Red Roses

Chapter 20- Nightmare

"Molly!"

Molly felt her eyes flutter open and close. She was panting heavily.

"Oh my goodness, Molly!!"

She felt someone shaking her roughly but somehow couldn't come to her senses.

"Molly!"

She shot her eyes open and gasped loudly and suddenly sat straight up. Savannah was kneeled in front of her, shaking her shoulders.

"Molly?"

Molly mumbled and felt herself sweating. She was dripping in sweat and was trying to stop panting and calm her rapidly-beating heart.

She realized that she wasn't on her hospital bed anymore. She didn't feel its soft sheets under her. She was on a hard, cool surface. She glanced down and noticed she was on the floor. Her bed was right next to her. It was destroyed. The sheets looked as if they'd been thrown around and the pillow was on the other side of  the room.

"What...what happened?" Molly stuttered.

Savannah sighed of what seemed to be relief. "I think you had a terrible nightmare, babe."

She shook her head. If her nightmare was that bad, you'd think she would remember it.

She began to tell Savannah how she didn't remember any dream, not yet anyway, when she noticed something on her eye. Her beautiful golden eye had a blackish-blue circle around it. It looked as if she took a hard punch to her right eye.

"Babe...your eye." Molly reached her hand out to touch it, only to have Savannah smack her hand down.

Molly gasped at Savannah's movement and kept her hand away.

Savannah sighed again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you."

When Molly didn't reply, Savannah lifted her hand up to run her fingers through Molly's damp hair. Molly had the urge to smack it down as revenge, but didn't want to fight with Savannah. She was curious.

"What happened? Please tell me."

"My father."

"He hit you?" Molly gaped.

Savannah looked down and nodded. How could he?!

"Oh my God, Why?"

"He was mad. I told him about what I...well, what happened to James."

It was Molly's turn to sigh. "I know you killed him."

"So Lucy didn't lie to you?"

Molly shook her head.

Did Savannah assume that Lucy had lied to her?  Had she hoped she would to cover up for Savannah?

"Do you hate me now, then?"

"No, of course not!" Molly rubbed Savannah's shoulder. "You killed him because of me." Molly watched as Savannah'a eyes began to water.

"I had to. He almost killed you."

"I knew you'd save me."

Savannah smiled at her.

Molly went back to her bruised eye. "Is that the first time he has hit you?"

Silence.

"You can tell me anything."

Silence.

"You know that, right?"

Savannah hesitated some more but then finally spoke.

"He's hit me before. He abuses me, Molly."

"He can't do that!" Molly was angry. She hated child abuse. "Does your mother know?"

Savannah nodded. "She has tried to make him stop. But he just gets so mad sometimes..."

"Are you the only one he abuses?"

"I don't really know. Me and my siblings don't talk about it. And we are vampires so we heal fast. This," she pointed to her bruise," will be gone in an hour."

"That doesn't make it okay." Molly then tilted her head. "So it wasn't that long ago?"

"Thirty minutes ago."

"Didn't you tell him before I went to bed?"

"No, I only got to tell mother. He was at Tim's house. He came back an hour ago and I told him."

"But that was..." Molly glanced at the hanging clock, "at seven in the morning?"

Savannah paused then began to laugh hysterically.

"What?!"

She waited until Savannah had gotten herself together.

"Vampires do not sleep, Molly!"

"Whaaa? They don't?!' Molly didn't know that. It would make a lot of sense though. This family did so much at rediculous times.

Savannah nodded, still giggling. "I can't believe you didn't know that."

"You didn't ever tell me! And I didn't even know vampires existed until you came along!"

Savannah chuckled. "Sorry, I thought you knew."

Molly shook her head. "Wow."

Savannah jumped up and grabbed something off a mini table. "I brought you breakfast." She held a plate of bacon and eggs.

"Yum, thanks." Molly smiled and climbed back on the bed and nibbled on the warm food.

So much has happened in the past few days- the past few minutes- that Molly felt as if she needed another nine hours of sleep. She just hoped there wouldn't be too much drama or anymore terrible news today. She prayed she wasn't jinxing herself.