La Rosa Del Sur (The Rose of the south)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2
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I was standing on the street corner outside of my family's mansion. I clutched my suitcase as I waited for the car to pull up to take me to the airport. I breathed in the early morning air. Then I saw something across the street. It was still fairly dark out, but the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon. I squinted my eyes as much as I could. It was a man, at least I assumed it was a man from his stride, and he was moving fast. Something about the way he lifted his right arm made me set off alarm bells in my head. He had a gun. I tried to yell, but no sound came out. I tried to step away but my feet were inexplicably glued to the street corner. Suddenly, the man turned and pointed his gun down the road and shot. The sound ripped through the silent morning, shattering my eardrums. I covered my ears and looked in the direction the man had shot. There stood my grandfather Mateo, a small, bloody hole over his heart. He fell to his knees.

"No!" I thought it was I who yelled. But I turned to see my aunt Victoria sprinting down the other end of the road towards him. She was right in front of him when another bang shook the atmosphere. My aunt Victoria fell with a bullet in her head.

I pulled and I pulled my feet, urging them to come free of the concrete. I needed to get to them. I heard a blaring laugh on my right coming closer and closer. I turned to see the shooter, his face in shadow, pointing his pistol at me, preparing to strike. I lifted my hands over my head, preparing for the bullet to enter my body. But it never did. The man's laugh continued to pound against my eardrums, but the blow never came.

My eyes flew open as my alarm clock continued it's thundering song. I brought my hand up to silence it and looked at the time. Five am. I sat up and put my head in my hands. Thank god it had been a dream. After a few minutes, I got up and went to my bathroom to shower, brush my teeth and wash my face. I then went to my closet and picked out a simple blouse and ripped blue jeans. I grabbed a pair of sneakers, grabbed my bags and went downstairs to the idling car.

My parents and I sped off to the warehouse where our private jet was. None of us spoke very much on the drive. My mother was the only morning person among the three of us. When we arrived, I stepped out of the car into the parking lot of the warehouse that houses all our private transportation, and stretched, big and long. As we started loading our luggage onto the private jet, I heard a car pull up, I turned around to see Zoella and her family get out of the car.

I walked over and said "Hola, Tía María y Tío Carlos. ¿Cómo estás?"

They were a lovely couple, both of them from the Dominican Republic. They had worked alongside my parents before I was born, and moved to New York at the same time. That's when Zoe and I met and began our journey of friendship. María and Carlos always treated me like their own daughter, and I always felt like I had a second family with them.

They came and embraced me, smiles on their faces. María was about to say something when my older brother, Rafael, and his best friend, Diego, pulled up in my brother's sleek black Ferrari, blaring his favorite Spanish music. Rafael parked his car, gave a great whoop, and bound onto the plane, Diego following close behind. I quickly looked at Zoe and nodded for her to join me. We kissed Zoe's parents goodbye, and ran inside the plane to see the boys lounging, and drinking blueberry mojitos.

"Look who decided to join the party," Rafael said, as he pushed his dark curly hair out of his face, blue eyes glinting mischievously.

"Where did you guys get the mojitos?"

"Over there, Princesa!" Diego answers. I smiled at him, then walked over to grab the jug to pour myself and Zoe some mojito. Diego had known my brother a long time, a little over ten years. He had always been sweet to me, calling me "princesa", and just a nice person all around. I suspected he had a bit of a crush on me, but I never called him out on it.

The rest of the plane ride was pretty fun, until our parents made us turn off the music. Diego and Rafael kept cracking stupid jokes, and tried to convince us of their manliness by doing push-ups in the aisle during bouts of turbulence. But after that, I don't remember much because I fell asleep. After about eleven hours of being on a plane, we had finally landed in Catania-Fontanarossa Airport in Sicily. I must say, it was so beautiful, all the things we saw just by getting off the plane.

Diego rubbed the sleep out of his brown eyes, "Santa mierda. This is going to be an awesome trip!"

We all stared at him with confused looks before we all started to laugh. I looked around at everyone only to see our parents laughing too.

"Ok, Tenemos que empezar a conducir hasta el hotel." My father called out. I noticed three black cars.

"Ok everyone, let's get this show on the road!" I cheered over my shoulder and walked to the car.

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By the time we got to the hotel, checked in, and unpacked everything it was nine-thirty, and that meant it was time for me, Zoella, and the boys to go have some fun. I had just finished getting ready when there was a knock on my door. I went to it, looking through the peephole to see Zoella. I backed up a little and opened the door nice and wide for her to walk in. She was wearing a strapless, form-fitting, crimson dress, her black, braided hair shimmering down her back.

"Wow you look absolutely beautiful!" She said. I smiled at her. She was right. I did look beautiful. I was wearing a sparkly, black spaghetti strap dress that was short and tight on top, and flowy on the bottom, along with matching sparkly black high heels. To complement the outfit, my make up was a black smokey eye and dark red lips, and my hair was pulled back into a messy braided bun.

I looked at myself one more time in the mirror, then turned to Zoe. "Girl, I am so ready to party!"