I'm free of my evil math class! Wahaha! And I have school in less then a month (sighs)
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Chapter Eight
I shot up with sweat dripping off my face as I held up my hands to attack someone, but after a moment, I realized I was in my room. Huh? How’d I get here? I looked to see Drake sitting on the edge of my bed with the yellow light of the morning streaming through my windows as he tilted his head at me with one quirked eye brow and a frown on his lips; great, he probably knows what happened in my nightmare already.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Drake asked me as I nodded.
I know we had more things to say to each other, but right then and there I wanted to enjoy the beauty.
“Yeah,” I told him, “how did I get here and...” I looked down, feeling my face flushed, “...and why am I in my pjs?”
“I didn’t think sleeping in your day clothes would be very comfortable,” he admitted. “So I grabbed the gown you wore last night.”
He even took of my bra... “You PERVERT!” I threw a pillow at him, but of course, he caught it with relative ease. “How dare you take off my clothes without my consent!”
“It’s not like I got a free show out of it,” Drake muttered as I threw another pillow. “And stop throwing those things! You’re making a mess!”
“You don’t go taking a girl’s clothes off while she’s passed out!”
“As I said, you looked uncomfortable,” he stated as he glared at me while I stopped and looked at his hands. I touched my hair to find that it wasn’t sticky with blood. I sighed and looked at him, waiting for him to say something, or maybe he was waiting for me to say something. “What did you dream about?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said as I felt the sudden urge to take a shower and scrub my body squeaky clean. Drake sighed as he got up and went over to the door. “Uhm, where are you going?”
“I’m hungry.” He stated before he left and I fell back in the bed.
“Hmmummmm.” I looked over the side of my bed to see Daisy flying up and stepping on my bed as she rubbed her eyes. She looked sort of funny since she sort of reminded me of a teenager who went out partying the night before and had too much to drink, so she passed out in her bed without removing her makeup. Her hair was in tangles and her body slouched as she slowlytried to get up. She must have slept on the floor with Unicorn boy again.
“Hey Daisy, what’s up?” I asked her as I pulled my knees to my chest.
She yawned. “Are you and Drake fighting again?”
“We’re not fighting,” I told her, “we...just aren’t talking.”
“Why?”
I looked at my knees and thought about my dream. “I’m afraid of him,” I admitted softly, “he’ll kill anyone for his queen and one day she can change her mind and kill me. Drake won’t hesitate.”
Daisy stared at me for a moment with her big brown eyes. She blinked a few moments and then asked, “Are you an idiot?”
“What?”
She walked over to me and stared up at me with her hands on her hips before she asked, “Are you an idiot? Because surely, only an idiot would believe that Drake would kill you.”
My right eye twitched. “I am not an idiot! And what makes you so sure?”
“You really...don’t know?” she asked me before she fell quiet, looked at her feet, the ceiling, and then back at me. “You really are an idiot! I mean, how can you not know?” She screamed as she flew up in front of my face and stomped her tiny foot in the air. “It’s so, so, so, so obvious! Don’t you see? He’s in-EEEEKKK!” She screamed as she dodged an orange that missed her by a few inches. It bounced off the wall and landed on Unicorn boy who groaned before sitting up slowly with the offending fruit at hand and glaring at Drake.
“Daisy, learn to shut your mouth on subjects that hold no concern for you.” Drake warned her as he walked over to the bed and sat down by me.
Daisy glared at him. “You both are idiots!” She spun around and folded her arms over her chest, probably with a pout on her face.
Unicorn boy held out his hand for her. “Daisy.” He stated simply as she frowned and flew into his hand before sticking her tongue out at Drake.
“So, do you have a plan to get into this group?” Drake asked as I frowned and looked at my knees again.
“Well, with our little show last night, John probably doesn’t really want to trust us. He doesn’t really like the faeries and thinks of them as zombies or something like that,” I said as I closed my eyes and remembered the look on his face.
Drake made an odd humming noise. “He’ll want you to prove your humanity.”
“Ari.” I opened my eyes then as I looked at Drake.
“Ari?”
“Yeah, if I can convince Ari to join me and get into the group, that’ll convince them for sure. They’ve wanted Ari to join for awhile now, but if I can convince him to come that’d be big brownie points for me.” I explained. “And maybe someone else with sight too.”
“Someone else with sight?” Drake asked as I leaned over to the nightstand and reached for my cell phone. “But I thought they only wanted people with the scars?”
“Yeah, but she can help with showing my humanity, or something like that,” I said as I dialed the number.
Unicorn boy and Daisy looked at one another and asked, “She?” I pressed the phone to my ear before I heard it rung a few times.
“Ruth, what’s up?”
“Matty, what are you doing calling me this early?” Oopps, I guess eight in the morning is a tad early.
“Sorry about that, but you said that you might be coming to Ocean City?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Well,” I began, “I sort of have a problem with this guy and-”
She sighed, “Oh good, you finally have some normal teenage problems.” I rolled my eyes as Drake’s lips turned into a tiny smile.
“Hate to break it to you, but its not about that. It’s about this guy named Ari and a group-”
“I see a future in your non-existent dating life.”
“Ruth! I wonder if you heard about the-”
“-The red Winged Murders? Yeah, I have and do they have to do with what I think?”
“Pretty much, Ruth. And how did you hear about them?”
“It’s all over the news now since it’s all these white pretty girls with blonde hair and blue eyes that are getting killed. You know, the average American beauty queen, but also their parents are giving the police hell to find the murderer.”
“No shit?”
“Matty, language.” Drake reminded me as I glared at him.
“Screw you,” I told Drake, “No, not you Ruth. Drake’s here.”
“I figured. So what else is wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“What makes the dead bodies interesting, or faerie like.” I looked at Drake for a moment before I said, “we think it’s a human with sight.”
“I thought you said that was rare!”
“And here’s the real kicker, they got their sight like me, through scars,” I said with a smile, “and I need help to slip into this group. You up for it?” I let Drake think this over as I waited for her answer.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow as soon as I get there.” She hung up as I smiled.
“Now, let’s get going on trying to convince Ari to help me.” I said as I threw off the covers and got dressed even with Drake watching me with his head tilted slightly in curiosity. I got into my jeans and a white t-shirt before running out of the room to get ready for the day while Drake watched on with a slight frown on his lips. I ran down the steps with the faeries behind me as I saw dad and mom. Mom floated into the kitchen in a light blue summer dress that clung to her bony frame.
“Damn, another murder,” Dad muttered as he shook his head before looking up at me. “Matty, where were you last night? Don’t tell me you were alone again. You can’t keep doing things like that with this murderer one the loose. Damn, the police are running around with their heads up their asses lately. They don’t know what to make of it.”
I flinched. Dad only cursed whenever he was really frustrated with people. Mom looked over at me and smiled. “Oh honey, it’s alright. She wasn’t alone last night.”
Huh? Dad and I looked at one another before I looked over at Drake who stared at my mother with a small smile as his eyes skimmed over her. I felt the urge to hit him upside the head, telling him not to look at my mother like that.
“She wasn’t?” Dad asked as he folded his paper neatly onto the table while I took a seat next to him. Mom got me some coffee with hazelnut and honey.
“Oh no, a very nice man came by last night, holding onto her like she was a precious little china doll. He was very kind and gentle. We had a nice little conversation about the pretty night sky.” Mom said with a smile as I looked over at Drake who now leaned against the wall with a smile on his face. “He had the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Oh yeah, she was definitely talking about Drake.
“I think his eyes are freaky,” I said as Drake glared at me. Dad looked at me with a raised eye brow as I looked at him and tried to tell him mentally, Just play along. Dad seemed to got it because he looked at me and smiled.
“So dear, what was his name?” Dad asked as he unfolded the paper again.
“Drake, what a nice name, right?” Mom asked as she smiled and gave me toast with honey and butter on it. I took a bite and watched Drake from the corner of my eye, so he talked to my mom last night. That didn’t make me feel good, but Drake must have been curious since I didn’t like talking about her.
“Now why did you go and talk to her?” Daisy asked, looking over at Drake as he looked at me and then at my mother.
“Curiosity, I suppose.” Drake told her as he looked at me.
I finished breakfast and got up before kissing my dad on the cheek and giving my mom a hug. I walked out into the warm sun and sighed as I stretched my arms. Unicorn boy yawned as he rubbed his eyes before looking at me and whispered, “Blood.”
“Blood?” I asked as Drake looked around and took a deep breath. Drake’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, there is blood in the air. I can practically taste it.”
“Another body?”
Unicorn boy shook his head as Drake explained, “Not yet, but very soon something’s going to snap. That, or more vampires have come into the area.” That’s not good either.
I sighed. “Let’s go to the restaurant to find Ari.”
Yeah, I can sense it too. It’s weighing heavily in the air and clinging to me like Drake’s glamour did, but what was this feeling? Why does this weight hang around me? Like weights clung onto me, dragging me down, away from the Human world.
Drake caught my hand in his and looked at me.
That feeling again...like a little pitter patter, like someone put wings on my heart and now they keep wanting to fly my heart out of my chest.
When we stepped onto the boardwalk I saw a butt load of faeries among the human crowds. A tiny faerie who looked like a small unicorn with tiny humanlike, pale arms, hooves, and these odd wings that looked as if they were made out of feathers zoomed past my head. Some of the older buildings began to have thorny vines wrapping around them as if the Faerie world began to devour my home town, but once I pulled out my pocket knife and glared at it, the vines slithered away likes snakes, making all these tiny squeaking sounds. An elf-looking woman with pupil-less blue eyes walked passed me as her blue silk fluttered behind her before touching a human child. The child shuttered, but I saw her hold a strand of hair as she grinned, showing off a pair of sharp knife-shaped teeth.
“Don’t,” Drake warned as he squeezed my hand. “Leave her alone.”
“But-” Drake shook his head as I sighed. We kept walking as I saw a faerie woman with an oddly plain, pale face walk past me in a dark purple dress with a silver veil following behind her with these odd goofy faeries with huge feet and big floppy ears, holding the trail up for her as she walked tiny steps with the pearls dangling from her dress. An old faerie with light purple skin and white pupil-less eyes, who only wore a loin cloth, walked passed me before putting a clawed hand on my shoulder and bowing slightly as Drake made a small noise that sounded like a threat. I looked over my shoulders to watch his feeble walk as his long white beard trailed behind him. A pale golden fish flew passed in front of me as I sighed and looked toward the ocean to see a few mermaids sunbathing.
“I’m the fucking king of the world!”
Drake frowned as Daisy looked at him and snickered before Drake said, “I hear him and here I thought you had a foul mouth, Matty.” He didn’t look at me as he tightened his grip with his glamour slipping over me.
“I don’t need to be invisible,” I told Drake.
“You’re not invisible,” Daisy giggled as Drake glared at her and Unicorn boy.
“Okay!” I yelled as I tried to yank myself away from Drake, but I might as well have been trying to move a brick wall. “What’s wrong with everyone? What’s wrong with you?” We kept walking even though I tried to dig my feet into the wood, but Drake ignored me and pulling me as if I weighed nothing to him.
Drake didn’t look at me as we finally found Ari singing again, but without vampires surrounding me. We watched him for a few minutes when he finally got off stage and sat down with a water bottle at hand. He looked over at me, frowned, but he flicked his wrist at us and someone opened the gate for him as he arched an eye brow at us like he saw something funny and weird, or something worse.
Daisy and Unicorn boy hesitantly followed me as Daisy coed, “Oh wow, look at him. He’s gorgeous. I’d love to see under that t-shirt. I bet he knows how to work it!”
Ari smiled at Daisy. Even if he hated faeries, no one in their right mind could hate a compliment like that even if it came from a faerie who barely stood taller than a number two pencil.
“What are you doing here?” Ari asked before he took a sip of water with sweat dripping off his jet black hair as he pushed his bangs out of his face, revealing his scars without a second thought. “And what’s with the ‘she’s mine’ glamour around you, Matty?”
“Huh?” I looked at Drake who let go of my hand and folded his arms over his chest, again not looking at me. “DRAKE! What the hell is going on with you! And what do you mean, she’s mine glamour!” I then looked at Daisy, who was still snickering by the way, and yelled, “And why didn’t you tell me! And quit laughing!”
Daisy giggled. “I’m sorry, I just find it so cute!” Drake glared at her as she moved away from him and hid behind Unicorn boy who scooted away from him before Drake’s left eye twitched.
“Why the hell would it be cute?” I asked as I leaned back in my seat and folded my arms over my chest. Ari looked between Drake and me and sighed. “Never mind,” I said as I sat up and gave Ari my biggest aren’t-I-cute smile, “what would I have to do to get you to help me get into the group and win their trust?”
Silence.
We stared at each other.
More silence.
“No.”
“Ari!” I yelled as I stood up, “we need to do something about these murders because the police are just sitting on their asses twiddling their thumbs! We can’t just sit back and watch. Your pride as a human being shou-”
“Hell no.” Drake relaxed as I glared at the two of them.
“Don’t be so happy.” I told Drake as I sat back down when people started staring at me. “Why don’t you want to do this?”
“Because they’re crazy. That good enough for you?” Ari asked as he took another large gulp of water.
“But girls are getting rapped and then murdered.” I said, hoping to add emphasis as I looked at Drake for one moment and then at Ari. A pretty red head girl ran up to Ari and kissed him on the cheek before sitting in his lap.
“Hey honey,” she said as she shot me a look, analyzed me and then smiled. Oh please, why would I be interested in him? “Where were you last night? I’ve missed you.”
“Hey babe,” Ari said as I wondered if he could remember her actual name. “I’ll talk to you later, babe because I got to talk to this girly.”
She gave me a look before leaving. I wonder... “Are you a man whore?” I asked him as Ari stiffened and stared at me with his mouth open slightly. Drake snickered. “Because if you are, a pretty red head friend of mine named Ruth will be coming over tomorrow to help me out.”
We fell into the silence again.
“Long legs?” I nodded, wondering how badly Ruth would beat me if she found out I was sort of selling her to a man whore. “Muscular?”
“She’s a basketball player.”
“So...she’s tall?” More nodding and more silence as Ari looked up slightly and touched his chin in thought. Ari suddenly shook his head as if waking up from a pleasant day dream and said, “No. Hell no. Hell no.”
“Ari!” Drake relaxed like all of his fears evaporated.
“Well, at least you don’t have to explain to Ruth how you sold her to Ari,” Daisy said with a smile as she flew to the table and looked around at everyone.
Drake leaned back in his seat as he closed his eyes as his muscles melted into a relaxed state before I told him. “I’ll get into the group with or without Ari. I just figured your involvement would make it easier. Now if you guys excuse me, I got a group to meet up with.” I got up, wiped my jeans with my hands and spun around, but I stopped and looked over at Drake. “And, DON’T FOLLOW ME!” I spun on my heels and opened the gate before walking out.
“Matty, stop being stupid!” Ari yelled as he and the faeries followed me. Why is it when I asked someone to do something they do the opposite? “You don’t want to be in that group. I’m telling you, something’s twisted about it. I’m not sure what or how, but there’s something wrong.”
“The murderer might be in the group.” I stated, “and I’m going to find them and stop them.” Someone pulled me against them by my shoulders as I looked to see Drake. “I thought I told you not to follow me!” I yelled as I gritted my teeth together. “And what’s with that weird glamour! I’m not yours, or anyone else’s!”
“It’s for your protection.” He stated simply as I heard a loud snort from Daisy. Drake turned to narrow his eyes at her before I stomped on his foot and got away from him. “Matty, stop being stubborn.”
“I’m being stubborn? You’re the one who doesn’t tell me anything, but you expect me to follow you around like a little puppy! Screw you,” I said as I looked at Ari, “Ari, I’d love it if you could join me. It’ll make my job easier, but I’ll figure it out sooner or later.” I walked away from them as Daisy flew toward me and sat on my shoulder. “What do you want?”
“I want to go with you,” she said as she looked behind us, “Do you even know where you’re going?”
“Hmm, well, not really- ARGH!”I yelped when Drake picked me up from behind and held me like I was a two year old. “What’s so hard to understand about leave me alone?”
“I’m here to protect you, remember?” He asked. “And knowing you, you don’t even know where you’re going.”
How did he know me so well again? He put me down. I spun around and considered kicking him in the nut sack.
“Actually, I did! I’m going to find Aaron and get him to help me find this place.” I’m not sure where that came from, but at least I said something that made Drake’s mouth opened slightly. I turned and started walking again as he followed with Unicorn boy humming something sweet. I went out of the boardwalk and crossed a few busy streets without much problem when I came to a small apartment building that smelled like rice, beef, and odd spices. Hanuel, Cooper, and I used to come and play here because all of the older people loved feeding us with good foreign food because this was the place that immigrants came to live for a few years while they got on their feet. I liked it because some of the older residents believed in spirits and put in anti-bad spirit stuff and so the faeries wouldn’t come and bother me.
I went passed the apartment building where the apartments started looking nicer and nicer to where they’d rival the hotels. I went up to the one that was gated off and easily jumped over when Drake slipped his glamour over me before I went up to the stars and knocked on 3C.
A Korean boy with jet black hair and glasses stood about as tall as Drake with a little less muscle with a book at hand. He kept a neutral mask in place even though his eyes glanced at Drake and his freaky eyes plus his wings with Daisy on my shoulder and Unicorn boy standing next to me, so not looking human.
“Yo Aaron, head you were sent to a rich bitch catholic high school...” I said with a smile as he stared at me with raised eye brow. “So...this group thing with John and all...where are you guys going to meet? Cause I want to join.”
“W-what?” He asked as his eyes got bigger. “Matty, this isn’t for kids. And you-”
I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked as hard as I could. I yanked it up as he yelped and pushed me back before Drake caught me gently. “Okay, where is it? Where’s the scar? Because I know you can see the big guy behind me.” I pointed to Drake.
Aaron stumbled back as Unicorn boy stood in front of me like he might lash out and attack me, which I doubted. Aaron couldn’t play a good knight when we were kids because he hated to fight and was always afraid that he was going to hurt me. He had a weird honor code thing where he wouldn’t hit a girl which when he played with us made it really lame because I always wanted to fight. I never played the princess.
Aaron forced his body to relaxed as he pressed himself to the sofa that stood behind him and his breathing relaxed before he said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t had the scar for long because I’ve mastered facial control and that freak out was a dead give away. Your mask also sucks because it’s too stiff. That’s a good give away for a faerie or a vampire,” I told him as he tried to relax again, but I guess relaxing is hard if you haven’t lived with this for long. “Just watch normal people for awhile and you’ll see what I mean. So, where’s the scar, Drake?”
“Oh his back, I expect,” Drake said as he tightened his grip on my shoulders. I winced. “Drake, that hurts.”
Aaron straightened his back as he frowned. “We don’t let those in who...work with faeries.” He said as he analyzed Drake and then me.
“We’re not like that,” I said with a frown. “He’s sort of a pain in my ass...”
Drake relaxed slightly as he asked, “Now, give us the information or I’ll show you a real reason to be afraid of my kind.” Aaron’s face went stiff before he slammed the door in our face. I looked up at Drake.
“Smooth, threatening always works.”
“If you die tonight Matty, I won’t tell them that you were some faerie whore,” Aaron said through the door as my body tensed and I remembered when we used to play together when we didn’t know about all the bad things in the world.
Drake made an animalistic sound as I felt my shoulders slouched. So...this is what I’ve become, a faerie whore, huh? I pulled away from Drake and walked down the stairs with my hands stuffed into my jeans as my thoughts twirled around and around and around. What am I going to do now? Wha-
“Matty!”
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Dun, dun, dun! Anyway, please review! I like reviews. Writers live off of review.