the bright blob of bonfire and hear the mixed voices and laughter drifting over from the party. I could go back over there, admit I was too scared and just cope with the mocking. But something stopped me and it wasn't pride. Kids at college already thought I was weird and did their best to avoid me, so it wasn't that I cared whether or not they thought I was a coward. I had to go into Greylark because I wasn't going to let my fear conquer me. Ghosts were hardly the worst things to stalk the night.

The scars on my shoulder throbbed with phantom pain.

I pushed open the asylum door. The creak it made set my teeth on edge. Something skittered across the floor, probably a rat. When I stepped through the gaping doorway, wisps of dusty cobwebs draped like a veil over my head. The door opened into a vast lobby, grey with rot and ruin. The windows were cracked, wallpaper peeling off in strips as if the asylum interior had some degenerative skin disease. The floor was spotted with bits of green where weeds had stubbornly forced their way through the concrete, and scattered with empty beer cans. So I wasn't the only one who'd ventured in here.

The dare only stipulated that I go inside Greylark, it hadn't said anything about having to explore it, yet I found myself heading for the stairs at the far end of the lobby. I was here to remind myself it wasn't abandoned asylums I had to fear, and if that meant going right to the top of the three-storied building, so be it.

I climbed the stairs slowly, the scraping of my feet sounding unnaturally loud in the empty building. The thick stone walls blocked off any sound of the party; it was as if I had stepped into another world, one of grey bleakness, where the screams of the past had bled into the foundations and condemned this place for so many years.

I reached the top floor and deeply exhaled. My breath sent cobwebs fluttering. I had climbed to the top of Greylark and there wasn't a ghost in sight. Suddenly this felt like a massive waste of time. There was nothing to be scared of and -

Something moved at the far end of the corridor and my heart skipped a beat. That couldn't have been a rat, it sounded too . . . big. I squinted into the shadow-shrouded corridor.

A shape, darker and more solid, broke away from the shadows, moving towards me. I couldn't move, frozen where I was. My heart slammed against my ribs like a hammer. I fell back a step as the shape advanced, my mind racing back to every ghost film I'd ever seen.

Then a tenuous shaft of moonlight slanted in from a window, painting a slash of white across the shape. I saw a jaw-line, a mouth, and the gleam of fangs like sharp daggers.

Vampire. The thought shrieked through my mind.

Trained instinct took over my body.

I kicked the vampire, snapping my straightened leg up so my heel smashed into its face. The vampire staggered back and I kicked it again, this time in the stomach. Anger poured through me, drowning my previous fear. I might not know what to do if it turned out that ghosts were real, but vampires I could handle.

My elbow found the vampire's face but it was already rearing away from me. I should have broken its nose; instead my elbow grazed its cheek. It was faster than I expected and I was here alone, without a single weapon on me. Normally I wouldn't go anywhere unarmed, especially at night, but I hadn't thought the other kids at the party would be very understanding if they discovered I was carrying knives around. One of the reasons my family didn't want me having a social life.

I aimed another kick at the vampire but it batted my leg aside. An arm swept through the darkness at my head, and I ducked, ramming my fists into the solid body in front of me. The vampire grunted. I kicked out where I hoped its kneecap was, and had the satisfaction of seeing it crumple onto one knee.

I wanted to stay and finish it off but I've always been taught it's important to recognise when it's time to fight or time to run. This was a time to run. The vampire was down - albeit temporarily - and I had no weapons. I might be able to hold my own for a while, but without a knife or a stake, this was a fight I probably wouldn't win.

I ran for the stairs. Feet scuffed behind me as the vampire picked itself up, and I ran faster, willing my legs to work overtime. Twice I came close to slipping on the curving stairs, but I'd rather break my neck than let a filthy vampire feed from it.

The asylum doors loomed in front of me, still ajar from where I'd come in. My feet flew over the floor. At the last second I couldn't help but glance over my shoulder, trying to see how close the vampire was. But there was nothing there. I faltered. The vampire wasn't chasing me. Confusion swirled through my head before trained instinct took over again and I carried on running, out of Greylark and into the night.

I didn't stop until I was cresting the slope of meadowland where the bonfire glowed. My heart was pounding but it was adrenaline rather than exertion. I could have run twice that distance and barely broken a sweat.

Georgia's laugh brayed louder than the multitude of conversation. "Looks like someone saw a ghost." She waggled her fingers at me and made oooh-noises.

"You okay?" Riley asked, studying me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just creepy in there." I forced a smile on my face.

"Aww, did Casper come and frighten you?" Georgia sneered. I should have known she'd find a way to mock me whether I went into Greylark or not.

Riley pushed a drink into my hand. "Ignore her."

I was only half-listening, my mind still at Greylark. There was a vampire in the asylum; I needed to tell my parents.

"Listen, Riley -"

"Oh no." She narrowed kohl-rimmed eyes at me. "You are not going home, K-girl. I don't care how freaky it was in Greylark."

I tried to protest but she put a finger to my lips.

"There's no way I'm letting you leave, Kiara Morrow, not when you're being checked out."

"Let me guess, another cute guy?"

Riley grinned and moonlight glinted off her silver lip-ring. "Nope, this guy is about a thousand miles beyond cute."

She subtly steered me round until I was facing the bonfire. "Dark hair, black t-shirt," she said in a conspiratorial undertone.

I sighed and looked. Then looked again. Riley was right. The guy in question wasn't cute - he was gorgeous. He looked like he should be gazing soulfully out from the front cover of a fitness magazine, not mooching around with a bunch of drunken college kids. He was standing on the other side of the bonfire, hands shoved in his pockets. His hair was soot-black, longish so it almost touched his shoulders. Even from where I was standing, I could see the lines of muscle in his arms and the way his black t-shirt pulled tight across a solid chest. The flames from the bonfire danced between us, casting strange shadows across his face. And his eyes - my heart skipped a beat as his eyes met mine. I couldn't see what colour they were, but there was a direct intensity to his stare that made me feel like I was the only girl standing there. Maybe the only girl in the world. Everything around me - the crackle of flames, the hubbub of too many conversations happening all at once, the odd cheer as someone did something drunk and stupid - all faded out for a moment, becoming a muted hum in the background of my consciousness.

I blinked a couple of times. This wasn't the reaction I was used to getting around guys, even the unusually gorgeous ones.

"Nice, huh?" Riley said.

I glanced at her and managed a sheepish smile. Obviously I wasn't being very subtle. When I looked back, the boy was gone. Disappointment flared through me.

"Who was he?"

Riley slurped her vodka and coke. "I keep forgetting you've only been here four months. That gorgeous hunk of manhood was Luke."

"Luke who?"

Riley blinked. "Just . . . Luke. No one knows his surname."

"Not even his friends?"

"Luke doesn't have friends."

"What do you mean?"

"Kiara, Luke is Dalwick's original mystery man. He showed up about six or seven months ago, just out of the blue. Nobody knows who he is or where he came from. He doesn't go to college and he doesn't have a job that anyone knows of. He just . . . appears from time to time and makes us poor girls weak at the knees." Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "He did make your knees weak, right? Like your bones turned to spaghetti?"

I shook my head a little too quickly and Riley laughed. "Don't lie to me, girl. I saw the look on your face. You should have talked to him."

"I don't think that would have been a good idea."

Riley rolled her eyes. "Come on, K-girl. I know your parents are super-strict but it's not like you're a nun."

No, I wasn't. But Riley had no idea what I was.

"How are you ever going to get a boyfriend if you won't even talk to a guy?" Riley continued.

Her words hit me like a punch. A boyfriend was part of a normal life and that was something I could never have, no matter how much I wanted it. I could steal snippets of a social life here and there - tonight's bonfire party being a prime example - but it would never be more than snippets. I would never be normal.

The scars on my shoulder throbbed again.

I took a long swig from my plastic cup and felt the vodka burn the back of my throat. All around the bonfire kids were laughing, drinking, kissing, some even dancing although there was no music. I could join in with them but I'd never be part of their world.

My eyes drifted back towards Greylark, and all thoughts of Luke and normality fled my head. I had more immediate problems to deal with. Once I told my parents what I'd discovered, that vampire was as good as dead.

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