I woke up, stretching my arms out and letting out a loud yawn.
I always found Monday mornings difficult but thankfully today was a snow day as I had gladly been informed last evening by my brother.
Once again I yawned and decided it was about time to face the world. Opening my eyes I saw that I was led in my comfy double sized bed in my child hood bedroom. The curtains were shut and there was little light inside the room but I could tell from the light that shone under the curtain that it was well into the afternoon.
"Are you gonna get up any time soon? Or do I have to get a surgeon to come and surgically remove you from that bed of yours!" my mother shouted from downstairs.
My brother was probably at work which to my pleasure could be something that I could taunt him about later, after all what are little sister for?
I slowly got out of bed and reached for my dressing gown. The air in my room was cold and it was a shock from what I had been feeling from the heat in my bed.
I could smell my mothers pancakes, I guess she must be having a bad day already. She only cooked them so that she could pig out all day on junk food, try and eat her emotions away.
What annoyed me the most about that was that she never once put on a shred of weight! It's just not fair, the woman is in her forties and still has the body of a twenty year old!
I wandered downstairs in the typical zombie like way that teenagers moved when they had recently woken up and found my mother humming her favourite song in the kitchen. There was a fresh batch of pancakes on a plate on the counter aswell as some chocolate spread, syrup and sugar. I guess this means she was having a really bad day.
"Morning mum." I said and plonked myself down on the kitchen table.
"Don't you mean afternoon?" she said, anger was present in her voice and I could tell that she wanted to say something to me but she was finding the words difficult to say.
"What's wrong mum? You know you can tell me anything, I'm not a child anymore, I do understand grown up things." I said and almost immediately her face crumbled.
"I don't know what to do! I wanted to tell you and David at the same time but he won't be back until later. And I just...I don't know what to do!" she cried and I felt the urge to hug her but I was a teenager now, a hug was just a one time thing when I got drunk.
"What do you mean don't know what to do? I don't understand what you mean."
She took a deep breath and gulped as if this was really hard what she was going to say,"The think is that because of all of this cold weather and snow, I'm going to have to take on extra shifts at work just so that I can heat the house. We're broke Candice, we're broke! I've got no money in the bank to pay for your college and your fathers insurance are refusing to pay out! This means that I won't be there for you guys all the time, you'll have to catch the bus home and look after yourselves...Unless if I sell the hou-"
"Don't even say sell the house. Look mum, if you have to take on extra shifts then don't feel guitly about it. I'm gonna get a job so that I can help out with the bills and stuff, don't feel that you have to look after me all the time, I'm not a little girl."
"Candice it's my money problems, not yours so don't worry about getting a job, I want you to get good grades and go off to university. You always were your fathers little princess." she smiled all the time when she spoked of my father, but there was always hurt that replaced it.
"Shall I choose a film for us to watch today?" I asked, trying to distract her from the pain. Me and David had all showed our pain, crying to each other but my mother hadn't, she remained strong for us.
She blinked and replied "Yeah, sure. But nothing too sad, I don't want to watch something that's gonna make me cry."
I laughed and went into the living room, we didn't have that many DVD's but the ones that we had were all watched and re-watched so choosing something that we hadn't seen in ages was difficult.
I decided to put in the 'Twilight Saga' DVD, we had enough time today to watch the whole saga. I'd been given the whole box set from my 'best friend' only to find out she'd given it to me as a joke to see if I liked something that a child liked apparently.
Sucked for her because I liked it and so did many other people at our school.
My mother came into the sitting room, carrying a plate full of pancakes and I went out into the kitchen to get the rest of the feast. When I came back into the living room my she had put out a couple of blankets on the sofa and was snuggling down into them, sat in her slippers and dressing gown.
I loved this day.
I snuggled down beside my mum, snuggling up to her. We began watching the film.
We managed to watch the first three films before I dropped off to sleep.
I hadn't even realised my eyes were closing, the darkness enclosed my eyes.
I seemed to like the darkness, it was comforting me.
"Candice...Candice...Candice..."
"What?" I snapped and swatted the hand away that was shaking my shoulder.
"Sorry, I just wanted to inform you of our arrival." Malik said, pulling the car to a stop in the middle of some woodland.
It was Friday evening, we'd left late because Malik couldn't go out in the sunlight and there was no garage at the house in the hills.
I blinked several times, I hated the feeling of dreams that seemed so real but ended up being a fantasy. I'd wanted to be back at home so much, dreaming of the time when me and my mum watched DVD's all day whilst my older brother worked. That had been a nice, girlie day that I treasured for as long as I lived.
"Oh..ermm...okay." I said and unbelted the seat belt. I stretched in my seat and got out of the side of the car door.
The air was cold on my skin, it tore through me with its icy winds and enslaved me with its howling sounds. The space around the car terrified me, I couldn't see more then ten feet in front of where the lights on the car shone, I could only hear the russling off the trees and the smashing of the branches hitting into each other.
I never really had been scared of storms and hurricanes but I all of a sudden had an urge to run over to Malik, let him look after me. After all, I did trust him with my life.
"Candice, you might wanna come inside so that you can get warmed up. These winds are way to strong and cold to stay outside during the evening time." Malik said from around the other side of the car, fumbling to find the right key from the set that he held in his hands.
I shivered over to him, wraping my arms around my chest, trying to preserve some body heat. When I finally got to the door, it was open and Malik was inside lighting the fire.
I found a light switch on the wall and was suprised at the home that I was standing in.
I was in a living room, it had wooden flooring and dark red wallpaper on the walls with a dark wooden triming. There were leather loveseats with a dark wooden coffee table in the centre of the room as well a rug made of animal skin. There was a huge, floor length curtain that trailed from the ceiling to the floor. There were pictures everywhere, some were portraits, others were extrememly old photographs. The newest one was a picture of me and Malik on our wedding day and it was above the fireplace that Malik was trying to light a fire in.
"Wow...This is...Amazing." I said, I didn't like the stuffed animals but they sort of suited the room.
"Isn't it? You see that bird feather...there on the window ledge...yeah that one. That bird can't even be found in your world anymore. It was so rare due to a disease that killed of the newborn chicks and was almost made extcinct by the werewolves until we ruled that that breed of bird was protected in a special sanctuary so that the wolves couldn't hunt anywhere near there.They just can't crontol themselves in their wolf form." Malik said.
All of a sudden the fire enlighted and made Malik fall backwards in shock.
"Vampires aren't exactly best friends with fire, we catch on fire even faster than humans. I suppose it's one of our few weeknesses...Shall I show you your room? You'll be staying in Serena's old room I'm afraid. All of the other rooms need re-decorating because of Sedricks wild party life. He thought it was a great idea to do drinking games out in the woods with his werewolf friends. They trashed most of the rooms but beacause mine and Serena's smelt too much of vampire that they weren't used to, they left them alone." Malik said as he showed me to a hallway.
Once again, the theme was dark wood and hunted animals, pictures of birds and grizzly bears covered the walls as well as animal skin rugs and stuffed animals.
Malik opened one of the doors in the hallway and gestured for me to walk inside. There was a set of stairs that curled around to a platform at the top where the main bedroom was.
There was dark wooden flooring and a dark purple wall paper on three of the walls; on the fourth wall there was a black wall paper that had a silver floral design on it.
There was a large king size bed that was pressed up against the black wall in the centre of the room. The bed was four posted, it was made from a wood that was even darker then the one on the floor and had a black pattern carved into the head and the foot boards. The bedcover on the bed was black with a dark purple comforter on top of it. Some of the pillows were white and others were the same colour as the comforter; but most of the pillows were black with crosses and gothic designs in silver on them.
There was a dark wooden chest at the end of the bed that had a floral pattern carved into it, the chest itself probably stored some more bed linen. There were black dressers, make up tables and wardrobes plastered around the room. Gothic ornaments with things such as skulls, black roses and decaying hearts on them were planted all around the room, all black and sliver. It looked poetic in a way.
"Excuse the...well you get the picture, she's into black and death. Suits us vampire's down to the ground." Malik said. "The only people that have a problem with it as every other race, they feel that she is being cruel by showing off power and death. It's only like humans showing off flesh, teasing vampire's with their blood."
I stared at him blankly, the room hadn't really bothered me but what he had just said did. Humans don't know about vampire's, they dress the way that they want to dress even if that might be a little bit on the skimpy side sometimes. A vampire can not say that a human is dressing for them when they know nothing about them, not even their existence.
"How can you say that? Vampire's are unkown to must humans! They are the creatures in films, in stories not real life!" I shouted. It felt wrong to be shouting at him like this because he probably just said it without thinking but in all fareness he shouldn't have said it at all.
He looked at me, almost as if he had a new outlook on me, his first impression had changed.
"Look, Candice. It was just a slip of the tongue. Just drop it alright. Now get some proper sleep, you only slept lightly in the car and you'll still be tired after that long car journey." Malik said and left off down the stairs. Moments later I heard the bedroom door slam.
I hadn't wanted to leave it at that, the old me would hav screamed at him, made him pay for what he just said but right this second, I felt tired and in need of a good sleep. Besides, I trusted everything he said because he is right and I am wrong.
I tip-toed over to the bed, walking at a normal speed seem too wrong and would spoil the atmosphere that came from the room.
Everything was silent, the air was cold and the room smelt sttrongly of roses but I couldn't actually see any roses in the room.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress felt springy under my weight and I yearned to snuggle into the covers and feel the softness from the expensive looking fabrics.
I felt in one of those moods when you just feel like you're missing something, like you feel like you've forgotten something important at home and you're going to get in trouble at school for not having it. It was like something wanted to escape my lips without me even knowing what it was but it was being forced to stay in there for some reason.
I sighed, slipped my shoes off onto the floor and all of a sudden felt too tired to slip off from my clothes and change into another fresh set. Instead, I pulled back the bed sheets and gingerly got under the silk of the main sheet.
The sheet felt incrredibly soft against my skin and it managed to keep my own body heat under the sheets without making them too stuffy for me to bare.
I feel asleep, not bothering to turn the lights off; I wanted the feeling of being looked after even though deep down I knew that Malik had already promised it to me.
A.N. - hey guys I'm gonna try and finish this book before Christmas but don't worry I've still got a few more chapters to post! Chapter 23 guys! 2000 reads! you guys are amazing! thank you all so much for being supportive and i'm sorry for being really really slow with updating this, i've got work as well as A levels and a drama play that i'm despite everything else i've got going on so just bear (rawr) with me. Thanks for reading, so please continue and I'll be handing out some dedications to people that are able to help me if I've spelt anything wrong or anything that'll help me improve the way it's written. Thanks again, please vote/comment <--- I'm a commentaholic and I need my next fix so somebody do the duty and give me it! i know where you live ;) thanks again again <333333