___ Ways to Deal with Your Best Friend Dating a Vampire
an excerpt

It finally came down to the very last minutes of last period. I think I could make it to my house quickly, if only I can bolt out of the room, as soon as the bell rings and rush all the way home, no stops by my locker. I’m pretty sure Jake doesn’t know where I live and Lily might suspect something if he asked where I live (if she even remembers where I live) so he probably won’t ask her. But I have to book it. The teacher is still, oddly enough droning on (even though she has to know that no one is listening anymore…), and my feet are shaking the whole time. My legs carry the trembles on and my hands grip the front of my desk so hard my knuckles are white and I’m using them to lift my butt up off the school chair in anticipation of really booking it out of here.

DING! Faster than even Speedy Gonzales would be able to I was out of there! ZHOOM! I beat everyone out the door and didn’t even hear the last part of the annoying – I – won’t – shut – up – teachers sentence she was saying. I barely got the door open in time to get out of it (safely). I sped down the halls, not caring if I was obvious in my fear, anxiety, nervousness, and FEAR, just running as fast as I could.

I got farther than I thought before kids even started appearing out of their classrooms to join me in the soon to be frenzy that is the hall in passing periods and after (and slightly before) school. I flung the front doors open and flew down the steps, glad I had put my backpack on before the bell rang – saving me just a little bit of precious time. I was racing over the grass, when suddenly…

“Sophie! Where do you think you’re going,” Jake asked, trying to sound nice as he grabbed onto my arm and I was viciously yanked back as the Vampire barely used any of his muscle power to stop me. I let out a startled cry as my arm was practically yanked from its socket and my legs were pulled out from under me and I just barely missed hitting my backside and head on the hard ground, Jake catching me, as if he was some sort of nice guy. “I said: where are you going?”

“Uh, huh. Um, well, you see; after school you’re allowed to go home. … And, so, uh, that is, that is, um, where I am headed. Home. Where I’m going. To answer your question. Home. Yep. Home. So where is Lily? You guys are like never apart, surprised to see you alone. You know, um, without Lily. Who is almost always with you. Just as you are almost always with her. You and Lily. Together. And dating. And always seen together. So, um, where is, um, Lily?”

“Aheh. Do not change the subject on me,” his eyes narrowed to a dangerous level, “now. We need to talk. Now.”

“Now you see. That might be a prob-“ Jake, that filthy conniving Vampire didn’t give me a chance to finish.

“Shut up,” he hissed dangerously. “Just come with me, not that you have a choice.”

He pulled me along, my arm still killing me – well my shoulder actually, his grip on my bicep tightening with each step he took, and forced me take, and his voice growing angrier and angrier, gaining a more dangerous tone with each second, a more slicing hiss. I shivered as he talked, I just couldn’t help it. I mean this was a Vampire with some experience, man! Four hundred seventy three years of experience in fact. And compared to my measly experience of a number barely into the two digits. Definitely in trouble here. I think, I think, he found out. … But I may be wrong. ;) (Okay, definitely not the time to joke around, but it’s just who I am I guess).

“I know about your little garlic trick,” Or maybe he did know… “I’ve been a Vampire for four hundred seventy three years. You did not think I would not notice your little trick. How … incredibly stupid of you!”

“Shouldn’t I be given a chance to explain myself here,” I desperately tried, dread growing into a larger and larger lump in my stomach.

“No,” was his only answer. And after that … he shut up.

He pulled me along in silence, off the school grounds. I didn’t hear or see Lily, making me wonder what kind of excuse he could have possibly made up to get out of being her (unrelated) Siamese twin. His usual gracefulness disappeared as soon as we were out of the eyesight of everyone at school. His feet stomped heavily on the ground and the hand that wasn’t holding me was busy clenching and unclenching, along with his teeth, little growling noises escaping from his throat, as his fingernails dug into me harder and lighter and harder and lighter and harder and lighter … biting angrily into my skin, blood seeping out in the times his fingers were a little less … angry.

Blood hid under his fingernails and in between the grooves of his fingerprint lines. My blood. Which also dripped in interesting little rivulets down my arm. After he dragged me around for about forty minutes (or maybe it was thirty seven), in which my arm was really killing me – and his hands couldn’t have been that much better, or at least more tired (stupid Vampire) – we finally came into view of an old, rickety, wooden house.

“Say, do you walk this far everyday? Seems a bit too far,” my silence not able to last that long.

“No talking!”

“Fine, fi-“

“SHUT UP,” he screamed, unable to keep any sort of calm now. Not even in his voice.

He stormed up to the house, slamming his feet so hard into, what I thought to be, unstable wood I thought it was going to break under the weight and bring us down with it. It must have been stronger than I originally thought since it didn’t even seem to splinter under the pressure. My heart beat harder and harder and faster and faster the further we ventured (well, not really ventured per se, but … what else am I going to call it…) in the scary, dark, old, Vampire house. Maybe home to more Vampires than just Jake (or whatever his real name is). Maybe one’s with even more experience than Jake (or whatever his real name is – wow, that could get annoying huh). I shivered uncontrollably again and now (yeah just now, gawd I’m stupid) tried to resist. Not that I could have done much by now or gotten very far had I been able to escape.

I was forced, kicking and screaming, and being dragged, to make my way to the other end of the room, where a door, equally as old as the house seemed to scream to be, was placed. He grabbed at the not so shiny knob and turned it like a madman, as if the knob had offended him. The door ‘slammed open’, if that makes as much sense to you as it does me – and hopefully it does, and he shoved me down into the deep, deep darkness of the dark void that lay beyond the “old” door.

At first I screamed and started to freak out, thinking he was pushing me into the nothingness that seemed to lie below. But then my foot jarred down and slammed into a step. By the sound of the step it was made of the same old (immortal) wood that the whole rest of the house is made out of. I kept crying out but my scream of shock and fear turned into one of surprise and pain after my foot slammed down on the hard wood. I might have twisted it. Great. Another injury so soon after my nose, and my arm of course.

I stopped screaming and waited for it to stop echoing against what I now assumed was a basement. What is in the basement though … I really do not want to find out! “What, no lights,” I couldn’t help but blurt out. I think Jake (who I am really dying to know his real name by this time) is too furious to even spit out some one worded response. Instead of words he lets out a rough snarl and shoved me further into the darkness. If I thought it was dark before … boy it was a scary darkness too!

I stumbled down a few more stairs thank to his courtesy of pushing me down the stairs. I mumble, “alright, alright. I’m goin’, I’m goin’. Don’t rush me,” and continue, but at my own pace this time, which happened to be very slow. But you can’t really blame me – it was dark and I don’t know if there’s a rail (or wall or something at least) on even at least one side of the potentially dangerous stairs. My foot was also throbbing, adrenaline refusing to help any more with the pain I was feeling in my arm and now my foot. I was also forced to walk kind of sideways due to Jake still holding tight onto my arm.

His grip tightened as we went down the steps. I think perhaps he was angry at my incredibly slow pace. But hey, he could have at least turned on the lights for me. That would solve my dark issue and my safety rail issue(s). So there. It’s his own darn fault that I’m going so slowly. Ugh. Tell that to my poor aching arm. He finally got fed up with me. Releasing my arm (which screamed, ‘THANK GOD’) he kicked me – very hard by the way – and I tumbled down the first few steps, hitting the ground – also very hard. I let out a light oomph at my impact with the ground, which, by the way, is (and was then too) a very hard wood. It must have been the wood the rest of the house was made of but it certainly did not feel as old.

As soon as I hit the ground Jake (who I still want to know the real name of) was on top of me, jumping down the stairs to straddle my legs, harshly grabbing my shoulders and yanking me to a standing position once again. But not for long. My ankle (the right one) was definitely twisted. When he shoved me the last time my foot got caught on the edge of the stair and that’s really how I fell. And my ankle needed just a little more time before I could support myself on it. He dragged me over to a (seemingly random) spot on the wall, my foot giving out and my other foot not being fast enough to catch myself I fell into him. It didn’t faze him though and he kept dragging me.

Chapter 2: Reassess His Abilities/Escape

“You will stay here for as long as I say!” He hissed in my ear as at the same time he roughly pushed down on my shoulders, causing me to break my butt as I fell on the ground for the second time in not even two minutes, and clamped something over my wrists and ankles, and shackled something onto my stomach area, resting uncomfortably above my hips. And just like that, without even checking out or double-checking his handiwork, he was gone. I did not even realize he was gone until at least five minutes after he had left me alone in that dark basement.

Finally pulling out of my stunned state I checked out what had been clipped on me. Shackles. As if I was in a dungeon. I played around with them a little bit, pulling here and there, tugging up and down, and trying to jiggle out of them left and right. … It didn’t work. At first I just cried. And cried and cried and cried and cried. And then I cried some more. And more. And more and more and more. Finally it seemed as if I had run out of tears. And I was exhausted. Who knew crying could be so exhausting.

I got depressed. The first real Vampire Hunter like thing that happens to me and I forget to fight back, and then cry for what seems like a whole long week. God. Maybe this is why they (my kind – Vampire Hunters) really, extremely, incredibly hate females to be Vampire Hunters. Too gosh danged emotional.

Then I got angry. I screamed until I was hoarse. I fought to somehow get out of even one of my shackles. Until my wrists, ankles, and hips were chafed, blistered, and very, very sore. Until they couldn’t take any more. I pounded against everything in my reach. Until everything I twisted and spazzed out on (which was basically every part of my body – any witnesses might have thought I was having a seizure, which makes me kind of glad that Jake (who didn’t even tell me his real name when he left in a huff) didn’t show up during those times – was bruised. And sore. Definitely sore. Very sore.