Once Love, Now Destruction

I felt ashamed of crying in front of her, I didn’t deserve to cry, I was unworthy – that is what I was told when my foster dad hit me. I wasn’t even worth my own tears.

I followed Nicole into the bathroom. It was three times bigger than entire my apartment, and it was beautiful. The room was filled with the smell of lavender, and it was filled with expensive looking things and the names on the bottles with French labels.

“The towels are in that closet,” Nicole told me pointing to the door next to the shower.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

She smiled sadly and closed the door behind her.

I sighed as I took off the nightgown, and started the bath. I frowned as I played with my hair nervously and looked at the bandages wrapped tightly around my abdomen. I was confused, why would anyone help me, I don’t deserve being taken care of.

I got into the tub and bit my lip as I washed myself with the expensive soaps careful not to get my bandages that contracted around my abdomen wet.

I sighed as I wrapped a white towel around myself and walked out of the bathroom to see Nicole sitting on the bed wearing a blue dress and looked like her hair had been professionally done. I noticed that she had a dress laying next to her on the bed and a pair of black heels in her hands.

“Come on let’s get you ready,” she smiled sadly at me.

“If I may ask, why do I need to get ready?” I questioned, holding onto the towel tightly.

“We are going to a… party,” she told me.

I was even more confused, “A party?”

“It’s Alistair’s birthday today,” she explained.

“Oh,” I bit my lip as I felt a pounding headache wash over me. And then I saw it.

There was a little boy around the age of seven years of age. He had long black hair that came down in his face, which only made him even more beautiful. For someone who looked so young he was perfect in every way. His skin was flawless, except there was a little almost invisible scar on his neck. He had very unique eyes, they were very light almost grey but for the tint of blue around his pupil, and he had long dark lashes framing his eyes perfectly. He was wearing expensive looking clothing, black pants with a button up white shirt. But that was not what surprised me; it was the way he looked at me. It was like he was looking at the most perfect thing, which I thought was odd, because he was the most perfect person I have ever seen, and I was the most imperfect.

“Elizabeth?” I heard a familiar voice echo into my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately, cringing ready for the pain.

But it never came; I opened my eyes to see Nicole looking at me confused.

“It’s okay, Elizabeth,” she reassured me, “Go change into this,” she handed me the black dress and heels.

I took them hesitantly holding onto my towel tightly with my free hand and walked into the bathroom.

I quickly changed into the dress and was thankful I found clean underwear hidden inside the dress. I awkwardly put the high heels on and was unfortunate to find that it was nearly impossible to walk in them, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“Are you ready?” Nicole called through the door.

“Yes,” I answered quietly as she opened the door.

“Come on,” she smiled warmly and grabbed my hand and led me to a vanity that was filled with beauty products and again I saw French labels.

“Now we just have to make you look less like her,” Nicole muttered under her breath as she ran her pale fingers through my ugly wet hair.

She blow dried it and started pulling it back into a pony tail and let some hair fall into my face. She started putting hair pins and clips into my hair and sprayed something that smelled sickly sweet in my hair.

Then she started putting something thick onto my face and she lightly brushed powder onto the area where my bruises were. She kept on applying powder onto my face, cheeks, and eyelids; but she also put lip gloss on my lips and mascara onto my lashes.

“Your done,” she smiled as she tied a necklace around my neck.

I got up a looked into the bathroom mirror, and was shocked to see a stranger starring back. Her dark hair was pulled back into an elegant ponytail with a hair comb inserted into the almost invisible band that held her hair. She had flawless skin and had dark eye shadow in the crease of her eyelid. The only thing that made me realized that that girl was me, was her very odd green eyes.

“Here put these in,” Nicole handed me a strange container and when I opened it I found water and two small half circles floating inside.

“They’re contact lenses, they’ll make your eyes look brown instead of green,” she told me and helped me put them in my eyes.

I looked back into the mirror and I looked like a whole new person.

“Let’s go,” she smiled at me and took my hand and led me down three flights of stairs and down endless hallways until we reached a large oak door that had a guard standing in front of it, with a stone face. What was strange was that he was actually wearing outdated armor and a sword at his side.

“Hello Vernon,” Nicole greeted warmly.

For one second I could see a smile appear on his face but it was quickly wiped away when he saw me.

“Hello Miss Nicole, whose this?” he asked and then whispered lightly, “Human?”

“This is Elizabeth Ford, she’s my friend,” she introduced me, “I’ll explain later.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Vernon,” I told him shyly.

“Be careful, you know how he is with humans,” Vernon warned under his breath.

I was confused. Why was everybody saying ‘human?’

“We will," she smiled and linked her arm with mine and I heard breathing behind me.

I gasped as I turned around to see a man a year or two older than me smirking at me. He had dirty blonde hair and dark green eyes that looked slightly dead, but he masked his pain well.

“That’s not funny Christian,” Nicole scolded him.

“Never said it was,” he grinned at her and she playfully hit his arm.

“Elizabeth, this is my older brother Christian. Christian meet Elizabeth,” Nicole smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I told him, smiling slightly.

He grinned back, but it looked like he was forcing it.

“Why are you waiting out here?” he asked.

“I need to go over ‘it’ with her,” she explained and turned to me.

“Okay, Elizabeth I need you to listen and do what I say, okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” I nodded.

“You need to keep your head down as much as possible, and don’t look at anyone, but me and Christian. Don’t take your contacts out no matter how much they irritate you. Always stay next to me or Christian. And stay away from Alistair,” she instructed and nodded over to Vernon.

He opened the doors and called out, “Introducing Miss Nicole Staten, Lord Christian Staten, and Miss Elizabeth Ford.”

Nicole dragged me out and I stumbled in the heels I was wearing and struggled to walk down the marble stairs keeping my eyes on my feet.

I heard gasps and the orchestra stopped playing the beautiful music and all you could hear were my footsteps.

I could feel all of the eyes of the people that were in the room on me, but I didn’t dare look up.

I was thankful when we reached the bottom and I felt Nicole grip onto my arm tighter and saw Christian’s shadow in front of me and Nicole.

I heard light footsteps coming towards us and they got louder and louder until they stopped in front of Christian.

“Move,” a cold voice ordered.

“Don’t do it Alistair,” Christian warned not moving.

“You know the rules Christian,” the voice stated emotionlessly, “Any living thing that comes into this castle must be burned.”

Living thing?

“It’s my fault Alistair,” Nicole confessed letting go of my arm and I could see her shadow standing next to her brother’s.

“I should have known,” Alistair hissed, “Give it up Nicole. She’s not coming back, she’s dead.”

“We don’t know that,” Nicole answered quietly.

“It’s been seven years, Nicole. Now move,” Alistair ordered and I felt fear rush through my veins.

“No,” Nicole stated stubbornly.

I heard Alistair hiss at her and his shadow came closer and it passed the two shadows that were in front of me and I heard, “Alistair no!”

And I then I heard it.

A sickening crack echoed throughout the room, and it only took me a second to realize that I was thrown into the marble stairs.

And then I registered how much that hurt. My head throbbed and my back ached and it felt like my ribs were shattered all over again – they probably were. I struggled not to scream in agonizing pain, and thankfully I managed, but a few tears escaped my eyes.

I felt someone’s hand grip my face painfully forcing my face up into the blinding light and I immediately closed my eyes.

“Who are you?” a voice echoed through my head.

I didn’t actually know who I was, but he probably didn’t care.

“M-my n-name is El-Elizabeth Scarlet F-Ford. I’m from S-Salem, Oregon. And I’m seventeen years old and will be eight-eighteen in December,” I answered fearfully not daring to open my eyes.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

I didn’t, I was too afraid.

“Do it,” he hissed clutching my chin so hard I felt like it would break.

I opened them and saw a man who had black hair that came down in his face. He had eyes like ice, cold and unfeeling, but I could see heartbreak deep inside of them. He was about the same age as Christian. His skin was as pale as the marble that I was laying on, and he had the same scar on his neck that the little boy had that I saw earlier.

He was that boy.

“Remove your contacts or I will take them out for you,” he seethed and placed his hand close to my face so that I could see his fingers that strangely looked like talons.

I hesitantly took them out and Nicole took them from me looking at me apologetically. And I heard the whispers and shocked gasps from the people in the room. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I could tell most of them were speaking Romanian.

I glanced at Alistair to see him looking at me in disbelief and anger.

“Alistair please, I’m begging you. Don’t kill her,” Nicole plead.

Alistair said nothing but he held onto my jaw tighter and then suddenly let go and started walking towards the entrance door and muttered.

“She sleeps in the cell,” and started opening the door.

“La mulţi ani, Alistair (Happy birthday, Alistair),” I said quietly as he slammed the ballroom doors.