***
BEEP BEEP BEEP. . .oh hell! Damn that old alarm clock! AHHHHHH! If only I could ignore it! Very slowly, I peeked open an eye and instantly winced. The moment I got a glimpse of the sun through my open window, I wanted to hiss. Oh it hurt! My head pounded.
“Argh,” I moaned quietly as I tried to move, every muscle in my body constricting at once. The clock said 6:00 a.m., and my mind tried desperately to figure out the day.
“Dayton!” Diane yelled from the hallway and memories suddenly assaulted me, her voice a key somehow to the black box my brain had forged around my thoughts.
I cried out without meaning to. Had I dreamed it all? The memories were too much! Memory after memory lashed against me.
“Okay, just think,” I thought frantically as I managed to slide myself with an indelicate ‘hrrrrmph’ to the side of my bed, my mattress rubbing me wrong as I realized with even greater alarm that I was still fully dressed. The jeans I wore were caked in dirt, and the hoodie pushed up against my chest was sprinkled with blood. Oh my God!
“Don’t panic!”
I looked around my spartan but paper-ridden room, my eyes catching on the violet curtains billowing softly against the stone walls. My phone beeped suddenly, and I looked around a moment until I spotted it sitting casually by the side of my bed. That was odd. I always kept it under my pillow. The date glared up at me. Somehow, it was Monday. I had to work this out. I reached for a notebook at the side of my bed and scribbled on it mindlessly. I did that sometimes when I was trying to think.
I was seventeen now, that much I knew. Saturday had been my birthday. Ok, there was Aunt Kyra . . . then school. That’s right! There had been a quarrel with Mr. James over an essay.
The quarrel, Aunt Kyra, dinner with a stranger, my sister and then . . . then what? Wait. And then . . . I went blank. Blank? I thought back over the events again—the quarrel, Aunt Kyra, dinner, my sister. My sister . . . “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry! Oh my God! I had been hit! Everything after that was hazy, riddled with holes. Bits and pieces filtering through my brain, and as I grasped each one, it came to me. Events fell into place hazily. I had been hazed? Whatever it was, it had been against my will. Amber had been there. Amber? And then . . . and then after that . . . NO! Oh, but yes! I had been drugged, dragged to Everett’s and used . . . used for what?
“Bait,” I thought sourly.
The word wasn’t mine. Someone else had used it. I had been used to draw out something. What? The rest couldn’t be real. The alley, the man, the blood, my bedroom…
That was a dream. It had to be. If it wasn’t then I had met a. . . NO! Damn it! It couldn’t be!
“Marcas,” I thought warily.
The name weighed on me, and the back of my head burned. I knew my hair was matted with blood. My blood.
“Dayton!” Diane called from the hallway again. “You’re going to be late for school! You can’t afford any more confrontations with the Abbess."
Her voice sounded so normal, I began to doubt myself. Looking down at the notebook in front of me, I winced. I had scrolled his name over and over again. This wasn’t right! Turning seventeen wasn’t supposed to feel like a nightmare. Maybe I had been drinking. But if I had, I’d have taken Monroe. I needed to talk to Monroe! Oh no!
“Oh no! Monroe!” I groaned as I pulled myself sluggishly out of bed and made my way painfully toward the shower. It was my day to drive. We had school. And as mundane as that seemed right now, mundane was easier than the alternative.
When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I almost screamed. My face, surrounded by a mass of tangled auburn curls, was streaked with blood. My eyes widened. Were my pupils dilated? My eyes certainly seemed more black than green today, and my skin was pale beneath the tan I had so carefully cultivated over the past summer.
Lifting up my shirt, I hesitated. Did I want to see what was beneath my clothes? Not really. I closed my eyes as I shucked the hoodie, wife beater, jeans, and bra all so swiftly, I wondered vaguely why I didn’t feel any pain.
“You’re too afraid to."
And then I opened my eyes.
And there they were.
The bruises. Some ran along the sides of my stomach, others were in the shape of vague fingers along my shoulders, and even more disappeared around my back where I knew the worst ones would be hiding along with abrasions from the brick wall he had slung me up against. This couldn’t be happening.
“Dayton? Are you okay?” Diane asked suddenly from outside the bathroom door, and I jumped before glancing quickly to make sure the lock was in place.
"Go away!"
“I’m not okay,” I whispered as I gazed stonily at my reflection.
“I’m fine!” I answered Diane hoarsely.
I leaned over to turn on the shower, and as I adjusted the knobs I heard her walk away. Relief engulfed me. I didn’t know how to deal with anyone right now.
The water fell in a comforting stream, the steam rising mist-like from the floor, and I let the tears fall. I wasn’t okay. I had been drugged by my own aunt and some weirdo group and then sacrificed to a . . . to a . . . oh for God’s sake, Dayton! To a fucking vampire! This wasn’t okay! And it wasn’t normal. Twenty-four hours? That’s all it had taken for my world to turn into a nightmare.
Tears poured as I shucked my underwear and moved into the steaming stream of water, tears and moisture mingling as I began to scrub. A vampire! I wanted to laugh hysterically. Why hadn’t he killed me? Was I going crazy? I scrubbed harder. And lost time again. Not the drug induced kind, but the "I can’t deal with this right now" kind of time.
The next thing I knew I was dressed and moving toward the stairs, so full of anguish I didn’t even remember getting out of the shower.
“You hungry?” my sister asked as I entered the kitchen.
I just stood there, staring at her. Who was she? I didn’t answer and Amber looked up. She started to move toward me just as a figure glided into the kitchen. Amber froze.
“Aunt Ky,” Amber said softly, her gaze flicking from my aunt back to me. I knew what they were both seeing.
“Oh Dayton,” Aunt Kyra sighed audibly before walking over to a prep table we kept shoved against the kitchen walls. She pulled out a chair. I just continued to stare.
“Dayton, I think we need to talk."
I ignored her. Talk? Now, she wanted to talk? She held out a glass of orange juice, and I backed away. Oh hell no!
“You tried to kill me!” I whispered as she moved toward me.
I continued to back away. As it had been at the club, her habit was missing. A wrinkled gray t-shirt hung loose over a pair of straight un-adorned blue jeans. Her short blonde hair was wild.
An image of my mother suddenly assaulted me, and I wanted to reach out and make her real. I wanted to feel her long golden hair fall around my face, her Mississippi State sweatshirt against my cheek as I inhaled her scent. She always smelled like Bounce fabric softener. I wanted her to tell me I was going to be okay. I bit my tongue to dispel the memory and keep the tears at bay. It wasn't going to be okay. This reality . . . my reality was the harsh looking woman in front of me. My mother's sister. Aunt Kyra closed her eyes briefly and set down the glass she'd offered before running her hand through her hair. The gesture reminded me of Marcas. Marcas.
“No, honey, I didn’t. We really need to talk,” she said again.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk. Right now, I needed to get to school. And soon.
“No, I have to go. I’m supposed to pick up Monroe,” I said, moving evasively toward the front of the Abbey. She followed and, for once, didn’t fight me.
“This afternoon then?”
She reached out to touch me on the shoulder. I pulled away and she let her arms drop.
“Dayton, please. This is important.”
I looked at her for a moment, noted the strain in her face, and nodded.
“This afternoon then.”<
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I walked away. A whole weekend of my life had been taken away from me replaced by nightmares, images of monsters that weren’t supposed to exist, and a betrayal too strong to handle. The prospect of talking seemed like a piece of cake.
Chapter 16
I am watching Them now. They have my rapt attention. They are brothers—Twins—and they are Cursed. One I know well. His name is Damon. The Other I fear. He is now bound to her.