New Boy in School...And He's a Vampire?!

New Boy in School...And He's a Vampire?! [Chapter Fifteen]

My stomach heaved uncomfortably and I jumped out of bed, only half conscious. I stumbled out of the room and into the bathroom across the hall, nearly falling sideways like a drunk person.

I almost didn’t make it to the toilet before my stomach heaved particularly violently and last night’s supper made its way back up. I pulled my hair out of my face. It was wet with sweat and clung to my cheeks. My stomach rolled again and I shook as I was sick.

Ugh. I hated vomiting so much. Not only do I get sick, but I start shaking so much and it’s just awful.

There was a knock at the door and I groaned, fighting back the urge to throw up again. “Go away.”

“What’s wrong?” It was Kaiden, of course. He sounded panicked.

I couldn’t answer because at that moment my stomach heaved again.

“Don’t come in.” I croaked. He came in, anyway.

He sat down beside me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I pushed him away as I groaned.

He rolled his eyes and held my hair as I threw up again.

After a few minutes my stomach felt slightly more stable and I looked up at Kaiden. He understood without me needing to say anything and helped me back into our room.

We laid down in bed, him behind me with his arms around my waist. I fell asleep in record time, being completely comfortable.

It felt like only minutes later when I woke up to Bulletproof Love by Pierce the Veil. I reached across Kaiden to grab my phone off the nightstand. I couldn’t reach it so Kaiden groaned and rolled over, handing it to me.

“What?” I answered grumpily. My head was spinning a little bit and I was tired. I just wanted to sleep.

“Celia?” Someone whispered hesitantly.

“Daria?” I asked back.

“Celia!” She repeated, louder this time. “I was so worried when you stopped coming to school! I didn’t know what had happened, I mean anything could have. What if you’d been murdered or something?” She rushed out, sounding on the verge of tears and quite mad.

“Daria.” She continued talking, now almost incoherently. “Daria!” I said it louder this time and she fell silent.

“I’ve just been kind of busy.” I laughed, feeling much less grumpy and sick. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Daria.

“Busy?” She snorted. “You know, Kaiden’s mysteriously gone too. Melanie flipped shit when she made that connection.”

I could almost see how she’d look -- eyebrows raised, lips pursed, mouth slanted slightly to the side like it did when she was mad.

I tried not to sound too guilty. “Really? I wonder what happened to him.” I glanced over at Kaiden as I said it and saw that he was propped up on his arm, watching me with a smirk on his face. I glared at him.

“Yeah, whatever, Celia.” I could tell that she was really mad now. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me anything, fine. But don’t you lie to me. I’m your best friend, Celia!”

“Dar, I’m not lying to you.” I knew she wouldn’t swallow it so I didn’t pause long enough to give her time to object. “How about if I make it up to you? I’ll take you out today and we can talk.”

There was a long pause and I knew she was mulling it over. “Fine. We’re going to the mall.”

I laughed. Good old Daria.

After we had made the arrangements I threw my phone in the general direction of the nightstand, not really caring where it landed. I scowled at Kaiden who was smirking.

“I hate you.”

“What did I do?” He laughed, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer.

“You stole me away from school and stopped going and now Daria’s mad and I have to get out of bed today and I hate you.” I said as angrily as I could, glaring at him.

He snickered. “What time are you going to meet her?”

“Two.” I couldn’t help but sound kind of sulky.

“We’ve got time to sleep, then.” He murmured, pressing his face to my hair and inhaling.

I giggled. I couldn’t help it; it felt so odd. “What are you doing?”

He pulled his head around to meet my eyes. “Smelling you. It’s kinda what I do. Vampire and all.” He said, pointing to himself on the last sentence.

We stared at each other for another moment and then he cracked a smile and I laughed.

I tried fruitlessly to go back to sleep for the next half an hour. Finally I opened my eyes and glared at Kaiden, deciding that he wasn’t forgiven yet. He was looking at me, one eyebrow raised.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, a little bit less tired than I had been. I hated getting woken up. I could never go back to sleep afterward.

Kaiden got up with me and then excused himself so I could get dressed. Almost as soon as he shut the door, there was an awfully familiar whoosh between my legs. I groaned and ran to the bathroom, thanking my lucky stars for my timing. I imagined how bad it would have been had I started my period while laying in bed with Kaiden and shuddered.

Once my...issue was taken care of and I was dressed, I walked out into the kitchen. I could feel a headache coming on.

Everyone was sitting in the living room, watching the news. They looked up with I walked in and immediately Malachi snickered, looking at me.

“You’re not gonna get all bitchy now, are you?” He asked, his nose wrinkling. I stood there, staring at him dumbfounded.

Kaiden’s hand came out of nowhere, smacking Malachi hard upside the head. He patted the seat beside him lightly, pressing his lips together to keep from smirking. I glared at him and sat down lightly. I was ready to jump up immediately if I thought I was leaking because the couch was white and spotless.

Sam covered her mouth to hide her giggles. I glared at Malachi. How did he even know I was on my period?

“Creeper.” I muttered under my breath. That only made him guffaw.

Joshua cleared his throat after a minute and spoke up. “Kaiden told me you have plans today.” He paused and I nodded. “After you get back, if you don’t have any objections, we’d like to go to my parents house. It’s a fairly short trip and we’ll be safer there.” He explained, smiling.

I glanced at Kaiden. Couldn’t we just go back to his house?

“That sounds great.” I muttered, staring a spot on the wall.

Kaiden wrapped his arm around my waist and gave me a comforting squeeze. I sighed and tried to remind myself that it wouldn’t matter where we went; I’d be with Kaiden and I knew that would be enough to keep me happy. Eventually this would all end and we could go back to school.

We hung around in the living room lazily. Every now and then Joshua would think of something and lean in to whisper it in Sam’s ear. Sam was smiling, looking very happy and in love. David flitted in and out, sometimes bringing us food other times just to sit and chat with us for a minute. Malachi was as careless as ever, joking and laughing. Kaiden was quiet, smirking and enjoying listening to the random conversations we were having. He never took his arm away from me.

Eventually he sat up straighter and pulled away. “It’s almost two. Ready?” He smirked, knowing that I was in trouble with Daria and that it was all his fault. I stuck my tongue out at him and got up to say goodbye. I plopped down on Malachi’s lap, making him jump and groan.

“You’re so fat!” He whined. I scowled for a second before laying down on him. Kaiden watched me curiously.

“Malachi...” I started, feigning a sad voice.

He fidgeted under me. “Yes?”

“You know that shirt you have...that Dance Gavin Dance band t-shirt?” He stopped fidgeting and stiffened. I kept going. “Well...I was just thinking...I didn’t bring many shirts with me and I really love that shirt. And of course, Daria wouldn’t even be mad at me for wearing that because she loves Dance Gavin Dance too...”

“Why do you want my shirt?” He asked incredulously.

I propped myself up on my elbow and started down at him, still looking sad. “I just told you.”

He glared at me for a minute while I gave him puppy dog eyes. Finally he caved. “Oh fine! Get your fat ass off me and I’ll get it.”

I jumped up and pumped my fist in the air victoriously. Kaiden, Sam and Joshua all laughed.

Malachi was back with the shirt in a second. He handed it to me and when I started toward the bedroom he caught my arm. “Rip it, get something on it or lose it and I will tie you up in the basement and torture you.”

He sounded so serious that I couldn’t help bursting out laughing as I ran to my bedroom.

When I was changed and had brushed my hair I walked back out. “I’m ready now.” I told Kaiden, grinning.

He grinned back. “Alright, let’s go.”

The ride to the mall wasn’t nearly long enough. Kaiden had my Rise Against CD in and I sang along to every word. “How can you stand that crap?” He asked, his nose wrinkling.

I punched his shoulder. “It is not crap!” I said, slightly miffed. Rise Against was one of my favorites.

“Yes, it is.” He laughed, tugging gently on my hair. I pouted for a minute before leaning my head back against the seat and closing my eyes.

“Are you asleep?” Kaiden whispered. I could hear the smile in his voice. I opened my eyes and shook my head, wishing we could be home. I could have slept for days.

For some reason my body was starting to feel weird. Besides being tired, I just felt off. I didn’t really want to bug Kaiden with it, so I decided to wait and see if it got any worse.

Kaiden took my hand in between the seats, rubbing comforting circles into the back of it, and I forgot all about being so tired.

Who cared if we weren’t home? Or if we were being hunted by Kaiden’s parents?

As Kaiden pulled into the parking lot I looked around. I couldn’t see Daria’s car, but that didn’t mean anything. Kaiden shut off the car and walked around to open my door for me. Once I was out he pulled me into a hug and buried his face in my hair. I knew he knew that I was tired and worried.

“We’ll be home soon.” He whispered, kissing my forehead. He stepped back, pushed my hair out of my eyes playfully and grinned. “That shirts looks good on you, by the way.”

I laughed, too, before waving sadly and walking into the mall. I looked around for Daria and didn’t see her.She’s probably at the food court. She was always at the food court.

I turned left and headed in that direction, trying to look for Daria and examine the windows of the stores at the same time. I was doing great until I got distracted by the book store. There was a huge display up, featuring the newest New York Times #1 book. It was Beastly by Alex Flinn. I had loved the book, back when no one knew about it. Then the movie had come out. I had been excited to see at first and then everyone had fan-girled over the man character who didn’t even play Kyle right. And then they had made him into some sexy, scared and tattooed beast. Completely not okay with me.

I ranted in my head for a few moments before I smacked into someone, knocking us both backward.

“Ung.” A girl said, picking herself up off the floor. I didn’t recognize her immediately. Daria’d straightened her hair, put on less makeup than usual and she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I gaped up at her for a minute before jumping up and hugging her.

We squealed together for a minute, nearly jumping up and down. Then she pulled apart and glared at me. “You. Are. In. So. Much. Trouble.” She said, making each word a sentence. I ducked my head and smiled apologetically. She must have been really mad because she didn’t say anything else. We walked over to the food court and sat down and she stewed for a minute.

“Just let it out, Dar. It’s not healthy to keep it in.” I joked weakly, watching her warily. She exhaled, words coming out all in a jumble because she was talking so fast. I only caught the second half.

“...had to have Matt gather up people to do a search. I didn’t even know when you’d get back or why you’d left. I even called your parents! After we couldn’t find you and we realized that Kaiden had been gone as well, we figured that you’d call us and let us know where you were. We just figured you’d run off. I mean, it was totally unlike you, but you never know. But oh no, you were too busy having the fucking time of your life to call us and let us know you were still alive! After a while I starting thinking about what could have happened to you. I mean, you could have been kidnapped or killed or murdered or something!” She finished with a small sigh, looking much calmer.

“You watch too much CSI.”

She giggled. “Nick is hot.”

I shook my head. “He’s cute, but not hot.”

She laughed and then sighed and looked at me sternly. I figured now was probably the only chance I’d get. “I’m so sorry, Daria. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you. I just never got the chance and then...well I wouldn’t have been able to tell you anyway. I swear, I would if I could.”

She was quiet another couple of minutes, thinking things over. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Just don’t lie to me.”

I nodded seriously, holding on my pinky. “I promise.” She extended her pinky and we shook on it, both smiling ruefully.

“Okay, I’ll tell you as much as I can.” I started, trying to think of where to begin. “Kaiden and I went on a date and we talked and he told me about his parents and stuff. Then something came up. This is the part I can’t really tell you. But he wanted me to be there for him, so I stayed at his house. And then...things just kept coming up and now we’re doing...something. So yes, we’re together. We’re going over to his friend’s parent’s house tonight and we’re going to spend the night there. Hopefully, this will all be over soon and we can just come back home and come back to school.”

I couldn’t tell if she had been listening or not, she just stared off into space. “But are you guys together?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Of course that was what she cared about. I nodded, with a sheepish expression. She grinned in response.

For the next couple of minutes we discussed as much as we could about my situation. I tried to giver her as many details as I could, without giving anything away. When we came to the part about Kaiden and I being together, I skirted around most everything. Not just because she couldn’t know that he bit me, but because my cheeks reddened and I didn’t really want to discuss the fact that I’d done anything like that with anyone.

Daria narrowed her eyes, knowing that I wasn’t telling her everything. She didn’t push me on it, though.

“So, how has school been? How is Matt?” I asked, trying to direct the conversation away from any touchy subjects.

We stood up and walked to the coffee shop in the corner. After we had ordered our drinks, she grinned at me. “School is school. Matt is amazing.” We walked out of the food court and started making our way across the mall. There were a lot of people our age.

“He’s so sweet to me all the time. And he’s totally shy, which is adorable, of course. He comes over almost everyday and my parents just love him.” She gushed. All of the sudden a hard edge came into her voice. “I’ve gone over to his house a couple of times, but his parents don’t like me at all. The first night I came over he introduced us and his mom made us sit ‘front and center on the couch, if you please.’” She mocked a shrill, girly voice. “She figured that if she took her eyes off of use for more than five seconds we’d start having sex right there. And his dad wasn’t any better. The moment we sat down to have dinner he started lecturing us on what it’s like to be a parent.”

Her voice dropped even more now. “Then his mother took him upstairs and I guess she thought I couldn’t hear, but I could. She yelled at him about bring ‘some preppy whore’ into her house and making her feed me dinner and all this wild shit.” He laughed, kind of nervously. “But Matt was great about it. He just came downstairs, apologized to me and took me home. He came in and stayed for a while, since my parents were out, but then his mother called and demanded he come home.”

I wrinkled my nose, thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have overprotective parents. Although, all I had was a dickhead dad who was never there and all Kaiden had were power-hungry, asshole parents who wanted to kill him. It wasn’t a whole lot better, really.

“She sounds like a psycho.” I muttered for Daria’s benefit. She nodded, laughing.

We were quiet for a minute before Daria spotted a cute shirt. She squealed and ran into the store, picking one up and buying it immediately. It took her all of eleven seconds.

Once she came back out from the store, she nodded to some guy. “Seven.”

I laughed, realizing what game she wanted to play immediately. I looked around, surveying the guys. One in particular caught my eye. I did a double take, thinking that he looked really familiar. When I looked back he was gone.

I whipped my head about, glancing in every direction. Daria nodded, of course and looked around too. “What is it?” She asked, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. I smiled slightly. She had the sense to tell something was wrong and to keep her voice down.

I didn’t see him so I turned back to her. “I should probably be getting back now.”

She nodded and smiled sadly. “When will I get to see you again?” Her expression was comical. It was sad, confused, and frustrated. I knew she wanted to know more but I was grateful she wasn’t pushing me on it. I couldn’t have told her even if I wanted too. And I didn’t. I wasn’t about to bring her into this unless she absolutely needed to know.

I shrugged. “Soon.” I held out my pinky and we shook on it. She leaned forward and gave me a quick hug.

I took out my phone as I walked outside, dialing Kaiden’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, can you pick me up?” I asked.

“One minute and thirty seconds. Time me.” Was all he said before he hung up.

I started counting, a wry smile on my face. Before I’d gotten to a minute and ten seconds, Kaiden’s car pulled up in front the mall entrance. He grinned at me as he got out and walked around the car with me, opening my door for me. Once we were pulling away from the parking lot he took my hand in the middle of the seats.

“How was your talk?”

I sighed. “I wanna go home,” was all I said. I let go of his hand and wrapped my arms around my middle, homesickness filled me and made my stomach ache. I regretted saying it almost immediately.

“I’m sorry.” Kaiden said. He didn’t say anything else and I knew he was upset.

When we got back to Joshua’s house, which I noticed was in the middle of a woods with no one else around, we both got out of the car silently. The house was quiet, too. David was the only person we saw, but I thought I could hear talking in the background.

Kaiden took his shoes off in the kitchen then walked into the living room. I paused for a moment, looking guiltily at Kaiden’s back as he walked away. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I did want to go home, but Kaiden had gotten the wrong idea. I didn’t blame him or want to leave him. I just wanted things to go back to being normal. Being safe. I was tired of running.

I stopped and peered into the living room. Kaiden was sitting on the couch, talking to David. “Where’s Sam and Joshua?” He asked David.

David cleared his throat and shifted his position slightly. “Well, Malachi went out hunting and so Joshua and Sam...” He trailed off. Kaiden rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and suddenly I could hear the background noise coming from the hall much clearer. It wasn’t talking.

I walked as fast as possible past Joshua and Sam’s bedroom, trying not to hear. I felt guilty, like I was invading their privacy. I grabbed my iPod from my bedroom, and walked back to the kitchen as fast as possible.

I walked outside, shutting the door quietly as possible. I wasn’t really sure why I went through the motion; Kaiden probably heard it, anyway.

I wandered around the house, stepping through the small gardens and looking at all the flowers. Behind the house, directly below the center window, there was a small vegetable garden and a grape vine that traveled up the side of the house and around the window. It was all very still and peaceful.

I wandered off, towards the woods. I only a few feet into the woods before arms wrapped around me. I couldn’t help lean into him, even though we were fighting.

Well, I thought we were fighting. I wasn’t really sure. I knew he was upset with me but I wasn’t upset with him.

I was about to turn and ask him if we were fighting or not, but before I could move there was a pain in my neck. It wasn’t the usual pain that came first when Kaiden bit me. This time it was worse. And it didn’t turn to pleasure like usual. The pain magnified until my body thrashed involuntarily and I screamed, trying to throw the person off me. Suddenly the pressure on my neck was gone but the pain remained. The person slammed me against a tree and knocked the breath out of me. Before I could see his face he dipped his head back to my neck and bit me again.

Suddenly I knew who it was. Charles. Of course. I should have known the moment he’d touched me, but I’d been stupid enough to mistake him for Kaiden. I screamed again and then again. I was about to scream a third time when he slapped a hand across my mouth. I couldn’t believe that we were only about fifty yards from the house and Charles dared to do this too me. Kaiden could surely hear me. He’d coming running out of the house and help me. Any minute now...

But Kaiden didn’t come and the pain rose so much I almost lost consciousness. Black and red spots were starting to cover my vision and the only sounds I heard were the foul grunts coming from Charles and the sucking nose he made as he drank from me. Had he not been covering my mouth, I would have thrown up. As it is, my body tried but all I ended up doing was nearly choking on it.

Charles started to move against me, grunting and drinking. I wasn’t even sure how I felt it. My body was going numb except for the fire that was spreading from my toes to my head. I tried to scream again, through his hand, but I wasn’t sure if I even made a sound.

The black spots started to enclose on my vision, until all I could see were tiny spots of light. I felt my body shaking and rocking through the fire. How much of that was Charles moving me and how much was just my body, I didn’t know.

Finally, after endless minutes of even worse pain, the black covered all my vision and suddenly I couldn’t feel anything in my body, not even that horrible fire. I couldn’t hear either. Everything was just still, dark and peaceful. There was no pain, either.

I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to go back to the horrible pain and disgust and shame of having this happen. Or the fear that maybe Kaiden knew this was happening and didn’t care. Or the doubt about our relationship and whether we were fighting or not.

For a fleeting moment, I could almost imagine that I was home.